Johann Schaefer, Arthur Schopenhauer, photograph, 1859, Frankfurt University Library (Schopenhauer-Archiv), public domain · Studio photograph of Arthur Schopenhauer taken in 1859 by the Frankfurt photographer Johann Schaefer (1822-1904), one of two surviving frames of the sitting held in the Frankfurt University Library (Schopenhauer-Archiv holdings; the Commons file page cites the library's digital record 81000013 and dates the sitting to March 1859, while Mayer-Wegelin's 2011 article dates Schaefer's first photograph of Schopenhauer to April 1859, so the year 1859 is the safe statement). The Schopenhauer-Jahrbuch article independently documents that Schopenhauer sat to Schaefer in 1859 and gave permission for carte-de-visite prints. The scan was downscaled once from 1,997 x 2,552 pixels to 939 x 1,200 pixels; nothing was upscaled. The image carries no lettering; the sitter is identified by the library record as cited on Commons and by the documented sitting. Caveat: the library's item-level catalogue page (edocs host) was unreachable and the persistent-link resolver was behind a bot challenge, so the holder's own rights wording could not be read; the basis is the age of the photograph (1859) and the photographer's death in 1904. · Public domain (1859 photograph; photographer Johann Schaefer died 1904)

philosopher · 19th Century

Arthur Schopenhauer

1788–1860

Known For

historicalliterarycultural

Wikidata

Not yet included in personality matching — the documented evidence doesn't yet cover enough of the personality model. Everything else on this page is fully available.

Trait Constellation

Key Achievements

In The World as Will and Representation (1818/19) he set out a philosophy that treats the will as the inner reality behind appearances, the work for which Britannica says he is primarily important and which it links to later existential philosophy and Freudian psychology.

He built an ethics and aesthetics on that idea: art, with music highest, gives release from the will for a moment, while compassion points the way to its denial; his 1839 essay On the Freedom of the Will won the Royal Norwegian Society's prize.

After decades of neglect he won readers with Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), helped by an unsigned 1853 review in the Westminster Review.

Moments That Reveal Them

In 1820, newly licensed to lecture at the University of Berlin, he scheduled his course in the same hour as Hegel's; only his first lecture was actually held, and he kept scheduling at that hour for years.

This is consistent with a willingness to confront a dominant rival directly, at a cost to his own audience. Conflict Tolerance

When the Danish Academy gave no prize to his 1840 essay On the Basis of Morality, even though it was the only entry, he published it in 1841 with an introduction attacking the Academy's judgement.

This is consistent with holding to his own judgement of his work against an official verdict. Independent Thinking

Turning Points

In 1851 his Parerga and Paralipomena, a collection of essays and aphorisms for a general reader, was published, and within a couple of years an English review of his philosophy in the Westminster Review brought the recognition he had long hoped for.

This is consistent with continuing to publish through decades of neglect until an audience arrived. Persistence