Arthur Schopenhauer was born in the Free City of Danzig; when Prussia took over in 1793, his father, a successful and liberal-minded merchant, moved the family to Hamburg. At the age of nine Schopenhauer was sent for two years to Le Havre to learn French, then for four years to a boarding school in Hamburg. As a teenager he traveled for two years through England, France, Switzerland and Austria, until his father made him go to work at a merchant's office. Schopenhauer was still only seventeen when his father committed suicide by throwing himself into a canal. Schopenhauer moved with his mother, a novelist, to Weimar and studied literature until 1809 when he enrolled at the University of Göttingen. he began studying medicine but two years later moved to the University of Berlin to study with Fichte. He completed his doctorate in philosophy at Jena.

bio by Daniel Kolak in Lovers of Wisdom
(Wadsworth, 1997)