Arthur Schopenhauer (* February 22, 1788, in Danzig; † September 21, 1860, in Frankfurt am Main) was a German philosopher. He is best known for his work from 1818 titled 'The World as Will and Representation' (expanded in 1844), in which he describes the phenomenal world as the product of a blind noumenal will. Building on Immanuel Kant's transcendental idealism, Schopenhauer developed a metaphysical and ethical system without religious reference, rejecting the contemporary ideas of German idealism. He was among the first thinkers in Western philosophy to share and affirm significant tenets of Indian philosophy, such as asceticism, the denial of the self, and the notion of the world as appearance. His work is often regarded as an outstanding example of philosophical pessimism. Although his work received limited attention during his lifetime, Schopenhauer had a posthumous impact across various disciplines, including philosophy, literature, and science. His writings on aesthetics, morality, and psychology influenced numerous thinkers and artists. Those who acknowledged his influence include philosophers like Emil Cioran, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Ludwig Wittgenstein; scientists like Erwin Schrödinger and Albert Einstein; psychoanalysts like Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung; writers like Leo Tolstoy, Herman Melville, Thomas Mann, Hermann Hesse, Machado de Assis, Jorge Luis Borges, Marcel Proust, and Samuel Beckett; as well as composers like Richard Wagner, Johannes Brahms, Arnold Schoenberg, and Gustav Mahler.