Summary
Melvyn Bragg and guests AC Grayling, Beatrice Han-Pile and Christopher Janaway discuss the dark, pessimistic philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer.As a radical young thinker in Germany in the early 19th century, Schopenhauer railed against the dominant ideas of the day. He dismissed the pre-eminent German philosopher Georg Hegel as a pompous charlatan, and turned instead to the Enlightenment thinking of Immanuel Kant for inspiration. Schopenhauer's central idea was that everything in the world was driven by the Will - broadly, the ceaseless desire to live. But this, he argued, left us swinging pointlessly between suffering and boredom. The only escape from the tyranny of the Will was to be found in art, and particularly in music. Schopenhauer was influenced by Eastern philosophy, and in turn his own work had an impact well beyond the philosophical tradition in the West, helping to shape the work of artists and writers from Richard Wagner to Marcel Proust, and Albert Camus to Sigmund Freud.AC Grayling is Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck College, University of London; Beatrice Han-Pile is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Essex; Christopher Janaway is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southampton.
Transcript
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| 0:47.0 | Hello the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer was born in Danzig in |
| 0:51.9 | eastern Germany in 1788. As a young man he wasn't lacking in confidence. |
| 0:56.3 | He argued with the great novelist Goater and Lambastid Hegel, the predominant philosopher of |
| 1:01.2 | the day. His central idea was that everything in the world |
| 1:04.4 | is fundamental united by a will to live. Its two key features are that it is infinite and |
| 1:10.2 | meaningless and leads to boredom or suffering. The only escape from this he argued comes and |
| 1:14.0 | meaningless and leads to boredom or suffering. The only escape from this he argued comes through |
| 1:15.1 | self-denial or art pre-eminently music. This pessimistic worldview |
| 1:20.0 | courage Openhous influence well beyond philosophy. His thinking marks the music of |
| 1:24.2 | Richard Wagner and finds echoes in the work of Sigmund Freud, Thomas Hardy and Albert Camille. |
| 1:30.1 | To discuss the philosophy Arthur Schopenhau, I'm joined by Anthony Grayling, Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck College University of London. |
| 1:37.0 | Beatrice Han Pyle, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Essex and Christopher Janoway, professor of philosophy at the University of Southampton. |
| 1:45.1 | Anthony Graling Schopenhauer came of age in the early 19th century Germany, at that time a |
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