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James Sully's psychological reduction of philosophical pessimism

Hassan, Patrick 2024. James Sully's psychological reduction of philosophical pessimism. British Journal for the History of Philosophy 32 (5) , pp. 1097-1120. 10.1080/09608788.2023.2268125
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Abstract

One of the greatest philosophical disputes in Germany in the latter half of the 19th 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 1870’s 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 19th 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 19th century by the likes of Schopenhauer and Olga Plümacher.

Item Type: Article
Date Type: Publication
Status: Published
Schools: English, Communication and Philosophy
Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > B Philosophy (General)
B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BJ Ethics
Publisher: Routledge
ISSN: 0960-8788
Date of First Compliant Deposit: 12 October 2023
Date of Acceptance: 2 October 2023
Last Modified: 12 Nov 2024 14:30
URI: https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/162918

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