Arthur Schopenhauer’s The World as Will and Representation (1818/1844) presents one of the most systematic and darkly beautiful philosophies ever constructed. Building on Kant while drawing from Eastern thought, Schopenhauer argues that beneath the world of appearances lies a blind, striving force—the Will—whose nature is suffering.
The World as Representation
Schopenhauer begins where Kant left off: the world we experience is appearance, not thing-in-itself.
The Veil of Maya
“The world is my representation.”
This opening line announces Schopenhauer’s starting point. We never experience reality directly but only as it appears to a knowing subject. Space, time, and causality are forms our minds impose on experience—what Schopenhauer, following Indian philosophy, calls the “veil of Maya.”
The Principle of Sufficient Reason
All representations are governed by the principle of sufficient reason: nothing exists without a ground or cause. This principle takes four forms corresponding to different types of objects: physical causation, logical ground, mathematical relation, and motivation for action.
Within the world of representation, everything is explicable. Science traces causes; logic traces grounds; mathematics traces spatial and temporal relations. But the principle of sufficient reason cannot explain why there is a world at all.
The World as Will
Here Schopenhauer makes his crucial move. We have access to one thing not merely as representation but as it is in itself: our own body.
The Body as Key
When I raise my arm, I don’t merely observe an event in the world of representation. I experience it from within as an act of will. My body is will made visible—will objectified.
This insight provides the key to metaphysics. If my body is the objectification of will, might not all bodies be? Might not the entire world of representation be the appearance of will?
Will as Thing-in-Itself
Schopenhauer identifies will with Kant’s thing-in-itself. The Will (capitalized to indicate its metaphysical status) is the inner nature of all reality—not just human willing but a universal force of striving, desiring, driving.
The Will is:
- One: Beyond space and time, which are mere forms of representation, the Will is not individuated
- Blind: It has no intelligence, no goal, no purpose—it simply strives
- Endless: It never reaches satisfaction but eternally wills more willing
- The source of suffering: As endless striving, it is perpetual dissatisfaction
Grades of Objectification
The Will objectifies itself in different grades, from basic natural forces through plants and animals to human beings. Higher grades show more complex willing—more intricate patterns of striving, more sophisticated suffering.
Plato’s Ideas represent the eternal patterns of these grades—the timeless forms that individual things instantiate. The Idea of the lion is not any particular lion but the eternal pattern of lion-ness that the Will expresses.
The Nature of Suffering
Schopenhauer’s pessimism follows directly from his metaphysics. If reality is endless, purposeless striving, then existence itself is suffering.
The Pendulum of Pain and Boredom
Life swings between pain and boredom. When we want something, we suffer from desire. When we get it, we quickly grow bored and desire something else. There is no stable satisfaction—only oscillation between forms of dissatisfaction.
“Life is a business that does not cover its costs.”
The Will to Live
The will to live—the fundamental drive to exist and reproduce—perpetuates suffering. Every creature strives to maintain itself and produce offspring who will strive in turn. Life is a process of devouring and being devoured, of endless competition and destruction.
Optimism as Wickedness
Schopenhauer reserves special contempt for optimism. To claim this is the best possible world—as Leibniz did—is not merely foolish but wicked. It mocks the suffering of countless beings. Look honestly at existence: war, disease, cruelty, futility. How can anyone call this good?
Paths to Liberation
Despite his pessimism, Schopenhauer offers paths beyond suffering—temporary and permanent ways to escape the Will’s tyranny.
Aesthetic Contemplation
Art provides temporary liberation. When we contemplate a beautiful object aesthetically, we become “pure knowing subjects”—we escape our individual willing and merge with the object’s Idea.
This explains why art brings peace. In aesthetic experience, we stop wanting and simply perceive. The beautiful object becomes the whole world; our individual ego vanishes. For a moment, we are free from the Will.
Different arts address different Ideas:
- Architecture: The conflict of gravity and rigidity
- Painting and sculpture: Human form and character
- Poetry: Human action and experience
- Music: The Will itself
Music’s Special Status
Music is unique. It doesn’t represent Ideas but directly expresses the Will. This is why music affects us so powerfully and immediately—it speaks the language of our innermost nature.
Music’s bass represents inorganic nature; its harmony represents the grades of the Will’s objectification; its melody represents conscious human life—the wandering of desire, its temporary satisfactions, its endless resumption.
Compassion
Ethics for Schopenhauer rests on compassion (Mitleid—literally “suffering with”). When I truly feel another’s pain as my own, I pierce the veil of Maya and recognize our metaphysical unity.
All genuine morality is negative: it consists in not harming others, recognizing that their suffering is ultimately my own. The boundaries between individuals are illusory; at the deepest level, we are one Will.
Ascetic Denial
The ultimate liberation is the denial of the will to live. The saint or ascetic, through profound understanding of life’s nature, ceases to affirm existence. They don’t merely modify their willing but abandon it entirely.
This is not suicide—which affirms the will by willing death. It is rather a turning away from willing altogether, a quieting of the will to the point of extinction. Schopenhauer finds examples in Christian saints and Hindu-Buddhist renunciants.
Influence and Legacy
The World as Will and Representation influenced:
Philosophy
- Nietzsche began as Schopenhauer’s disciple before reversing the pessimism
- Wittgenstein admired the ethical vision
- Contemporary pessimists like Thomas Ligotti continue the tradition
Psychology
- Freud’s id resembles the Schopenhauerian Will
- The emphasis on unconscious drives anticipates depth psychology
- The analysis of boredom and dissatisfaction remains psychologically acute
Literature and Arts
- Wagner attempted to realize Schopenhauerian aesthetics in opera
- Thomas Mann, Tolstoy, and Proust engaged deeply with Schopenhauer
- Beckett’s bleak vision echoes Schopenhauerian themes
Eastern-Western Dialogue
Schopenhauer was the first major Western philosopher to engage seriously with Hindu and Buddhist thought. His philosophy helped introduce Eastern ideas to the West and showed their compatibility with Kantian idealism.
Reading Schopenhauer
The work is long but magnificent:
- Start with Schopenhauer’s own introduction and the appendix on Kant
- Book One establishes the epistemological framework
- Book Two presents the metaphysics of Will
- Book Three on aesthetics is especially rewarding
- Book Four on ethics and salvation completes the system
- The second volume (1844) adds essays elaborating and defending the system
Conclusion
Schopenhauer’s philosophy is dark but not despairing. He offers genuine paths beyond suffering—art, compassion, and renunciation. And his prose is among the finest in philosophy: clear, vivid, often wickedly funny.
Whether or not we accept his pessimism, Schopenhauer forces us to confront uncomfortable truths. Life involves suffering; desire is endless; death awaits us all. What wisdom can we find in facing these facts honestly?
The answer Schopenhauer offers—compassion for all suffering beings and detachment from the will to live—has resonated for two centuries and continues to speak to those who find conventional optimism unconvincing.