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Schopenhauer's Pessimism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2010

Extract

This series of lectures was originally scheduled to include a talk on Schopenhauer by Patrick Gardiner. Sadly, Patrick died during the summer, and I was asked to stand in. Patrick must, I am sure, have been glad to see this series of talks on German Philosophy being put on by the Royal Institute, and he, probably more than anyone on the list, deserves to have been a part of it. Patrick Gardiner taught and wrote with unfailing integrity and quiet refinement in the Oxford of the 1950s, '60s, '70s and '80s, when the changing fashions in philosophy, and Oxford philosophy in particular, were quite remote from his own central interests. He went his own way, radically but quite undemonstratively. His book on Schopenhauer, originally published in 1963, was a beacon in the night as far as English-language publications on that philosopher are concerned. It is still a leader in the field, and I am pleased to say it has been re-issued just this year after being out of print for too long. Patrick worked in aesthetics, on Kant, and on the German Idealists, showing an expertise and a fondness for Fichte which now seem well ahead of their time. He also contributed well known books on Kierkegaard and on the philosophy of history. I am honoured to be invited as Patrick's replacement. He was a true pioneer, whom all of us working in these several fields that have now grown more fashionable and more populated should pause to salute.

Type
Papers
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 1999

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References

1 I use the following abbreviations for works by Schopenhauer: Wl, W2: The World as Will and Representation, vols. 1 and 2; PI, P2: Parerga and Paralipomena, vols. 1 and 2. Translations are as follows, with minor modifications:The World as Will and Representation, trans. Payne, E. F. J. (New York: Dover, 1969)Google Scholar; Parerga and Paralipomena, trans. Payne, E. F. J. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974Google Scholar). An important divergence from Payne's translation should be noted: for Wille zum Leben I use ‘will to life’ where Payne has ‘will-to-live’. I have substituted my preferred version even in citations which are otherwise from Payne's translation.

2 Simmel, GeorgSchopenhauer and Nietzsche, trans. Loiskandl, Helmut, Weinstein, Deena, and Weinstein, Michael (Amherst, MA, 1986), p. 30Google Scholar.

3 Cartwright, David E., ‘Schopenhauer on Suffering, Death, Guilt and the Consolation of Metaphysics’ in Schopenhauer: New Essays in Honor of his 200th Birthday, ed.von der Luft, E. (Lewiston, NY, 1988), pp.5166Google Scholar.

4 ‘A thousand pleasures do not compensate for one pain’, Petrarch.