187
See also: Empedocles 330 ■ John Locke 130–33 ■ Immanuel Kant 164–71 ■
Georg Hegel 178–85 ■ Friedrich Nietzsche 214–21
Arthur Schopenhauer
Born into a wealthy and
cosmopolitan family in Danzig
(now Gdansk), Schopenhauer
was expected to become a
merchant like his father. He
travelled through France and
England before his family
settled in Hamburg in 1793. In
1805, after his father’s death—
possibly by suicide—he felt
able to stop working and go to
university, where he studied
philosophy and psychology.
He maintained an uneasy
relationship with his mother,
who constantly criticized
his achievements.
After completing his
studies, Schopenhauer taught
at Berlin University. He attained
a reputation as a philanderer
and misogynist; he had several
affairs and avoided marriage,
and was once convicted of
assaulting a woman. In 1831
he moved to Frankfurt, where
he lived until his death with a
succession of poodles called
either Atman (“soul” in
Hinduism and Buddhism) or
Butz (German for hobgoblin).Key works1818 and 1844 The World as
Will and Representation
1851 Parerga and
Paralipomenasenses (phenomena), and “things in
themselves” (noumena), but he
wanted to explain the nature of the
phenomenal and noumenal worlds.
Interpreting Kant
According to Kant, we each
construct a version of the world
from our perceptions—the
phenomenal world—but we can
never experience the noumenal
world as it is “in itself.” So we each
have a limited vision of the world,
as our perceptions are built from
information acquired through a
limited set of senses. Schopenhauer
adds to this that “every man takes
the limits of his own field of vision
for the limits of the world.”
The idea of knowledge being
limited to our experience was not
an entirely new one; the ancient
philosopher Empedocles had said
that “each man believes only his
experience”, and in the 17th
century John Locke had asserted
that “no man’s knowledge here can
go beyond his experience.” But the
reason Schopenhauer gives for this
limitation is quite new, and it
comes from his interpretation of
Kant’s phenomenal and noumenal
worlds. The important difference
between Kant and Schopenhauer
is that for Schopenhauer, the
phenomenal and noumenal are
not two different realities or worlds,
but the same world, experienced ❯❯THE AGE OF REVOLUTION
My version of the world
is limited by......the limited
observations I can
make of a vast universe....my limited
experience of a vast
universal Will, of which
my will is just a part.My version of the world does
not include things I have
not perceived, nor the universal
Will I have not experienced.I take the limits of my own field of
vision for the limits of the world.