Long 19th c. · 1788–1860
Who influenced Arthur Schopenhauer?
Influences and legacy
The world as blind Will and suffering — pessimism with a soundtrack (he loved opera).
Arthur Schopenhauer was influenced by Plato and Immanuel Kant, and went on to influence Leo Tolstoy, Friedrich Nietzsche and Ludwig Wittgenstein. That is 5 lines of the 448 documented lines of influence between the 279 thinkers on this map.
Read on Wikipedia Portrait: Johann Schäfer, Public domain See the whole map
Who was Arthur Schopenhauer?
Arthur Schopenhauer, often called the philosopher of pessimism, is known for The World as Will and Representation (1818, expanded 1844), which describes the world of appearances as the expression of a blind, irrational will. Building on Kant's transcendental idealism, he developed an atheistic system of metaphysics and ethics and rejected the German idealism of his day.
He was one of the first Western philosophers to take up ideas from Indian philosophy, such as asceticism, the denial of the self and the world as appearance. Little noticed in his lifetime, he later influenced philosophy, literature and science, and his writing on aesthetics, morality and psychology shaped many thinkers and artists.
Summarized from the lead of the Wikipedia article.
Who influenced Arthur Schopenhauer?
2 direct influences on this map, earliest first.
- Plato c. 428–348 BC
- Immanuel Kant 1724–1804
Who did Arthur Schopenhauer influence?
3 thinkers on this map draw directly on Arthur Schopenhauer.
- Leo Tolstoy 1828–1910
- Friedrich Nietzsche 1844–1900
- Ludwig Wittgenstein 1889–1951
The line of teachers behind Arthur Schopenhauer
The longest documented line of influence ending at Arthur Schopenhauer runs 20 generations back, to Thales of Miletus.
- Thales of Miletus
- Anaximenes of Miletus
- Anaxagoras
- Socrates
- Antisthenes
- Diogenes of Sinope
- Crates of Thebes
- Zeno of Citium
- Seneca
- Tertullian
- Augustine of Hippo
- Anselm of Canterbury
- Peter Lombard
- Thomas Aquinas
- René Descartes
- Thomas Hobbes
- Baruch Spinoza
- Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
- Christian Wolff
- Immanuel Kant
- Arthur Schopenhauer
Two steps away from Arthur Schopenhauer
Indirect influences
- Through Plato: Pythagoras, Parmenides, Empedocles, Protagoras, Socrates, Philolaus
- Through Immanuel Kant: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Christian Wolff, David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau
The second generation
Contemporaries of Arthur Schopenhauer
Thinkers on this map born within 25 years of Arthur Schopenhauer, with no direct line between them.
- Pyotr Chaadayev 1794–1856
- Bernard Bolzano 1781–1848
- Auguste Comte 1798–1857
- Johann Friedrich Herbart 1776–1841
- F. W. J. Schelling 1775–1854
- Gustav Fechner 1801–1887
- Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803–1882
- Ludwig Feuerbach 1804–1872
Arthur Schopenhauer by the numbers
- Direct influences
- 2
- Direct followers
- 3 — #37 of 279 on this map
- Thinkers upstream
- 82
- Thinkers downstream
- 30
- Wikipedia languages
- 111 — #9 of 47 among 19th-century philosophers
- Card rarity
- Legendary
Questions about Arthur Schopenhauer
- Who influenced Arthur Schopenhauer?
- Plato and Immanuel Kant.
- Who did Arthur Schopenhauer influence?
- Leo Tolstoy, Friedrich Nietzsche and Ludwig Wittgenstein.
- When did Arthur Schopenhauer live?
- 1788–1860. The map files Arthur Schopenhauer under the long 19th century.
- How rare is the Arthur Schopenhauer card?
- Wikipedia carries an article on Arthur Schopenhauer in 111 languages, which makes it a Legendary card. Legendary starts at 100 languages, Epic at 50 and Rare at 25.
More 19th-century philosophers
- Karl Marx 1818–1883
- Charles Darwin 1809–1882
- Leo Tolstoy 1828–1910
- Fyodor Dostoevsky 1821–1881
- Friedrich Nietzsche 1844–1900
- Georg W. F. Hegel 1770–1831
- Friedrich Engels 1820–1895
- Søren Kierkegaard 1813–1855