Schopenhauer: The World as Will and Representation: Volume 2

This monumental work presents Schopenhauer's metaphysics of the will, and wide-ranging philosophical reflections on psychology, desire, sex, death, and salvation.

Arthur Schopenhauer (Author), Judith Norman (Edited and translated by), Alistair Welchman (Edited and translated by), Christopher Janaway (Edited and translated by)

9781108964319, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 26 November 2020

763 pages
23 x 15.3 x 4 cm, 1.11 kg

'Most of Schopenhauer's works will be translated in this Cambridge series, and this reviewer suspects this will open the floodgates to further scholarship on Schopenhauer - especially in newer avenues that bring contemporary science to his idealism and address his unique synthesis of Kant's thought with both the Upanishads and Buddhist thought. Volume 2 is an essential and more mature elaboration of volume 1 (2010), and the two volumes are best approached as one unit. If the other volumes in the Cambridge series have the same rigor and synthetic introduction as this one, it may be another 50 years before the next translation is necessary. This two-volume set is a masterpiece.' Choice

The purpose of the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Schopenhauer is to offer translations of the best modern German editions of Schopenhauer's work in a uniform format for Schopenhauer scholars, together with philosophical introductions and full editorial apparatus. The World as Will and Representation contains Schopenhauer's entire philosophy, ranging through epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind and action, aesthetics and philosophy of art, to ethics, the meaning of life and the philosophy of religion. This second volume was added to the work in 1844, and revised in 1859. Its chapters are officially 'supplements' to the first volume, but are indispensable for a proper appreciation of Schopenhauer's thought. Here we have his most mature reflections on many topics, including sex, death, conscious and unconscious desires, and the doctrines of salvation and liberation in Christian and Indian thought. Schopenhauer clarifies the nature of his metaphysics of the will, and synthesizes insights from a broad range of literary, scientific and scholarly sources. This new translation reflects the eloquence and power of Schopenhauer's prose, and renders philosophical terms accurately and consistently. It offers an introduction, glossary of names, bibliography, and succinct editorial notes.

Volume 2: Introduction
Supplements to the First Book
First half: the doctrine of intuitive representation
1. On the fundamental view of idealism
2. On the doctrine of intuitive cognition, or cognition based in the understanding
3. Concerning the senses
4. On cognition a priori
Second half: the doctrine of abstract representation, or thinking
5. On the intellect in the absence of reason
6. On the doctrine of abstract or rational cognition
7. On the relation of intuitive to abstract cognition
8. On the theory of the comical
9. On logic in general
10. On the study of syllogisms
11. On rhetoric
12. On the doctrine of science
13. On the doctrine of method in mathematics
14. On the association of ideas
15. On the essential imperfections of the intellect
16. On the practical use of reason and Stoicism
17. On humanity's metaphysical need
Supplements to the Second Book
18. On the possibility of cognizing the thing in itself
19. On the primacy of the will in self-consciousness
20. Objectivation of the will in the animal organism
21. Review and more general considerations
22. Objective view of the intellect
23. On the objectivation of the will in nature devoid of cognition
24. On matter
25. Transcendent considerations concerning the will as thing in itself
26. On teleology
27. On instinct and creative drive
28. Characterization of the will to life
Supplements to the Third Book
29. On the cognition of the Ideas
30. On the pure subject of cognition
31. On genius
32. On madness
33. Isolated remarks concerning natural beauty
34. On the inner essence of art
35. On the aesthetics of architecture
36. Isolated remarks on the aesthetics of the visual arts
37. On the aesthetics of literature
38. On history
39. On the metaphysics of music
Supplements to the Fourth Book
40. Preface
41. On death and its relation to the indestructibility of our essence in itself
42. Life of the species
43. The heritability of traits
44. Metaphysics of sexual love
45. On the affirmation of the will to life
46. On the nothingness and suffering of life
47. On ethics
48. On the doctrine of the negation of the will to life
49. The way to salvation
50. Epiphilosophy.

Subject Areas: Philosophy of religion [HRAB], Ethics & moral philosophy [HPQ], Philosophy: aesthetics [HPN], Philosophy of mind [HPM], Philosophy: epistemology & theory of knowledge [HPK], Philosophy: metaphysics & ontology [HPJ], Oriental & Indian philosophy [HPDF], Philosophy [HP], Literature & literary studies [D]