Schopenhauer''s ''The World as Will and Representation'' : A Critical Guide

These essays showcase the incomparable contribution and enduring relevance of Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Representation to fields as diverse as metaphysics, aesthetics, ethics, religion, science, and feminism. The volume will be valuable for both students and advanced scholars in philosophy and German studies.

Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Representation is one of the central texts in the history of Western philosophy. It is one of the last monuments to the project of grand synthetic philosophical system-building, where a single, unified work could aim to clarify, resolve, and ground all the central questions of metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, religion, aesthetics and science. Poorly received at its initial publication, it soon became a powerful cultural force, inspiring not only philosophers but also artists, writers and musicians, and attracting a large popular audience of non-scholars. Perhaps equally importantly, Schopenhauer was one of the first European philosophers to take non-Western thought seriously and to treat it as a living tradition rather than as a mere object of study. This volume of new essays showcases the enormous variety of contemporary scholarship on this monumental text, as well as its enduring relevance.