This means that given the option of existing or not existing, not coming to be is the best choice.
As he put it, “ work, worry, toil and distress are indeed the lot of almost all human beings their whole life through,” and “one can also conceive of our life as a uselessly disturbing episode in the blissful calm of nothingness.”Īnd in case he is not clear enough on his condemnation of existence, he also says “the world is simply hell, and human beings are on the one hand its tortured souls and on the other hand its devils.”Īs a consequence, for Schopenhauer, nonexistence is preferable to existence. In Schopenhauer’s pessimism, we find a clear condemnation of existence. This is one of the important differences with existentialism. Schopenhauer’s philosophical pessimism is motivated by compassion and concern for all humans - though to be precise, this compassion extends to all living beings, not just humans. An early myth tells us that the satyr Silenus revealed to King Midas that the greatest thing any human could hope for was to never have been born and that the second best thing was an early death.īut the German 19th-century philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer is considered by philosophers to be the first modern western writer who treated pessimism systematically in his work.
Pessimism has a long history in philosophy, dating back to the ancient Greeks. Compassion for living beingsĪnd as in the case of existentialism, despair and angst are not necessarily defining aspects of philosophical pessimism. So while all this can certainly cause feelings of angst and despair in some, this needn’t be the case. Sartre believed we have no essence, and therefore must create and build one for ourselves.
#Unrealistic optimism. free
We are free - or in existentialist terms, we are condemned to be free. In a public lecture called Existentialism is a Humanism, he argued that existentialism, properly understood, is a philosophy about freedom and assuming responsibility for our choices and for the lives we create. In 1945 Sartre wanted to dispel these mistaken impressions. He’s also been associated with pessimism, but this is largely due to misunderstandings of his work. All about angst?įrench philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre is sometimes seen as a gloomy philosopher who deals with existential angst, dread and generally dark, depressive topics. Rather, it’s a system that purports to explain the origins, prevalence and ubiquity of suffering.Įven if I adopt a cheerful and positive attitude towards life (thereby not making me a psychological pessimist) I can still be a philosophical pessimist because I can continue to believe that existence is generally filled with suffering. While pessimism in the psychological sense is a tendency to focus on bad outcomes, philosophical pessimism isn’t fundamentally about outcomes. This is why, as a researcher in philosophical pessimism, I argue that if we actually want to live better lives, pessimism is the philosophical system that can help us achieve it.
In turn, this has created what I call a happiness imperative, the social expectation that we should all aspire to happiness.īut this can be an obstacle to happiness. Some psychologists have pointed out how happiness has evolved into an industry. In today’s society, being happy and having an optimistic attitude are social expectations that weigh heavily on how we live and the choices we make.
Researchers say refusing to subscribe entirely to the social drive for the pursuit of happiness and embracing your pessimistic side may be the most reasonable attitude. Summary: Pessimism is a fundamental part of the human experience.
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