The tumultuous years between 1830 and 1848 saw the rise of liberalism, egalitarianism, nationalism and idealism in Europe.

The dissapointment of  Schopenhauer’s fruitless campaign to propagate his philosophy to students was also augmented by the loss of a lawsuit that had begun several years earlier in August, 1821. In the boarding house in which he was lodging, three ladies had started chatting outside his room. Being easily disturbed by noise and a cantankerous man, Schopenhauer commanded them to leave. When all but one departed, a seamstress, he lost his temper and vigorously drove her down the stairs. In doing so she alledgedly injured her arm. Later in a court-case, that Schopenhauer was unable to attend, the judge ruled in favour of the seamstress who claimed her injury prevented her from ever working again. To Schopenhauer’s disgust he was ordered to pay the women a sum of money until the day she died.

Leaving Berlin in 1831, in light of a cholera epidemic that was entering Germany from Russia and took Hegel as one of its victims, Schopenhauer moved south, first briefly to Frankfurt-am-Main, and then to Mannheim. Shortly thereafter, he settled permanently in Frankfurt, where he remained for the next twenty-seven years, residing in an apartment along the river Main's waterfront.  It was at this time Schopenhauer found himself at the beggining of what would seem, a mid-life crisis. What seemed the better part of his life was over and his work had not been recognised. He also found it increasingly harder to write for himself and so turned to translation. He made a proposal to the publisher of The Review to transcribe Kant in English. He believed that Britian was caught in a ‘philosophical darkness’ due to the greatness of Kant having not yet been acknowledged. Unfortunately, Schopenhauer was denied the task, the publisher already having himself in mind for the task. As he himself wrote; ‘A century may pass ere there shall again meet in the same head so much Kantian philosophy with so much English as happen to dwell in mine.’

During this later phase of his life, Schopenhauer wrote a short work in 1836, Über den Willen in der Natur (On the Will in Nature), that aimed to confirm and reiterate his metaphysical views in light of scientific evidence. He also completed an essay of which he was immensely proud, On the Freedom of Human Will (Über die Freiheit des menschlichen Willens) in 1839, which was awarded first prize from the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters in Drontheim. Unfortunately, when a year later he entered the competion with a second essay, On the Foundations of Morality (Über die Grundlage der Moral), it was not honored with an award by The Royal Danish Society of the Sciences in Copenhagen, even though it was the sole entry. Schopenhauer also completed an accompanying volume to The World as Will and Representation, which was published in 1844 along with the first volume in a combined second edition.

Schopenhauer's philosophy has been widely influential, partly because his outlook acknowledges traditional moral values without the need to postulate the existence of God. In addition, his view allowed for the possibility of absolute knowledge by means of mystical experience. Schopenhauer also implicitly challenges the hegemony of science and other literalistic modes of expression, substituting in their place, more musical and literary styles of understanding. His recognition, at least with respect to a perspective that we typically cannot avoid, that the universe appears to be a fundamentally irrational place, was also appealing to 19th century thinkers who understood instinctual forces as irrational.

At the time of Schopenhauer’s genious, German writers wrote mainly for each other, for university professors, progressive bureaucrats and for the small group of slightly enlightened middle class and the aristocrary. Their idea’s usually found little public support and even less public effect. Yet, in 1848 when the German rebellion came to a head, Schopenhauer’s writing became the most extreme expression to date of the culture of political despair. His idealistic, although pessimistic, philosophy accepted the reality of revolution more readily than other movements in Germany, such as classicism and romanticism. This is not to say that Schopenhauer supported the revolution, the revolutionaries were spurred on by the optimismn of Hegel and when they failed, it gave rise to the fame of his own works.

Arthur Schopenhauer’s surely demeanor and arrogant ways did nothing for his popularity at the time yet eventually led him to become one of the greatest writers of the 19th Century. His life, although not the epic tale told to children, is a fine illustration of a man who had little respect for the authority of the academic world and an extraordinary strong will. ‘For, with me, the will is not, as hitherto been assumed, an accident of cognition and therefore of life; but life itself is manifestation of will… With me it is the will-without-knowledge that is the foundation of the reality of things.’

Reference:

Secondary Materials

• Bridgewater, P., Arthur Schopenhauer’s English Schooling. (London, 1988)
• Solomon, R. C (ed.), Routledge History of Philosophy: Volume VI The Age of German Idealism. (London, 1998)
• Enoch, S.S., Socrates to Sartre: A History of Philosophy. (Sydney, 1999)
• Bryan Magee., The Philosophy of Schopenhauer. (Melbourne, 1983)
• Patrick Gardiner., Schopenhauer. (Victoria, 1963)
• Simms, B., The Struggle for Mastery in Germany, 1779 – 1850. (London, 1998)
• Anchor, R., Germany Confronts Modernization: German Culture and Society 1790 – 1890. (Toronto, 1972)
• Christopher Janaway., Schopenhauer. (Oxford, 1994)
• Fredrick Copleston., Schopenhauer: Philosopher of Pessimism. (Britain, 1946)