The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 2 Paperback – June 1, 1966

Lesson is easy to understand

After completing the first volume of The World as Will and RepresentationI decided to move on to volume 2. This is a great edition and a decent translation, but I prefer the more modern translation by Judith Norman Alistair Welchman and Christopher Janeway that I have in the paperback edition.As for this edition on Kindle, it is excellent. I haven't seen any formatting errors or mistakes. for the price, this is a five-star purchase all the way.

This arrived today and I'm happy to say that the print and paper quality are both excellent. I'm still cracking into this edition, but so far I have nothing but nice things to say about it.As far as the actual work is concerned, this is Schopenhauer's magnum opus and should be read by absolutely everyone who claims to enjoy Western philosophy.

Took me awhile to understand the central claim(s), but once I did I was very impressed. Schopenhauer was, rightly so, an influence on most of the great thinkers in the modern era and this text effectively illustrates why.

This is a book you just read and try to understand. Yes it is dated now but it's also the building block for many of the ideas that follow and are taken for granted today. The Kindle copy is clean and easy to read which is not always the case.

My favorite pessimist. Schopenhauer is matter of fact when it comes to being human.

read the complete works of Schopenhauer, never again will I participate in the vile obscenity of capitalism. Good bye forever, Amazon.

I read all the four review of Vol II of 'The World as Will and Represenation', and agree with about everything that has been said. Why so few reviews? Well most of my 'engineer' friends have never heard of Schopenhauer; (they may know Frederick Nietzsche)Here I will attempt to provide a longer, hopefully more informative review. Ok, first, I foundVolume I to be more readable (and shorter at 534 pages, as opposed to 776 pages for Volume II. The second volume was harder to go through. Volume II is an elobaratio on the ideas of the first volume as pointed out nicely by another review.How much harder? I kept this thick book by my reading stand in the john (with small J, not the Babtist), and I was able to get through in about forty attempts. That is not to diminish the value of this book, or the value of reading someone articulate and intelligent' as this German guy.Consider, however, the following last half of a paragraph on page 553 (verbatim):--------------------All philosophers have erred in placing the metaphysical, the indestructible, the eternal in a person in the intellect; it lies exclusively in the 'will,' whichis entirely distinct fro the intellect and is alone original. The 'intellect', as was most thoroughly demonstrated in the second book, is a secondary phenomenon and conditioned by the brain, thus beginning and ending with it. The will alone is the the conditioning element, the core of entire phenomenon, therefore free of the forms pertaining to it, to which time belongs, hence also indestructible. With death, accordingly, consciousness is certainly lost, but not what produced and maintained consciousness; life is extinguished, but not the principal of life that manifested itself in it. For this reason, then, a sure feeling says to everyone that there is something absolutely imperishable and indestructible in him. Even the freshness an vividness of recollections from the most distant past, from early childhood, testify to the fact that something in us does not move along with time, does not age, but rather persists unchanged. But what this imperishable element was, we could not distinctly grasp. Is it not consciousness, any more than the body on which consciousness obviously depends. Rather it is that on which the body, together with consciousness, depends. But this is precisely what, by entering into consciousness, displays itself as 'will'. We can of course not get beyond this most immediate phenomenon of it, because we cannot get beyond consciousness; thus the question of what it may be so far as it does 'not' enter into consciousness. i.e., what it is absolutely in itself, remains unanswerable.-------------------For those readers who did read both volumes, doesn’t this pretty much sums up his ‘main’ ideas? As is correctly mentioned by the previous reviewers, there are, of course, many other ‘fruitful’ ideas in Volume 2. For those readers who, like me (or should it be ‘like I’), reads the reviews first, the typing of only half of a paragraph above was time consuming and should be considered ia favor.If the half paragraph pretty much sums the main thesis or ideas up, you might ask: Why bother reading over thousand pages? Surely, there is verbosity, and quite a bit of repetition and redundancy (did you spot the redundancy here?). Nevertheless, first there are worse readings than over-a-1000-pages or Arhur; like say, this girl who wrote a novel longer than 800 pages and won some prize (booker? Don’t remember). And also, of course, there are ‘other ideas’ that I would like to point out as valuable. Of course, some other hangup that is part of Arthur S. like hating the card players elsewhere in his publications, etc. Here is a small example. Right after the half paragraph mentioned, he goes onto the next paraghraph as follows:--------------In the phenomenon and by means of its forms, time and space, as 'principium individuationis' (explained the footnote as ‘we sense and experience that we are eternal), things are displayed as if the human individual perishes, whereas the human race remain and lives forever. But… (it goes on)--------------Really? Is there any guarantee that the human race will not go extinct? As one of the Beatles is said to have pointed out once, ‘all things pass’ (referring to their fame and glory at one period). In this same vein, one might point out to the quip by Woody Allen to the effect that immortality is best when you retain your memory, and yes also your consciousness. Besides, this reviewer would rather have the claim by one physicist Tegmark as regards doppelgangers of us in multiple universes who nevertheless achieved and experienced more…Now what are these wonderful other ideas that the reader who bothers will get out of these two voluminous volumes? (primarily from the second volume).With more respectful attitude towards animal life and times, in places, he gropes with ‘evolution’ as we, by now, having the luxury of Darwin’s work, understand (excluding, of course, the deniers of evolution in favor of some religious dogma). We must note here that A. S. died in the year Darwin published his work and did not have the benefit of its content (probably).In some other places, he comes very very close to Einstein’s space-time ideas, alluding to, for instance, regarding everything as already having happened and cast in hard stone (so much for free will, and free wheeling free willers, ehh!).I sympathize with his mention of the childhood in the above paraphrased half paragraph. Not only did I feel absolutely ‘eternal’ in my childhood and early youth, but I also had the luxury of literal religious beliefs where I worried about the prophet saying: I will not rise by 1300 but will not be delayed to 1500, referring to Arabic calendar and apocalypse. As a six-year-old, realizing that we were living in between those two dates, those two dates; I was pretty worried! Unfortunatey, I lost that kind of faith around the age of nineteen. I could never understand why some people keep the faith until the age of 49, 59, or 99.. Perhaps this is due to greed, not being satisfied with this one life, and wanting to enjoy life for another eternity.Finally, we must note that his remarks are well intentioned, like a ‘consolation’ prize for those of us who dread life; but also, more importantly, for those of us, lke Mark Twain, who do not fear death as being something like what it was like before we were born. Once a Hindu friend, out of respect bless him, aske me something like: But hey come on, where will will go after we die (answer me, answer me, he insisted). When murmured: You will ‘probably’ go to where you were before 1945 (referring to a year before his birth); he refused to talk to me for three or four days (he was very much offended).I leave the reader with this final sentiment, still relevant to A.S.’s work who, after all, published another work with ‘consolation’ in its title. Okay, Arthur, let’s hope not just your books, but your very essence or will as you will still remains and forever.