Useful Resources

Listed below are major editions of Schopenhauer’s works in German and English, book-length studies of his philosophy in English, and other useful resources for researchers.

NB that we have not included all of the editions of a given work. The editions listed here are either relatively recent or have established themselves amongst researchers and students as standard editions. We have excluded some editions due to their incompleteness, as we felt it would be a disservice to new researchers or students to recommend them, even implicitly.


English editions of Schopenhauer’s works

Multi-volume editions

The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Schopenhauer (link)

Publisher: Cambridge University Press General Editor: Christopher Janaway Translators: Judith Norman, Alistair Welchman, Christopher Janaway, Adrian del Caro, Sabine Roehr, David E. Cartwright, Edward E. Erdmann. Note: Comprises translations of all of the works Schopenhauer published in his lifetime.

German Title: Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung

The World as Will and Presentation, Vols. I & II . Translated by Richard Aquila and David Carus. Published by Routledge as part of the Longman Library of Primary Sources in Philosophy Series. (link 1, link 2)

The World as Will and Representation, Vols. I & II. Translated by E. F. J. Payne. Published by Dover Publications. (link 1, link 2)

German Title: Parerga und Paralipomena

Parerga and Paralipomena, Vols. I & II. Translated by E. F. J. Payne. Published by Oxford University Press. (link 1, link 2)

German Title: Über die vierfache Wurzel des Satzes vom zureichenden Grunde

This work was published in two editions in Schopenhauer’s lifetime, in 1813 and 1847. The 1813 edition was Schopenhauer’s doctoral dissertation, and differs substantially from the 1847 edition. The English translation listed below and the version in the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Schopenhauer cited above are based on the 1847 edition.

On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason. Translated by Mme. Karl Hillebrand. Published by George Bell and Sons, 1903. (Free at en.wikisource.org: link)

German Title: Die beiden Grundprobleme der Ethik

Note: The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics is comprised of two essays which have sometimes been published individually. Individual publications are indicted with asterisks (***).

The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics. Translated by David E. Cartwright and Edward E. Erdmann. Published by Oxford University Press, 2010. (link)

***On the Basis of Morality. Translated by E. F. J. Payne. Published by Hackett Publishing Company, 1996. (link)

***Prize Essay on the Freedom of the Will. Translated by E. F. J. Payne. Published by Cambridge University Press, 1999. (link)

***The Basis of Morality. Translated by Arthur Brodrick Bullock. Published by Swan Sonnenschein and Co., 1903. (Free at archive.org: link; also available as a Dover reprint: link)

***Essay on the Freedom of the Will. Translated by Konstantin Kolenda. Published by Dover (reprint) (link).

Book-length studies and expositions of Schopenhauer’s philosophy

Atwell, John. Schopenhauer on the Character of the World. The Metaphysics of Will. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. (link)

Hamlyn, David W. Schopenhauer. The Arguments of the Philosophers. London: Routledge, 1980.

Hannan, Barbara. The Riddle of the World: A Reconsideration of Schopenhauer’s Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. (link)

Jacquette, Dale. The Philosophy of Schopenhauer. London: Routledge, 2005. (link)

Janaway, Christopher. Self and World in Schopenhauer’s Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. (link)

Janaway, Christopher. Schopenhauer. A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. (link)

Magee, Bryan. The Philosophy of Schopenhauer. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983. (Revised and enlarged edition, 2009.) (link)

Wicks, Robert. Schopenhauer. Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008. (link)

Wicks, Robert. Schopenhauer’s ‘The World as Will and Representation’: A Reader’s Guide. London: Continuum, 2011. (link)

Young, Julian. Schopenhauer. London: Routledge, 2005. (link)

Handbooks and Companions

Janaway, Christopher (Ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Schopenhauer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. (link)

Shapshay, Sandra (Ed.). The Palgrave Schopenhauer Handbook. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. (link)

Vandenabeele, Bart (Ed.). A Companion to Schopenhauer. Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. (link)

Wicks, Robert (Ed.).The Oxford Handbook on Schopenhauer. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. (link)

Biographies of Schopenhauer in English

Cartwright, David E. Schopenhauer – A Biography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. (link)

Safranski, Rüdiger. Schopenhauer and the Wild Years of Philosophy. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991. (link)

Zimmern, Helen. Arthur Schopenhauer – His Life and His Philosophy. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1876. (Free at archive.org: link)


German Editions of Schopenhauer’s Works

***Coming Soon***