The World as Will and Representation

Main ideas

• The world known as representation and felt as will.
• Art and compassion as relief from restless striving.

Important themes

Reading context

Published in 1818 and almost entirely ignored until the 1850s. Schopenhauer takes Kant's distinction between appearance and the thing in itself and identifies the latter with will, a blind striving that explains why satisfaction never lasts.

How to approach it

Book 1 sets up the world as representation, Book 2 introduces will, Book 3 covers art and Book 4 ethics and denial. The essays in Parerga and Paralipomena are an easier way in.