|
|
|
|
|
Arthur Schopenhauer > 
German philosopher. Rejecting the idealism of Hegel, Schopenhauer's Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung employed Kant's notion of the noumenal self as the foundation for a comprehensive account of human nature, in contrast to the phenomenal realm of objects. We are, for better or (much more commonly, according to the pessimistic Schopenhauer) for worse, manifestations of our own wills, rarely exhibiting the universal compassion for others that would render our egoistic impulses aesthetically valuable. Only by eliminating desire can we hope to achieve harmony and peace, he argued, but even that is possible only in ascetic living or death. Our very name for the "world," Schopenhauer suggested, is an acronym for the characteristics of human life—woe, misery, suffering, and death.
|
