Information AboutPessimism |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT PESSIMISM | |
| epistemology | |
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Pessimism, from the Latin ''pessimus'' (worst), denotes a belief that the experienced world is the worst possible. It describes a general belief that things are " Conventional wisdom expects optimists to reply with ''half full'' and pessimists to respond with ''half empty'', but this is not always the case. Philosophical pessimism describes a tendency to believe that life has a negative value, or that this world is as bad as it could possibly be. In particular, it most famously describes the Philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer . Schopenhauer's pessimism comes from his elevating of Will above Reason as the mainspring of human thought and behavior. Schopenhauer pointed to motivators such as hunger, Sexuality , the need to care for children, and the need for shelter and personal security as the real sources of human motivation. Reason, compared to these factors, is mere window-dressing for human thoughts; it is the clothes our naked hungers put on when they go out in public. Schopenhauer sees reason as weak and insignificant compared to Will; in one Metaphor , Schopenhauer compares the human intellect to a lame man who can see, but who rides on the shoulders of the blind giant of Will. Likening human life to the life of other animals, he saw the reproductive cycle as indeed a cyclical process that continues pointlessly and indefinitely, unless the chain is broken by too limited resources to make continued life possible, in which case it is terminated by Extinction . The Prognosis of either pointlessly continuing the cycle of life or facing extinction is one major leg of Schopenhauer's pessimism. Schopenhauer moreover considers the desires of the will to entail ). Schopenhauer's Proof Instead of asserting a personal opinion or viewpoint about the appearance of this world being the worst possible, such as a glass being half full or half empty, Schopenhauer attempted to logically prove it by analyzing the concept of pessimism. He claimed that a slight worsening of conditions, such as a small alteration of the planet's orbit, a small increase in global warming, loss of the use of a limb for an animal, and so on, would result in destruction. These are disputable assertions, considering that the planet's orbit is not wholly consistent to begin with, global temperature fluctuates over time, and animals can still live after losing a limb. However, taking into respect the fact that major fluctuations in global temperature have typically resulted in Mass Extinction s in the past and an animal that loses a limb will only rarely survive long in the wild, they may appear reasonable. Other philosophical or literary pessimists Nietzsche believed that the Ancient Greeks (c. 500 B.C. ) created Tragedy as a result of their pessimism. "Is pessimism ''necessarily'' a sign of decline, decay, degeneration, weary and weak instincts … Is there a pessimism of ''strength''? An intellectual predilection for the hard, gruesome, evil, problematic aspect of existence, prompted by well—being, by overflowing health, by the ''fullness'' of existence?" Nietzsche , Friedrich, '' The Birth Of Tragedy Or: Hellenism and Pessimism'', "Attempt at a Self—Criticism," §1 Nietzsche's response to pessimism was the opposite of Schopenhauer's. " 'That which bestows on everything tragic, its peculiar elevating force' " – he (Schopenhauer) says in '' The World As Will And Representation '', Volume II, P. 495 – " 'is the discovery that the world, that life, can never give real satisfaction and hence is ''not worthy'' of our affection: this constitutes the tragic spirit – it leads to ''resignation''.' " How differently Dionysus spoke to me! How far removed I was from all this resignationism!" Nietzsche, Friedrich, ''The Birth of Tragedy Or: Hellenism and Pessimism'', "Attempt at a Self–Criticism," §6 Sigmund Freud could also be described as a pessimist and he shared many of Schopenhauer's ideas. He saw human existence as being under constant attack from both within the self, from the forces of nature and from relations with others. The following quote, from "Civilisation and its Discontents", is perhaps the best example of his pessimism: :''We can cite many such benefits that we owe to the much despised era of scientific and technical advances. At this point, however, the voice of pessimistic criticism makes itself heard, reminding us that most of these pleasures follow the pattern of the "cheap pleasure" recommended in a certain joke, a pleasure that one can enjoy by sticking a bare leg out from under the covers on a cold winter's night, then pulling it back in..... What good is a long life to us if it is hard, joyless and so full of suffering that we can only welcome death as a deliverer?" The term has also been used to describe the position of the Norwegian philosopher Peter Wessel Zapffe , although he clearly states in his philosophical treatise '' Om Det Tragiske '' that pessimism is a term which cannot describe his Biosophy . Some works of popular literature may also exhibit pessimism, such as Stephen King 's '' Pet Semetary ''. King later expressed his reservations about the work: "It seems to be saying nothing works and nothing is worth it, and I don't really believe that" (Bare Bones 144-5). FAMOUS PESSIMISTS
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