Love, compassion and gloom: the contradictions of Arthur Schopenhauer

20/11/2025 42 min
Love, compassion and gloom: the contradictions of Arthur Schopenhauer

Listen "Love, compassion and gloom: the contradictions of Arthur Schopenhauer"

Episode Synopsis


It's been said that the work of the 19th century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer should come with a health warning, so stark and pessimistic was his outlook on life. And the man was no less confronting than the philosophy: he could be rude, intemperate and misanthropic. But a new biography of Schopenhauer shows him to have been a more complex and even endearing figure than his reputation might suggest.