Arthur Schopenhauer 'The World as Will and Representation', 1819

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Arthur Schopenhauer 'The World as Will and Representation', 1819

About the Item

Schopenhauer, Arthur (1788-1860). Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung. Leipzig: F.A. Brockhaus, 1819. 8o (197 x 118 mm). Folding table opposite page 73 and several diagrams in text. (Some light browning.) Contemporary German boards (some rubbing and wear); red half morocco slipcase. Provenance: Breslau University Library (old ink stamp on verso of title). The Philosophy of Pessimism First Edition of Schopenhauer's Principal Work, "The World as Will and IDEA," in which he formulates a pessimistic philosophy, that had the greatest influence on modern thinking. "The notions which had been forming in his mind about man's nature and destiny now found expression, and the conviction that scientific explanation could never do more than systematize and classify the appearances which we call reality led him to assert that it is the will and the passions which are the real determinants of all intellectual life. He was studied by Wagner and Neitzsche, both of whom paid tribute to the influence he had on them; and Herbert Spencer did much to spread the knowledge of his theories" (PMM 279). Hübscher Schopenhauer-Bibliographie 10. The World as Will and Representation (WWR; German: Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, WWV) is the central work of the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. The first edition was published in 1818/1819, the second expanded edition in 1844, and the third expanded edition in 1859. In 1948, an abridged version was edited by Thomas Mann in the English language, this work is known under three different titles. Although English publications about Schopenhauer played a role in the recognition of his fame as a philosopher in later life (1851 until his death in 1860) and a three volume translation by R. B. Haldane and J. Kemp, titled The World as Will and IDEA, appeared already in 1883–1886, the first English translation of the expanded edition of this work under this title The World as Will and Representation appeared by E. F. J. Payne (who also translated several other works of Schopenhauer) as late as in 1958 (paperback editions in 1966 and 1969). A later English translation by Richard E. Aquila in collaboration with David Carus is titled The World as Will and Presentation (2008). Present-day translator Richard Aquila argues that the reader will not grasp the details of the philosophy of Schopenhauer properly without this new title: "The World as Will and Presentation". According to him, "IDEA", "Representation", and "Presentation" are all acceptable renderings of the word Vorstellung, but it is the notion of a performance or a theatrical presentation that is key in his interpretation. The world that we perceive is a "presentation" of objects in the theatre of our own mind; the observers, the "subject", each Craft the show with their own stage managers, stagehands, sets, lighting, code of dress, pay scale, etc. The other aspect of the world, the Will, or "thing in itself", which is not perceivable as a presentation, exists outside time, space, and causality. Aquila claims to make these distinctions as linguistically precise as possible. The main body of the work states at the beginning that it assumes prior knowledge of Immanuel Kant's theories, and Schopenhauer is regarded by some as remaining more faithful to Kant's metaphysical system of transcendental idealism than any of the other later German Idealists. However, the book contains an appendix entitled "Critique of the Kantian philosophy," in which Schopenhauer rejects most of Kant's ethics and significant parts of his epistemology and aesthetics. Schopenhauer demands that the introduction be read before the book itself, although it is not fully contained in this book but appeared earlier under the title On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason. He also states in his introduction that the reader will be at his best prepared to understand his theories if he has lingered in the school of Plato or he is already familiar with Indian philosophy. Schopenhauer believed that Kant had ignored inner experience, as intuited through the will, which was the most important form of experience. Schopenhauer saw the human will as our one window to the world behind the representation; the Kantian thing-in-itself. He believed, therefore, that we could gain knowledge about the thing-in-itself, something Kant said was impossible, since the rest of the relationship between representation and thing-in-itself could be understood by analogy to the relationship between human will and human body. According to Schopenhauer, the entire world is the representation of a single Will, of which our individual wills are phenomena. In this way, Schopenhauer's metaphysics go beyond the limits that Kant had set, but do not go so far as the rationalist system-builders who preceded Kant. Other important differences are Schopenhauer's rejection of eleven of Kant's twelve categories, arguing that only causality was important. Matter and causality were both seen as a union of time and space and thus being equal to each other. Schopenhauer frequently acknowledges drawing on Plato in the development of his theories and, particularly in the context of aesthetics, speaks of the Platonic forms as existing on an intermediate ontological level between the representation and the Will. The first decades after its publication The World as Will and Representation was met with near silence. Exceptions were Goethe and Jean Paul. Goethe immediately started to read the magnum opus of Schopenhauer when it arrived and "read it with an eagerness as she [Ottilie von Goethe] had never before seen in him.". Goethe told his daughter-in-law that he had now pleasure for an entire year, because he would read it completely, contrary to his custom of sampling pages to his liking. The influence of Schopenhauer can be read in Gespräche mit Goethe and Urworte. Orphisch. In the years where the work was largely ignored, Jean Paul praised it as “a work of philosophical genius, bold, universal, full of penetration and profoundness — but of a depth often hopeless and bottomless, akin to that melancholy lake in Norway, in whose deep water, beneath the steep rock-walls, one never sees the sun, but only stars reflected.”, on which Schopenhauer commented: “In my opinion the praise of one man of genius fully makes good the neglect of a thoughtless multitude.” This neglect came to an end in the last years of his life. Schopenhauer would become the most influentual philosopher in Germany until World War I. Especially artists were attracted to the work. No philosopher had given so much importance to art: one fourth of The World as Will and Representation is concerned with aesthetics. To be mentioned are Wagner (Influence of Schopenhauer on Tristan und Isolde), Schönberg,Mahler, who cites The World as Will and Representation as “the most profound writing on music he had ever encountered”, Thomas Mann, Hermann Hesse, Jorge Luis Borges, Tolstoy, D. H. Lawrence and Samuel Beckett. The philosophers Friedrich Nietzsche and Philipp Mainländer both described the discovery of The World as Will and Representation as a Revelation. Nietzsche commented, “I belong to those readers of Schopenhauer who know perfectly well, after they have turned the first page, that they will read all the others, and listen to every word that he has spoken.” Charles Darwin quoted The World as Will and Representation in The Descent of Man. Some read ideas in it that can be found in the theory of evolution, for example, that sexual instinct is a tool of nature to ensure the quality of the offspring and that intellect is a mere means to preserve life. Schopenhauer argued in favor of transformism by pointing to one of the most important and familiar evidences of the truth of the theory of descent, the homologies in the inner structure of all the vertebrates.

Creator:
Arthur Schopenhauer (Author)
Dimensions:
Height: 5.52 in (14 cm)Width: 4.34 in (11 cm)Depth: 1.58 in (4 cm)
Style:
Romantic (Of the Period)
Materials and Techniques:
Paper,Hand-Knotted
Place of Origin:
Germany
Period:
1810-1819
Date of Manufacture:
circa 1819
Condition:
Wear consistent with age and use. Minor losses. Minor structural damages. Minor fading.
Seller Location:
Sofia, BG
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU2423318157202