Pessimism and wisdom in Schopenhauer

The article analyzes Schopenhauer’s thesis that “our whole existence is something that would be better if it were not, and that the supreme wisdom [die größte Weisheit] consists in denying it and rejecting it”. After examining this thesis, I try to show its possible defects. Although in this text I briefly consider the Aphorisms on the wisdom of life, since my purpose is the discussion of the supreme wisdom and not the immanent sense of a wisdom of life, I leave aside the analysis and discussion of exposed eudemonology in Parerga for the sake of a look at the themes of pessimism and denial of will, clearly connected with the idea of the supreme wisdom defended by Schopenhauer in the passage quoted above. I do so because I do not want, at least here, take the risk to abandon the higher ethical-metaphysical point of view of Schopenhauer’s philosophy