Arthur Schopenhauer — "The only original philosophical thought possible is the one that starts from the…"
The only original philosophical thought possible is the one that starts from the fact of suffering.
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More from Arthur Schopenhauer
"The world is not to be enjoyed, but to be overcome."
"To be alone is the fate of all great minds – a fate deplored at times, but still always chosen as the less grievous of two evils."
"The life of every individual, viewed as a whole and in general, and when only its most significant features are emphasized, is really a tragedy; but gone through in detail it has the character of a co…"
"The life of an individual is a constant struggle, and not merely a metaphorical one against want or boredom, but also an actual struggle against other people."
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About Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)
German philosopher of pessimism whose The World as Will and Representation (1819) defined the suffering-and-renunciation tradition. Closely associated with Immanuel Kant (the system Schopenhauer built on and revised). For an intellectual contrast, see G.W.F. Hegel, German Idealist of the rational unfolding of Spirit — Schopenhauer scheduled his Berlin lectures opposite Hegel's and spent decades attacking Hegel's optimistic system as deliberately mystifying nonsense — the foundational rivalry of 19th-century German philosophy.
The standard scholarly entry points to Arthur Schopenhauer's work: Bryan Magee (Oxford, populariser-philosopher) — The Philosophy of Schopenhauer (1983); Christopher Janaway (Southampton, Schopenhauer specialist) — Self and World in Schopenhauer's Philosophy (1989); David E. Cartwright (Wisconsin–Whitewater) — Schopenhauer: A Biography (2010). These are the works graduate seminars cite when teaching Arthur Schopenhauer.