The Philosophy of Schopenhauer by Bryan Magee (PDF)

Description

This is a revised and enlarged version of Bryan Magee’s widely praised study of Schopenhauer, the most comprehensive book on this great philosopher. It contains a brief biography of Schopenhauer, a systematic exposition of his thought, and a critical discussion of the problems to which it gives rise and of its influence on a wide range of thinkers and artists. For this new edition Magee has added three new chapters and made many minor revisions and corrections throughout. This new edition will consolidate the book’s standing as the definitive study of Schopenhauer.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐I just received the book, so I can’t comment on the books contents. But I can say unconditionally this is the best packaged book cover ever. And I order many, many books. UPDATE 1: I’ve already worked through 52 pages. Bryan Magee is one of the best writers in the world. I’m so happy he decided to report on a difficult and complicated subject. I WILL READ THIS BOOK TWICE BEFORE I JOT DOWN MY THOUGHTS ON IT. I lied. Having read through Chapter 5, I realized that Schopenhauer’s take on Kant helped resolve why the Copenhagen school of thought V.S. Einstein’s belief is correct on why we must accept that light is either particulate or wavelike, but not both at the same time, dependent on what instrumentation is used to measure it. Their conclusion is right, but their reasoning is not. Mara Beller in her brilliant analysis in her book Quantum Dialogue got it half right. Too bad none of the physicists (especially Bohr and Heisenberg) were familiar with either philosopher). If I can sum up what is missing, to use Kierkegaard’s dense and compact statement: “The truth is not the thing-in-itself. But the truth is in the relationship the subject has with the object.” This is derivative since the 1st derivative is the measuring instrument to the light, and the 2nd derivative is us as subject, to viewing the instrument and light as wave or photon. I will expand on this after my 2nd reading,

⭐Not only is this the greatest book on Schopenhauer, but it is one of the best books on philosophy in general, especially for those interested in the seventeenth century on to the present day. By understanding Schopenhauer, and especially his limitations, one is informed about Hume, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and other important philosophers. Schopenhauer was, after all, a major Kantian, even though he set himself the task of critiquing Kant, trying to clear up the unclear in his mentor’s work. That was a great project and well-needed to be sure. (The works of Karl Reinhold and Hans Vahinger are also recommended as cogent explications of Kant’s central ideas.)The essence of this book is that Schopenhauer was, as Magee brilliantly shows, full of contradictions and error himself. Although his writing is scintillating, his ideas don’t hold much water, when all is said and done. And this is important, since his ideas impacted Nietzsche and other latter-day philosophers. Schopenhauer was also an atheist and pessimist whose ideas inspired later atheists and pessimists. If his key ideas on the Noumenon and Will turn out to be spurious or contradictory – if his philosophy falls apart at the seem – we need to know how and why. It means that the work of lesser known, far more brilliant men, such as F. W. J. Schelling and others, can be resurrected and contemplated once again in the light of day.I also recommend Magee’s biography “Confessions of a Philosopher,” and his series of programs (see YouTube) entitled “The Great Philosophers.”

⭐My undergraduate degree is in philosophy, so over 40 years I have studied a few hundred books on philosophy, religion and science. This is one of the best. As others have mentioned Magee writes extremely well, with clarity and vigor. The reader need not be expert or versed in the technical vocabulary. My highest praise for the book is that any interested reader can grasp the argument. Indeed, in one of the early chapters, for approximately 30 pages, Magee provides possibly the most concise and illuminating summary of western philosophy I have ever seen. I therefore highly recommend this not only for his excellent portrayal of Schopenhauer’s thought but for a clear overview of the history of ideas up to the 19th century in general.

⭐Not my wisest choice. Magee is a brilliant writer and I regard his two Wagner books as indispensable. His Story of Philosophy gave me great insight into what philosophers do, but left me with no appetite to learn more. Despite this, I felt it appropriate to read his book on Schopenhauer, simply because of Schopenhauer’s great influence on Wagner. This was a bridge too far. It underscored my lack of interest in learning any more about philosophy and what Magee had to say about Schopenhauer’s influence on Wagner had been well covered in The Tristan Chord. Four stars, because Magee is such a wonderful writer and is clearly an expert on his subject. As so many women have said when they have rejected me, “It’s not you, it’s me.” I guess that’s my feeling about this book.

⭐My interest in reading Schopenhauer came about through a Wikipedia entry about his aesthetics and how various artists and writers like Proust were influenced by his thought. This book was cited there so I decided to introduce myself to Schopenhauer. I studied philosophy in college but never Schopenhauer. I think he had been one of those philosophers, like Hegel and Marx, who were not treated seriously at my school which followed more of the logical positivists, A.J. Ayer, etc.Now I find how much I had been mislead. I had studied Descartes. Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume and Kant, the “Great Tradition” as Magee calls it. Schopenhauer picks up where Kant left off, acknowledges his achievement, but then shows where he went wrong and corrects him. It may surprise some readers, as it did me, to learn that Ludwig Wittgenstein, one of the great 20th century thinkers, is a Schopenhauer “follower”, as is Noam Chomskey. Maybe “follower” is the wrong word but at least someone who builds on Schopenhauer’s work. There is much to be learned here and I’m just beginning.

⭐This study of Schopenhauer and his ideas i found (mostly) highly readable. Nearly every page contains some insight or richness of thought.Unfortunately I did struggle with Magee’s explanations re. transcendental idealism, early on in the book. The writing in this part of the book was just too opaque for me. Whether that’s because I found the concepts too complex, or because the explanations weren’t as clear as they could have been, I don’t know. But most of the rest of the book hums along with clear explanations and observations, at times even gripping.Like other reviewers, I view the chapter on Wagner (50 pages!) superfluous; also hard to read, and barely relevant unless a Wagner fan.I would also question Magee’s assertion that Schopenhauer must have had homosexual experiences (simply) because Schopenhauer wrote something on the subject (in relation to evolutionary theory). There was no evidence for Magee’s assertion, so that was odd.However I appreciated some of Magee’s criticisms of Schopenhauer’s work. For example around Schopenhauer’s use of the word “Will” which Magee believes has caused unnecessary confusion around his theories (‘energy’, for example, might have been a better word).Another of his criticisms of Schopenhauer is to point out that positive experiences in human life do occur and are not always simply the ‘absence of pain’, and I agree with Magee on this too.However, on a related issue I felt that Magee incorrectly points to Schopenhauer’s clearly highly enjoyable experiences of life (food, art, and other pleasures) as undermining Schopenhauer’s overall view of the essential pain and difficulty of life; certain pleasures and satisfactions don’t really undermine this central reality in my logic ; I see no contradiction. So I was occasionally puzzled at Magee’s conclusions on a few things.But mostly the book is a tour de force showcasing Schopenhauer’s ideas, with Magee himself offering up great food for thought along the way.(Though, I must say, having read all 450 pages, I did decide I needed a break from philosophy. Similar to Herman Hesses’s* character in the novel “Steppenwolf” I was reading at the same time, I felt the need to step away from such.) …..* who had, interestingly, also read Schopenhauer and Nietzsche.

⭐Bryan Magee is something of an intellectual hero to me. For clarity of expression in the often jargon clouded field of philosophy he is hard to match and impossible to beat. Here, he essentially gives a detailed commentary on a philosopher with whom he is greatly in sympathy and whose work he knows is likely to have been tackled by only the most intrepid readers. I find myself in agreement with much of what he and Schopenhauer have to say and feel – without having read the source material – that gives a vivid account of the systematic philosophy.

⭐This is that rarest of books: one full of fascinating ideas and insights, and also one beautifully written with clear and compelling arguements and explanations. The central ideas around Schopenhauer’s philosophy are established by around half way through the book and the rest is an equally absorbing examination of his (powerful) influence on Wittgenstein, Neischze and others.Don’t let its intellectual and physical size and weight put you off – this is a truly great read!

⭐I came to this book through Magee’s “Confessions of a Philosopher” in which he made clear his admiration for Schopenhauer. The latter is much neglected in the English speaking world and Magee does a wonderful job explaining the difficult and often counter intuitive concepts of transcendental idealism which are often dismissed as not worthy of serious consideration by conventional philososphers. Schopenhauer has a lot to say about how we think, and much of this has been confirmed by research into the way in which the brain works. I refer in particular to “Making up the Mind” by Professor Frith which reaches much the same conclusions on what Schopenhauer calls “representation” i.e. the world as it appears in our brains.That said, though there is a great deal in Schopenhauer that makes me think, I am not yet able to accept time, space and causality as concepts created by our brains as ways of making sense of the world. Magee is a Schopenhauer fan and says that it took him years to fully understand him. I have been reading Schopenhauer both via Magee and in the original in his “The World as Will and Representation” and am still not able to understand him fully.Nevertheless I recommend Magee’s book as a thoroughly thought provoking read.

⭐Like the other reviewers, I think this is a fantastic book – clear, informative, with both an in-depth approach to Schopenhauer and a broad-based contextual overview of his place in the history of philosophy. Brilliant! Thank you Bryan Magee. However, the Kindle version lacks one fundamental thing – ready access to the footnotes. As opposed to many Kindle books which give automatic access to individual footnotes when you click on the link, here there is no such link. The footnotes (I eventually discovered by trial and error – they are nowhere indicated on the Table of Contents) are somewhere towards the end of the book, after the Appendix and Index. So it is impossible to refer back and forth easily between the footnotes and the text. This is a huge disappointment and I can’t see why it should be the case in a book that cost £22! It is sheer laziness on the part of the publishers. So if, like me, reading the footnotes is important to you, I would certainly not buy the Kindle edition, but the paperback.

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