The Philosophy of Schopenhauer

Rating:
Summary: A key Neo-Kantian wonderfully explained
Review: Arthur Schopenhauer, the son of a German merchant family, is perhaps one of the most neglected philosophers in Western Philosophy. Because of this, his influence on many key thinkers (such as Wittgenstein, Nietzsche and Popper) had gone unnoticed. Bryan Magee, in 'The Philosophy of Schopenhauer', redresses this oversight and indeed, travels way beyond it, restoring this deep and misunderstood thinker to his rightful place in the pantheon of Great Philosophers.

Although this text is not as approachable as Magee's other works, it does give the best overview and the most thorough English-language discussion and explanation of Schopenhauer's philosophy. Magee is meticulous and painstaking in his scholarship, yet at the same time explains the philosopher's ideas in his wonderfully crafted prose. Magee begins by explaining how Schopenhaur, as an undergraduate student, absorbed the ideas of Plato and Kant, and built his own remarkable philosophy from these. From there he works through the most dense and difficult of Schopenhauer's works, 'The World as Will and Representation', as well as Schopenhauer's shorter works, such as his doctoral thesis and his essays on ethics, free will and other matters. Magee also carefully explains the reasons why Schopenhauer hated Hegel with such vehemence, and concludes with several appendices about Schopenhauer's influence on later thinkers, such as Wagner, Freud, Wittgenstein and Nietzsche.

Although Magee's work is no substitute to reading the works of Schopenhauer himself, this guide is an invaluable 'roadmap' for any serious student of Schopenhauer's philosophy, or for anyone who wishes to understand the ideas of this important thinker without having to plunge into the dense texts themselves.

Rating:
Summary: Modern.
Review: Bryan Magee has the marvellous power to arouse the interest of the reader in his books. He does it again in this one on Schopenhauer.

He explains clearly the place and the importance of Schopenhauer in the history of philosophy, the strenght and modernity of his ideas, and his deep influence on later philosophers and artists. He also criticizes vigorously some aspects of his work and life.

Magee shows that Schopenhauer built his worldview on the transcendental idealism of Kant. But he went further by describing the real nature of Kant's 'thing in itself' (the noumenon), which he called rather unfortunately the 'will'. For Schopenhauer, the entire world of phenomena in time and space, internally connected by causality, is the self-objectivation of an impersonal, timelessly active will. It is an unassuageable striving, which means continued dissatisfaction for the individual.
Schopenhauer noticed a flaw in Kant's reasoning that we could only access to the 'thing in itself' through our sensory and intellectual apparatus. We know one material 'thing in itself' subjectively: our own body.

The idea of the 'will' is very modern, because it anticipated Darwin's evolutionism, Freud's unconsciousness and Einstein's holism (everything is energy).

Magee explains magisterially all aspects of Schopenhauer's penetrating worldview, like the defective intellect of mankind, because intelligence is only a late and superficial evolutionary differentiation, developed for the promotion of animal survival.
His investigation of human behaviour is based on what people do in fact, not on what they 'ought to do'. His conclusion was that what traditionally had been considered moral behaviour turned out to be self-interest.
For Schopenhauer, art is not an expression of emotion, but an attempt to convey an insight into the true nature of things. It must have its origin in direct perception, not in concepts.
Magee stresses rightly that Schopenhauer was one of the few philosophers who integrated sex in his speculations. For him, sex is the 'very process whereby the will to live achieves life. The urge towards it is the most powerful of the will's demands, next only to the brute survival of what already exists'.
He shows also his virulent atheism ('As ultima ratio theologorum we find among many nations the stake'), his misogyny and his interest in Buddhism.

His criticism of Schopenhauer is also very important and to the point.
Schopenhauer denies mankind free will. But if there is no free will, there is no morality.
More importantly, he notices that Schopenhauer didn't live a life of someone who believed in a world of only unrelieved pessimism, dominated by the inherently evil metaphysical will. His life contradicted a part of his philosophy!

This very rich book contains also excellent explanations of the philosophy of Fichte, Schelling, Vaihinger and Frege, as well as brilliant demonstrations of the influence of Schopenhauer on Nietzsche and Wittgenstein (the Tractatus).
Magee gives us also a very stark argument against solipsism.

The one point on which I disagree with Magee is the following comment: 'This is not the same as to say that these material objects are fully and completely us: that is another matter.' (p. 121)

This sometimes ferociously driven apologia pro Schopenhauer (and Kant) is the best possible presentation of a philosopher. Magee convinced me to read Schopenhauer's main work. I didn't do it until now, because I was influenced by G. Lukacs.
A book not to be missed.

Rating:
Summary: Plato and Kant Meet the Buddha.
Review: Bryan Magee is a superb writer with a gift for phrase-making and an uncanny ability to explain and make accessible the most difficult works in the philosophical tradition. It is not simply that he is able to convey the thoughts of philosophers of the caliber of Kant and Schopenhauer, but that he is able to communicate the vital importance of their ideas, together with the effect they have had in his own life and, more generally, their impact upon the trajectory of our civilization.

He begins this work with a brief biography of Schopenhauer that seeks to relate the early experiences of the philosopher to the development of his key ideas. Mr. Magee then sets forth the Kantian foundations of Schopenhauer's system and indicates the areas in which Schopenhauer has added to (or "corrected") Kant's transcendental idealism, notably by linking the concept of the Will to the description of the "thing-in-itself." Shopenhauer's ideas on art, on suffering, his connections to eastern religious and metaphysical belief-systems, his famous pessimism, and many other issues are discussed clearly and cogently.

This is simply the best book on Schopenhauer that I have ever read, with the exception of those sections of Schopenhauer's own works that I have read.

Rating:
Summary: A Lucky Convergence
Review: Bryan Magee is an ideal candidate for the role of expositor of Schopenhauer. One of Schopenhauer's defining characteristics is his passion for the arts; it is a passion that Magee shares. Schopenhauer is as good a writer as you'll find among major philosophers, and Magee is an easy and graceful stylist himself. Moreover, Magee is a bit of an outsider. And Schopenhauer, for all his appeal, has never quite made it to the first team among philosophers. Indeed, one of the most intriguing points about him is that he seems to have exercised far more influence over artists: Turgenev, Proust, Mann and (most of all) Wagner. Indeed, as a kind of afterthought, Magee offers a "conjecture" that a Schopenhauerian substrate underlies Dylan Thomas' great short lyric, "The force that through the green fuse drives the flower ..."

It's a lucky convergence because Schopenhauer certainly needs an introduction. Not because of the style: as I said above, Schopenhauer is a wonderful stylist, exactly not what you expect from a 19th-century German. But if Schopenhauer did not end quite in the mainstream of western philosophy, he certainly started there. He venerated Kant and he hated Hegel. He set himself the task of finishing or correcting Kant, without ever modifying his admiration for the master. This means that to understand Schopenhauer you need to know something about Kant. And here, Magee does a wonderful job. Magee's introduction to Kant would, with minor emendation, stand pretty well on its own. His exhibition of how Schopenhauer fits into the Kantian framework is equally deft.

In the same vein, he offers an indispensable strategy for reading Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer is one of those authors who wrote only one book "The World as Will and Idea." The standard edition is two volumes: a first volume that he wrote as a self-contained work, and a second, which counts as a kind of "extension of remarks" that developed over the rest of his life." But before his great work, he wrote a dissertation, "On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason," which Magee declares to be "a minor philosophical classic." It is, at any rate, an integral part of Schopenhauer's lifelong project, and a reader of the major work will do well to have the dissertation (or at least Magee's summary) behind him. A couple of other "independent" essays help to fill out of the frame. One of Magee's many helpful courtesies is that he tells you just what and why.

This book is so good in its own right that one is hesitant to seem to criticize Magee for not writing even more. Still, Magee's account did whet my appetite to know more about how Schopenhauer fits into the tradition of German thought to which he made himself such an outsider. That would be a project in its own right, but you do get a bit of it in the second-best book about Schopenhauer that I know of: Rudiger Safranski's "Schopenhauer and the Wild Years of Philosophy." But hey-read them both, and with luck, they will carry you on to Schopenhauer himself.

Rating:
Summary: A Lucky Convergence
Review: Bryan Magee is an ideal candidate for the role of expositor of Schopenhauer. One of Schopenhauer's defining characteristics is his passion for the arts; it is a passion that Magee shares. Schopenhauer is as good a writer as you'll find among major philosophers, and Magee is an easy and graceful stylist himself. Moreover, Magee is a bit of an outsider. And Schopenhauer, for all his appeal, has never quite made it to the first team among philosophers. Indeed, one of the most intriguing points about him is that he seems to have exercised far more influence over artists: Turgenev, Proust, Mann and (most of all) Wagner. Indeed, as a kind of afterthought, Magee offers a "conjecture" that a Schopenhauerian substrate underlies Dylan Thomas' great short lyric, "The force that through the green fuse drives the flower ..."

It's a lucky convergence because Schopenhauer certainly needs an introduction. Not because of the style: as I said above, Schopenhauer is a wonderful stylist, exactly not what you expect from a 19th-century German. But if Schopenhauer did not end quite in the mainstream of western philosophy, he certainly started there. He venerated Kant and he hated Hegel. He set himself the task of finishing or correcting Kant, without ever modifying his admiration for the master. This means that to understand Schopenhauer you need to know something about Kant. And here, Magee does a wonderful job. Magee's introduction to Kant would, with minor emendation, stand pretty well on its own. His exhibition of how Schopenhauer fits into the Kantian framework is equally deft.

In the same vein, he offers an indispensable strategy for reading Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer is one of those authors who wrote only one book "The World as Will and Idea." The standard edition is two volumes: a first volume that he wrote as a self-contained work, and a second, which counts as a kind of "extension of remarks" that developed over the rest of his life." But before his great work, he wrote a dissertation, "On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason," which Magee declares to be "a minor philosophical classic." It is, at any rate, an integral part of Schopenhauer's lifelong project, and a reader of the major work will do well to have the dissertation (or at least Magee's summary) behind him. A couple of other "independent" essays help to fill out of the frame. One of Magee's many helpful courtesies is that he tells you just what and why.

This book is so good in its own right that one is hesitant to seem to criticize Magee for not writing even more. Still, Magee's account did whet my appetite to know more about how Schopenhauer fits into the tradition of German thought to which he made himself such an outsider. That would be a project in its own right, but you do get a bit of it in the second-best book about Schopenhauer that I know of: Rudiger Safranski's "Schopenhauer and the Wild Years of Philosophy." But hey-read them both, and with luck, they will carry you on to Schopenhauer himself.

Rating:
Summary: Schopenhauer revisited
Review: Considerd by many as the best book in the English language to provide a comprehensive review of this great thinker's philosophy, this piece of work testifies to the indispensibility of Schophenhauer to 20th century thinking. This oft-neglected thinker provides the link between the idealism of Kant and the nihilism of Nietzche. And although he belongs to the idealist tradtion, the metaphysics inherent in Schopenhauer's philosphy should not deter one from reconsidering his great impact on later musicians and great novelists. His philosphy is the most comprhensive in the idealist tradtion and he succeeded in filling many of the gaps left by Plato and Kant. The World as Will also includes references overlooked by many but later developed into Frued's theory of the unconscious and Enistien's theory of relativity. In Schopenhauer's philospy one can easily discern the equation that changed the history of man kind E=mc. I congratulate Magee on this great feat and hope many will open their eyes to this genius philosopher who was the first to locate the sketchiness and shallowness of his contemporary Hegel.

Rating:
Summary: Passionate Wisdom
Review: I highly recommend this brilliantly conceived book by Bryan Magee. There is so much one could praise this book for, but I will praise it in a way only deserved readers will understand.

In his work, Bryan Magee may well have accomplished for the reception of Schopenhauer what Walter Kaufmann had done for Nietzsche's reception a half-century ago. Magee writes so clearly, both his passionate love and profound understanding for nearly everything that pertains to Schopenhauer is revealed throughout the whole text. In short, he writes very lucidly! Here there is no flatulent writing so typical of today's bloated intellectuals--our so called scholars.

The book is divided into two parts. The first part elucidates the philosophy. The second half delves more deeply into the ramifications of the phiosophy, its "influence", and its overall reception.

Many artists were impressed by Schopenhauer.There is a resurgent interest in Schopenhauer today and I can think of no better book to serve as an informed introduction.

Rating:
Summary: Just another five stars
Review: I would just like to echo the wonderful reviews that others have already given for this text, and to give it another five stars. As a serious student of Schopenhauer and of his commentators, I believe that Magee's grasp of Schopenhauer is simply astounding. Magee transforms Schopenhuaer from some obscure German philosopher from days long gone into a pressingly relevant thinker for our modern understanding of the universe. Magee has convinced me that Schopenhauer's understanding of the world is one of the most persuasive candidates out there. One of Magee's finest accomplishments in the text is the way he interweaves Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant into Schopenhauer's thought in order to demonstrate that Schopenhauer truly represents the direction to which we must look for further progress in understanding this incredible mystery in which we live. This is the single best secondary treatment of Schopenhauer on the market, period, and is also one of the best books I have ever read.

Rating:
Summary: Just another five stars
Review: I would just like to echo the wonderful reviews that others have already given for this text, and to give it another five stars. As a serious student of Schopenhauer and of his commentators, I believe that Magee's grasp of Schopenhauer is simply astounding. Magee transforms Schopenhuaer from some obscure German philosopher from days long gone into a pressingly relevant thinker for our modern understanding of the universe. Magee has convinced me that Schopenhauer's understanding of the world is one of the most persuasive candidates out there. One of Magee's finest accomplishments in the text is the way he interweaves Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant into Schopenhauer's thought in order to demonstrate that Schopenhauer truly represents the direction to which we must look for further progress in understanding this incredible mystery in which we live. This is the single best secondary treatment of Schopenhauer on the market, period, and is also one of the best books I have ever read.

Rating:
Summary: Comprehensive and Clear Analysis of a Difficult Thinker
Review: Just having read Magee's brilliant book about Richard Wagner -- THE TRISTAN CHORD -- I decided to check out his book about my favorite modern phlosopher. I don't have too much to add to what others have said, except to say that if you're not going to take the time to read Schopenhaur, then this is perhaps the best way to become acquainted with his ideas, which still have relevancy almost a century and a half after his death. Just as Schopenhauer was an unusually clear and gifted writer among philosophers, Magee possesses the same qualities as an explicator. Furthermore, his analyses of Schopenhauer's postumous influence really helps contextualize his importance historically (Sigmund Freud, who stole some of his best ideas from Schopenhaur, considered him one of the five greatest men who ever lived. There is also much in Jung -- not to mention Albert Einstein -- that has its origins in Schopenhauer).