Frederick Copleston and Bryan Magee on Arthur Schopenhauer: Philosopher of Pessimism (1987)

Seeing the world as something horrific and bleak, he urged that we turn against it. As a follower of Immanuel Kant, he took space, time, and causality to be, not thingsinthemselves, but categories of the mind through which we interpret and make sense of things. Schopenhauer argued that reality must ultimately be one, which is essentially Will. Schopenhauer was the only major Western philosopher to draw serious and interesting parallels between Western and Eastern thought, as well as being the first major philosopher to openly identify as an atheist. He had a significant influence on many great thinkers and artists, including Nietzsche, Freud, Wittgenstein, and Wagner. The arts were particularly important for Schopenhauer not only because he thought they give us a glimpse into the underlying reality, but because they help us to escape our individuality and thus the inherent suffering and meaningless absurdity of existence.