Arthur Schopenhauer

Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher, one of the best-known thinkers of irrationalism, the “philosopher of pessimism.” Arthur Schopenhauer came from a prosperous merchant family. The philosopher’s father, Heinrich Floris Schopenhauer, though somewhat unbalanced (quick-tempered and prone to depression), had a reputation as a kind, open-minded man, independent in his judgments, and an honest businessman. His mother, Johanna Henriette Schopenhauer, the daughter of Senator Trosiner, had a bent for the fine arts and engaged in literary work. In childhood the future philosopher did not receive a systematic education. His father, wanting him to continue the family business, sent his nine-year-old son to Le Havre, where Arthur lived for two years in the family of his father’s friend and partner. After a brief stay in a private school in Hamburg, the boy was taken on a trip around Europe for educational purposes. This journey convinced him not only of the futility of studying “mere words,” but also of the value of becoming acquainted “with the things themselves.” In 1805 Arthur was placed with a major Hamburg firm to learn the merchant trade, for which he felt no inclination at all. However, after his father’s death (for whom Schopenhauer the younger retained throughout his life a feeling of love and gratitude for the rare happiness of being independent and financially secure), his mother allowed her son to receive a university education. In 1809 he became a medical student at the University of Göttingen, and six months later, without abandoning the study of medicine, transferred to the philosophy faculty, where he studied Plato and Kant with particular diligence. From 1811 at the University of Berlin he attended lectures by F. A. Wolf on the history of Greek and Latin literature, Schleiermacher on the history of philosophy, and Fichte on philosophy; he defended his doctoral dissertation, “On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason,” at the University of Jena in 1813. In 1812 the University of Jena awarded him the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in absentia. In 1814, after breaking with his mother, whom he never forgave for her coldness toward his ill father, Schopenhauer settled in Dresden. Here he wrote the treatise “On Vision and Colors” (1816), and in March 1818 completed work