Pessimism - A Philosophical Discussion
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 มิ.ย. 2024
- Join George and John as they discuss and debate different philosophical ideas, today they will be looking into Pessimism.
Pessimism is the negative outlook to human life, that human existence is one of pain and suffering and it would be better off if we all never had to experience life at all. Pessimism as an outlook is underpinned by a number of philosophies. In this video these philosophies will be explained and discussed to see if a pessimistic outlook to life is reasonable to adopt.
0:00 - Introduction
1:15 - Nihilism
3:12 - Absurdism
4:37 - Arthur Schopenhauer's Pessimism
09:32 - The Problems with Nihilism
12:05 - The Problem with Pessimism (is life so bad?)
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The script to this video is part of the Philosophy Vibe “Existentialism” eBook, available on Amazon:
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UK: www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B088QQBXY3
Canada: www.amazon.ca/dp/B088QQBXY3
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Please don't stop making these.
Thank you, still more to come :)
The point of pessimism isn't about the absence of God, but rather the fact that we're going to die. And everything we strive for would be pointless.
"there's no other true salvation, than rather not be born into this world..."~Eren Jäger
I got linked to this video from one of my political psychology classes and I must say, this channel is brilliant. Learned so much in so little time. I almost feel apart of the discussion, thank you.
You're very welcome, happy to hear that these videos have been helpful in your studies :)
very underrated channel, I really love your videos continue the great work guys
Thank you very much 🙂
"right" "interesting" ive started talking like the guy on the left
pessimism makes me happy
Interesting how it all comes to departing psychology form philosophy. The division between the two has been my biggest concern and by far my biggest existential crisis for more than a year. It even stopped me from reading philosophy, since I couldn't figure out how philosophy doesn't cover (and fully replace) psychology. I stopped reading psychology also, because I was sure that philosophy could explain everything, since psychology evolved from it, but judging from a philosophical outlook, of which I was always prone to (even then when I doubt philosophy), I knew that statements require strong arguments, which I lacked.
Eventually, I talked to friends, philosophy students and professors, and I got to a conclusion.
The answer can be stated in simple terms: philosophy concerns intuition, while psychology validates it. In that way, philosophy doesn't get anywhere by it's own, as it isn't quote on
quote practical, but it's as important as psychology, since one has to perceive the possibility or contingency of ideas before being able to validate them. Even in the case of accidentally discoveries, there has to be someone to observe, understand and explain the phenomenon.
Now, speaking about Schopenhauer. I can see how the arguments against the unscrupulous pessimism are related to traumas and personal experience, although I don't fully agree. As I said, there might be an observer of a phenomenon, and psychology developed itself to be the most pretentious observer of men. One may find that Schopenhauer's philosophy is the product of it's past traumas and unfavorable experience, or simply a refugee from the suffering he experienced, but having already clearly departed philosophy from psychology, I don't think it's fair to overlook the philosophical substrate of his opera and attack it's pessimism using psychology.
Schopenhauer served as my finest inspiration, it has always been my favorite philosopher, and I respect his creation. I may be biased, but Schopenhauer will always be a great educator and therapist, no matter what he was. And, as he said (and hoped haha), he deserves statues like eastern religious idols have.
Fine, brief summation of Schopenhauers views. Quite close to anti-natilism. Missed out that animal life in the natural world is defined by pain and suffering on a scale where the cliché about "nature being red in tooth and claw" is a literally bloody reality.. Very difficult area, , as much depends on a number and a variety of factors as to which side of the arguments here, one can lean . towards. The late Philosophy populiser Bryan Magee held Schopenhauers world view as deeply insightful
Life is nothing but pain
Not for masochists!!!
@suatustel746 what's masochists
@@lenorjohnson319 typo errors meant masochist.
@@suatustel746 what is it
@@lenorjohnson319 why don't you look up the dictionary. ....... ......
You guys are absolutely wonderful. I really love your videos. Please keep them coming!
Thank you!
Wunderbar, sehr einfach und deutlich erklärt, danke schön!
your videos are my meditation.. thank you PV! 💞
You're welcome, glad you like the content :D
Personnaly , I found Bouddhism quite convincing as it puts us on a stream of multiple lifes and not only one . There seems to be a way to learn and to progress as suffering and challenges themselves can lead to a higher consciousness ; an évolution that will somehow réactivate itself in a next Life until complète liberation. But one has to believe
that enlightement ist possible.
But how can you we say there exists an afterlife...
I am concerned more about the concept of rebirth in buddisim ...
If rebirth is true....world is balanced....If rebirth is just a belief then concepts such as JUSTICE, EQUITY, FREEDOM(WILL), etc cannot be actualized.
I wonder why Buddha believed in rebirth(even told many past life stories of his....which were compiled in the form of Jataka stories).
@@dileepkumar_14 Well there is this whole debate about reincarnation with lots of testimony on TH-cam ... ( How do you explain Prodigy children for instance.) The truth is that we've forgoten where we came from and have no idea where we're heading to.
@@dileepkumar_14 as we are a constantly changing process,there isnt anything that we can difinitivly be said to be,there isn't a YOU that is rebor n
@@willoanz uiu
@@dileepkumar_14 I think Buddha was just a Pessimist
People (following their instinctuall programm ) latter change Buddhism to create a Nirvana , unachievable goal to justify we living as normal people
without being Anti natalist
This is evident in the scene
Right after Buddha was cremated Kings of India , suddenly collected different remainings of Buddhas body , Saying it was out of respect , but actually tightening their claim on throne
The Irenean theodicy is ridiculous and the attacks on pessimism seem to be based on making a strawman of it. It is the reality of the world that thebad outweighs the good, and by far.. it is just that most people's brains are able to negate reality and forget or dont ay attention to most things that are happening.. and that makes it even worse for the ones that actually see reality as it is.
The way I see it, one has to put in effort in order to enjoy life, while suffering is free and is near limitless in its forms. The only way to truly enjoy life, without lying to oneself, is to embrace the suffering to some extent. That suffering is what motivates us to better ourselves, to become stronger.
A lot of people make it their life goal to either avoid or eliminate all suffering from their lives, which to me just seems like wasted effort.
Sounds like you’re embracing suffering in order to minimise it. That’s a luxury many of us cannot afford
Great video guys. I’ve been wanting someone to make a video that argues the Pessimistic and non-Pessimistic viewpoints in a concise way and this is perfect!
Glad you enjoyed, thanks for watching.
15:35
but, what about tragedy? what about war? what about divorces that end up suffering the children?
the true problem is the human itself... and human is universal, so voila, pessimism is universal...
Great video. I’m a little surprised Frankl didn’t come up at the end . Keep up the good work.
Thank you!
The OSHO 's point of view is much more interesting because he went beyond mind and said that there is a state of consciousness where you are total free, full of joy and happiness. It is all about self realization and enlightment. This state is atchieved through meditation.
Brilliant thanks
You're welcome :D
Single handedly saving my philosophy grade🙏🙏🙏
Glad we could help.
We create our own meaning.
Great efforts... I liked the presentation..
Thank you, glad you liked the video.
I love philosophy vibe !!!!!
Thank you :D
Best channel on youtube.
Thank you!
Just found your channel a few weeks ago very glad I did fantastic work 👍
Thank you very much, glad you like the content.
I'm always looking for fresh perspectives on these topics, something I explore regularly in my videos.
Baruch Spinoza would be a nice complement to this series.
The average post modern human has an infinite amount of naiveté. That in itself is a luxury.Think ignorance is bliss. The reality that life demands activity causes anxiety, or the proverbial angst, philosophers ( existentialist) have been keen to share with the herd. Nihilism is the result of running the gammet of pleasure back to the point of mindane existence. Over -stimulation.War,and/ or gore will restore a love of life. No more lies or propaganda to grudgingly accept as truth.🤪🤪🤪.Living must offer a transcendent feeling of power.
Yes, we attain some goals and miss out on others. That is true. But, as has been said so many times, the attainment of goals is hollow. If it wasn't, we'd attain our first set of goals and have no need to strive for any others. Quantity of goals, and life being multi-faceted, has _no_ bearing whatsoever on this truth either.
Also, pessimism is *NOT* just for those who have suffered. I will agree that it almost always takes a degree of suffering to arrive at a pessimistic outlook, but the philosophy itself can still be a universal truth despite that. The idea that I, and other pessimists, would put forward is that the pessimistic world is true, and there are many who just don't realize it - who are so lost in the pursuit of momentary pleasure and hollow goals that they never stop to think about whether or not those things are worthwhile. If the constant pain is worth such meager rewards.
People can think they're happy, and perhaps can truly be so at times (I know I am an example of that, even as a pessimist). But when the pain and suffering (or even neutral indifference) lasts so much longer than happiness does, it suddenly lacks any degree of being worthwhile. Yet, so many people don't notice this, or rationalize their way out of accepting it, or perhaps are just okay with it (even though it's almost objectively a bad deal). A pessimist would consider the latter case irrational.
Pessimistic outlook typically arises from personal struggle, for sure, but that personal struggle is what provides _clarity_ into a universal truth - it does not, in any way, prove that pessimism is not a universal truth, nor does it prove that it is an outlook that can simply be changed.
This is also why I hate the oversimplified "glass is half empty" analogy. A more apt analogy is the glass being 10% water and 90% air, and _then_ saying that the glass is *mostly* empty. That's true pessimism.
Edit: Also, the idea that negatives are needed to appreciate the good is true, but misses the point. Appreciation for things only exists because there is a worse alternative that makes one grateful to have what they have. If no worse alternative existed - if life was only pleasure - then appreciation becomes nonexistent, and therefore moot and unnecessary too. Which isn't a bad thing, because appreciation is not necessary for fulfillment. If life was constant pleasure, then we would have no concept of bad - no need for negatives to feel positive, no need for appreciation - because we'd already be indefinitely positive. Truly fulfilled.
We'd be too busy being happy to feel any need for appreciation. Pleasure is pleasure - what else would we need?
Re: "Yes, we attain some goals and miss out on others. That is true. But, as has been said so many times, the attainment of goals is hollow."
It is not since attaining the goal brings satisfaction or optimism. The fact that we pursuit other goals does not contractict the realisation of previous ones, the feelings of positives/pleasures. We are in constant motion like everything else in the Universe and realisation of other goals will bring also positive feeling/optimism. We tend to and we are doomed to strive achieving something, that is a baseline of existentialism and the default position.
Some argue that struggling to reach the goals is in itself a motivational feeling of optimism(the release of dopamine in the brain) even when we do experience pain working through. I argue to say that pain and pleasure are intertwined. There is also the hedonic treadmill or a baseline which is not necessarily suffering. You can find more about this position on rantswithintheundeadgod.blogspot.com/2014/02/debate-with-youtube-antinatalist.html
it sounds like he is speaking to chatgpt
A great video, introduced every necessary topic
Thank you!
Good stuff, fellas.
Thank you :)
Either way, the journey will most certainly end in a piles of ashes or worm food, pess and opt both included with it, both concepts only occurring in human consciousness.
🙏
The philosophy of life is the philosophy of balance, now what is balance... Balance is a good thing, right? Sounds perfect. In fact, it's probably a lot like perfection, in all the best and worst ways. If a person or a situation were to achieve perfect balance, there would only be one possible place to go from there: loosing balance. In time, the balance will be lost. Until the balance is lost, there is anxiety, patiently waiting for that catastrophic moment to occur one way or another.
A perfect scenario is Like a circus tightrope walker, the tightrope walker pauses in the middle, remains motionless. The audience gasps and holds their breath.. anticipation and excitement and adrenaline build ... if the tightrope walker weren't making his way from one end of the wire to the other -if he just stayed where he paused, motionless, minute after minute going by- would there be any point in watching? The audience gets bored, begins to drift away, one by one, leaving the show.
That scenario suggest another possibility: time is suspended. Probably the closest a person can come to making that happen occurred in the extremely deep meditative state that Buddhist monks are said to achieve, reportedly for days, weeks, perhaps months.
An observer would experience those long passages for time, but the monk would probably not be aware of anything at all, including the passage of time. He would also experience none of the imbalances and responses to imbalance that we associate with in our everyday lives.
For a Buddhist monk, that might be a great achievement, but it's certainly not what most of us would consider a desirable life. When we make decisions and adopt behaviours in order to improve the balance of our lives, we intend to keep moving ahead, regardless upon the burden of weight we carry. like a tightrope walker. A tightrope walker carries a long stick that he constantly tips, in tiny increments, from one side to the other.
That stick is like everything we carry along: work, leisure, family, friends, business associates, exercise, eating, sleeping. We constantly tip the stick a little more in one direction, then the other, trying to keep ourselves from falling off. We're not trWying to stay in one perfect place; we're trying to keep moving on the intimidating wire we call life.
No sane person consciously strives for "perfection" as a life's ambition or goal, Sane people know that it's not achievable, but if that changes such as immortality will that be considered as the epitome of perfection? If not what would that look like. However, But who does not attempt to improve every day to avoid repeating a past mistake? When those attempts are not a part of a person's life, then that life is off track and the individual will become imbalanced, either as the result of some misfortune, or surely heading towards one.
Balance is an excellent thing to strive for, but maybe not a perfection to attain. It's the striving that's good, because it's the striving that's life. It helps to have a carrot at the end of the stick.
There is no meaning to life because for there to be a meaning there would have to be a god and there is no god
Can't we create our own meaning?
That's a pretty heavy claim you are making. Can you elaborate?
@@onlyechadtherebellious2467 there is no GOD he said
Nah. Existence of a lifegiver doesnt have to mean there's meaning for us. Could be an unconscious, purposeless, plain dumb, neutral, malevolent or careless lifegiver.
good job
Thank you.
Where could I get theological content
You need ego to function or to strive but those instincts make you feel pain unless you choose to rid of them, but this is difficult cause these are apart of our nature, so peace is pointless unless this can satisfy these instincts in some way cause this is impossible
"I see!"
This is very difficult cause you need to feed the ego in order to feel good about the self, the ego is a part of you, this may be important for you to feel good about things around you even or to feel like you’ve essentially led a good life you know, however you need to do this blindly cause the only way of achieving a life without suffering is say to reject the ego so it doesn’t exist or to exist selflessly entirely or simplistically in order to escape suffering but you need ego to drive yourself but don’t need it to become present truly and egoless or without ambition to reject emotional pain and suffering, how does that make any sense
@12.20... think about the pleasure... as a reason why life is worth it - what I find depressing is our pleasure comes at the expense of so much, while we have fun with sex, eating something nice, achieving something at work the world and everything else in it is set on fire. Pleasure as a reason why life is worth it might be more convincing if the consequences of our existence were not so dire.
5:25 😏😂
this is a great debate
Glad you enjoyed :D
I really hate or despise this way of thinking with a passion because I am a pessimistic person by nature by the way, this is something that I really struggle with every day, this thought of allowing the will to take over with. The ego and letting go, or Tao or go with the flow of nature is very difficult cause that means going with your nature and going with weakness and focusing only on your strengths which I think is foolish, basically it’s a possession of the spirit via willpower and allowing things to happen without any regard for the future events, very difficult, it like asking you to ignore human faculties for strengths, and your constantly needing to satisfy your nature or needy basic wants, I believe your emotions are linked to this as well, which I don’t like cause this is overwhelming thought process, trying to be content with an alien force inside yourself almost telling you what your needs are and who you are almost, basically this force tells you to disregard troubles for pleasure as if they don’t exist for happiness or go on impulse basically with no real rational thought process to it or simply just it provocative makes you jump into things without thinking cause. It’s just an impulse that protects itself, your instincts aren’t really you, they are there to help you of course but they aren’t you nor are your emotions truly, they are simply an experience your having or a sensation that eventually should pass like anger over time that helps you compensate for a bad life, it urges you to be happy even when there’s no reason to. Be, or if you are in bad situations it urges you to go on without cause, I can’t stand being controlled by a force that I have very little understanding off and hardly any real control over, very scary concept if you ask me
I just disagree with the final statement, I think that Schopenhauer wanted to talk about all goals, not just one, and yes, in fact, life consists of pursuing goals, the "meaning" is found in the "occupation" of not thinking about the "not meaning" of life (if it was understandable, ok lol)
Is there any solution to solipsism and the problem of other minds?
Consistent solipsism needs very abstract and convoluted explanations for the following problems:
1. Anyone that claimed to be a solipsist and is now dead disproves solipsism, since there is still reality without their personal minds.
2. No two people can claim to both be solipsists.
3. If I leave a candle burning, leave the room for an hour and come back, the candle will have burnt in a consistent manner with what I experienced before, even though according to solipsism the candle was non-existent when I, the only mind there is, wasn’t perceiving it. If solipsism is true, what accounts for this consistency across time?
4. When you cut yourself, you might scream in pain, similarly to when I cut myself. Solipsism needs two different explanations what appears to be a very similar process. For example: I scream because I am in pain, while you scream not because you are in pain, but because I for some reason wanted you to act the way I act when I cut myself.
I’m sure there are plenty other problems like this for solipsism.
Some of the possible explanations solipsists could give for these problems are necessarily very convoluted and inferential, which defeats the purpose of solipsism, namely to only follow simple direct experience without making inferences.
I’m only pessimistic because I’m trying to survive with purpose or meaning, but I can’t. I feel like I had every advantage to make it, but still failed somehow even when I was trying to be part of the “rat race”. I just came to the conclusion that people are greedy and there is just not enough resources to accommodate all the greedy people. People know how to take and not give or they are good at pretending.
1:29 pretty much the Truth!
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You cannot argue with pessimism... everyone who tries end up being religious and self contradictory...
As a philosophy, I found pessimism as totally depressing.
no shiii sherlock
A God cannot save you from nihilism, he cannot save himself from it. To deny this is to think it’s “turtles all the way UP.”
The guys I would like to hang with
You guys are dope. May I work with you? ( I am a voice artist and podcaster from South Africa)
Thank you. Feel free to contact philosophyvibe@gmail.com with any collab ideas.
I would definitely like to see this good stuff translated in Swahili for an African audience!
Guys plss do come up vth husserls philsophy
Yes this video is on the list :)
That coffee maker on the lower shelf is only going to get foot traffic sediment. Not very appetizing for coffee drinkers. Call me pessimistic But, if I wear one of those two cartoon characters I wouldn't have any of that coffee. 😆
hmm, nihilism is the attitude that refuse to assign man-made meanings to the life… but it is apparently not merely a standpoint, more likely it urges to overcome itself, for it is best to not exist before nihilism, while it does need a subject to kind of come through with such a idea. To understand the concept plainly makes it seems hypocritical, but nihilism is important as a standpoint, it is first required to reach that standpoint, then presumbly go over it, by whatsoever means.
You need passion to live a whole life but it’s primal purely with no intelligence, just an impulse that controls you and you have to fight against it for survival sometimes, even against your own benefit or against treason or intelligence, like a dog on a leash or a horse pulling a carriage but the horse mostly has control over you and if you go against a part of yourself then you’ll feel miserable and make others miserable or a self struggle to be content.
11:29 Id like to introduce Antinatalism at this point
Just because we strive to be Ubermench , does it mean our children should too
Would theybwant it if they were given free will
It is a parent's decision whether or not they would would want to have children. Selfishness isn't immorality, when we call something "selfish", there tends to be underlying implications for why we then call it immoral.
@@irish_deconstruction Well , according to what we have done on Earth so far , It is parents descision
But does a human being really have the right to create another human life ?
@@uvindukulathunga3860 nope
13:30
are you sure about that sir? the fact is, are the children happy? they are in fact crying just because they're thrown into this hell, so called world...
life might be pointless but its still a miracle
I don't think Schopenhauer ever met someone that enjoys pain and feeds off of it as a reward. Where the lack of rest means boredom can't find time to develop.
Have you ever encountered anyone who was happy to be in a car accident that left them disabled for their entire life, or someone who was ecstatic to be passing a kidney stone?
Boredom is a type of a Pain
If Nietzsche were alive he may disagree with me idk but i thought, when Nietzsche said God is dead, he implies that we are able to bring him back. It’s still a very unpolished argument of mine but because we were the ones to erase God and empty the God-shaped hole in our hearts, perhaps we can fill it back with God. Perhaps Nietzsches ubermensch includes our ability to seek out God.
Camus too: maybe the absurd man is able to revive God back in an absurd way…
Again, a very unpolished argument
I side more with the pessimists.
I am not a fan of pessimism for two reasons. Firstly, negative thoughts have negative impact on our feelings. They may lead to thinking habbits which make our life feel worse. Secondly, there is a logical contradiction - a true pessimist cannot view his worldview as something good, because that would be an optimistic opinion. Said simply, optimists will say that pessimism is worse, pessimist will also say that pessimism is worse, so it looks worse either way.
On the other hand, if we look from neutral realistic perspective, pessimism also have some benefits, such as being more humble, not having false hopes (leading to disappointment), not underestimating dangerous situations and, more accurate analyzing in chess, leading to more victories in chess. But still, i think it is slightly better to be as optimistic as we, each of us, can be.
The first may be fair, though I don't think it's a sufficient rebuttal. But the 2nd doesn't make sense to me. It doesn't have to be viewed as "good", just correct.
@@dylanrichardson199 Wheter it is "good" or just "correct", both sound optimistic.
@@eklektikTubb OKAY.. how about I phrase it with a double negative then? It's not not correct.
@@dylanrichardson199 Sure, people can fool themselves with double negative to sound and feel like "not not true pessimists". But my point was not just about how it sounds, but rather about how it really is. 🙃
@@eklektikTubb my point is that pessimism can be seen as a propositional attitude. And it can be seen as being true or false independent of any particular observer.
The psychological question of the effects of holding a pessimistic world view is another matter. But regardless I don't see how evaluating it's truth value can be seen as having intrinsic psychological optimism or pessimism. Imagine if an Ai philosopher addressed the question and found pessimism to be correct. Would the Ai then be optimistic or pessimistic? No, I don't think so.
Strawman argument alert.
Exactly. So many strawmans.
No pessimists I've ever spoken to think that life is ONLY suffering. They just think that suffering is worse and/or more plentiful than pleasure is good/plentiful.
@@happyvalleykid6324 Life IS suffering. That is the Buddhist philosophy.
@@restoftheworld7200 And the Buddhists, in my opinion, are wrong. But maybe pessimistic Buddhists exist? Idk