Arthur Schopenhauer: The World as Will and Representation

Arthur Schopenhauer belongs to the list of great thinkers that roamed the world in the 19th century.  Schopenhauer can be described as the main figure of philosophical pessimism. Why? Well, existence seems to be a glass half-empty, if the glass ever had anything.

In this work, Arthur Schopenhauer builds on Immanuel Kants transcendental idealism, as he argues that the noumenal world, which by Kant was deemed impossible to know, is reacheable. What Kant described as thing-in-itself, Schopenhauer recognizes as will. Well, what exactly is this will that Schopenhauer talks about and how does it affect us?

"At bottom it is one being that perceives itself and is perceived by itself, but whose being-in-itself cannot consist either in perceiving or in being perceived"