پاتریک گاردینر با انجام پژوهشی انتقادی در فلسفهٔ شوپنهاور هم به خوانندهٔ عمومی خدمت شایان توجهی کرده هم به فلاسفهٔ حرفهای. درحالیکه معدود فیلسوفانی هستند که نامشان شناخته شدهتر از شوپنهاور است، اما مطالعهٔ آثار او، دستکم در انگلستان، وسیعاً مورد غفلت واقع شده است.
بیاعتمادی ریشهدار به متافیزیک او به این فرض غلط انجامیده که مطلب فلسفی مهمی وجود ندارد که بتوان از او آموخت. گاردینر این برداشت سطحی را تصحیح میکند و نشان میدهد که حتی اغراقهای شوپنهاور هم اغلب برآمده از بینشهای دقیق فلسفی هستند. مخصوصاً، ستایشگران ویتگنشتاین شگفتزده خواهند شد از اینکه ببینند اندیشهٔ او تا چه پایه متأثر از اندیشهٔ شوپنهاور بوده است.
Patrick Lancaster Gardiner was a British academic philosopher, a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford.
His father was Clive Gardiner, a landscape artist and principal of Goldsmiths College; his mother was Lilian Lancaster, an artist and a pupil of Walter Sickert. His paternal grandfather was Alfred George Gardiner, editor of The Daily News. His younger brother was the architect Stephen Gardiner. He was educated at Westminster School, and then received a First in history from Christ Church, Oxford. After Army service in Italy, North Africa and Austria, he returned to Oxford for a second B.A., in PPE (politics, philosophy and economics).
He was appointed to Wadham College, Oxford (1949), and then St Anthony's College, Oxford (1952). His first published book was The Nature of Historical Explanation in 1952 In 1958 he became a Fellow of Magdalen College, where he remained, becoming an Emeritus Fellow in 1989.
He married Susan Booth (1934–2006) in 1955, and had two daughters.
I've been slowly approaching the great master, from John Gray's quite shocking exposition of the philosopher in his Straw Dogs to Irvin Yalom's modern reincarnation of the philosopher as a fictional character in his The Schopenhauer Cure, I picked up Gardiner's intro to Schopenhauer's philosophy because John Gray says his is still the best introduction. Overall, it was good, but not the greatest. His prose is old-school and formal, the kind of longwinded and impeccable sentences only Brits of an old generation can write. A bit on the stuffy side, but on the whole, it was a solid introduction, clear for the most part, sympathetic to the philosopher's views, but also critical. A well-balanced introduction, was my impression. And now, I think I'm finally ready to read the original...
Bryan macgee, a british broadcast guy, took gardiner's schoepenhauer book as a re-writ template & did a much "better" job with completed project. Macgee then extensively revised & expanded his own work for second edition.
A non-professional would do MUCH better first teading macgee , & THEN reading gardiner as a shorter, but complete summary of schoepenhauer.
It's amazing how closely macgee followed gardiner's work.