Schopenhauer Arthur - Two Fundamental Problems of ethics

OXFORD WORLDS CLASSICS

ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER was born on 22 February 1788 in the Hanseatic free city of Danzig (now Gdansk, Poland). His father was a successful merchant and one of Danzigs leading citizens. The family moved to Hamburg to escape the citys annexation by Prussia in 1793. Schopenhauer spent two years in France from 1797 to 1799, and after four years in private school and a sixteen-month tour of Europe was preparing to begin an apprenticeship with a Hamburg merchant when, in April 1805, his father suddenly died. After two years Schopenhauer abandoned his apprenticeship and enrolled at the University of Gttingen where he studied Plato and Kant. He began reading Eastern philosophy and became the first Western philosopher to integrate Eastern thinking in his work. His masterpiece, The World as Will and Representation, appeared in December 1818. He joined the University of Berlin as lecturer in the philosophy faculty, where he clashed with Hegel, a fellow member of the faculty. He published On the Will in Nature in 1836, and The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics in 1840, with a vitriolic preface criticizing the Royal Danish Society who had denied a prize to his second essay. In 1844 Schopenhauer published a second edition of The World as Will and Representation, adding a second volume of fifty essays. A two-volume collection of essays entitled Parerga and Paralipomena appeared in 1851. Schopenhauer died in Frankfurt in September 1860, after a short illness.

DAVID E. CARTWRIGHT is Professor of Philosophy at the University of WisconsinWhitewater. He has written widely on Schopenhauer and is the author of the Historical Dictionary of Schopenhauers Philosophy (2005) and Schopenhauer: A Biography (2010).

EDWARD E. ERDMANN is Assistant Professor in Languages and Literatures, University of WisconsinWhitewater.

CHRISTOPHER JANAWAY is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southampton. He is the author of Self and World in Schopenhauers Philosophy (1989), Schopenhauer: A Very Short Introduction (2002), and editor of The Cambridge Companion to Schopenhauer (1999).

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OXFORD WORLDS CLASSICS

ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER

Translated with Notes by

DAVID E. CARTWRIGHT and
EDWARD E. ERDMANN

With an Introduction by

CHRISTOPHER JANAWAY

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Translation, Note on the Text and Translation, Select Bibliography, Chronology,
Explanatory Notes David E. Cartwright and Edward E. Erdmann 2010

Introduction Christopher Janaway 2010

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WE have been extraordinarily fortunate to have received funds from a National Endowment for the Humanities Collaborative Research Grant, which support made possible the time to complete this and other translations of Schopenhauers work. Of course, any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of the National Endowment for the Humanities. To be sure, the guidance and efforts of Denise Ehlen, Director of Research and Sponsored Programs, and her staff at the University of WisconsinWhitewater made it possible for us to secure this grant. Yet Mary Pinkerton and the College of Letters and Sciences Professional Development Committee also helped with essential support. But in uncountable ways over the years our colleagues in the Departments of Philosophy and Religious Studies and Languages and Literatures have encouraged and supported all our efforts and tolerated our punsno matter how low, or erudite, or just downright obscure.

As always, our colleagues and friends have been helpful. We are eager to credit the capable help of reference librarians Barbara Bren and Martha Stephenson, who met our questions about Schopenhauers obscure allusions to scholarly and general culture with good humour and consistent success. Among those in the Department of Languages and Literatures, Joseph Hogan has always risen to the challenge of our untimely calls about Schopenhauers allusions; Jian Guo has instructively helped with Chinese thought and language; Peter Hoff patiently helped with Schopenhauers Spanish, and Matthew Lange kept us from blundering over