Arthur Schopenhauer was born in Danzig on February 22, 1788. His father was the patrician merchant Heinrich Floris Schopenhauer. His mother was Johnanna Schopenhauer who will become a well known novelist in 1814.
Schopenhauer parent had a worldwide lookout. They named him Arthur since it was the same in German, French, and English. When the xenophobia nationalistic Prussian troops marched into Danzig in 1793, the family and his father business immediately move to Hamburg.
When he was ten, he was sent France for two years to learn French. He stayed at the home of a business friend of his father in Le Havre. Businessman's son ,Anthime became like a brother to Schopenhauer.
When he was fifteen in 1803 AD, he when on a two year grand tour of Europe with his parents. He when to a private English school in Wimbledon for several months during his parents tour of Scotland.
Most of tour was depressing to Schopenhauer. Almost everywhere the family traveled in Europe, he saw the suffering from the recent Napoleonoc Wars. He saw cites streets lined with maimed beggars and many villages mostly destroyed.
Schopenhauer's father wanted him to be a business man. His father at the end of the tour forced Schopenhauer to quit his education for a business apprenticeship in Hamburg. He had apprenticeship with merchants Kabrun in Danzig and Jenisch in Hamburg between 1804 and 1807.
Early part of the day on April 20, 1805, His father climbed to the roof of his warehouse, and committed suicide by jumping off the roof.
The surviving family members inherited a comfortable income for life. His mother and younger sister moved to Weimar.
His French friend Anthime moved to Hamburg to study business. They went to stage doors on weekends to pickup actress and chorus girls. If they failed to get dates, they would get a prostitute.
In 1807 Schopenhauer had the courage to goes against his father's wishes. He left Hamburg for a school in Gotha to get the qualifications to enroll in university.
He enrolled as a medical student at the University of Göttingen in 1809. He shortly started attending lectures in philosophy and he became attracted to philosophy. He changed his major to philosophy. The philosophy of Plato and Kant had an overpowering influence on his philosophy. In 1811 he tranferred to Belin to study under Fichte who was the curent leading German philosopher.
Schopenhauer saw himself as frugal gentleman, but he lived a very comfortable middle class life. He wore hand tailored suit with the finest materials. He enjoyed eating large meal in restaurants and the companionship with young women. He had great pleasure from reading literture, listening to concerts, looking at art in art galleries, and frequent visits to the theatre.
Schopenhauer fall in love with nineteen year old actress singer Caroline Medon in 1821.
One afternoon in 1821 while waiting in his apartment for a rendezvous with Caroline, he was Irritated by the continuous gossiping of next door neighbor the 45 year old seamstress Frau Marquet with several friends on the landing. Schopenhauer open his door and told her to do her gossiping elsewhere. Marquet was offended by Schopenhauer interruption and refused to move. The very angry Schopenhauer threw her down the stairs.
Frau Marquet filed a charge of assault against Schopenhauer, and the court gave him a small fine of twenty thaler. When she learned that Schopenhauer was a rich man, she file an appeal claiming that the fall paralyzed her rigth side. Schopenhauer contested the case. Six years later he lost the case and was order to paid Frau Marquet fifteen thaler per quarter as long as her injury exist. She claimed the injury persisted until her death twenty years later. After her death Schopenhauer wrote in his journal in Latin "The old woman dies, the burden departs".
When Berlin had a cholera epidemic in 1831, Schopenhauer fled the city. Frankfort-am-Main became his main resident for the rest of his life in 1833.
Schopenhauer had many phobias and fears. He had a fear of robbers and always slept with a loaded pistols in hand. He also had fears of diseases, poison, and violence.
After waking late in the morning and drinking coffee, Schopenhauer would read for three hours, and play his flute.
His afternoon routine is late afternoon lunch at the prominent Englischer Hof on Rossmarkt, reading the latest copy of The Times from London in the reading rooms of the Casino Society, and a long fast walk with his poodle Atma. Atma is Indian for "the world's Soul". He talk to himself during the walks.
After returning home he would read until the late hours of the night.
In 1853 at the age of sixty-five, Schopenhauer finally achieves his frame as a philosopher.
Schopenhauer died in Frankfort on September 21, 1860.
1819 First edition of The World as Will and Representation
1835 On the Will in Nature
1841 The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics, Treated in Two Academic Prize Essays.
1844 Second edition of The World as Will and Representation
1851 Parerga and Paralipomena
Diané Collinson, Fifty Major Philosophers: A Reference Guide (Routledge, 1987)
Edited by Wolfgang Schirmacher, Arthur Schopenhauer Philosophical Writings (The Continunm Publishing Company, 1998)
Edited by Stanley J. Kunitz and Vineta colby, European Arthors 1000 - 1900 a Biographical Dictionary of European Literature
(c) 2001 : Burton Craddock
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