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Arthur Schopenhauer Portrait by Ludwig Sigismund Ruhl 1815

Philosophical pessimism is a family of philosophical views that assign a negative value to life or existence. Philosophical pessimists commonly argue that the world contains an

empirical Empirical evidence for a proposition is evidence, i.e. what supports or counters this proposition, that is constituted by or accessible to sense experience or experimental procedure. Empirical evidence is of central importance to the sciences and ...

prevalence of pains over pleasures, that existence is ontologically or metaphysically adverse to living beings, and that life is fundamentally meaningless or without

purpose Purpose is the end for which something is done, created or for which it exists. It is part of the topic of intentionality and goal-seeking behavior. Related concepts and subjects: * Goal, a desired result or possible outcome * Intention, the state ...

. Their responses to this condition, however, are widely varied and can be life-affirming. Philosophical pessimism is not a single coherent movement, but rather a loosely associated group of thinkers with similar ideas and a resemblance to each other. In ''Weltschmerz: Pessimism in German Philosophy, 1860-1900'', Frederick C. Beiser describes philosophical pessimism as "the thesis that life is not worth living, that nothingness is better than being, or that it is worse to be than not be". In a very similar way, Schopenhauer argues that it would have been better if life had not come into existence. Although adherents of philosophical pessimism rarely advocate for

suicide Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Mental disorders (including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, anxiety disorders), physical disorders (such as chronic fatigue syndrome), and ...

as a solution to the human predicament, many of its proponents do favour the adoption of antinatalism, that is, non-procreation.

Development of pessimist thought

In religion

Buddhism

Buddha in Sarnath Museum (Dhammajak Mutra)

Historically, philosophical pessimism seems to have first presented itself in the

East East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fac ...

, under the partly religious aspect of

Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

. In the ''

Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta The ''Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta'' (Pali; Sanskrit: ''Dharmacakrapravartana Sūtra''; English: ''The Setting in Motion of the Wheel of the Dharma Sutta'' or ''Promulgation of the Law Sutta'') is a Buddhist text that is considered by Buddhists t ...

'',

Gautama Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition, he was born in L ...

establishes the first

noble truth In Buddhism, the Four Noble Truths (Sanskrit: ; pi, cattāri ariyasaccāni; "The four Arya satyas") are "the truths of the Noble Ones", the truths or realities for the "spiritually worthy ones". Four_Noble_Truths:_BUDDHIST_PHILOSOPHY_Encycl_...

_of_''duḥkha'',_or_suffering,_as_the_fundamental_mark_of_existence:

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of ''duḥkha'', or suffering, as the fundamental mark of existence:

Now this, Bhikkhu">bhikkhus, is the noble truth of suffering: birth is suffering, aging is suffering, illness is suffering, death is suffering; union with what is displeasing is suffering; separation from what is pleasing is suffering; not to get what one wants is suffering; in brief, the five aggregates subject to clinging are suffering.

This would have exerted a certain Greco-Buddhism">influence on Greco-Roman philosophy from the Ptolemaic dynasty">Ptolemaic period onwards, in particular on the pessimistic doctrine of

Hegesias of Cyrene Hegesias ( el, Ἡγησίας; fl. 290 BC) of Cyrene was a Cyrenaic philosopher. He argued that eudaimonia (happiness) is impossible to achieve, and that the goal of life should be the avoidance of pain and sorrow. Conventional values suc ...

. This thesis is notably advanced by Jean-Marie Guyau who, in the middle of the Pessimism controversy, controversy about German pessimism (1870–1890), detects in Hegesias' philosophy the pessimistic theme of Buddhism, which he sees as a "palliative of life"; he summarizes it as follows:

Most often, hope brings with it disappointment, enjoyment produces satiety and disgust; in life, the sum of sorrows is greater than that of pleasures; to seek happiness, or only pleasure, is therefore vain and contradictory, since in reality, one will always find a surplus of sorrows; what one must tend to is only to avoid sorrow; now, in order to feel less sorrow, there is only one way: to make oneself indifferent to the pleasures themselves and to what produces them, to blunt sensitivity, to annihilate desire. Indifference, renunciation, here is thus the only palliative of life.

Judaism and Christianity

The

Ecclesiastes Ecclesiastes (; hbo, קֹהֶלֶת, Qōheleṯ, grc, Ἐκκλησιαστής, Ekklēsiastēs) is one of the Ketuvim ("Writings") of the Hebrew Bible and part of the Wisdom literature of the Christian Old Testament. The title commonly us ...

is a piece of wisdom literature from the Christian

Old Testament The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...

. In chapter 1, the author expresses his view towards the vanity (or meaninglessness) of human endeavors in life:

The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem: "Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless." What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun? Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises. The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course. All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again. All things are wearisome, more than one can say. The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing. What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

In chapter 4, the author also expresses antinatalistic thoughts, articulating that, better than those who are already dead, is he who was not yet been born:

Again I looked and saw all the oppression that was taking place under the sun: I saw the tears of the oppressed—and they have no comforter; power was on the side of their oppressors—and they have no comforter. And I declared that the dead, who had already died, are happier than the living, who are still alive. But better than both is the one who has never been born, who has not seen the evil that is done under the sun.

Some parallels have been made between the Book of Ecclesiastes and an ancient Mesopotamian literary composition named the Dialogue of Pessimism, composed around 1500 BCE in ancient

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...

. Taking the form of a dialogue between a master and slave, the master in the exchange cannot decide on any course of action, giving orders to his slave before immediately cancelling them and driving him to the point of desperation, which has been interpreted as an expression of the futility of human actions. In the Bible,

Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and relig ...

sometimes showed doubts about the value of the world, for example, in the

Gospel of John The Gospel of John ( grc, Εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Ἰωάννην, translit=Euangélion katà Iōánnēn) is the fourth of the four canonical gospels. It contains a highly schematic account of the ministry of Jesus, with seven "sig ...

: "If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own. Because you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world—therefore the world hates you."

Gnosticism

Gnosticism Gnosticism (from grc, γνωστικός, gnōstikós, , 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems which coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish and early Christian sects. These various groups emphasized pe ...

is a complex religious movement steeped in Greco-Latin philosophy, most often claiming to be "true" Christianity, although it is considered heretical by the Catholic Church. It is characterized by a philosophy of salvation based on "gnosis", in other words on the knowledge of the divine, and by its denigration of the earthly world, created by an evil power. In general, the gnostic considers his body negatively: it is the "prison", the "tomb", or the "corpse" where his authentic self has been locked up. It is a foreign thing that must be endured, an "unwanted companion" or an "intruder" that drags the spirit down, plunging it into the degrading oblivion of its origin. The flesh is interpreted in this sense as a state of humiliation and suffering engendered by a demonic force, perverted or weakened, lurking in matter. This state condemns all men to live in a kind of hell which is none other than the sensible world. The pessimistic vision of the Gnostics extends to all the cosmos, conceived as a failed work, even fatal or criminal. Man is "thrown" into it, then locked up without hope. In Gnostic thought, the problem of evil is a nagging question which leads to the adoption of a dualistic perspective. Indeed, the gnostic is led either to oppose God and the spirit to matter or to an evil principle, or else to distinguish from the transcendent God, unknown or foreign to the world and absolutely good, an inferior or enemy god, creator of the world and of bodies. In this last case, the divine, rejected entirely out of the sensible, only remains in the "luminous" part of the human soul, extinguished however in the great majority of men. In addition to affirming the intrinsically evil character of the world, the Gnostic conceives it as hermetically sealed, surrounded by "outer darkness", by a "great sea" or by an "iron wall" identified with the firmament. Not only is it fortified against God, but God himself has been forced to fortify himself against the world's reach. Inexorable barriers thus oppose the escape of the soul from the earthly realm. Inhabited by the feeling of being a stranger to the world, where he has been made to fall, the gnostic discovers that he is in essence a native of a beyond, although his body and his lower passions belong to this world. He then understands that he is of the race (genos) of the chosen ones, superior and "hypercosmic" beings. If he desperately yearns for an afterlife, it is because he experiences within himself a throbbing nostalgia for the original homeland from which he has fallen. This longing affects the upper part of his soul, which is a divine principle in exile here on earth, and which can only be saved by the recognition of its original origin—gnosis proper. Those whose higher part of the soul has remained extinct, or who are devoid of it, that is to say, all the individuals whom the Gnostics call hylics (the majority of human beings and all animals), are condemned to destruction or to wander in this world, undergoing the terrifying cycle of reincarnations.

Ancient Greece

Hegesias of Cyrene

was a Greek philosopher born in

Cyrene, Libya Cyrene ( ) or Kyrene ( ; grc, Κυρήνη, Kyrḗnē, arb, شحات, Shaḥāt), was an ancient Greek and later Roman city near present-day Shahhat, Libya. It was the oldest and most important of the five Greek cities, known as the pentapol ...

, around the year 290 BC. He came from the dual Socratic and hedonistic tradition of the

Cyrenaic The Cyrenaics or Kyrenaics ( grc, Κυρηναϊκοί, Kyrēnaïkoí), were a sensual hedonist Greek school of philosophy founded in the 4th century BCE, supposedly by Aristippus of Cyrene, although many of the principles of the school are bel ...

school, but is clearly distinguished from it by the radical philosophical pessimism attributed to him. All his writings have been lost and we only know of his philosophy through what

Diogenes Laërtius Diogenes Laërtius ( ; grc-gre, Διογένης Λαέρτιος, ; ) was a biographer of the Greek philosophers. Nothing is definitively known about his life, but his surviving ''Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers'' is a principal sour ...

says about him, who considered him as "the advocate of suicide". Laërtius first lends to Hegesias the explicit affirmation of the impossibility of happiness: like later philosophical pessimists, Hegesias argued that lasting happiness is impossible to achieve and that all we can do is to try to avoid pain as much as possible:

Complete happiness cannot possibly exist; for that the body is full of many sensations, and that the mind sympathizes with the body, and is troubled when that is troubled, and also that fortune prevents many things which we cherished in anticipation; so that for all these reasons, perfect happiness eludes our grasp.

Hegesias held that all external objects, events, and actions are indifferent to the wise man, even death: "for the foolish person it is expedient to live, but to the wise person it is a matter of indifference". According to

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the esta ...

, Hegesias wrote a book called ''Death by Starvation'', which supposedly persuaded many people that death was more desirable than life (consequently earning him the nickname ''Peisithanatos'', that is, Death-persuader). Because of this,

Ptolemy II Philadelphus ; egy, Userkanaenre Meryamun Clayton (2006) p. 208 , predecessor = Ptolemy I , successor = Ptolemy III , horus = ''ḥwnw-ḳni'Khunuqeni''The brave youth , nebty = ''wr-pḥtj'Urpekhti''Great of strength , gold ...

banned Hegesias from teaching in Alexandria.

Middle Ages

Al-Ma'arri and

Omar Kayyam Ghiyāth al-Dīn Abū al-Fatḥ ʿUmar ibn Ibrāhīm Nīsābūrī (18 May 1048 – 4 December 1131), commonly known as Omar Khayyam ( fa, عمر خیّام), was a polymath, known for his contributions to mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, a ...

are two medieval writers noted for their expression of a philosophically pessimistic worldview in their poetry. Al-Ma'arri held an antinatalist view, in line with his pessimism, arguing that children should not be born to spare them of the pains and

suffering Suffering, or pain in a broad sense, may be an experience of unpleasantness or aversion, possibly associated with the perception of harm or threat of harm in an individual. Suffering is the basic element that makes up the negative valence of a ...

of life.

17th century

Baltasar Gracián

Baltasar Gracián Baltasar Gracián y Morales, S.J. (; 8 January 16016 December 1658), better known as Baltasar Gracián, was a Spanish Jesuit and baroque prose writer and philosopher. He was born in Belmonte, near Calatayud (Aragón). His writings were lauded ...

's novel ''

El Criticón ''El Criticón'' is a Spanish novel by Baltasar Gracián. It was published in three parts in the years 1651, 1653 and 1657. It is considered his greatest work and one of the most influential works in Spanish literature, along with ''Don Quixote'' ...

'' ("The Critic") is considered to be an extended allegory of the human search for

happiness Happiness, in the context of mental or emotional states, is positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. Other forms include life satisfaction, well-being, subjective well-being, flourishing and eudaimonia. ...

which turns out to be fruitless on Earth; the novel paints a bleak and desolate picture of the

human condition The human condition is all of the characteristics and key events of human life, including birth, learning, emotion, aspiration, morality, conflict, and death. This is a very broad topic that has been and continues to be pondered and analyzed f ...

. His book of

aphorisms An aphorism (from Greek ἀφορισμός: ''aphorismos'', denoting 'delimitation', 'distinction', and 'definition') is a concise, terse, laconic, or memorable expression of a general truth or principle. Aphorisms are often handed down by tr ...

, '' The Pocket Oracle and Art of Prudence'' ("Oráculo Manual y Arte de Prudencia") deals with the cultural ideal of ''desengaño'', which is commonly translated as ''disenchantment'' or ''disillusionment''. However, Gracian is said to have asserted that the journey of life is one where a person loses the misconceptions of the world, but not the illusions. Jennifer A. Herdt argues that Gracian held that "what the world values is deceptive simply because it appears solid and lasting but is in fact impermanent and transitory. Having realized this, we turn from the pursuit of things that pass away and strive to grasp those that do not." Arthur Schopenhauer engaged extensively with Gracián's works and considered ''El Criticón'' "Absolutely unique... a book made for constant use... a companion for life... orthose who wish to prosper in the great world". Schopenhauer's pessimistic outlook was influenced by Gracián, and he translated ''The Pocket Oracle and Art of Prudence'' into German. He praised Gracián for his aphoristic writing style ( ''conceptismo'') and often quoted him in his works.

Blaise Pascal

Blaise Pascal Blaise Pascal ( , , ; ; 19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, and Catholic writer. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen. Pascal's earliest ...

approached pessimism from a Christian perspective. He is noted for publishing the ''

Pensées The ''Pensées'' ("Thoughts") is a collection of fragments written by the French 17th-century philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal. Pascal's religious conversion led him into a life of asceticism, and the ''Pensées'' was in many ways hi ...

'', a pessimistic series of aphorisms with the intention to highlight the misery of the human condition and turn people towards the salvation of the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide . It is am ...

and God. A

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

and

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

of the first order, Pascal turned more and more to religion and faith since a mystical experience he had at the age of thirty. Embracing the Jansenist current of

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global popula ...

, he considered that man is condemned, as a result of the

original sin Original sin is the Christian doctrine that holds that humans, through the fact of birth, inherit a tainted nature in need of regeneration and a proclivity to sinful conduct. The biblical basis for the belief is generally found in Genesis 3 ...

, to perpetual misery. This misery we seek by all means to evade it: "Men, not having been able to cure death, misery, and ignorance, advised themselves, to make themselves happy, not to think about it". In order to forget our condition, not only do we limit our thoughts to the consideration of futile things, but we multiply our gesticulations and vain activities. The will which pushes us thus towards the inessential belongs to what Pascal calls "entertainment ". Any life that does not involve the thought of its finitude is a life of entertainment that leads away from God. Entertainment takes extremely varied forms and a very large place in our ordinary existence. Now, Pascal affirms, if the only thing that consoles us from our miseries is indeed entertainment, it is also "the greatest of our miseries". For Pascal, action is necessarily subject to entertainment and it is therefore in thought, and not in action, that all our dignity resides. But the thought in question is not that of the geometer, the physicist or the philosopher who, more often than not, feeds on pride and leads away from God. It is the introspective discovery and knowledge of our finitude, which alone can raise us above other creatures and bring us closer to God. "Man is only a reed, the weakest of nature, but he is a thinking reed" declares in this sense Pascal in a famous maxim. Thought is an essence of man to which he owes his greatness, but only insofar as it reveals to him his finitude. The Christian idea of man's irretrievability is therefore not only a truth, but a belief that must be adopted, because it alone gives human existence a certain dignity. Pascal promotes in this perspective a reflexive form of pessimism, linking greatness and misery, where the disconsideration of oneself and the recognition of our impotence raise us above ourselves, making us renounce at the same time the vain search for happiness.

18th century

Voltaire

In response to the

1755 Lisbon earthquake The 1755 Lisbon earthquake, also known as the Great Lisbon earthquake, impacted Portugal, the Iberian Peninsula, and Northwest Africa on the morning of Saturday, 1 November, Feast of All Saints, at around 09:40 local time. In combination with ...

Voltaire François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778) was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher. Known by his '' nom de plume'' M. de Voltaire (; also ; ), he was famous for his wit, and his criticism of Christianity—e ...

penned the pessimistic '' Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne'' ("Poem on the Lisbon Disaster"), which critiqued Pope's optimistic axiom in the poem " An Essay on Man" that "all is well"; Voltaire had initially praised Pope's poem, but later in life became critical of Pope's expressed worldview. ''Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne'' is especially pessimistic about the state of mankind and the nature of God. In response to the poem, Jean-Jacques Rousseau sent Voltaire a letter asserting that "all human ills are the result of human faults". Voltaire was the first European to be labeled as a pessimist by his critics, in response to the publication and international success of his 1759 satirical novel ''

Candide ( , ) is a French satire written by Voltaire, a philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment, first published in 1759. The novella has been widely translated, with English versions titled ''Candide: or, All for the Best'' (1759); ''Candide: or, Th ...

''; a treatise against Leibniz's theistic optimism, refuting his affirmation that "we live in the

best of all possible worlds The phrase "the best of all possible worlds" (french: Le meilleur des mondes possibles; german: Die beste aller möglichen Welten) was coined by the German polymath and Enlightenment philosopher Gottfried Leibniz in his 1710 work ''Essais de Th ...

." Though himself a Deist, Voltaire argued against the existence of a compassionate

personal God A personal god, or personal goddess, is a deity who can be related to as a person, instead of as an impersonal force, such as the Absolute, "the All", or the "Ground of Being". In the scriptures of the Abrahamic religions, God is described as b ...

through his interpretation of the

problem of evil The problem of evil is the question of how to reconcile the existence of evil and suffering with an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient God.The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,The Problem of Evil, Michael TooleyThe Internet Encyc ...

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

For

Rousseau Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolu ...

, humans in their "natural goodness" have no sense of self-consciousness in time and thus are happier than humans corrupted by society. Rousseau saw the movement out of the

state of nature The state of nature, in moral and political philosophy, religion, social contract theories and international law, is the hypothetical life of people before societies came into existence. Philosophers of the state of nature theory deduce that the ...

as the origin of inequality and humanity's lack of freedom. The wholesome qualities of humans in their natural state, a non-destructive love of self and compassion are gradually replaced by ''

amour-propre ''Amour-propre'' (; ) is a French term that can be variously translated as "self-love", "self-esteem", or "vanity". In philosophy, it is a term used by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who contrasts it with another kind of self-love which he calls ''amour ...

'', self-love driven by pride and jealousy of their fellow humans. Because of this, modern humans live "always outside hemselves, concerned with other humans, the future, and external objects. Rousseau also blames the human faculty of "perfectibility" and language for tearing them away from their natural state by allowing them to imagine a future in which humans are different than what they are now and therefore making them appear inadequate to themselves, and thus "perfectible". Rousseau saw the evolution of modern society as the replacement of natural

egalitarianism Egalitarianism (), or equalitarianism, is a school of thought within political philosophy that builds from the concept of social equality, prioritizing it for all people. Egalitarian doctrines are generally characterized by the idea that all h ...

by alienation and class distinction enforced by institutions of power. Thus '' The Social Contract'' opens with the famous phrase "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains." Even the ruling classes are not free, in fact for Rousseau they are "greater slaves" because they require more esteem from others to rule and must therefore constantly live "outside themselves".

19th century

Giacomo Leopardi

Though a lesser-known figure outside Italy,

Giacomo Leopardi Count Giacomo Taldegardo Francesco di Sales Saverio Pietro Leopardi (, ; 29 June 1798 – 14 June 1837) was an Italian philosopher, poet, essayist, and philologist. He is considered the greatest Italian poet of the nineteenth century and one of ...

was highly influential in the 19th century, especially on Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. In Leopardi's darkly comic essays, aphorisms, fables and parables, life is often described as a sort of divine joke or mistake. For Leopardi, humans have an unlimited desire for pleasure, which cannot however be satisfied by any specific joy. In this perspective, the existential problem for human beings emerges in the actual desire for particular existent pleasures, for these are all finite and thus cannot satisfy the desire for the infinite:

The sense of the nothingness of all things, the inadequacy of each and every pleasure to fill our spirit, and our tendency toward an infinite that we do not understand comes perhaps from a very simple cause, one that is more material than spiritual. The human soul (and likewise all living beings) always essentially desires, and focuses solely (though in many different forms), on pleasure, or happiness, which, if you think about it carefully, is the same thing. This desire and this tendency has no limits, because it is inborn or born along with existence itself, and so cannot reach its end in this or that pleasure, which cannot be infinite but will end only when life ends. And it has no limits (1) either in duration (2) or in extent. Hence there can be no pleasure to equal (1) either its duration, because no pleasure is eternal, (2) or its extent, because no pleasure is beyond measure, but the nature of things requires that everything exist within limits and that everything have boundaries, and be circumscribed.

Going against the Socratic view present ever since

Plato Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...

's dialogues, which associates wisdom or knowledge with happiness, Leopardi claims that philosophy, by putting an end to false opinions and ignorance, reveals to humans truths that are opposed to their happiness: "Those who say and preach that the perfection of man consists in the knowledge of truth and that all his ills come from false opinions and from ignorance are quite wrong. And so are those who say that the human race will finally be happy when all or the great majority of men know the truth and organize and govern their lives according to its norms." For Leopardi, the ultimate conclusion that philosophizing leads us to is that, paradoxically, we must not philosophize. Such conclusion, however can only be learned at one's own expense, and even once it has been learned, it can't be put in operation because "it is not in the power of men to forget the truths they know and because one can more easily lay aside any other habit than that of philosophizing. In short, philosophy starts out by hoping and promising to cure our ills and ends up by desiring in vain to find a remedy for itself." Leopardi regarded nature itself as antagonical to the happiness of man and all other creatures. In his "Dialogue Between Nature and an Icelander", the titular Icelander relates how, in his attempt to escape from suffering, he found himself attacked by severe weather, natural disasters, other animals, diseases, and aging. At the end of the dialogue, the Icelander asks Nature: "For whose pleasure and service is this wretched life of the world maintained, by the suffering and death of all the beings which compose it?", to which nature does not directly give a response; instead, two famished lions suddenly appear and devour the Icelander, thus gainining the strength to live another day. Leopardi's response to these conditions was to face up to these realities and try to live a vibrant and great life, to be risky and take up uncertain tasks. He asserted that this uncertainty makes life valuable and exciting, but does not free humans from suffering; it is rather an abandonment of the futile pursuit of happiness. He used the example of

Christopher Columbus Christopher Columbus * lij, Cristoffa C(or)ombo * es, link=no, Cristóbal Colón * pt, Cristóvão Colombo * ca, Cristòfor (or ) * la, Christophorus Columbus. (; born between 25 August and 31 October 1451, died 20 May 1506) was a ...

who went on a dangerous and uncertain voyage and because of this grew to appreciate life more fully. Leopardi also saw the capacity of humans to laugh at their condition as a laudable quality that can help them deal with their predicament: "He who has the courage to laugh is master of the world, much like him who is prepared to die."

German pessimism

Although the first manifestations of philosophical pessimism date back to antiquity, never before did it take such a systematic turn and been so reflected upon as in Germany during the second half of the nineteenth century. For almost fifty years, the issue of pessimism was discussed in the context of '' Weltschmerz.'' The question of pessimism dominated German philosophical thought, and the "

pessimism controversy The pessimism controversy or pessimism dispute (german: Pessimismusstreit) is a largely forgotten intellectual controversy that occurred in Germany, starting in the 1860s and ending around the beginning of the First World War. Philosophers who ...

" was its major point of dispute. The discussion that took place in Germany around this movement largely agreed on what constituted its central thesis, in other words, the thesis of the negative value of existence.

Arthur Schopenhauer

The first presentation of philosophical pessimism in a systematic manner, with an entire structure of

metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...

underlying it, was introduced by

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

philosopher

Arthur Schopenhauer Arthur Schopenhauer ( , ; 22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher. He is best known for his 1818 work ''The World as Will and Representation'' (expanded in 1844), which characterizes the phenomenal world as the prod ...

in the 19th century. Schopenhauer's pessimism came from his analysis of life being the product of an insatiable and incessant cosmic

Will Will may refer to: Common meanings * Will and testament, instructions for the disposition of one's property after death * Will (philosophy), or willpower * Will (sociology) * Will, volition (psychology) * Will, a modal verb - see Shall and wi ...

. He considered the

to be the ultimate metaphysical animating

noumenon In philosophy, a noumenon (, ; ; noumena) is a posited object or an event that exists independently of human sense and/or perception. The term ''noumenon'' is generally used in contrast with, or in relation to, the term ''phenomenon'', which ...

, describing it as an aimless, restless and unquenchable striving, encompassing both the inorganic and organic realm, and whose most intuitive and direct apprehension can be attained by man through an observation of his own body and desires:

In nature-without-knowledge her inner being sa constant striving without aim and without rest, and this stands out much more distinctly when we consider the animal or man. Willing and striving are its whole essence, and can be fully compared to an unquenchable thirst. The basis of all willing, however, is need, lack, and hence pain, and by its very nature and origin it is therefore destined to pain. If, on the other hand, it lacks objects of willing, because it is at once deprived of them again by too easy a satisfaction, a fearful emptiness and boredom come over it; in other words, its being and its existence itself become an intolerable burden for it. Hence its life swings like a pendulum to and fro between pain and boredom, and these two are in fact its ultimate constituents.

Schopenhauer saw human reason as weak and insignificant compared to Will; in one

metaphor A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared wi ...

, he compared the human intellect to a sighted lame man, who rides on the shoulders of a strong but blind man (the Will). He noted that, once one's desires are satiated, the feeling of satisfaction does not last for long, being merely the starting-point of new desires, and that, as a result, humans spend most of their lives in a state of endless striving; in this sense, they are, deep down, nothing but Will. Even the moments of satisfaction, when attained and not immediately giving way to new wants and longings, only lead one to an abandonment to boredom, which for Schopenhauer is a direct proof that existence has no real value in itself:

For what is boredom but the feeling of the emptiness of life? If life—the craving for which is the very essence of our being—were possessed of any positive intrinsic value, there would be no such thing as boredom at all: mere existence would satisfy us in itself, and we should want for nothing.

Moreover, Schopenhauer argued that the business of biological life is a war of all against all, filled with constant strife and struggle, with each different phenomenon of the will-to-live contesting with one another to maintain its own phenomenon:

This universal conflict is to be seen most clearly in the animal kingdom. Animals have the vegetable kingdom for their nourishment, and within the animal kingdom again every animal is the prey and food of some other. This means that the matter in which an animal's Idea manifests itself must stand aside for the manifestation of another Idea, since every animal can maintain its own existence only by the incessant elimination of another's. Thus the will-to-live generally feasts on itself, and is in different forms its own nourishment, till finally the human race, because it subdues all the others, regards nature as manufactured for its own use.

He also asserted that pleasure and pain were asymmetrical: pleasure has a negative nature, while pain is positive. By this Schopenhauer meant that pleasure does not come to us originally and of itself, that is, pleasure is only able to exist as a removal of a preexistent pain or want, while pain directly and immediately proclaims itself to our perception:

We feel pain, but not painlessness; care, but not freedom from care; fear, but not safety and security. We feel the desire as we feel hunger and thirst; but as soon as it has been satisfied, it is like the mouthful of food which has been taken, and which ceases to exist for our feelings the moment it is swallowed. We painfully feel the loss of pleasures and enjoyments, as soon as they fail to appear; but when pains cease even after being present for a long time, their absence is not directly felt, but at most they are thought of intentionally by means of reflection. For only pain and want can be felt positively; and therefore they proclaim themselves; well-being, on the contrary, is merely negative. Therefore, we do not become conscious of the three greatest blessings of life as such, namely health, youth, and freedom, as long as we possess them, but only after we have lost them; for they too are negations.

Schopenhauer saw in artistic contemplation a temporary escape from the act of willing. He believed that through "losing yourself" in art one could sublimate the Will. However, he believed that only resignation from the pointless striving of the Will to live through a form of

asceticism Asceticism (; from the el, ἄσκησις, áskesis, exercise', 'training) is a lifestyle characterized by abstinence from sensual pleasures, often for the purpose of pursuing spiritual goals. Ascetics may withdraw from the world for their p ...

, which he interpreted as a "mortification of the will" or the "denial of the will-to-live" (as those practiced by eastern monastics and by "saintly persons") could free oneself from the Will altogether. Schopenhauer never used the term ''pessimism'' to describe his philosophy but he also did not object when others called it that. Other terms used to describe his thought are voluntarism and irrationalism, which he also never used.

Post-Schopenhauerian pessimism

During the final years of Schopenhauer's life and subsequent years after his death, post-Schopenhauerian pessimism became a popular trend in 19th-century Germany. Nevertheless, it was viewed with disdain by the other popular philosophies at the time, such as

Hegelianism Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (; ; 27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a German philosopher. He is one of the most important figures in German idealism and one of the founding figures of modern Western philosophy. His influence extends a ...

materialism Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds matter to be the fundamental substance in nature, and all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. According to philosophical materialis ...

, neo-Kantianism and the emerging

positivism Positivism is an empiricist philosophical theory that holds that all genuine knowledge is either true by definition or positive—meaning ''a posteriori'' facts derived by reason and logic from sensory experience.John J. Macionis, Linda M. G ...

. In an age of upcoming revolutions and exciting discoveries in

science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence ...

, the resigned and anti-progressive nature of the typical pessimist was seen as a detriment to social development. To respond to this growing criticism, a group of philosophers greatly influenced by Schopenhauer (indeed, some even being his personal acquaintances) developed their own brand of pessimism, each in their own unique way. Thinkers such as

Julius Bahnsen Julius Friedrich August Bahnsen (30 March 1830 – 7 December 1881) was a German philosopher. Bahnsen is usually considered the originator of characterology and a real-dialectical method of philosophical reflection which he laid down in his tw ...

, Eduard von Hartmann,

Philipp Mainländer Philipp Mainländer (5 October 1841 – 1 April 1876) was a German philosopher and poet. Born Philipp Batz, he later changed his name to "Mainländer" in homage to his hometown, Offenbach am Main. In his central work (''The Philosophy of R ...

and others cultivated the ever-increasing threat of pessimism by converting Schopenhauer's

transcendental idealism Transcendental idealism is a philosophical system founded by German philosopher Immanuel Kant in the 18th century. Kant's epistemological program is found throughout his '' Critique of Pure Reason'' (1781). By ''transcendental'' (a term that dese ...

into what Frederick C. Beiser calls transcendental realism. The transcendental ''idealist'' thesis is that humans know only the appearances of things (not

things-in-themselves In Kantian philosophy, the thing-in-itself (german: Ding an sich) is the status of objects as they are, independent of representation and observation. The concept of the thing-in-itself was introduced by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, and ...

); the transcendental ''realist'' thesis is that "the knowledge we have of how things appear to us in experience gives us knowledge of things-in-themselves." By espousing transcendental realism, Schopenhauer's own dark observations about the nature of the world would become completely knowable and objective, and in this way, they would attain certainty. The certainty of pessimism being, that non-existence is preferable to existence. That, along with the metaphysical reality of the Will, were the premises which the post-Schopenhauerian thinkers inherited from Schopenhauer's teachings. From this common starting point, each philosopher developed their own negative view of being in their respective philosophies. Some pessimists would assuage the critics by accepting the validity of their criticisms and embracing

historicism Historicism is an approach to explaining the existence of phenomena, especially social and cultural practices (including ideas and beliefs), by studying their history, that is, by studying the process by which they came about. The term is widely ...

, as was the case with Schopenhauer's literary executor Julius Frauenstädt and with Eduard von Hartmann (who gave transcendental realism a unique twist). Agnes Taubert, the wife of Von Hartmann, in her work ''Pessimism and Its Opponents'' defined pessimism as "a matter of measuring the eudaimonological value of life in order to determine whether existence is preferable to non-existence or not"; like her husband, Taubert argued that the answer to this problem is "empirically ascertainable". Olga Plümacher was critical of Schopenhauer's pessimism for "not achieving as good a pessimism as he might have done", and was, as a result, inferior to Von Hartmann's thought on the subject, which allowed for the social progress. Julius Bahnsen would reshape the understanding of pessimism overall, while Philipp Mainländer set out to reinterpret and elucidate the nature of the will, by presenting it as a self-mortifying will-to-death.

Julius Bahnsen

The pessimistic outlook of the German philosopher

is often described as the most extreme form of philosophical pessimism, perhaps even more so than Mainländer's since it excludes any possibility of redemption or salvation, with Bahnsen being skeptical that art,

or even

culture Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups ...

can remove us from this world of suffering, or that they provide escape from the self-torment of the will. According to Bahnsen, the heart of reality lies in the inner conflict of the will, divided within itself and "willing what it does not will and not willing what it wills". Rather than just a variation of Schopenhauer’s philosophy, but similar to Hartmann’s philosophy, Bahnsen’s worldview is a synthesis of Schopenhauer with Hegel. But while Hartmann attempts to moderate Schopenhauer's pessimisim with Hegel's optimistic belief in historical progress, Bahnsen's philosophy excludes any evolution or progress in history due to seeing it as cyclical and with contradiction being a constant. When taking Hegel's dialectic as a influence (but not his

), Bahnsen takes only the negative moment of his

dialectic Dialectic ( grc-gre, διαλεκτική, ''dialektikḗ''; related to dialogue; german: Dialektik), also known as the dialectical method, is a discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing ...

, or in other words, its emphasis on contradiction. Thus, the main theme of Bahnsen's philosophy became his own idea of the ''Realdialektik'', according to which there is no synthesis between two oposing forces, with the opposition resulting only in negation and the consequent destruction of contradicting aspects. For Bahnsen, no rationality was to be found in being and thus, there was no teleological power that led to progress at the end of every conflict.

Philipp Mainländer

was a poet and philosopher mainly known for his ''magnum opus'' "The Philosophy of Redemption" (''Die Philosophie der Erlösung''), a work marked by a profound pessimism that he had published just before his suicide in 1876. For

Theodor Lessing Karl Theodor Richard Lessing (8 February 1872, Hanover – 31 August 1933, Marienbad) was a German Jewish philosopher. He is known for opposing the rise of Hindenburg as president of the Weimar Republic and for his classic on Jewish self-hatr ...

, it is "perhaps the most radical system of pessimism known to philosophical literature", although it is part of Schopenhauer's philosophical heritage. Mainländer articulates in it the concept of the "death of God", which quickly finds an echo in

Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his car ...

's philosophy, and the notion of the "will to die". The will to die, which is an inverted form of Schopenhauer's will to live, is the principle of all existence ever since the origin of the world. Indeed, God gave himself death, as it were, in creating the world, and since then, annihilation constitutes the only "salvation" of being, its only possibility of "redemption". For Mainländer, life itself has no value and the will becomes moral only when, moved by the knowledge of the superiority of nothingness over being, it deliberately aims at its suppression. When the individual, by observing his own will, realizes that his salvation lies in his death, his will to live is transformed into a will to die. The will to life is in this perspective only the means used by the will to death to accomplish its goal. In contrast to Schopenhauer, Mainländer supports a pluralistic conception of reality, called

nominalism In metaphysics, nominalism is the view that universals and abstract objects do not actually exist other than being merely names or labels. There are at least two main versions of nominalism. One version denies the existence of universalsthings ...

. This ontological pluralism implies that individual wills are mortal, that the existence of an individual is limited in duration as well as in extension. The disappearance of an individual therefore leads to the silence of his will, being reduced to nothingness. In Schopenhauer's metaphysics, on the contrary, individual wills were only manifestations of the essence of the world itself (the Will). Therefore, the disappearance of individuals could in no way extinguish the Will. It would have been necessary to reduce the totality of the world to nothingness in order to do so. Mainländer's pluralist metaphysics, on the other hand, makes the annihilation of the Will possible, leading one to ascribe to death an essential negative power: that of making the essence of the world (understood as the simple sum of all individuals) disappear. Since non-being is superior to being, death provides a real benefit, even more important than all the others since it is definitive. This benefit is that of eternal peace and tranquility, which Mainländer calls "redemption", thus taking up the lexicon of

. Indeed, he interprets Christianity, in its mystical form, as a religion of renunciation and salvation, as a first revelation of his own philosophy. Mainländer insists on the decisive significance of his ontological pluralism, with reality being nothing other than the existence of individual wills. Rejecting Schopenhauer's metaphysical perspective, and with it the postulate of a cosmic universal will above and beyond the individual will, he asserts the necessarily "immanent", empirical and representational - and therefore non-metaphysical - character of knowledge, limited as it is to the field of individual consciousness. For him, each will, conceived as self-sufficient both from the point of view of knowledge and ontologically, is radically separated from the others. Nevertheless, Mainländer admits, the natural sciences show that all the beings that make up the world are systematically interconnected, so that each thing depends on each other thing according to necessary laws. Science thus seems to contradict the thesis that all Will is closed in on itself (and therefore free). This apparent contradiction can, however, be resolved, according to Mainländer, by introducing the dimension of time: in the beginning, before the beginning of time, there was a single, pure singularity, without any division. At the beginning of time, the original unity of the world became fragmented and differentiated, thus beginning a process of division that has continued ever since. From the primitive unity of the world there remains the principle of the interconnection of things according to the laws of nature, but the underlying unity of things belongs to the past and therefore does not take away the individual character of the will. August Friedrich Albrecht Schenck - Anguish - Google Art Project

August Friedrich Albrecht Schenck - Anguish - Google Art Project

It is to shed light on this passage from the conversion of the original unity to multiplicity that Mainländer introduces his tragic concept of the death of God. In a vain prophecy, he declares: "''God died and His death was the life of the world''". As Christianity had sensed through the figure of Christ, God - that is, the initial singularity - sacrificed himself by giving birth to the world. Although we cannot really know the modalities of this begetting, it is possible, according to Mainländer, to have some idea of it by analogy with us. In this perspective, he constructs a remarkable anthropomorphic creation mythology in which God appears as a perfectly free and omnipotent individual, but who discovers with horror his own limitation in the very fact of his existence, which he cannot directly abolish, being the primary condition of all his powers. In this narrative, God, now inhabited by anguish, becomes aware that his present existence has a negative value, that it is therefore of less value than his non-existence. He then decides to put an end to it, not directly, which is impossible for him, but by the mediation of a creation. By creating the world and then fragmenting it into a multitude of individual entities, he can progressively realize his desire for self-destruction. It is this divine impulse towards self-destruction and annihilation that ultimately animates the whole cosmos, even if the impulse towards life (the Will to live) seems to dominate it at first sight. Everything that exists, from the inorganic realm to the organic realm is ultimately governed by a fatal process of cosmic annihilation that translates on the physical level into

entropy Entropy is a scientific concept, as well as a measurable physical property, that is most commonly associated with a state of disorder, randomness, or uncertainty. The term and the concept are used in diverse fields, from classical thermodyna ...

, and on the level of the living into struggle and conflict. Mainländer considers this whole process to be ineluctable, like a Greek tragedy in which the destiny that one seeks to escape always ends up being fulfilled. In this macabre tragedy, the whole world is nothing more than "the rotting body of God".

Eduard von Hartmann

In his work entitled ''Philosophy of the Unconscious'', the first edition of which appeared in 1869 and became famous already in the first years of its publication, Eduard von Hartmann, while presenting himself as the heir of Arthur Schopenhauer, replaces the Schopenhauerian principle of Will with his own principle of the Unconscious. The Unconscious, being a metaphysical rather than a

psychological Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries bet ...

concept, is the invisible actor of history and hidden instigator of evolution, including indissociably the irrational Will which pushes the world to exist (in Schopenhauer's sense), and the "Idea", in the

Hegelian Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (; ; 27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a German philosopher. He is one of the most important figures in German idealism and one of the founding figures of modern Western philosophy. His influence extends a ...

sense, which is the rational and organizing element of the world. The Unconscious is both

Reason Reason is the capacity of consciously applying logic by drawing conclusions from new or existing information, with the aim of seeking the truth. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, lang ...

and the absolute all-embracing ground of all existence. Thus, being influenced by both Hegel and Schopenhauer, he affirms that the evolution of history goes in the direction of the development of the Idea and its prevalence over the (unconscious) Will. But it is indeed the Will, considered as an irrational principle, that has produced the world. The world is therefore inevitably full of evils and pains that cannot be eradicated, and the progressive development of the Idea means the progressive awareness of these evils and their inevitability, not their replacement by consciousness. "Cosmic suicide" will therefore appear as the only final solution for the human race that has reached full consciousness, with the Unconscious evoking Reason and with its aid creating the

, which contains the promise of its redemption from actual existence by the emancipation of Reason from its subjugation to the Will in the conscious reason of the enlightened pessimist. When the greater part of the Will in existence is so far enlightened by reason as to perceive the inevitable misery of existence, a collective effort to will non-existence will be made, and the world will relapse into nothingness, the Unconscious into quiescence. Although Von Hartmann is a pessimist, his pessimism is by no means unmitigated. The individual’s happiness is indeed unattainable either here and now or hereafter and in the future, but he does not despair of ultimately releasing the Unconscious from its sufferings. He differs from Schopenhauer in making salvation by the “negation of the Will-to-live” depend on a collective social effort and not on individualistic

. The conception of a redemption of the Unconscious also supplies the ultimate basis of Von Hartmann’s ethics. We must provisionally affirm life and devote ourselves to social evolution, instead of striving after a happiness which is impossible; in so doing we shall find that morality renders life less unhappy than it would otherwise be. Suicide, and all other forms of selfishness, are highly reprehensible. Epistemologically, Von Hartmann is a transcendental realist, who ably defends his views and acutely criticizes those of his opponents. His realism enables him to maintain the reality of Time, and so of the process of the world’s redemption.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his ...

could be said to be a philosophical pessimist even though unlike Schopenhauer (whom he read avidly) his response to the tragic pessimistic view is neither resigned nor self-denying, but a life-affirming form of pessimism. For Nietzsche this was a "pessimism of the future", a "

Dionysian The Apollonian and the Dionysian are philosophical and literary concepts represented by a duality between the figures of Apollo and Dionysus from Greek mythology. Its popularization is widely attributed to the work ''The Birth of Tragedy'' by ...

pessimism." Nietzsche identified his Dionysian pessimism with what he saw as the pessimism of the Greek pre-socratics and also saw it at the core of ancient

Greek tragedy Greek tragedy is a form of theatre from Ancient Greece and Greek inhabited Anatolia. It reached its most significant form in Athens in the 5th century BC, the works of which are sometimes called Attic tragedy. Greek tragedy is widely believed t ...

. He saw tragedy as laying bare the terrible nature of human existence, bound by constant flux. In contrast to this, Nietzsche saw Socratic philosophy as an optimistic refuge of those who could not bear the tragedy any longer. Since Socrates posited that wisdom could lead to happiness, Nietzsche saw this as "morally speaking, a sort of cowardice... amorally, a ruse". Nietzsche was also critical of Schopenhauer's pessimism because, he argued that, in judging the world negatively, it turned to moral judgments about the world and, therefore, led to weakness and

nihilism Nihilism (; ) is a philosophy, or family of views within philosophy, that rejects generally accepted or fundamental aspects of human existence, such as objective truth, knowledge, morality, values, or meaning. The term was popularized by I ...

. Nietzsche's response was a total embracing of the nature of the world, a "great liberation" through a "pessimism of strength" which "does not sit in judgment of this condition". He believed that the task of the philosopher was to wield this pessimism like a hammer, to first attack the basis of old moralities and beliefs and then to "make oneself a new pair of wings", i.e. to re-evaluate all values and create new ones. A key feature of this Dionysian pessimism was "saying yes" to the changing nature of the world, this entailed embracing destruction and suffering joyfully, forever (hence the ideas of ''

amor fati is a Latin phrase that may be translated as "love of fate" or "love of one's fate". It is used to describe an attitude in which one sees everything that happens in one's life, including suffering and loss, as good or, at the very least, necessar ...

'' and eternal recurrence). Pessimism for Nietzsche was an art of living that is "good for one's health" as a "remedy and an aid in the service of growing and struggling life".

Victorian pessimism

The pessimism of many of the thinkers of the

Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwa ...

has been attributed to a reaction against the "benignly progressive" views of the

Age of Enlightenment The Age of Enlightenment or the Enlightenment; german: Aufklärung, "Enlightenment"; it, L'Illuminismo, "Enlightenment"; pl, Oświecenie, "Enlightenment"; pt, Iluminismo, "Enlightenment"; es, La Ilustración, "Enlightenment" was an intel ...

, which were often expressed by the members of the Romantic movement. The works of Schopenhauer, particularly his concept of the primacy of the Will, has also been cited as a major influence on Victorian pessimism, as well as Darwin's 1859 publication of ''

On the Origin of Species ''On the Origin of Species'' (or, more completely, ''On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life''),The book's full original title was ''On the Origin of Species by Me ...

''. Several British writers of the time have been noted for the pervasive pessimism of their works, including

Matthew Arnold Matthew Arnold (24 December 1822 – 15 April 1888) was an English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the celebrated headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, lit ...

, Edward FitzGerald, James Thomson,

Algernon Charles Swinburne Algernon Charles Swinburne (5 April 1837 – 10 April 1909) was an English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic. He wrote several novels and collections of poetry such as '' Poems and Ballads'', and contributed to the famous Eleventh Edition ...

Ernest Dowson Ernest Christopher Dowson (2 August 186723 February 1900) was an English poet, novelist, and short-story writer who is often associated with the Decadent movement. Biography Ernest Dowson was born in Lee, then in Kent, in 1867. His great-uncle ...

, A. E. Housman,

Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry of William Wor ...

, Christina Rossetti, and

Amy Levy Amy Judith Levy (10 November 1861 – 9 September 1889) was an English essayist, poet, and novelist best remembered for her literary gifts; her experience as the second Jewish woman at Cambridge University, and as the first Jewish student at N ...

; the pessimistic themes particularly deal with love, fatalism, and religious doubt. pp. i–iii The poems of the Canadian poet

Frederick George Scott Frederick George Scott (7 April 1861 – 19 January 1944) was for the first part of his life an Anglican priest and a Canadian poet to whom the Canadian literary establishment gave the epithet "Poet of the Laurentians." He was associated with ...

have also been cited as an example of Victorian pessimism, as have the poems of the American poet

Edwin Arlington Robinson Edwin Arlington Robinson (December 22, 1869 – April 6, 1935) was an American poet and playwright. Robinson won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry on three occasions and was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature four times. Early life Robi ...

. During this period, artistic representations of nature transformed, from benevolent, uplifting and god-like, to actively hostile, competitive, or indifferent.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of his ...

exemplified this change with the line "

Nature, red in tooth and claw The poem "In Memoriam A.H.H." (1850) by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, is an elegy for his Cambridge friend Arthur Henry Hallam, who died of cerebral haemorrhage at the age of twenty-two years, in Vienna in 1833. As a sustained exercise in tetrametric ...

", in his 1850 poem ''In Memoriam''.

20th century

Albert Camus

In a 1945 article,

Albert Camus Albert Camus ( , ; ; 7 November 1913 – 4 January 1960) was a French philosopher, author, dramatist, and journalist. He was awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature at the age of 44, the second-youngest recipient in history. His work ...

wrote "the idea that a pessimistic philosophy is necessarily one of discouragement is a puerile idea.", contained in Resistance, Rebellion, and Death (2012) ISBN 9780307827852 Camus helped popularize the idea of " the absurd", a key term in his famous essay '' The Myth of Sisyphus''. Like previous philosophical pessimists, Camus saw human consciousness and reason as that which "sets me in opposition to all creation". For Camus, this clash between a reasoning mind which craves meaning and a "silent" world is what produces the most important philosophical problem, the "problem of suicide". Camus believed that people often escape facing the absurd through "eluding" (''l'esquive''), a "trickery" for "those who live not for life itself but some great idea that will transcend it, refine it, give it a meaning, and betray it". He considered suicide and

religion Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatur ...

as inauthentic forms of eluding or escaping the problem of existence. For Camus, the only choice was to rebelliously accept and live with the absurd, for "there is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn." Camus' illustrated his response to the response to the absurd was by using the Greek mythic character of

Sisyphus In Greek mythology, Sisyphus or Sisyphos (; Ancient Greek: Σίσυφος ''Sísyphos'') was the founder and king of Ephyra (now known as Corinth). Hades punished him for cheating death twice by forcing him to roll an immense boulder up a hill ...

, who was condemned by the gods to push a boulder up a hill for eternity, only for it to roll down again when it reached he top. Camus imagined Sisyphus while pushing the rock, realizing the futility of his task, but doing it anyway out of rebellion: "One must imagine Sisyphus happy."

Peter Wessel Zapffe

Peter Wessel Zapffe Peter Wessel Zapffe (18 December 1899 – 12 October 1990) was a Norwegian philosopher, author, artist, lawyer and mountaineer. He is often noted for his philosophically pessimistic and fatalistic view of human existence. His system of p ...

argued that

evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...

bestowed humans with a surplus of

consciousness Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience and awareness of internal and external existence. However, the lack of definitions has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debates by philosophers, theologians, linguisticians, and scien ...

that allowed them to contemplate their place in the cosmos and yearn for justice and meaning together with freedom from suffering and death, while simultaneously being aware that nature or reality itself cannot satisfy those longings and spiritual demands. For Zapffe, this was a tragic byproduct of evolution: full apprehension of humans' ill-fated and vulnerable situation in the universe would, according to him, cause them to fall into a state of "cosmic panic" or existential terror. Humans' knowledge of their predicament is thus repressed through the use of four mechanisms, conscious or not, which he names isolation, anchoring, distraction and sublimation. In his essay " The Last Messiah", he describes these four defense mechanisms as follows: * Isolation is "a fully arbitrary dismissal from consciousness of all disturbing and destructive thought and feeling". *Anchoring is the "fixation of points within, or construction of walls around, the liquid fray of consciousness". The anchoring mechanism provides individuals with a value or an ideal to consistently focus their attention on. Zapffe also applied the anchoring principle to society and stated that "God, the Church, the State,

morality Morality () is the differentiation of intentions, decisions and actions between those that are distinguished as proper (right) and those that are improper (wrong). Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of co ...

, fate, the laws of life, the people, the future" are all examples of collective primary anchoring firmaments. * Distraction is when "one limits attention to the critical bounds by constantly enthralling it with impressions". Distraction focuses all of one's energy on a task or idea to prevent the mind from turning in on itself. * Sublimation is the refocusing of energy away from negative outlets, toward positive ones. The individuals distance themselves and look at their existence from an aesthetic point of view (e.g., writers, poets, painters). Zapffe himself pointed out that his produced works were the product of sublimation. Terror Management Theory (TMT), a

social Social organisms, including human(s), live collectively in interacting populations. This interaction is considered social whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the exchange is voluntary or not. Etymology The word "social" derives from ...

and

evolutionary psychology Evolutionary psychology is a theoretical approach in psychology that examines cognition and behavior from a modern evolutionary perspective. It seeks to identify human psychological adaptations with regards to the ancestral problems they evo ...

theory, is in accordance with Zapffe's view of human beings' higher cognitive abilities bringing them a form of existential anxiety that needs to be repressed or dealt with in some way. According to TMT, such existential angst is born from the juxtaposition of human beings' awareness of themselves as merely transient animals groping to survive in a meaningless universe, destined only to die and decay. For TMT, repression of such awareness is done through symbolic conceptions of reality that give meaning, order, and permanence to existence; provide a set of standards for what is valuable; and promise some form of either literal or symbolic immortality to those who believe in the cultural worldview and live up to its standards of value.

Emil Cioran

Emil Cioran's works are permeated with philosophical pessimism, and deal with topics including failure, suffering, decay, existentialism and nihilism. Lacking interest in conventional philosophy, he rejects very early abstract speculation in favor of personal reflection and a passionate lyrical expression made largely of aphorisms. His first book, '' On the Heights of Despair'', created as a product of Cioran's chronic insomnia, deals with "despair and decay, absurdity and alienation, futility and the irrationality of existence". Cioran considered the human condition, the universe and life itself to be a failure: "life is a failure of taste which neither death nor even poetry succeeds in correcting." William H. Gass described Cioran's ''The Temptation to Exist'' as "a philosophical romance on the modern themes of alienation, absurdity, boredom, futility, decay, the tyranny of history, the vulgarities of change, awareness as agony, reason as disease". Cioran's view of life's futility and the totality of its failure perhaps existed from a young age. In 1935, his mother told him that if she knew he would be so miserable, she would have aborted him. This prompted Cioran to later reflect, "I'm simply an accident. Why take it all so seriously?" Cioran wrote several works entirely in aphorisms; in reference to his choice to write aphoristically, Cioran stated: In '' The Trouble with Being Born'', Cioran, through aphorisms, examined the problem of being brought into existence into a world which is difficult to fully accept, or reject, without one's consent. His aphorisms in ''The Trouble with Being Born'' pack philosophy into single sentences. For example, Cioran summarizes the futility of life and espoused antinatalism by saying: "We have lost, being born, as much as we shall lose dying. Everything." Cioran rejected suicide, as he saw suicide and death to be equally meaningless as life in a meaningless world. In ''The Trouble with Being Born,'' he contrasts suicide with his antinatalism: "It's not worth the bother of killing yourself, since you always kill yourself ''too late''." He did, however, argue that contemplating suicide could lead humans to live better lives.

21st century

Julio Cabrera

According to Julio Cabrera's

ontology In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophy, philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, Becoming (philosophy), becoming, and reality. Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into Category ...

, human life has a structurally negative value. Under this view, human life is not considered to be "bad" (in the sense of provoking discomfort) due to the particular events that happen in the lives of each individual, but due to the very being or nature of human existence as such. The following characteristics constitute what Cabrera calls the "terminality of being", in other words, its structurally negative value: For Cabrera, this situation is further worsened by a phenomenon he calls "moral impediment", that is, the structural impossibility of acting in the world without harming or manipulating someone at some given moment. According to him, moral impediment happens not necessarily because of a moral fault in us, but due to the structural situation in which we have been placed. The positive values that are created in human life come into being within a narrow and anxious environment where human beings are cornered by the presence of their decaying bodies as well as pain and discouragement, in a complicated and holistic web of actions, where it is difficult for our urgent need to build our own positive values not to end up harming the projects of other humans who are also trying to do the same, that is, build their own positive values.

David Benatar

David Benatar makes a case for antinatalism and philosophical pessimism in his works, arguing that procreation is morally indefensible in his book '' Better Never to Have Been'' and in '' The Human Predicament'' asserting that a pessimistic view of existence is more realistic and suitable than an optimistic one; he also takes care to distinguish pessimism from

, arguing that the two concepts are not synonymous. To support his case for pessimism, Benatar mentions a series of empirical differences between the pleasures and pains in life, such as the worst pains that can be experienced being worse than the best pleasures are good, offering as an example the

thought experiment A thought experiment is a hypothetical situation in which a hypothesis, theory, or principle is laid out for the purpose of thinking through its consequences. History The ancient Greek ''deiknymi'' (), or thought experiment, "was the most anc ...

of whether one would accept "an hour of the most delightful pleasures in exchange for an hour of the worst tortures", in addition to citing Schopenhauer, who made a similar argument, when asking his readers to "compare the feelings of an animal that is devouring another with those of that other"; the amount of time it may take for one's desires to be fulfilled (with some of our desires never being satisfied); the quickness with which one's body can be injured, damaged, or fall ill, and the comparative slowness of recovery (with full recovery sometimes never being attained); the existence of

chronic pain Chronic pain is classified as pain that lasts longer than three to six months. In medicine, the distinction between acute and chronic pain is sometimes determined by the amount of time since onset. Two commonly used markers are pain that continue ...

, but the comparative non-existence of chronic pleasure; the gradual and inevitable physical and mental decline to which every life is subjected through the process of

ageing Ageing ( BE) or aging ( AE) is the process of becoming older. The term refers mainly to humans, many other animals, and fungi, whereas for example, bacteria, perennial plants and some simple animals are potentially biologically immortal. ...

; the effortless way in which the bad things in life naturally come to us, and the efforts one needs to muster in order to ward them off and obtain the good things; the lack of a cosmic or transcendent meaning to human life as a whole (borrowing a term from Spinoza, according to Benatar our lives lack meaning from the perspective of the universe, that is, ''sub specie aeternitatis''); and, finally, Benatar concludes that, even if one argues that the bad things in life are in some sense necessary for human beings to appreciate the good things in life, or at least to appreciate them fully, he asserts that it is not clear that this appreciation requires as much bad as there is, and that our lives are worse than they would be if the bad things were not in such sense necessary:

Human life would be vastly better if pain were fleeting and pleasure protracted; if the pleasures were much better than the pains were bad; if it were really difficult to be injured or get sick; if recovery were swift when injury or illness did befall us; and if our desires were fulfilled instantly and if they did not give way to new desires. Human life would also be immensely better if we lived for many thousands of years in good health and if we were much wiser, cleverer, and morally better than we are.

Philosophical responses to the human condition

The responses to the predicament of the human condition by pessimists are varied. Some philosophers, such as Schopenhauer and Mainländer, recommend a form of resignation and self-denial (which they saw exemplified in

Indian religions Indian religions, sometimes also termed Dharmic religions or Indic religions, are the religions that originated in the Indian subcontinent. These religions, which include Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism,Adams, C. J."Classification of ...

and

Christian monasticism Christian monasticism is the devotional practice of Christians who live ascetic and typically cloistered lives that are dedicated to Christian worship. It began to develop early in the history of the Christian Church, modeled upon scriptural ex ...

). Some thinkers tend to believe that "expecting the worst leads to the best." Rene Descartes believed that life was better if emotional reactions to "negative" events were removed. Eduard Von Hartmann asserted that with cultural and technological progress, the world and its inhabitants will reach a state in which they will voluntarily embrace

nothingness Nothing, the complete absence of anything, has been a matter of philosophical debate since at least the 5th century BC. Early Greek philosophers argued that it was impossible for ''nothing'' to exist. The atomists allowed ''nothing'' but only i ...

. Others like Nietzsche, Leopardi, Julius Bahnsen and Camus respond with a more life-affirming view, which Nietzsche called a "Dionysian pessimism", an embrace of life as it is in all of its constant change and suffering, without appeal to progress or

hedonistic calculus The felicific calculus is an algorithm formulated by utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1747–1832) for calculating the degree or amount of pleasure that a specific action is likely to induce. Bentham, an ethical hedonist, believed the mora ...

. Albert Camus indicated that the common responses to the absurdity of life are often: suicide, a leap of faith (as per Kierkegaard's knight of faith), or recognition, or rebellion. Camus rejected all but the last option as unacceptable and inauthentic responses.Camus, Albert, ''The Myth of Sisyphus''

Regarding non-human animals

Aside from the human predicament, many philosophical pessimists also emphasize the negative quality of the life of non-human animals, criticizing the notion of nature as a " wise and benevolent" creator. In his 1973

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made ...

winning book '' The Denial of Death'',

Ernest Becker Ernest Becker (September 27, 1924 – March 6, 1974) was an American cultural anthropology, cultural anthropologist and author of the 1974 Pulitzer Prize-winning book, ''The Denial of Death''. Biography Early life Ernest Becker was born in Spri ...

describes it thus:

What are we to make of a creation in which the routine activity is for organisms to be tearing others apart with teeth of all types—biting, grinding flesh, plant stalks, bones between molars, pushing the pulp greedily down the gullet with delight, incorporating its essence into one's own organization, and then excreting with foul stench and gasses the residue. Everyone reaching out to incorporate others who are edible to him. The mosquitoes bloating themselves on blood, the maggots, the killer-bees attacking with a fury and a demonism, sharks continuing to tear and swallow while their own innards are being torn out—not to mention the daily dismemberment and slaughter in "natural" accidents of all types: an earthquake buries alive 70 thousand bodies in Peru, automobiles make a pyramid heap of over 50 thousand a year in the U.S. alone, a tidal wave washes over a quarter of a million in the Indian Ocean. Creation is a nightmare spectacular taking place on a planet that has been soaked for hundreds of millions of years in the blood of all its creatures. The soberest conclusion that we could make about what has actually been taking place on the planet for about three billion years is that it is being turned into a vast pit of fertilizer. But the sun distracts our attention, always baking the blood dry, making things grow over it, and with its warmth giving the hope that comes with the organism's comfort and expansiveness.

The

theory of evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...

natural selection Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the heritable traits characteristic of a population over generations. Cha ...

can be said to justify a form of philosophical pessimism based on a negative evaluation of the lives of animals in the wild. In 1887,

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended ...

expressed a feeling of revolt at the notion that God's benevolence is limited, stating: "for what advantage can there be in the sufferings of millions of the lower animals throughout almost endless time?" The animal activist and moral philosopher

Oscar Horta Óscar Horta Álvarez (born 7 May 1974) is a Spanish animal activist and moral philosopher who is currently a professor in the Department of Philosophy and Anthropology at the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC) and one of the co-founders ...

argues that because of evolutionary processes, not only is suffering in nature inevitable, but that it actually prevails over happiness. For

evolutionary biologist Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes (natural selection, common descent, speciation) that produced the diversity of life on Earth. It is also defined as the study of the history of life for ...

Richard Dawkins Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford and was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. An ...

, nature is in no way benevolent. He argues that what is at stake in biological processes is nothing more than the survival of DNA sequences of genes. Dawkins also asserts that as long as the DNA is transmitted, it does not matter how much suffering such transmission entails and that genes do not care about the amount of suffering they cause because nothing affects them emotionally. In other words, nature is indifferent to unhappiness, unless it has an impact on the survival of the DNA. Although Dawkins does not explicitly establish the prevalence of suffering over well-being, he considers unhappiness to be the "natural state" in wild animals:

The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive; others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear; others are being slowly devoured from within by rasping parasites; thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst and disease. It must be so. If there is ever a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored... In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.

In popular culture

The character of

Rust Cohle Rustin Spencer "Rust" Cohle is a fictional character portrayed by Matthew McConaughey in the first season of the HBO's anthology television series ''True Detective''. He works as a homicide detective for the Louisiana State Police (LSP) alongs ...

in the first season of the television series ''True Detective'' is noted for expressing a philosophically pessimistic worldview; the creator of the series was inspired by the works of

Thomas Ligotti Thomas Ligotti (born July 9, 1953) is an American horror writer. His writings are rooted in several literary genres – most prominently weird fiction – and have been described by critics as works of ''philosophical'' horror, often formed into ...

, Emil Cioran, Eugene Thacker and David Benatar when creating the character.

Notes

References

External links

* * {{Cite journal, last=Contestabile , first=Bruno , title = The Denial of the World from an Impartial View, url = http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/w2bQ5j5xVahrmnPUrjqQ/full, journal = Contemporary Buddhism, date = 2016, volume=17 , pages=49–61 , doi=10.1080/14639947.2015.1104003 , s2cid=148168698
Pessimism by Mara Van der Lugt
in The Philosopher.
APA series on philosophical pessimism
Philosophical pessimism