Notes for a Lecture on the Life of Arthur Schopenhauer
based on the biography by V.J. McGill, 1931
and compiled by Kenneth J. Curry, President
Mississippi Philosophical Association
Annual Meeting in Oxford, MS, April 2006

I. Chapter 1
A. Heinrich Floris Schopenhauer inherited a modest family business which he built
into one of the leading houses of Dantzig. Despite his success in business, he was
afflicted by bouts of amnesia, violent outbreaks of anger, and deep fits of
melancholy. Schopenhauer fell in love, at the age of 38, with Johanna Trosiener
who had just turned 18. Their personalities were in stark contrast. He was iron
willed, she was gracious and yielding; he was somber and moody, she was gay
and pleasure loving; he had a passion for politics, she had a zest for fine arts and
literature. Schopenhauer provided her with a comfortable state in which she
pursued her intellectual interests in a marriage that was apparently mutually
satisfactory.
B. Their first child was born on 22 February 1788. He was named Arthur, a name
which appears in various languages without change, as appropriate for someone
who would one day manage the international firm of Schopenhauer. Arthur had a
happy childhood, adored by his mother, in a relationship which unfortunately
would change for the worse. Later he would come to see childhood as a special
time when intellect predominates over Will.
C. Heinrich sent his son Arthur at the age of nine (1797) to live with an old business
friend of his in France that he might learn the language and customs. Arthur
reports that these were the happiest years of his childhood. When he returned
home he had completely mastered French. Arthur developed a passion for
science, but his father had little faith in the profits of scholarship and pressed his
son to pursue a career in business to which Arthur was unfortunately unsuited.
D. Heinrich took the family on a two-year tour of Europe (1803-1805) in part to
divert Arthur's interests from science. Both Arthur and Johanna kept travel books
filled with daily impressions. The tour included a six-month stay in England
from which Arthur came away with a dislike for English hypocrisy. Later he
would develop an an odd mix of contempt and admiration for the English.
E. Arthur returned home which was now in Hamburg and began an apprenticeship as
a clerk in the office of a merchant. Several months into his apprenticeship in
1805 his father died unexpectedly, possibly by his own hand. Arthur held his
father in high esteem for the rest of his life and made a concerted effort to
succeed in the business career his father had wanted for him.

II. Chapter 2
A. Arthur was 17 when his father died. He could not be expected to carry on the
firm, so Johanna liquidated the business at once. Johanna decided to move from
Hamburg to Weimar, a center of German culture and the home of Wolfgang von
Goethe. Johanna had a habit of putting unpleasant things into letters rather than
facing people directly. So while Arthur was at work, Johanna wrote a letter of
goodbye from Hamburg and left for Weimar. Arthur responded to his mother's
eccentricity with a polite letter of goodbye.
B. Johanna rented a costly house and conducted a salon which was soon frequented
by the brightest intellectuals in Weimar including Goethe. Napoleon was at war
with Europe at this time and in October of 1806 his troops marched to the battle
of Jena near Weimar. Johanna was unable to procure horses to escape the city so
she and her daughter Adele were forced to remain. With the French victory came
the plundering the Weimar. Johanna was a pillar of courage and noble action.
Her gracious personality, sense of duty, and her knowledge of French language
and culture averted disasters and afforded much comfort to the suffering residents
of Weimar. She sought and received protection for her house from the French
Prince Murat and worked to help the German soldiers injured in the battle.
C. Goethe was also trapped in Weimar. Christiana, his housekeeper and mistress of
18 years, also displayed considerable courage in the misfortune of war handling
40 Frenchmen who were quartered in Goethe's house. Goethe was prompted to
marry Christiana despite the considerable scandal that fell on them. Johanna
openly accepted Christiana as Goethe's wife which influenced other society
people to accept her as well and thus moved over the scandal. Naturally this
strengthened the already warm ties between Johanna and Goethe.
D. Arthur read his mother's letters describing the misery in Weimar while continuing
his apprenticeship in Hamburg. His reaction was philosophical and pessimistic
reflecting on the universal evil of life. "But certainly it must be, nothing shall
hold fast in a fleeting life, no endless pain, no eternal joy, no enduring
impression, no lasting enthusiasm, no high decision, which can hold for life!
Everything resolves itself in the stream of time. The minutes, the countless petty
atoms, into which every action is divided, are the worms which eat upon and
destroy everything great and bold. The monster triviality bears down everything
which strives upward. There is nothing serious in human life because the dust is
not worth it. How could there be an eternal passion for such wretchedness." (p.
65) His dismal letters were very disconcerting for his upbeat and pleasure-loving
mother.
E. The boredom of his apprenticeship in business weighed heavily on him. He was
torn between duty to his father and the intellectual life for which he longed.
Johanna understood her son's distress and consulted the art critic Karl Ludwig
Fernow. Fernow responded with a long letter encouraging young Arthur to
change to a literary and scientific profession. Schopenhauer moved in 1807 to the
town of Gotha near Weimar where he attended Gymnasium to prepare for
university training. His satirical and acid wit soon got him in trouble in Gotha,
and he moved to Weimar to complete his preparation for the university. His
mother made it clear that he was not welcome to live with her. His gloomy
countenance sharply contrasted with her light and enthusiastic manner. Indeed
his visits to her salon always had a dampening effect which was endlessly
distressing to her.
F. Young Schopenhauer met Goethe at his mother's salon. While he found many of
his mother's associates superficial and intellectually frivolous, he venerated
Goethe throughout his life. Goethe's greatest work, Faust, appeared in 1808 and
influenced the young Schopenhauer's life and his later philosophy.
G. Heinrich Floris Schopenhauer had left his wife one fourth of his estate with the
rest in trust for his children. When Arthur reached his majority his mother
reluctantly gave him one third of the estate, keeping one third each for herself and
her daughter. Arthur never complained about his mother shortchanging him, but
invested the money wisely and lived comfortably the rest of his life.

III. Chapter 3
A. Having completed his preparation for university studies, Schopenhauer set out in
1809 for Gottingen, the university he admired as a stronghold of science and free
inquiry, a leading sanctuary from the reigning theological dogmatism. Here he
engaged in a broad curriculum modeling himself on the pattern of a gentleman
scholar. He studied at Gottingen until 1811.
B. Schopenhauer was drawn to philosophy and was especially fond of "the divine
Plato and the excellent Kant." (p. 84)
C. Johanna was concerned with her son's choice of philosophy as a scholarly pursuit
and asked the German poet Christoph Wieland to intercede. Schopenhauer
answered Wieland's objections, "Life is an awkward affair: I have resolved to
spend mine in meditating on it." After further conversation Wieland exclaimed
with enthusiasm, "Yes, it seems to me now that you have chosen right, young
man; I now understand your nature, you had best remain with philosophy."
D. Schopenhauer was next attracted to the University of Berlin where he could study
with Johann Gottlieb Fichte. Schopenhauer learned from Fichte that the essence
of the world is Will. But for Fichte Will was a rational, principled entity and for
Schopenhauer it was a cruel, insatiable force. Schopenhauer was so moved
against Fichte that at one point with pistol figuratively in hand he wrote, "You
must die now without grace; but say for the sake of your poor soul whether you
intended anything clear by your mad melange or merely took us for fools?"
Hereafter Schopenhauer referred to Fichte's Wissenschafteslehre (doctrine of
science) as Wissenschaftesleere (empty science).

IV. Chapter 4
A. The German States mobilized for war as Napoleon again threatened their borders
in 1813. Schopenhauer's wide travels and cosmopolitan education were not the
stuff of which patriots are made. He left Berlin for the relative safety of Weimar.
It was in Weimar that he wrote his doctoral dissertation, The Fourfold Root of the
Principle of Sufficient Reason, in which he explored the different kinds of
necessity in the world (i.e., the Principle of Sufficient Reason).
B. He submitted his dissertation to the faculty at the University of Jena (located near
Weimar) with a cover letter in Latin explaining his course of studies. In the fall
of 1813 he was awarded his doctoral degree by the faculty of Jena. His mother,
Johanna, filled with our own literary career, was unimpressed by the honor
bestowed upon her son. She had completed her novel, Gabriele, and received the
praise of Goethe himself. Arthur informed her that The Fourfold Root of the
Principle of Sufficient Reason, "will still be read when there does not remain a
copy of your writings on the shelves." Johanna retorted, "Of yours the whole
edition will still be available" (p. 105). He published his dissertation in Jena at
his own expense. He received some mixed reviews, but generally attracted little
attention. The work was perceived as an orthodox Kantian doctrine offering little
new and ignoring philosophical developments from the major players of the day,
Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel.
C. Goethe was one of the people who had received from Schopenhauer The Fourfold
Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason and had commented favorably on the
work. Schopenhauer had developed a deep respect for Goethe and valued his
opinion and his friendship.
D. During this time Johanna had acquired a house guest who spent all his time with
her much to Arthur's chagrin. The tension between the two men grew
culminating in violent altercations. Johanna, as was her custom for handling
unpleasant situations, wrote to her son, and a few days later Arthur left Weimar
never to see his mother again although she lived for 24 more years.
E. Goethe had been working on a theory of color in which he maintained that white
light was simple in its composition and not a composite of all the colors as
demonstrated by Newton in the previous century. He determined to interest
Schopenhauer in his theory of colors and color vision, sending him materials and
apparatus to conduct the various experiments in which he (Goethe) had been
engaged. Color, according to Goethe, was produced by the blending of light and
dark. Schopenhauer agreed with Goethe about the blending of light and dark but
insisted that it was that qualitative difference impinging on the retina of the eye
that produced color as a physiological state in the perceiver. Goethe could not
accept Schopenhauer's conclusion that color was entirely subjective. Here was a
clash of two great egotists and a parting of their ways. But Schopenhauer
venerated Goethe the rest of his life, and Goethe, 40 years Schopenhauer's senior,
followed the career of the young philosopher with interest during the rest of his
life. Their last meeting occurred in 1819. Goethe wrote of the meeting in his
notebook, "A visit of Dr. Schopenhauer, a meritorious young man commonly
misjudged, yet also difficult to understand, stirred me up and prompted to a
mutual instruction." (p. 124)

V. Chapter 5
A. Schopenhauer was 26 years old in 1814. He could have stayed in Jena and
consorted with other philosophers there but he chose instead to move to Dresden,
then the art center of Germany. Schopenhauer's acquaintances included some
clever but shallow spirits and a few first-rate artists. Schopenhauer was painfully
aware that these people were not his equals, and they were made to endure his ill
temper, satire, and brilliant abuse. Yet for many of these acquaintances his
honest passion for truth was a winning quality and his brutal humor had much
appeal. It was in this artistic milieu that the Will of Nature manifested itself
clearly to Schopenhauer. Within the mainstream of life was the problem of the
relation of self to the world. Here Schopenhauer found the Will to life and
gratification, a relentless force that stops at nothing to gain its ends. And the
relationship between World Will and Individual Will was resolved with the
realization that they were one and the same. What was the ultimate reality, the
enduring substance of the phantom world in Kantian philosophy, the Thing-in-
Itself? Schopenhauer identified the Thing-in-Itself as Individual Will which was
identical with World Will. By 1817 at the age of 29 his system opened before
him "like a beautiful landscape through the morning mists." He wrote his
seminal work, The World as Will and Idea, between March 1817 and March
1818.
B. The work was first berated, to Schopenhauer's despair, as a mere rehash of
Fichte. But Schopenhauer insisted that a major point of his philosophy was the
radical severance of Will from Intellect. Where Fichte saw the Will guided by
Intellect, Schopenhauer did not. Both Fichte and Schopenhauer were deeply
impressed with the infinity of human desire, but unlike Fichte, Schopenhauer saw
it in a most unfavorable light. We have infinite desire and finite satisfaction
available. The stronger the intellect the more objects are presented to the Will
and the more unhappy one becomes. Desire can only be satisfied temporarily.
Unsatisfied desire is pain; satisfied desire is ennui. There is no escape. Pleasure
is the absence of pain. Among his many examples showing the illusory nature of
pleasure and the reality of pain he cites Dante's Comedia. The Paradiso is a place
of mystical, unintelligible pleasure. It comes across with far less force than
Inferno. Schopenhauer regarded this as the worst of all possible worlds. If the
world were any worse we would commit suicide and defeat nature's sinister
purpose.
C. Schopenhauer offers a threefold path for deliverance: aesthetic, ethical, and
metaphysical. The aesthetic relief is found in appreciation of art. Ethical relief is
more enduring but the inherent wickedness of humans makes this path more
difficult. Metaphysical deliverance comes from the realization of the vanity and
inevitable deficiency of the world. We are saved by turning away from relentless
striving. It is the Intellect that rescues us once it has discovered the wicked secret
of the Will.

VI. Chapter 6
A. With his seminal work published, Schopenhauer followed the advice of his
friends and visited Italy. He quickly mastered the language. Byron was living in
Italy at this time. Both men were 30 years old and had completed the major
works of their lives. But Byron was famous and Schopenhauer was unknown.
Schopenhauer carried a letter of introduction from Goethe, but he never used the
letter, never met Byron, and expressed his regret afterwards. Byron was
Schopenhauer's favorite English poet after Shakespeare.
B. Schopenhauer's pessimism had made him deeply suspicious of love, but he met
and fell in love with an Italian woman, Teresa. He agonized over the relationship
as he felt himself overcome by the Will of Nature. He finally tore himself away
from Teresa after receiving a letter from his sister, Adele, announcing the
bankruptcy of the firm in which his mother Johanna had invested her fortune.
The two women were now are forced to live on the money Johanna's literary
works brought in, a far cry from what they were used to. Schopenhauer made a
single offer to help his sister and mother which was ignored by them and never
repeated by him.
C. Schopenhauer had invested conservatively, so most of his money was still
protected. He vigorously pursued the principals of the bankrupt firm until he had
recovered what little money he had invested with them.

VII. Chapter 7
A. Schopenhauer returned to Germany determined to establish his reputation.
B. He sent a Latin petition to the faculty of the Berlin University for permission to
lecture there. The overwhelming self-confidence woven into the petition elicited
this response from the Dean, "Aside from extreme presumption and extraordinary
vanity of Herr Schopenhauer, which proceeds from every circumstance, I hold
that in view of his qualifications nothing can be objected to his installation." (p.
190)
1. Schopenhauer made the unusual request that he be listed in the catalog of
the University before the traditional trial lecture. Hegel gave his approval
and convinced his colleagues to allow the request. Schopenhauer
delivered his lecture in March of 1820 and before the whole faculty and
including Hegel accused them of sophistry! Despite this remarkable
affront, Schopenhauer was permitted to teach at the University. His
attacks against Hegel never ceased. He found Hegel (according to
McGill), "a man whose only interest in philosophy had been to earn his
bread and to serve the state, the church, and the ruling powers, all of
which preoccupations were foreign, according to Schopenhauer, if not
quite hostile, to the aim of true philosophy." (pp. 192, 193)
2. Schopenhauer went so far as to schedule his lectures at the same time as
Hegel's, in hopes of undermining Hegel by drawing an audience away
from him. The students, however, realized the influence that Hegel would
have on their examinations, and Schopenhauer's lectures were only to a
very small audience. This was quite depressing, even for lectures on
pessimism.
3. Hegel ignored Schopenhauer throughout all of the attacks which infuriated
Schopenhauer all the more. Their philosophical views coincided on many
points. The major difference that ran through their various philosophies
was that for Hegel reason was all important; for Schopenhauer, intuition
was the potent agent in human thought and action.
4. Schopenhauer's attacks on Hegel were largely unjustified and most
unfortunate. The fame he sought eluded him. One can speculate that if he
had taken a more pragmatic approach to form an alliance with Hegel he
might have gained fame more readily.
C. The World as Will and Idea was largely ignored, but did receive a few reviews.
These comments capture the tone of the reviews: "Schopenhauer's World as Will
and Idea, a work of philosophical genius, bold, universal, full of penetration and
profundity; but with a disconsolate and bottomless depth-comparable to the
melancholy lake in Norway, on which, because of its circular ring of steep rugged
cliffs, the sun is never seen, but only the starry sky of day-time mirrored in its
depth, and on which, too, no wave nor bird ever moves. Happily I can only praise
this book, not subscribe to it." (p. 206)
D. While his university career flagged, two other unfortunate events brought his stay
in Berlin to a most unpleasant end.
1. A young philosopher, Beneke, who held a similar instructorship at the
University of Berlin, published a long review of The World as Will and
Idea, full of false and distorted quotations. Schopenhauer responded by
writing an unpleasant letter to the editor of the journal in which the review
appeared. The editor responded to the unpleasant letter by grudgingly
publishing Schopenhauer's rebuttal. Beneke called twice on
Schopenhauer to explain the matter verbally, but was rebuffed both times.
2. An altercation with a woman living in his the apartment complex,
Caroline Marquet, was even less fortunate. Marquet was one of several
women who for reasons unknown decided to use the antechamber of
Schopenhauer's apartment for sewing and conversation. Schopenhauer
had his landlady order them out, but they returned later when the landlady
was gone. Marquet refused to leave, and Schopenhauer physically
removed her. Marquet sued claiming that Schopenhauer beat and injured
her. Schopenhauer won the court case, but Marquet appealed it.
Schopenhauer was sufficiently depressed with this affair to leave Berlin
for the Alps and Italy. Unfortunately his lawyer did not pay sufficient
attention to the appeal which was lost. Schopenhauer was forced to pay a
lump sum up front and an annual allowance for 20 years until the death of
Marquet.

VIII. Chapter 8
A. Schopenhauer found the Alps friendly and increased his happiness on his return to
Italy. Eight months later Schopenhauer was forced to return to Germany gravely
ill. He had probably contracted syphilis based on a description of the treatments
to which he was subjected. He recovered only after several months.
B. Once again he scheduled his lectures at the same time as Hegel's, and once again
he failed to attract students to his lectures. He sought positions at other
universities, but none would have him.
IX. Chapter 9
A. A cholera epidemic broke out in 1831 in Berlin. Schopenhauer fled to Frankfurt;
Hegel remained in Berlin and died. On the subsequent year Schopenhauer moved
to Mannheim, but in 1833 he moved back to Frankfurt where he spent the rest of
his life. While in Mannheim, Schopenhauer broke 18 years of silence with his
mother and wrote to her. She replied with well meant criticism that irritated him
and permanently ended communication between them. He maintained a pleasant
relationship with his sister Adele.
B. Schopenhauer enjoyed the serenity of peaceful days, but the choice of living
alone or enjoying society was impossible for him. Loneliness was intolerable and
intellectual companionship seemed unattainable. "Common people certainly look
like men; I have never seen any creatures that resemble men so closely." His
loneliness was manifested in one instance where he embraced an orangutan at the
Frankfurt menagerie and compared the beast favorably with the humans of his
acquaintance. Schopenhauer had a succession of poodles during his life, and
these were his most faithful companions. The tragedy of his life was that nobody
knew better than Schopenhauer how tangled he was in his own egotism and how
hopeless it was for him to escape.
C. Schopenhauer was very limited in his reading of fiction, but he read the best.
Among the novels he valued were Wilhelm Meister (Goethe), Tristram Shandy
(Sterne), Don Quixote (Cervantes), The Count of Monte Christo (Dumas), The
Mysteries of Paris (Sue), Émile (Rousseau), and Tom Jones (Fielding) and he
read them all in their original languages. His last publication, Parerga und
Paralipomena (1851), is written very much in the style of Sterne. Schopenhauer
was a master with words. He wrote elegantly and with force of conviction rarely
seen in philosophical writing. He is not known as a technical philosopher but as
an intuitive one who argued by force of rhetoric.
D. Schopenhauer wrote The World as Will and Idea in 1818, and did not write
anything again until 1836 (The Will in Nature). In 1839 he wrote an essay
entitled The Freedom of the Human Will which was awarded a prize by the
Norwegian Royal Society. The following year he wrote another essay, The Basis
of Morality, which he submitted to the Danish Royal Society fully expecting to
win a prize. He was bitterly disappointed when they refused, and he thereafter
renamed the essay The Basis of Morality Not Approved by the Danish Society of
Sciences. Schopenhauer published in 1843 a huge supplementary work to his
seminal work The World as Will and Idea which was designated volume II. His
last work, Parerga und Paralipomena (1851), proved to be quite popular. Finally
pessimism was making money, and people were starting to recognize Arthur
Schopenhauer. But by 1857 his health was failing. On 9 September 1860 he
suffered a hemorrhage of the lungs and died on 21 September as a second
hemorrhage carried him off painlessly.
E. His biographer, V.J. McGill, evaluated his importance as a philosopher on three
criteria. (1) On the criterion of originality he is rated high. (2) On the criterion of
influence he has given the highest rating with the caveat that his influence has
been stronger in literary and artistic circles and with the lay public than with
professional philosophers. (3) On the criterion of logical rigor Schopenhauer is
undoubtedly inferior to most of the systematic philosophers (p. 284).
F. For my own part, the account of Arthur Schopenhauer by Will Durant in The
Story of Philosophy which I read many years ago as a young man captured my
imagination and drew me into philosophy. As I learned more about
Schopenhauer, I became fascinated with his brutally honest account of the
abysmal world in which we live. I also found a strong parallel between his
suggestion of escape through aesthetic relief and intellect and my own devices of
escape. I have derived considerable satisfaction in assembling this account of
Schopenhauer's life and I hope I have brought to you some amusement with this
presentation. I have such high regard for philosophy and philosophers, this is the
ultimate intellectual endeavor, that I find myself guilty of the cardinal sin of pride
for the opportunity to come to you this year as the President of the Mississippi
Philosophical Association.