The book reconstructs in detail the genesis of Schopenhauers philosophy and its aporias.

It is divided into four parts. The first part concerns the pietistic education of the young Schopenhauer and his meeting with philosophy through the courses of G.E. Schulze and the study of Plato, Schelling and Kant. Oppressed by the "negative" results of Kant's criticism (unknowability of the thing in itself), the young Schopenhauer first confronts himself with Fichte and Schelling (second part of the volume). But these two philosophers, in his opinion, rather than maintaining and developing the results of Kant, actually end up abandoning them. Nevertheless he tacitly inherits some nodal points from Fichte und Schelling.

The third part concerns his first attempt to elaborate a new post-Kantian metaphysics: the theory of "better consciousness".

In the fourth part it is shown how the internal contradictions of that theory and the decisive encounter with Indian wisdom (Hinduism and Buddhism) lead him to abandon his first attempt at system and to build his metaphysics of will.

In the last chapter of the book, the most substantial, the author faces the aporias of Schopenhauer's mature system starting from the genetic perspective.