
Né(e): February 22, 1788 – Danzig, Royal Prussia, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher known for his pessimistic metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, and reflections on will, suffering, and desire. His major works include The World as Will and Representation and Parerga and Paralipomena. Though underappreciated early, he later gained broad international readership and influenced Nietzsche, Freud, Wagner, and modern existential thought.
Arthur Schopenhauer was born on February 22, 1788, in Danzig, then a semi-autonomous city and now Gdańsk, Poland, into a prosperous merchant family. His father, Heinrich Floris Schopenhauer, expected him to enter commerce, while his mother, Johanna Schopenhauer, later became a well-known novelist and salon host. After the family moved to Hamburg, he received a cosmopolitan education shaped by travel, languages, and exposure to European intellectual life. A decisive turning point came after his father’s death in 1805, when he gradually abandoned a business career and turned toward scholarship. He studied at Göttingen, where he encountered Plato and Kant, and later continued in Berlin before completing his doctorate at Jena in 1813 with a dissertation on the principle of sufficient reason.

Arthur Schopenhauer
A philosophical exploration of happiness, examining personality, possessions, and social standing as key factors in life satisfaction.

Arthur Schopenhauer
Schopenhauer's profound exploration of will, suffering, and the human condition.

Arthur Schopenhauer
A philosophical exploration of happiness, examining personality, possessions, and social standing as key factors in life satisfaction.

Arthur Schopenhauer
Schopenhauer's profound exploration of will, suffering, and the human condition.
"Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher, often called the "philosopher of pessimism."
— Britannica
"The philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer has always been regarded as pre-eminently creative, as an artist-philosophy par excellence"
— Thomas Mann
"Arthur Schopenhauer was among the first 19th century philosophers to contend that at its core, the universe is not a rational place"
— Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
"And this is why I want to bring to mind the one teacher and severe taskmaster of whom I boast: Arthur Schopenhauer"
— Friedrich Nietzsche
"Arthur Schopenhauer has been dubbed the artist’s philosopher on account of the inspiration his aesthetics has provided to artists of all stripes"
— Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Cree par des anciens de Columbia University a San Francisco
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Cree par des anciens de Columbia University a San Francisco
