Can I Read Arthur Schopenhauer if I've Never Read Kant?

Question

Meaning, will I be able to understand most of "The World as Will and Representation" even if I'm not that familiar with Kant and his work? The only thing I've ever read of Kant was the "Prolegomena" and that was many years ago now. Do I need a firm grounding in Kant before moving onto Schopenhauer here?

Thanks

Answer 1

You can definitely read schopenhauer without reading kant. I actually took a class that included them both alongside hegel and nietzsche. You can always read any philosophers work provided the work isn't a criticism or adaptation of another work.  

Answer 2

Several points of Kant's are worthwhile re Schopenhauer:

The phenomenal world of Kant is the basis for Schopenhauer's World as Representation:  it is equivalent to Indra's net or the unity-of-diversity, Universe as symphony.

Unlike Kant, Schopenhauer believes that inner attunement with will permits gnosis of ding an sich.  This has resonance with Buddhist philosophy, and with Husserlian epoche.

For Schopenhauer, Will is as Plotinus' One, with Plato's Ideas being the differentiating process unto Soul-individuation.  For Schopenhauer, Plotinian Soul-individuation is replaced by Buddhic saintly abnegation, the "negation of the negation" qua "resignation" from the entangling phenomenal bustle.

Thus, aesthetic pleasure, a la Nietzsche's Artist as Young Overman Giving Meaning, moves from that Kierkegaardian existential Aesthetic sphere unto Ethic sphere as reflective upon what is worthwhile, Schopenhauer concluding all phenomenalism is vanity, hence opting for Kierkegaard's Religious/Spiritual sphere as Buddhic Nirvanic Void.

"The Path of the Higher Self," Mark Prophet,

"Nihilism," Father Seraphim Rose,

"A Philosophy of Universality," O. M. Aivanhov.