World as Will and Representation, Vol. 2: Volume 2 (Revised)

The Supplements

Arthur Schopenhauer published the second volume of The World as Will and Representation in 1844, twenty-six years after the first. Where Volume 1 presents the system in its compressed, architectonic form, Volume 2 expands on every major section with supplementary essays that are often longer and more discursive than the original chapters they accompany. Schopenhauer himself considered the two volumes inseparable. Most readers who have worked through both agree that Volume 2 is where much of the pleasure lies.

What the Volume Contains

The supplements follow the four-book structure of Volume 1. The first set elaborates on epistemology and the theory of representation. The second addresses the metaphysics of will, including substantial discussions of the will in nature, sexuality, and the unconscious foundations of human behavior. The third expands Schopenhauer's aesthetics, with extended treatments of music, architecture, and the hierarchy of the arts. The fourth returns to ethics and the denial of the will, including discussions of death, the indestructibility of our true nature, and the relationship between individual character and moral freedom.

Schopenhauer had three decades to reconsider, qualify, and extend his arguments. The writing is more relaxed than in Volume 1, more willing to pursue tangents, and frequently more personal. His discussions of sexuality, of the fear of death, and of the nature of genius are among the most quoted passages in nineteenth-century philosophy.

About This Edition

• Author: Arthur Schopenhauer
• Translator: E.F.J. Payne
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Format: Paperback (Revised, Unabridged)
• ISBN: 9780486217628