The World as Will and Idea (Vol. 2 of 3)
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- No scanning noise detected (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand)
- Extent:
- ~180,000 words · 862 passages
Cite this work
- APAArthur Schopenhauer. (n.d.). The World as Will and Idea (Vol. 2 of 3). Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/schopenhauer/the-world-as-will-and-idea-vol-2-of-3
- MLAArthur Schopenhauer. The World as Will and Idea (Vol. 2 of 3). Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/schopenhauer/the-world-as-will-and-idea-vol-2-of-3.
- ChicagoArthur Schopenhauer. The World as Will and Idea (Vol. 2 of 3). Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/schopenhauer/the-world-as-will-and-idea-vol-2-of-3.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
What it is about
The second volume: the work continued, with the passage from the world as representation to the world as will.
Context and history
This English translation spreads across three volumes what in German is two: the book of 1818 and the volume of supplements Schopenhauer added in 1844, twenty-six years later. The supplements are not minor appendices: they run as long as the original work, and his ideas are often better read there, since by then he is writing without having to persuade anyone of the architecture. He asked himself that the whole be read twice.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
of the general public was aroused. Induced by this, but not urged by inward inclination and sense of power (which find utterance even at unfavourable times, as in the case of Spinoza), men without any exceptional talent made various weak, absurd, and indeed sometimes insane, attempts, to which, however, the now interested public gave its attention, and with great patience, such as is only found in Germany, long lent its ear. The same thing must once have happened in Nature, when a great revolution had altered the whole surface of the earth, land and sea had changed places, and the scene was cleared for a new creation. It was then a long time before Nature could produce a new series of lasting forms all in harmony with themselves and with each other. Strange and monstrous organisations appeared which did not harmonise either with themselves or with each other, and therefore could not endure long, but whose still existing remains have brought down to us the tokens of that wavering and tentative procedure of Nature forming itself anew. Since, now, in philosophy, a crisis precisely similar to this, and an age of fearful abortions, was, as we all know, introduced by Kant, it may be concluded that the services he rendered were not complete, but must have been negative and one-sided, and burdened with great defects. These defects we now desire to search out. ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ First of all we shall present to ourselves clearly and examine the fundamental thought in which the aim of the whole “Critique of Pure Reason” lies. Kant placed himself at the standpoint of his predecessors, the dogmatic philosophers, and accordingly he started with them from the following assumptions:—(1.) Metaphysics is the science of that which lies beyond the possibility of all experience. (2.…