Lyashko A. K., Cand. Sci. (Phil.), Assoc. Prof. Usachyov V. A.

Donetsk national university of economy and trade of a name of Mikhail Tugan-Baranovsky , Ukraine

Arthur Schopenhauer's philosophical ideas

Arthur Schopenhauer (22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher best known for his book "The World as Will and Representation", in which he claimed that our world is driven by a continually dissatisfied will, continually seeking satisfaction.

Arthur Schopenhauer was born in the city of Danzig (Gdańsk nowadays), on Heiligegeistgasse (known in the present day as Św. Ducha 47), the son of Johanna Schopenhauer (née Trosiener) and Heinrich Floris Schopenhauer, both descendants of wealthy German Patrician families. When the Kingdom of Prussia annexed the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth city of Danzig in 1793, Schopenhauer's family moved to Hamburg. In 1805, Schopenhauer's father may have committed suicide. Shortly thereafter, Schopenhauer's mother Johanna moved to Weimar, then the centre of German literature, to pursue her writing career. After one year, Schopenhauer left the family business in Hamburg to join her. As early as 1799, he started playing the flute.

He became a student at the University of Göttingen in 1809. There he studied metaphysics and psychology under Gottlob Ernst Schulze, the author of Aenesidemus, who advised him to concentrate on Plato and Immanuel Kant. In Berlin, from 1811 to 1812, he had attended lectures by the prominent post-Kantian philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte and the theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher.

In 1814, Schopenhauer began his seminal work The World as Will and Representation (Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung). He finished it in 1818 and published it the following year. In Dresden in 1819, Schopenhauer fathered, with a servant, an illegitimate daughter who was born and died the same year. In 1820, Schopenhauer became a lecturer at the University of Berlin. He scheduled his lectures to coincide with those of the famous philosopher G. W. F. Hegel, whom Schopenhauer described as a "clumsy charlatan". However, only five students turned up to Schopenhauer's lectures, and he dropped out of academia. A late essay, On University Philosophy, expressed his resentment towards the work conducted in academies.

Schopenhauer had a robust constitution, but in 1860 his health began to deteriorate. He died of heart failure on 21 September 1860, while sitting on his couch with his cat at home. He was 72.

Its gloomy, sullen and irritable disposition that was undoubtedly reflected in the general mood of its philosophy was feature of personality A.Schopenhauer. It admittedly will bear the stamp of deep pessimism. But at all this it was very gifted person with versatile erudition, big literary skill; he knew many classic and modern languages and was undoubtedly one of the most educated people of the time.

Initial ideas of the doctrine of A.Schopenhauer are fixed by the name of his ledger: «World as will and representation». Schopenhauer writes that the world is representation that is truth which is valid for each live and learning being. Only the person can erect it to reflective and abstract consciousness and if it really it does, it engenders a philosophical view of things. For it becomes then clear and doubtless that he doesn't know neither the sun, nor lands, and knows only an eye which sees the sun, a hand which perceives the earth. The world around exists only as representation, i.e. is exclusive in relation to representing which the person is. Also, the philosopher argues that novelty this truth doesn't differ. Really, the world image as given through our consciousness has deep roots in the previous philosophy of new time which anyway is keeping within the course of transcendentalism.

More difficult business with world interpretation as will is. Here polemic against classical approach enters a decisive stage. Classical philosophy in any way it was impossible to reproach with underestimation of a problem of will. Schopenhauer proved that philosophy history in general - the history of the new European philosophy in particular and in particular - nevertheless could not do justice to category of will.

Making a start from Kant idea about the practical reason the free, "autonomous" will was which major component, Schopenhauer began to defend a superiority of will over reason, ie started moving rather in the anti-Kant, anti-classical direction.

The scientist criticized classical rationalism for transformation of will contradicting real life into a simple appendage of reason. In practice, A.Schopenhauer, will, i.e. motives, desires argued, motives to action and processes of its commission, aspirations of the person are specific, rather independent and substantially define an orientation, results of reasonable knowledge. Emphasizing specifics, the importance of will and emotions of the person, Schopenhauer, however, used the researches in order that it is essential to correct ideas of classical philosophy concerning reason. Classical philosophy he declared reason only fiction. To the place of reason the will also has to be put. But that the will could "measure swords forces" with "all-powerful" reason what it was made by classic philosophers, Schopenhauer, presented will independent of reason control, turned it into "absolutely free hoteniye" which allegedly has no neither the reasons, nor the bases. Schopenhauer declared that the human will is related to "inscrutable forces" the Universe, certain it to "strong-willed rushes".

So, ideas about specifics connected with will and with emotions of the parties of human spirit, their role in life of people were Schopenhauer's main ideas in philosophy. The will at Schopenhauer is a primary source and the absolute, and the world in its image is will and representation.