This essay explores Schopenhauer's relationship to Kant, and stresses the extent to which the great pessimist's aesthetic philosophy relies on Kant's metaphysics even more than it does on Kant's aesthetics. It highlights the breadth of Schopenhauer's vision of the role of art and of the liberating aesthetic experiences it makes possible. It addresses the puzzle of how the art of music — which according to Schopenhauer presents us with blind, ceaseless, and hateful willing in its most unvarnished form — can yet provide aesthetic experience of the highest order, justifying Schopenhauer's according to music the foremost position among the arts.
Keywords: Arthur Schopenhauer, Kant, aesthetic philosophy, metaphysics, music, aesthetic experience