Arthur Schopenhauer

22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) was a German philosopher best known for his work 'The World as Will and Representation', which characterizes reality as the product of a blind, insatiable metaphysical will. His pessimistic philosophy, drawing on Kant and Indian thought, influenced figures ranging from Nietzsche and Wagner to Freud and Tolstoy. He spent his later decades in Frankfurt, gaining fame only near the end of his life.

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Well-documented people whose lives overlapped with Arthur Schopenhauer.

Life events

Born in Danzig (Gdańsk)
22 February 1788

Born into a wealthy merchant family in the Hanseatic city of Danzig.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
Birth ✓
Family moved to Hamburg
1793

The family relocated to Hamburg in 1793 after Danzig was annexed by Prussia.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
Relocation ✓
Death of his father freed him from a merchant career
20 April 1805

His father Heinrich Floris Schopenhauer died in 1805, probably by suicide; Arthur eventually abandoned commerce for scholarship.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
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Studied medicine and then philosophy at Göttingen and Berlin
1809 – 1813

Enrolled at the University of Göttingen in 1809, later moving to Berlin, where he attended lectures by Fichte and Schleiermacher.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
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Earned his doctorate with 'On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason'
1813

Received his doctorate in absentia from the University of Jena for his dissertation of 1813.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
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Published 'The World as Will and Representation'
December 1818

His philosophical masterpiece appeared in December 1818 (dated 1819) but attracted little attention for decades.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
Achievement ✓
Lectured at the University of Berlin in rivalry with Hegel
1820

Deliberately scheduled his lectures at the same hour as Hegel's; almost no students attended, and his academic career failed.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
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Settled permanently in Frankfurt am Main
1833

Moved to Frankfurt in 1833, where he lived quietly with a succession of pet poodles for the rest of his life.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
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Published 'Parerga and Paralipomena', bringing late fame
1851

This collection of essays and aphorisms of 1851 finally won him a wide readership across Europe.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
Achievement ✓
Died in Frankfurt am Main
21 September 1860

Died at age 72 at his home on the Schöne Aussicht in Frankfurt.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
Death ✓