Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) was one of the greatest writers and German philosophers of the nineteenth century. His work influenced figures as diverse as Wagner, Freud and Nietzsche. Best known as a pessimist, he was one of the few philosophers read and admired by Wittgenstein. In this comprehensive introduction, Julian Young covers all the main aspects of Schopenhauer's philosophy. Beginning with an overview of Schopenhauer's life and work, he introduces the central aspects of his metaphysics fundamental to understanding his work as a whole: his philosophical idealism and debt to the...

This book is an exhaustive survey of the philosophy of tragedy from antiquity to the present. From Aristotle to i ek the focal question has been: why, in spite of its distressing content, do we value tragic drama? What is the nature of the tragic effect ? Some philosophers point to a certain kind of pleasure that results from tragedy. Others, while not excluding pleasure, emphasize the knowledge we gain from tragedy of psychology, ethics, freedom, or immortality. Through a critical engagement with these and other philosophers, the book concludes by suggesting an answer to the question of what...

This book is an exhaustive survey of the philosophy of tragedy from antiquity to the present. From Aristotle to i ek the focal question has been: why, in spite of its distressing content, do we value tragic drama? What is the nature of the tragic effect ? Some philosophers point to a certain kind of pleasure that results from tragedy. Others, while not excluding pleasure, emphasize the knowledge we gain from tragedy of psychology, ethics, freedom, or immortality. Through a critical engagement with these and other philosophers, the book concludes by suggesting an answer to the question of what...

What is the meaning of life? In today's secular, post-religious scientific world, this question has become a serious preoccupation. But it also has a long history: many major philosophers have thought deeply about it, as Julian Young so vividly illustrates in this thought-provoking second edition of The Death of God and the Meaning of Life.

Three new chapters explore Soren Kierkegaard's attempts to preserve a Christian answer to the question of the meaning of life, Karl Marx's attempt to translate this answer into naturalistic and atheistic terms, and Sigmund Freud's...

According to Bertrand Russell, Nietzsche's only value is the flourishing of the exceptional individual. The well-being of ordinary people is, in itself, without value. Yet there are passages in Nietzsche that appear to regard the flourishing of the community as a whole alongside, perhaps even above, that of the exceptional individual. The ten essays that comprise this volume wrestle with the tension between individual and community in Nietzsche's writings. Some defend a reading close to Russell's. Others suggest that Nietzsche's highest value is the flourishing of the community as a whole and...