Philosophy In Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung (The World as Will and Representation), German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer presents his core philosophies. One of the themes in The World as Will and Representation is the function of the human will as providing the impetus for the manifest world and not just the means for understanding that world. In this way, Schopenhauer distinguishes himself from Kant and distances himself from the Kantian worldview. The mind and reality are one; this represents a resolution of the crisis of duality. In spite of his monistic vision of will and representation, Schopenhauer continues to rely on the Kantian forms and framework for reality. He critiques the Kantian division of the world, by stating that Kant's system of classifications is unnecessary. Moreover, Kant depicted the human being as separate from the object of knowledge. For Schopenhauer, the human being and the universe are fundamentally one. The will permits the mental penetration of the universe, and is the essence of human desire. Because Schopenhauer is concerned about the themes of oneness and the theme of desire, his philosophy starts to resemble Mahayana Buddhism. In Mahayana Buddhism, the universe exists in what is known as "dependent origination" or "codependent origination." This means that the universe exists because of the power of the will, and there is no external "other" reality as a dualistic worldview might suggest. Therefore, Schopenhauer represents some of the ways Western philosophy starts to merge with Eastern philosophy.

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Kierkegaard frames suffering or existential angst as wondering if one's life has meaning. The phrase "sickness unto death" embodies existential angst -- the sense that a person will have lived and died for no reason. For Kierkegaard, the suffering and longing for life's meaning is a universal human trait but the author frames the issue from a Christian perspective. Using the Christian terminology such as original sin, Kierkegaard suggests that all human beings are born to suffer in this way. Because Kierkegaard sets forth Christianity and belief in Christ as the solution to suffering, "The Sickness Unto Death" reads more like a religious text than a philosophical one. Unlike Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard has a strong Christian emphasis. However, Kierkegaard's existentialism also resembles Buddhism because of the author's understanding of suffering as a contingency of human existence. The fact that "all life is suffering" is one of the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism.
In Jenseits von Gut und Bose: Vorspiel einer Philosophie der Zukunft (Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future), German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche presents rebels against the rigidity of religion and the dualistic framework Western religion imposes, shaping human worldview and belief systems. Nietzsche urges the human being to take responsibility for moral choices,…