Pessimism is, roughly, the view that life is not worth living. In chapter 46 of the second volume of The World as Will and Representation, Arthur Schopenhauer provides an oft-neglected argument for this view. The argument is that a life is worth living only if it does not contain any uncompensated evils; but since all our lives happen to contain such evils, none of them are worth living. The now standard interpretation of this argument (endorsed by Kuno Fischer and Christopher (...) Janaway) proceeds from the claim that the value—or rather valuelessness—of life’s goods makes compensation impossible. But this interpretation is neither philosophically attractive nor faithful to the text. In this paper, I develop and defend an alternative interpretation (suggested by Wilhelm Windelband and Mark Migotti) according to which it is instead the actual temporal arrangement of life’s goods and evils that makes compensation impossible. (shrink)

While historians of nineteenth‐century German philosophy have traditionally underestimated the influence of Schopenhauer's thought, recent scholarship has demonstrated that Schopenhauer's pessimism changed the trajectory of German philosophy. This chapter summarizes Schopenhauer's philosophical system to underscore that his doctrine of pessimism cannot be confined to his ethics, but rather informs every aspect of his philosophy. The thrust is to summarize Schopenhauer's philosophy while highlighting the pessimistic strains, both implicit and explicit, that run through his thought. The chapter first describes pessimism, drawing (...) both from Schopenhauer scholarship. Then, it provides an outline of Schopenhauer's system, pointing to the pessimistic consequences of various aspects of his system. The chapter highlights the pessimistic features that run through Schopenhauer's system; features which apply to both Migotti's and Deinstag's depictions of what pessimism entails. Schopenhauer has provided a comprehensive account of his philosophical system in his major work, The World as Will and Representation volumes I and II. (shrink)