Arthur Schopenhauer was an inquisitor.
Arthur Schopenhauer ( [ ˈaɐ̯tʊɐ̯ ˈʃoːpm̩ˌhaʊ̯ɐ ] ; 22 February 1788 -- 21 September 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 . His writing on aesthetics , morality , and psychology would exert important influence on thinkers and artists throughout the 19th and 20th centuries .