Arthur Schopenhauer was born 22 February 1788 in Gdansk, died 20 September 1860 in Frankfurt am Main. Son of Joanna and Henryk Floris Schopenhauer. He was born in a house at 114 Sw. Duch street (Holy Ghost street) in Gdansk. In 1793 together with his parents he moved from Gdansk to Hamburg. Within the next few years he traveled with them throughout Europe. After his father’s death in 1806 he learnt a merchant profession in Hamburg. However, soon after that he started to study medicine and nature studies in Gottingen and then classical philology in Berlin. He received his PhD degree in Jena in 1813 with a work “On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason”(Polish edition 1904) In 1819 he published his first work Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung (The World as Will and Representation), on the basis of which he habilitated in Berlin. He worked there as an assistant professor at the university and continued his study and philosophical analysis. Fought by adherents of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel in 1831 he resigned from working at university and moved to Frankfurt am Main. He worked independently as a scientist there until the end of his life. Successive works brought him a fame and recognition. His philosophy had a great influence on German society during their battle for a democratic country (the Spring of Nations 1848 – 1849). Arthur Schopehauer as a philosopher and a great thinker proclaimed a historical programme and presented extremely pessimistic views. In his works he considered problems and issues of freedom, as well as responsibility of moral individual and moral evil. He also analysed discrepancy between reality and moral ideals. His philosophy had an impact on formation of personality and views of Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, an outstanding German philosopher of the second half of XIX century.
Picture © by Jules Lunteschutz (1822–1893). Arthur Schopenhauer. Oil on canvas.
Source: The City Hall of Gdansk
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