The Philosophy Book

186

EVERY MAN TAKES

THE LIMITS OF

HIS OWN FIELD

OF VISION FOR

THE LIMITS OF

THE WORLD

ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER (1788–1860)

IN CONTEXT

BRANCH

Metaphysics

APPROACH

Idealism

BEFORE

1690 John Locke publishes

An Essay Concerning Human

Understanding, explaining

how all our knowledge comes

from experience.

1781 Immanuel Kant’s Critique

of Pure Reason introduces the

concept of a “thing in itself”,

which Schopenhauer used as

a starting point for his ideas.

AFTER

Late 19th century Friedrich

Nietzsche puts forward the

notion of a “Will to power” to

explain human motivations.

Early 20th century Austrian

psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud

explores what lies behind our

basic human urges.

A

rthur Schopenhauer was not

part of the mainstream of

early 19th-century German

philosophy. He acknowledged

Immanuel Kant, whom he idolized,

as a major influence, but dismissed

the idealists of his own generation,

who held that reality ultimately

consists of something nonmaterial.

Most of all he detested the idealist

Georg Hegel for his dry writing

style and optimistic philosophy.

Using Kant’s metaphysics as

his starting point, Schopenhauer

developed his own view of the

world, which he expressed in clear,

literary language. He took Kant’s

view that the world is divided into

what we perceive through our