Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 1860) was a German philosopher. He is best known for his 1818 work
The World as Will and Representation (expanded in 1844), wherein he characterizes the phenomenal
world as the product of a blind and insatiable metaphysical will. Proceeding from the transcendental
idealism of Immanuel Kant, Schopenhauer developed an atheistic metaphysical and ethical system
that has been described as an exemplary manifestation of philosophical pessimism, rejecting the
contemporaneous post-Kantian philosophies of German idealism. Schopenhauer was among the first
thinkers in Western philosophy to share and affirm significant tenets of Eastern philosophy
(e.g., asceticism, the world-as-appearance), having initially arrived at similar conclusions
as the result of his own philosophical work.