ABOUT THIS BOOK

An engaging biography of one of the most influential Western philosophers and a thought-provoking exploration of how to live with Arthur Schopenhauer’s pessimism.

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) almost wasn’t one of the greatest philosophers of the nineteenth century. Born in the Free City of Danzig to a family of shipping merchants, he was destined for a life of imports and exports until his father died in a suspected suicide. After much deliberation, the young Schopenhauer invested his inheritance in himself and his philosophical vocation. But the long road to recognition was a difficult one, with Schopenhauer spending all but the last decade of his life in total obscurity. Yet his ideas and style went on to influence great thinkers, including Friedrich Nietzsche, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Sigmund Freud, as well as artists such as the composer Richard Wagner and writers Marcel Proust, Thomas Mann, Samuel Beckett, and many more.

A singular and remarkably influential thinker, Schopenhauer is usually described as an extreme pessimist. He questioned the purpose of existence in a world where pain and suffering are inescapable and happiness is all too brief. In this engaging philosophical biography, David Bather Woods reevaluates Schopenhauer’s pessimism in the context of his life experiences, revealing the philosopher’s relentless fascination with the world and making a case for his contemporary relevance. Bather Woods weaves together Schopenhauer’s ideas with the story of how he came to be, including such topics as love, loneliness, morality, politics, gender, sexuality, death, suicide, fame, and madness. In doing so, this book answers some of life’s most challenging questions about how to deal with pain and loss, and how to live with ourselves and each other.

Despite his pessimistic outlook on human existence, Schopenhauer didn’t give up on life. Rather, he recognized that the question of how to live becomes even more pressing, and he worked to provide an answer. Bather Woods shows how Schopenhauer’s life informed his ideas and how they still resonate today.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

David Bather Woods is associate professor of philosophy at the University of Warwick. He is coeditor with Timothy Stoll of The Schopenhauerian Mind. He has contributed chapters to The Proustian Mind, Schopenhauer’s Moral Philosophy, and The Palgrave Schopenhauer Handbook.

REVIEWS

“This brilliant and vivid biography invites us to rediscover Schopenhauer as not just a pessimist, but as a daring and original thinker who confronted life’s hardest question: Is it worth living? With clarity, wit, and philosophical depth, Bather Woods explores how Schopenhauer’s ideas continue to resonate with the challenges we face today.”

— Emily Herring, author of 'Herald of a Restless World: How Henri Bergson Brought Philosophy to the People'

“In the style of Andrea Wulf and Sue Prideaux, Bather Woods brings to life the world of ideas that allowed, and forced, Arthur Schopenhauer to become who he was: proto-existentialist, pessimist par excellence, fierce realist. Bather Woods’s portrait is bracing and honest—a call to see the world as it is rather than how we imagine it to be and an invitation to know ourselves, warts and all.”

— John Kaag, author of 'Hiking with Nietzsche: On Becoming Who You Are'

“In Arthur Schopenhauer, Bather Woods provides a compassionate and philosophically sharp portrait of the great pessimist. Bather Woods teases out several threads in Schopenhauer’s thought that others have overlooked as he shows how Schopenhauer’s struggles and (abundant) personal flaws helped him see to the heart of the human condition. This book offers a humanizing introduction for readers new to Schopenhauer and a distinctive and subtle rereading of his thought for specialists."

— Colin Marshall, University of Washington

“The time is ripe for a reevaluation of Arthur Schopenhauer, and I can’t imagine a better guide to his life and work than Bather Woods who, like his subject, writes with enviable clarity and wit and wears his scholarship lightly. Schopenhauer may have been somewhat gloomy in outlook, but this book is a joy to read.”

— Nigel Warburton, author of 'A Little History of Philosophy'

"After, clearly, a long immersion in Schopenhauer’s life, [Bather Woods] brings him forth as a living, breathing figure for whom, in spite of the sexism, racism, conservatism and general gloom, one can feel considerable affection. Abandoning strict chronology, the book has a sophisticated literary structure and is extremely well written. It will delight."

— Society

“Bather Woods makes a strong case that . . . in our fragmenting world in which we are subject to a constant live-streaming of suffering and social division, increasingly haunted by a feeling that as the old world order comes to an end we’re left on our own to make our way as best we can, [Schopenhauer] may be the philosopher for our times. . . . Schopenhauer offers no easy remedies to a disease with no final cure, for the living at least, but Bather Woods successfully shows us if your eyes can adjust to his dark vision of the world, there is much to see: his insights into our condition show us a way we can carry on and make the best of it.”

— The Critic

"Bather Woods writes in a deliberately nonintimidating style."

— The London Review of Books

"[Bather Woods] chronicles Schopenhauer's life and thought in a manner resembling a parable. The reclusive philosopher barely existed but nonetheless lived a life fuller, both in thought and deed, than most of us can hope for. Paradox crops up so frequently in the book that it makes one wonder if it’s the fullest expression of a life well-lived, even when it takes the form of extreme avoidance."

— Psychology Today

"In his portrayal of this famously prickly, private, and pessimistic man, [Bather Woods] presents a thinker committed to the daunting vocation of pondering the human situation, and he does so with compassion and an appreciation for the comic."

— The American Scholar

"In contrast to the pessimist’s cantankerous, nihilistic reputation, Woods presents Schopenhauer in a new light, exploring his compassion, clairvoyance, and surprising sensitivity. Adequately paced
and brimming with insightful, lucid explanations, his biography offers a valuable, entertaining introduction for curious readers. . . Woods’ biography is a delightful read that peels back the layers of the German philosopher’s tangled life, revealing his humanity with each anecdote and intellectual digression."

— Brock Covington

“[Bather Woods’s] prose is clear and compelling.”

— The Spectator

“Despite his low opinion of life, the nineteenth-century philosopher had a lot to say about how to get on with it, and endure. ‘Live first, then philosophize,’ Schopenhauer advised. David Bather Woods has taken the philosopher at his word and has penned an accessible, at times engaging, biography that tells how his life spawned a philosophy that found truth in the very worst of things.”

— 4Columns

“[This book] comes at a time when we find ourselves especially receptive to pessimism. Ours is an age in which time no longer feels like an arrow shooting forward, and the buffer between us and the vast, indifferent cosmos feels terrifyingly thin. So you might be forgiven for thinking that the last thing we need is a philosophy that pokes the wound; but that would be to profoundly misunderstand Schopenhauer’s teaching. As Bather Woods demonstrates in his thorough and sensitive book, the philosopher who ‘composed […] in a minor key’ was no sadistic misanthrope. It is precisely because his ideas look squarely and without illusion at suffering that, in the words of Max Horkheimer, they ‘know more than any others of hope’.”

— Engelsberg Ideas

“This book . . . is superb. . . . Bather Woods has an elegance of style and is a good storyteller too. He’s really immersed in the world of Schopenhauer—he’s an academic expert on him— but he’s never boring or pedantic. This is a very readable book that also combines biography and ideas. And it does it very well.”

— Five Books

“An enjoyable-and short-book for the general reader”

— Julian Young, Society

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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