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James Sully's psychological reduction of philosophical pessimism.

Authors :
Hassan, Patrick
Source :
British Journal for the History of Philosophy. Sep2024, Vol. 32 Issue 5, p1097-1120. 24p.
Publication Year :
2024

Abstract

One of the greatest philosophical disputes in Germany in the latter half of the nineteenth century concerned the value of life. Following Arthur Schopenhauer, numerous philosophers sought to defend the provocative view that life is not worth living. A persistent objection to pessimism is that it is not really a philosophical theory at all, but rather a psychological state; a mood or disposition which is the product of socio-economic circumstance. A developed and influential version of this view was advanced in the 1870s by the English psychologist James Sully. Yet, as important as Sully's critique was for the pessimism dispute, it has been almost entirely overlooked in the history of philosophy. With some growing recent attention to nineteenth-century pessimism, this paper aims to reconstruct Sully's view, and what I argue is his primary argument for it in terms of the best explanation for an alleged historical correlation between pessimistic belief and social hardship in the form of frustrated ideals. The paper then presents and analyses some challenges to this argument, some of which are argued to have been at least partially anticipated in the nineteenth-century by the likes of Schopenhauer and Olga Plümacher. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
09608788
Volume :
32
Issue :
5
Database :
Academic Search Index
Journal :
British Journal for the History of Philosophy
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
180041145
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1080/09608788.2023.2268125