Table of contents : Acknowledgments Contents Notes on Text and Translation Abbreviations and Short Citations Introduction Part 1 The Manuscripts of the Years 1804–1811: From a Pietist Education to the Study of Philosophy 1 Schopenhauer’s Early Understanding of the World: The Dualism between Temporality and Eternity 2 Attending G. E. Schulze’s Lectures and Reading Plato, Schelling and Kant Part 2 The Critical Confrontation with Fichte and Schelling (1811/12): From Initial Enthusiasm to Complete Rejection 3 Appearance and Thing-in-Itself 4 Will and World. The Will as ὄντως ὄν 5 Fichte: Empirical Consciousness and Consciousness of Empirical Consciousness. The Philosophical Besonnenheit 6 The “Transcendent Use of the Understanding”: The Illegitimacy of Fichte’s and Schelling’s Philosophies from the Perspective of Kantian Criticism Part 3 A First Attempt at a Post-Kantian Metaphysics: The Theory of the “Better Consciousness” 7 Schopenhauer’s Original Thought in the Manuscripts of 1812: The Project of a“True Criticism” and the Figure of the “Better Consciousness” 8 The Theory of the Better Consciousness in the Manuscripts of 1813. A First Attempt at a System Part 4 The Abandonment of the Theory of the Better Consciousness and the Origin of the Metaphysics of Will 9 Will and Intelligible Character in the Dissertation of 1813: Between Fichte’s System der Sittenlehre and Schelling’s Freiheitsschrift 10 The Manuscripts of 1814: The Development of the Doctrine of Intelligible Character. The Prodromes of the Metaphysics of Will 11 The Study of Oupnekhat and the Elaboration of the Concept of a Universal “Will-To-Life”. The Abandonment of the Theory of the Better Consciousness and the Birth of the System 12 From the Early Manuscripts to The World as Will and Representation. Origin and Meaning of the Aporias in Schopenhauer’s Mature System Bibliography of Works Cited Index