Seeking Schopenhauer: where there’s a will there’s a way
Bernardo Kastrup’s new book redresses a tragic misunderstanding of the metaphysics of the influential German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer
The work of the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860), best known for his 1818 work, The World as Will and Representation (expanded 1844), is seen as a classic case of philosophical pessimism.
In a nutshell, Schopenhauer is typically described as seeing no special worth in human beings; that people need to be liberated from an everyday life full of struggle, frustrated desire and suffering — the worst of all possible worlds — and that, really, despite some positive values being attainable by some people, non-existence would be better.
But that could all be about to change with publication of the philosopher-scientist Bernardo Kastrup’s new book, Decoding Schopenhauer’s Metaphysics: the key to understanding how it solves the hard problem of consciousness and the paradoxes of quantum mechanics (Iff Books, UK £9.99 / US $14.95, July 2020), a fascinating and stimulating reappraisal of a much-maligned thinker, as well as a remarkable story of philosophical serendipity.
