Notes on the Basics of Schopenhauer
Notes on the Basics of Schopenhauer Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) was a German philosopher known for his pessimistic philosophy which is exemplified in his work, “The World as Will and Representation”. Schopenhauer’s metaphysics drew from Kant whom I have several blog posts on but in short, Kant believed in the Noumena-Phenomena distinction or Transcendental Idealism. Phenomena are the things we perceive through our senses which are shaped by our mind’s faculties and subject to the categories of understanding. Noumena, on the other hand, are things as they are in themselves that are beyond human perception and conceptualization. Kant argues that while we can understand phenomena through empirical investigation, we can never truly know noumena because they lie beyond the limits of human cognition. Thus, noumena represent the realm of things as they exist independently of our perception that are ultimately unknowable. Since we can never know the t...