Schopenhauer’s Berkeleyan strategy for transcendental idealism

Abstract

ABSTRACT The paper focuses on Schopenhauer’s idealism and investigates how its elaboration was related not only to Kant but also to Berkeley – a theme generally overlooked by scholars. Schopenhauer viewed Berkeley and Kant as those who had shown the advantages of idealism but were not able to reconcile it with a satisfying metaphysics: they had both set the path, but the work remained to be finished – and his system would provide the resolution. The paper analyses the presence of Berkeley in Schopenhauer’s works (Section 2) and investigates why and how Berkeley became relevant for Schopenhauer’s project (Section 3). Sections 4–5 revisit the debate on Kant’s transcendental idealism and illuminate the role of Berkeley in both the first reactions to the Critique of Pure Reason and the genesis of German Idealism. Sections 6–7 contextualize and explain Schopenhauer’s strategy of praising Berkeley and espousing idealism as a doctrine that defined his own originality in post-Kantian philosophy.