Abstract

The main aim of this paper is to contribute to the field of history of Slovak philosophy by focusing on the reflection of Schopenhauerʼs philosophy in the thinking of Tomáš Garrique Masaryk. We focus on the criticism of Masaryk’s statement in his famous work Ideály humanitní: Pessimism is identical with nihilism. We try to prove that Schopenhauer’s pessimism is not necessarily identical with nihilism by detailed analysis of Schopenhauer’s ontological system.