ABSTRACT
This work challenges the textbook assessment of Schopenhauer as militant atheist and absolute pessimist. In examining Schopenhauer's grappling with religion, theology and Kant's moral philosophy, Mannion suggests we can actually discern a 'religious' humility in method in Schopenhauer's work, seen most clearly in his ethics of compassion and his doctrine of salvation. Given Schopenhauer’s opinion of religion as the ’metaphysics of the people’, his utilisation of and affinity with many religious ideas and doctrines, and the culmination of his philosophy in a doctrine of salvation that ends in the ’mystical’, Mannion suggests that Schopenhauer’s philosophy is an explanatory hypothesis which functionally resembles religious belief systems in many ways. Mannion further argues that Schopenhauer cannot claim to have gone any further than such religious systems in discerning the 'true' nature of ultimate reality, for he admits that they also end in the ’mystical’, beyond which we must remain silent. Indeed, Schopenhauer offers an interpretation, as opposed to outright rejection of religion and his system gains the coherence that it does through being parasitic upon religious thought itself. Given current debates between theologians and philosophers in relation to 'postmodernity' and 'postmodern thought', this book illustrates that Schopenhauer should be a key figure in such debates.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
chapter |8 pages
Introduction
part |2 pages
Part I: Schopenhauer and Religion
chapter 1|28 pages
Schopenhauer’s Worldview: Hope or Despair?
chapter 2|26 pages
‘Militant Atheist’? Introducing Schopenhauer on Religion
chapter 3|26 pages
Metaphysics of the People: Schopenhauer, Religion and Truth
part |2 pages
Part II: Schopenhauer and Morality
chapter 5|54 pages
Kant, Religion and Morality: First Steps on the ‘Humble Path’
chapter 6|32 pages
Mitleid and Morality: Interpreting Schopenhauer’s Ethics
part |2 pages
Part III: Schopenhauer’s Humble Path