If the world is driven by a blind, insatiable force that condemns every conscious being to perpetual suffering, the obvious question is: can anything be done about it? Schopenhauer’s answer is the most radical idea in his entire philosophical system and one of the most extraordinary proposals in the history of Western thought. The will can be denied. Not defeated, because the will is the fundamental reality of the universe and no individual consciousness can overpower it through brute force. Not escaped, because there is no place outside the will to flee to. But denied, in the precise sense that...