The work ‘The Suffering of the World’ comprises a selection of Arthur Schopenhauer's later writings. These texts, produced in the last decades of Schopenhauer's long life, reveal a unique type of philosophy expressed in a singular style. Avoiding the dry, all-encompassing academic philosophy tradition predominant at the time, Schopenhauer's texts mark a shift towards a philosophy of aphorisms, fragments, anecdotes, and observations, written in a literary style that is at once antagonistic, resigned, confessional, and filled with fragile contours of intellectual memoirs. Here, Schopenhauer allows himself to pose challenging questions about the fate of humankind, the role of suffering in the world, and the gap between the self and the world that increasingly defines human existence to this day.
More than ever, everyday discussions revolve around the influence of passions (or the unconscious, in contemporary language) in our lives: what is the root of depression, suicide, and panic disorder? Why do these issues appear more than ever nowadays? In other words, today it is acknowledged that there are non-rational instances that greatly influence our lives, and that somehow, we need to deal with them. Thus, Schopenhauer's view of a being not strictly rational seems more relevant than ever. Schopenhauer consistently surprises the unsuspecting reader positively. He is a philosopher who undoubtedly deserves to be read.
About the author
Arthur Schopenhauer (Danzig, February 22, 1788 – Frankfurt, September 21, 1860) was a 19th-century German philosopher. He is best known for his work ‘The World as Will and Representation’ (1818), in which he characterizes the phenomenal world as the product of a blind, insatiable, and malevolent metaphysical will. He wrote other acclaimed works such as ‘The Sorrows of the World’ and ‘Aphorisms for the Wisdom of Life, ‘ among others. Building upon Immanuel Kant’s transcendental idealism, Schopenhauer developed an atheistic and ethical metaphysical system that has been described as an exemplary manifestation of philosophical pessimism.
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