The World as Will And Idea, Volume 1
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Narrated by:
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Leighton Pugh
About this listen
Schopenhauer was just 30 when his magnum opus, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, a work of considerable learning and innovation of thought, first appeared in 1818.
Much to his chagrin and puzzlement (so convinced was he of its merits), it didn't have an immediate effect on European philosophy, views and culture. It was only decades later that it was recognised as one of the major intellectual landmarks of the 19th century. It proved to be a work that was not only to make an indelible impression on leading figures that followed him closely - Friedrich Nietzsche, Thomas Mann, Sigmund Freud - but also others well into the 20th century, including Carl Jung, Herman Hesse, Jorge Luis Borges, Karl Popper and Samuel Beckett.
What was the Schopenhauerian proposition that made The World as Will and Idea so important? Absorbing views from Kant and Buddhist ideas filtering almost for the first time through Europe, Schopenhauer, putting the concept of God aside, proposed that man is driven by 'a will to life'; desire, craving, wanting - these are the elements that propel him fiercely along life's path, even though it causes him suffering. It is on that basis that Schopenhauer opens the work with the statement 'the world is my idea'. Man perceives the sun and the earth but can relate to them only through his own consciousness. He makes his own world.
Though stamped as a pessimist, and certainly combative as a personality and a writer, Schopenhauer’s work - and The World as Will and Idea - doesn't read darkly. Instead it is rich and challenging, as he surveys broadly philosophy, history, art, literature, music and culture generally. His opinions are strong and testing, his breadth of knowledge invigorating.
The translation recorded here is the classic rendering by R. B. Haldane. However, the numerous literary and philosophical references - Greek, Latin, German, French, Persian, etc - in both the main text and the relevant footnotes are given here in English. Thus Schopenhauer's major work can be absorbed and enjoyed directly - and especially in this intelligent, clear and committed narration by the actor and German scholar Leighton Pugh. Schopenhauer has had a long and continuing influence extending well into the 21st century, and The World as Will and Idea is one of the great stepping-stones of European thought which needs to be listened to. He added a subsequent volume later in his life, but volume 1 is the major work.
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Big bites of ancient (now age?) wisdom to chew on
- By Diana on 07-24-14
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The Experience of God
- Being, Consciousness, Bliss
- By: David Bentley Hart
- Narrated by: Tom Pile
- Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Despite the recent ferocious public debate about belief, the concept most central to the discussion "God" frequently remains vaguely and obscurely described. Are those engaged in these arguments even talking about the same thing? In a wide-ranging response to this confusion, esteemed scholar David Bentley Hart pursues a clarification of how the word "God” functions in the world’s great theistic faiths.
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The clearest thinking I have heard in ages.
- By Carlos Miranda on 06-17-15
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The Law and the Word
- By: Thomas Troward
- Narrated by: Tony Cousins
- Length: 5 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Written in 1917, The Law and the Word is a hard-to-find work by Judge Thomas Troward, a pioneer in mental science. Troward's writings and lectures greatly influenced Ernest Holmes, the founder of Religious Science and writer of The Science of Mind.
This book was one of the first to combine thought energy, scientific reasoning and testing, and creative power, and to see the interconnection of the three.
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Fingernails on a blackboard....
- By Tammy on 07-27-13
By: Thomas Troward
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Kant's Foundations of Ethics
- By: Immanuel Kant
- Narrated by: Ray Childs
- Length: 5 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Kant published this work in 1795, during the aftermath of the American Revolution and the French Revolution. The high hopes of the European Enlightenment had been dampened by the Reign of Terror in which tens of thousands of people died, and the perpetual cycle of war and temporary armistice seemed to be inescapable. Kant's essay is best known as an early articulation of the idea of a league of nations that could bring an end to all hostilities. Today, the United Nations continues to pursue that dream, but lasting peace still seems to be wishful thinking.
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The Best on The Foundation of the Metaphysics of Morals
- By JCW on 07-28-18
By: Immanuel Kant
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The Meaning of Happiness
- The Quest for Freedom of the Spirit in Modern Psychology and the Wisdom of the East
- By: Alan Watts
- Narrated by: Kern Schmidt
- Length: 7 hrs and 1 min
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Deep down, most people think that happiness comes from having or doing something. Here, in Alan Watts’s groundbreaking third book (originally published in 1940), he offers a more challenging thesis: authentic happiness comes from embracing life as a whole in all its contradictions and paradoxes, an attitude that Watts calls the “way of acceptance.” Drawing on Eastern philosophy, Western mysticism, and analytic psychology, Watts demonstrates that happiness comes from accepting both the outer world around us and the inner world inside us,
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Good Concepts Hard to Follow Along
- By Ryan on 04-13-20
By: Alan Watts
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The Varieties of Religious Experience
- By: William James
- Narrated by: Jim Killavey
- Length: 18 hrs and 9 mins
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The Varieties of Religious Experience is considered to be the classic work in the field. To quote Wikipedia, "James was most interested in understanding personal religious experience. The importance of James to the psychology of religion - and to psychology more generally - is difficult to overstate. He discussed many essential issues that remain of vital concern today. What makes James writing so special is that he could take a very complex subject and, without watering it down, make it understandable to 'the rest of us.'"
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Profound stuff
- By Empowerment on 09-05-09
By: William James
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Deep Thought
- 42 Fantastic Quotes That Define Philosphy
- By: Gary Cox
- Narrated by: Richard Mitchley
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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As Douglas Adams points out, if there is no final answer to the question "what is the meaning of life?" 42 is as good or bad an answer as any other. Indeed, 42 quotes might be even better! Gary Cox guides us through 42 of the most misunderstood, misquoted, provocative, and significant quotes in the history of philosophy, providing witty and compelling commentary along the way.
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Best philosophy intro ever
- By Fabian on 04-14-18
By: Gary Cox
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Modern Man in Search of a Soul
- By: Carl Jung
- Narrated by: Christopher Prince
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Modern Man in Search of a Soul is the classic introduction to the thought of Carl Jung. Along with Freud and Adler, Jung was one of the chief founders of modern psychiatry. In this book, Jung examines some of the most contested and crucial areas in the field of analytical psychology: dream analysis, the primitive unconscious, and the relationship between psychology and religion.
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Could have almost been an automated text reader
- By Chicken Love on 04-24-15
By: Carl Jung
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Plato's Phaedo
- By: Plato
- Narrated by: Ray Childs
- Length: 2 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Socrates is in prison, sentenced to die when the sun sets. In this final conversation, he asks what will become of him once he drinks the poison prescribed for his execution. Socrates and his friends examine several arguments designed to prove that the soul is immortal. This quest leads him to the broader topic of the nature of mind and its connection not only to human existence but also to the cosmos itself. What could be a better way to pass the time between now and the sunset?
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The voice acting is horrible
- By Will Livingston on 03-25-21
By: Plato
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'The two foes of human happiness are pain and boredom.' Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) was one of the most influential philosophers of the 19th century because his humanistic, atheistic, if pessimistic views chimed with a new secularism that was emerging from a Western society dominated by religion. Despite his rather forbidding image (and a few outdated views), he is one of the most approachable German philosophers, and this is certainly evident in these two key works, The Wisdom of Life and Counsels and Maxims.
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depressingly hopeful
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There is a cause, or a reason, behind everything that happens. This is the fundamental view behind the classical proposition the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which, in 1813, Schopenhauer chose as his subject for further examination in his doctoral dissertation On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason....
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I’ve enjoyed this program
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Schopenhauer is considered to be the most accessible of German philosophers. This book gives a succinct explanation of his metaphysical system, concentrating on the original aspects of his thought, which inspired many artists and thinkers including Nietzsche, Wagner, Freud, and Wittgenstein. Schopenhauer's central notion is that of the will-a blind, irrational force that he uses to interpret both the human mind and the whole of nature.
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am OK review
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Philosophical Investigations was published in 1953, two years after the death of its author. In the preface written in Cambridge in 1945 where he was professor of philosophy he states: ‘Four years ago I had occasion to re-read my first book (the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus) and to explain its ideas to someone. It suddenly seemed to me that I should publish those old thoughts and the new ones together: that the latter could be seen in the right light only by contrast with and against the background of my old way of thinking.’
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There is a cause, or a reason, behind everything that happens. This is the fundamental view behind the classical proposition the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which, in 1813, Schopenhauer chose as his subject for further examination in his doctoral dissertation On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason....
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wow.
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Surprised it works as audio
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Another Great Recording by Ukemi
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Husserl WILL Change How You Think About Philosophy
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English only please
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My favorite audible book of the 700 I've rated
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Excellent rendition of an immortal work.
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Published in 1797, the Critique of Pure Reason is considered to be one of the foremost philosophical works ever written. In the Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant explores the foundation of human knowledge and its limits, as well as man's ability to engage in metaphysics.
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Excellent book, Wrong medium
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Philosophy of Mind is the third and final part of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences, the collection in which Hegel (1730-1831) offered an overview of his life’s work. Though originally written in 1817, he revised it in 1830, thus providing a finished form the year before his death. Hegel used the three parts of the Encyclopaedia - Science of Logic, Philosophy of Nature and Philosophy of Mind - as a basis for lectures at the Universities of Heidelberg which he joined in 1816, and in Berlin in 1820.
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Perfectly narrated version of the final third of Hegel’s Encyclopedia.
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Hegel is regarded as one of the most influential figures on modern political and intellectual development. After painting Hegel's life and times in broad strokes, Peter Singer goes on to tackle some of the more challenging aspects of Hegel's philosophy. Offering a broad discussion of Hegel's ideas and an account of his major works, Singer explains what have often been considered abstruse and obscure ideas in a clear and inviting manner.
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Great introduction
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The Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (Logical Philosophical Treatise or Treatise on Logic and Philosophy) is the only full-length philosophical book by the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein that was published during his lifetime. The goal of the work is to identify the relationship between language and reality and to define the limits of science. He famously summarized the book in the following way: "What can be said at all can be said clearly; and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence."
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This book is pure gold
- By Notes of a dirty old fart on 05-24-20
What listeners say about The World as Will And Idea, Volume 1
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Victor Gichun
- 07-10-20
must read if you interested in philosophy
the most precise and thorough explanation of what is the word we are live , a lot of good references to earlier works of Kant, Plato, Spinoza, Aristotel and other philosophers.
very interesting and monumental work
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1 person found this helpful
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- R Durero
- 04-03-22
Long and difficult, but rewarding
It is certainly a long audiobook, and the only 19 century stile of the author does not help. Even though is hard to follow for the most part, they an important or beautiful insight pops up here and there. The book requires patience, but such patience I found rewarding. Definitely worth a second and thorough listen to discover more.
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- Amazon Customer
- 12-18-20
A true joy to listen to. Excellent reader
I've always liked Schopenhauer. When I first purchased the first Vol. of World as Will and Idea I thought I would not proceed to the other 2 volumes as being what I thought would be at the end "enough already!" However, the content is so engaging and the reader so good I'm going to proceed to listen to the next volume.
Leighton Pugh is such a good reader, it's too bad he isn't the reader for everything on Audible.
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- No to Statism
- 10-14-18
Great Quality Audiobook
Though I freely give this audiobook 5 stars for both overall and performance, I am quite disappointed that Arthur Schopenhauer was devoid of Christianity. In his view, virtually any religion was fine; for all had their own peculiar merits.
Performance wise, Leighton Pugh did an outstanding job reading the text! Additionally, the German translation Ukemi used is excellent.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 06-23-24
Meaning
Good one bro is a thinker, maybe a bit to repetetive but I managed to finish it and it is a blast to experiebce this feeling.
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- eric carter
- 03-18-17
There is no philosophy without Schopenhauer!!!!!
Where does The World as Will And Idea, Volume 1 rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
As a member for more than 10 years , I was always on the look out for it..#1....
What other book might you compare The World as Will And Idea, Volume 1 to and why?
The writings of Kant are in the same vein , but Kant is not as accesssible...
Have you listened to any of Leighton Pugh’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
No.... but he is D-A-R-N goooood...talk about matching a writer and a performer!!!!
If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?
How Numina Becomes Phenomena
Any additional comments?
If you do not present ".....principle of sufficient reason" to go with this performance , the listener may encounter difficulty...AND especially !!!! YOU MUST MUST MUST PRESENT THE OTHER VOLUME(S)....quickly?
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21 people found this helpful
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- Theo
- 11-10-18
very worth while philosophy read
Bravo Leighton Pugh! Considering the subject matter, a reading of sophisticated philosophical subject matter is a challenge that could give life to or depress the ideas of the author. Leighton Pugh does nothing short of a magnificent narration. I wish he could read most of the audio-books I have or plan to listen to.
Schopenhauer was an unexpected author that I did not expect to come across on my journey through philosophy. I am not sure why but I think more philosophy enthusiasts should read Schopenhauer earlier on. Having read Kant's Critique of Pure Reason directly before Schopenhauer, I felt like Schopenhauer brought together and illuminated more practically what I struggled to derive from Kant. The author has a very self-assured and at times self-righteous style - not unlike some of his contemporaries. This aside, he lacks no knowledge, insight or ability to add to a spectacularly complex and sometimes confusing, conflicting and incomplete subject matter.
I really enjoyed Schopenhauer, more than I did Kant, and intend reading Volume 2 as well.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Gary
- 04-04-17
Easy to follow, better than today's fluff
Schopenhauer is wrong when he says this is a difficult book, that it needs to be read twice, or it's necessary to have had read Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason" in order to follow his arguments. The author writes such that if you don't understand what he's saying just wait awhile and he'll explain it to you later on in another section of the Volume. When I read books like this, I long for today's writers to be as entertaining, informative, and as challenging to my current beliefs as this book is.
It's rare to find a primary philosophy book that gives a whole world view that's as accessible as this book. It takes a while to understand what the author is attempting to explain within this book, but when you do you start to realize the pure genius that is being explained by the author. The author is really writing four books and ties them together under his one big thought. He'll independently consider 1) knowledge, 2) being, 3) art and 4) ethics. Essentially all of philosophy. There's a sense that I got when he wrote these four 'books' that make up this Volume that he wrote them independently and ties them together in such a way that if you don't understand a concept in one section it will be restated in the next book in the terms of that book so that you will understand the original section upon reflection.
To really appreciate a great philosopher and their over all philosophy, I find it best to accept their premises and see where that leads. In book one Schopenhauer starts to tell the reader how he sees the world (universe). He'll say that Bishop George Berkeley is one of his primary models. Schopenhauer replaces Berkeley's 'all reality is in the mind of God' with the universe as will (to live). (If you don't remember who Berkeley is, I'll jog your memory. He's the guy who said that "if a tree falls in a forest does it make a sound" and he would respond, 'of course it does because God hears everything". Also, 'to perceive is to be". As a follow-up to this book, I've started listening to his "Three Dialogs" available at audible).
Schopenhauer really didn't seem to like the Enlightenment thinkers except for Kant. He doesn't like the materialist (or positivist) and ultimately makes 'will' the ground of all being and by 'will' explains it in the terms of the Eleatics (his word, think Parmenides) and the Stoics as contrasted with the Epicureans. A stoic will accept the things he can not change and only be concerned with the things within his control. This is how he ends his first book and sets up the other books from what he means by 'will to live'. All things that exist have this will he speaks of.
He does appeal to Kant and the Kant's thing-in-itself, the thing that exist in itself and for itself that which remains after the categories of intuitions of space, time and cause are removed. That which remains is the will (Kant would call it noumena as opposed to the thing as it appears to us, the phenomenon). Within his second book he will tie Plato's Ideal with Kant's noumena as being basically the same thing and both point to the 'will to live'. He'll say that all forces in the world (e.g. Gravity and EM) are the "immediate objectivization of the will". Matter of fact, I'm pretty sure you can take Schopenhauer to be monist in the vain of Parmenides. Parmenides says there is no becoming as such there is only being and that there is no 'not being'. Schopenhauer seems to follow that kind of thought concerning 'Being' and if anything makes the dichotomy between 'being' with 'ought' because his unfolding of the universe as will is that the universe is meant to be one way due to 'fate' that is inherent within the world because of the world's will, and like Karma he tends take the cause and effect out of the world and for Schopenhauer he's going to replace them with will. At the very end of the Volume, he has one add-on to the story where he explicitly speaks of Grace (God's unearned mercy) in Augustinian terms and contrasts that with what he calls the obviously incorrect Pelagius belief in a person's ability to control their own destiny and he'll even give a special shout out to Martin Luther and the role that Grace must play (he even mentions at the end about the distinction between salvation by works verse by faith). I can say this was add-on because they really don't flow with how he dealt with Christianity anywhere else within the Volume.
He will describe life mostly in terms of our will (wishes, desires, wants) never being satisfied, and even when we get what we want that only leads to more wanting and more struggling. The one who cause suffering causes himself to suffer (he'll say). There is a repressed guilt that is within our unconscious that causes us just as much suffering as we created in others (even if Freud says he wasn't influenced by Schopenhauer a modern reader can see Freud within this text).
I just recently listened to Kierkegaard's "Anxiety" and Nietzsche's "Genealogy of Morals". There's no doubt that they take some of this book and makes it their own. Kierkegaard takes similar thoughts expressed in this book such as the nature of the "now", the particular to the general of a thing to the whole ("Adam is a man and all men make the race"). Kierkegaard uses the same kind of formation of which Schopenhauer used in book 2 and 4, and the nature of guilt and other items but makes them his own by having a passion for the now (Schopenhauer is definitely not passionate for the now, he puts us into the future in terms of will or even when we consider the past we extrapolate a will from today to our projection of the past, he says). Nietzsche will uses his passion for the now and inverts Schopenhauer's aesthetics and makes it about the artist not the art, and also takes the 'will to live' and changes it to 'will to power' a return to the primal instincts that are within all of us.
A couple of things, he really does a good job at integrating Eastern thought into Western thought. He explains the world in terms of Maya, Shiva and Brahman (creation, destruction and generation). He likes the mystics and saints and thinks they provide the role models for today (he's very positive towards aestheticism). There is definitely a strand of pessimism within his philosophy. Death is a good thing. Life is struggle. Better to have not been born at all. Everything is an illusion and our knowledge can only takes us so far and at the heart of all things is the will that acts as the ground for all being.
This book stands on its own and is definitely one of the easier original philosophy books to follow. I only wish that modern writers would write as well as this writer did and assume that their readers are as interested in learning about the world as Schopenhauer did for his potential readers.
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- JCW
- 07-25-17
Excellent Audio Book and Performance
Leighton Pugh does a phenomenal job reading this wonderful book which earns it 5 stars. There are only two minor drawbacks in this presentation: it is based on an old translation and it is not unabridged, since it leaves out the very important but highly technical appendix "Critique of the Kantian Philosophy" which is one of the reasons why I purchased this audio book. The best and newest translation of "The World as Will and Presentation" is a two volume set by Richard Aquila and David Carus. I hope Audible will have Mr Pugh read the supplemental volume two of this great work with the appendix of volume one included. Nonetheless, this is a very rewarding and highly recommended work. A must listen!
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- Qoheleth
- 07-16-20
Excellent Narration of an Underrated Philosopher
This was an excellent narration of an unfortunately underrated philosopher. The book is quite an undertaking - it's fairly long - but I enjoyed it very much. I've studied philosophy for years but had never given Schopenhauer much attention. I'm sorry for that now because he's quite a delight to read. Among the German Idealists, especially, he is quite easy to follow. He has a very funny line about how "a very handsome man, if he had also taste and the courage to follow it, would go about almost naked" so "one who possesses a beautiful and rich mind will always express himself in the most natural, direct, and simple way". I think Schopenhauer follows his own advice on this point, for the most part. He addresses the big philosophical ideas that concern all the German Idealists in Immanuel Kant's sizable shadow. But he does so with unique humor and spunk. He is most famous for his idea of "Will" which had such an impression on Nietzsche. He views this as what Kant called the "thing-in-itself", the noumenon behind the representation of phenomenon. But what I really found most interesting, and surprising, was his robust Platonism. Especially in his aesthetics. His Platonism is his own and quite distinct, I might say updated, from the classical versions. His view of music as the most direct access to the Platonic forms is quite fascinating. I was late to the Schopenhauer party but I'm glad I finally arrived!
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