David Bather Woods on Schopenhauer on Compass...

The Chinese philosopher Songzi (382 BCE – 305 BCE) maintained that the appropriate response to insults was indifference, not aggression. Jing Hu, a philosopher at Concordia University, Montreal puts his thinking about insults and about the related concept of shame in context, and ...  Show more

We are the kind of creature that cares whether or not we matter and how. What follows from this? Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, author of Mattering, discuses this with David Edmonds. 

David and Tamler tackle the topic chosen by our beloved Patreon supporters in the first VBW madness tournament – Schopenhauer. We discuss his essays "On the Sufferings of the World" and "The Vanity of Existence," their strikingly modern perspectives on human life and behavior and ...  Show more

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) is known today as the ultimate pessimist among philosophers. Among Nietzsche's influences, perhaps none can be said to be more significant than Schopenhauer. Given that Nietzsche promoted a life philosophy that was ultimately "yes-saying" and full ...  Show more

What is the nature of reality? Why can music be so profound? Are we doomed to suffer or is extended happiness possible? Should we choose a life of asceticism? These are some of the questions that Arthur Schopenhauer addressed in The World as Will and Idea. In this episode of Phil ...  Show more

“There is some wisdom in taking a gloomy view, in looking upon the world as a kind of Hell, and in confining one’s efforts to securing a little room that shall not be exposed to the fire.”    Arthur Schopenhauer, Counsels and Maxims At the age of 21, the philosopher Friedrich Nie ...  Show more