PESSIMISM. - It optimism (v.) insofar as evil (v.) good (v.): thus neither does optimism entirely deny the existence of evil, nor does p. absolutely exclude the presence of good, but their opposition lies in the ontological preference or excess that good obtains over evil, or evil over good, and therefore in the meaning of a positive or negative sign attributed to being. Consequently, if it has been possible to envisage an absolute optimism of the full positivity of being, it is difficult to see how one could conceive an “absolute p.” since with it the very possibility of the consciousness that thinks it would also vanish: p., like every negative situation, presupposes the positive moment that it proposes to limit to the point of overwhelming it, but never annihilating II. In p., the positive represents the stage of appearance and immediacy, which must be overcome through reflection and asceticism in order to reach, beyond deceptive appearances and illusory pleasures, the secret truth of negation.
The most radical p. is attributed to the doctrine of the Vedanta, which, like the other Indian systems, teaches that all individual existence is suffering, and drives man toward absolute indifference to all things through Nirvana (P. Deussen, Allgemeine Gesch. der Philos., I, III, 3rd ed., Leipzig 1920, p. 609 ff.). The situation in Greek thought appears more complicated. There is no doubt that the gradual discovery of the Xéros; insofar as it continues, asserts the pre-eminence of the positive over the negative, of which the Socratic identity between knowledge and virtue is an entirely explicit sign, though Aristotle vigorously contested it (Ethic. Nic., VII, 3, 1145 b 22 ff.). P. is more continuous and explicit among the Greek lyric and tragic poets: Sophocles is convinced of the nothingness that human life is; for him, human beings are shadowy images, so that it would be better never to have been born and, once born, to leave this world as soon as possible (cf. Oedipus at Colonus, V. 1225 ff.). Euripides likewise insists on the insecurity of human life and on the alternation within it of happiness and unhappiness, comparable to the meteorological changes of the physical world. All human things are reduced to shadows, and no one should be praised before death; he too repeats the proverb that it is better not to have been born (cf. Orestes, V. 1604; fr. 330; Medea, V. 1224; Andromache, V. 100 ff.). The foundation of this tragic p., in which the external or Apollonian harmony that dominated the interpretation of Greek classical culture for so many centuries, Nietzsche (v.), who introduced the Dionysian element, has been broken, fate (v.) or destiny (τύχη, μοῖρα, εξωχωμένη), immutable even for the gods themselves (M. P. Nilsson, Geschichte der griechischen Religion, in Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft, I, Munich 1941, pp. 712 and 732). This doctrine can be traced back to Homer, with his observation of humanity’s continual decline (cf. Odyssey, II, 276 f.), and it was widespread in the sixth century B.C., as appears from the fragments of Mimnermus, Archilochus, Simonides of Amorgos, Alcaeus, and especially Theognis, to whom the aforementioned proverb expressing the desire “not to have been born” (μὴ γῆναι) is attributed.
A new and even deeper element of p. has been identified in the disputed fragment of Anaximander (B I): “That from which things arise is also the term into which they sink according to necessity (κατὰ τὸ χρεών); for they must pay the penalty and be judged for their injustice according to the ordinance of time” (H. Diels, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, I, 5th ed. edited by W. Kranz, Berlin 1934, p. 89). Its Orphic derivation has in fact been noted: Anaximander conceives of the indeterminate being (ἄπειρον) and consequently posits immortal souls destined to perfect themselves through new reincarnations, because, according to Orphic beliefs, they are afflicted by an original sin from all eternity, while the body is regarded as the “tomb of the soul” (σῶμα-σῆμα). From this negative conception of nature it has been concluded that not only the naturalistic philosophy of the Ionian philosophers, but Greek science as a whole, lost its way along erroneous paths and failed to create a scientific physics (cf. E. Howald, Ethik des Altertums, in Handbuch der Philos., Munich and Berlin 1926, p. 13). A vision of p. pervades the entire work of Eudotus, the historian of the instability of all human things: the legacy of p. from the oldest Greek thought was taken up in the Cyrenaic school by Hegesias, who, against Epicureanism, described the ills of life with such effectiveness that he drove some of his listeners to kill themselves. The p. Cyrenaics (v.) arose precisely from the materialism they professed, insofar as pleasure is resolved into a series of fleeting individual moments, and p. is inevitable in every conception that confines man within finitude and time (an excellent presentation in W. Ch. Greene, Moir, fate, good and evil, Cambridge, Mass. 1944, p. 182; V. E. Schwarz, Ethik der Griechen, Stuttgart 1951, p. 182). The profound cause of Greek p. lies in the conviction of the invincibility of evil, insofar as the cosmos is governed by the iron law of fate, whence derives the indifference that divinity displays toward the individuals and events of this life, and ultimately the ontological negativity of matter and its coexistence with divine being, which may be regarded as the true metaphysical principle of Greek p.
In revealed religion, human history presents a double aspect: viewed from the standpoint of human freedom, history appears as a succession of sins, wholly woven from crimes and miseries of which the just are victims, and above all the very Son of God; but, from God’s point of view, the positive outcome of history, that is, the fulfillment of the “salvific plan” Providence (v.), is absolutely certain. In Jewish religious life, p. seems to prevail in this sense, especially in the wisdom books (cf. the disconsolate Ecclesiastes; also Eccl. 40); nevertheless, in the end it is God who judges, punishes, and rewards (cf. Wis. 15, 1 ff.). Christianity definitively resolves the ambiguity in the relationship between optimism and p. In Greek thought, the ontological positivity of universal essences conflicted with the profound misery in which the individual found himself, at the mercy of fate and the blind forces of nature. Christianity resolves the problem in three moments:
1) essences as such are positive, and above all human nature, in its spiritual part, bears the very image of God (Ps. 4, 7).
2) But through sin man fell from his original perfection and is exposed to physical suffering and death in regard to the body, and to passions that distance him from God in regard to the spirit.
3) Nevertheless, the intellect and the will have fundamentally preserved intact the capacity to know the truth and to desire the good, and God, through the Incarnation of the Word, has offered man the possibility of eternal salvation. From the standpoint, therefore, of ontological structure, in the Christian conception optimism prevails over p. Nevertheless, considered in his existential situation, man shows himself more inclined toward evil than toward good, because he is more prone to follow the senses than right reason: “In homine est duplex natura, scilicet rationalis et sensitiva. Et quia per operationem sensus homo pervenit ad actus rationis, ideo plures sequuntur inclinationes naturae sensitivae quam ordinem rationis” (Sum. Theol., 1ᵃ-2ᵃ, q. 71, a. 2 ad 3). Only in Christianity, therefore, is there an ontological clarification of the relationship between optimism and p., since in it the dialectic of freedom attains its complete unfolding through its foundation in God and through its position and actualization in individual responsibility.
In modern thought, the relationship between optimism and p. is inverted with respect to classical thought: authentic p. disappears because truth is identified with universal absolute Reason, error (v.) are relegated to the sphere of appearance and transient empirical individuality and are therefore reduced to “negative moments” of reason itself (cf. Kant’s “radical evil” and the Hegelian doctrine of “evil as the negative,” which is nevertheless necessary for the development of the dialectic of “universal history”). For Hegel, p. represents an inferior stage of consciousness: the “unhappy consciousness” (das unglückliche Bewusstsein) is consciousness still divided within itself, since it does not attain the perfect unification of the opposed moments of being but remains in the tension between a “here-below” (Diesseits) and a “beyond” (Jenseits) of being itself, which can never be reached (cf. Die Phänomenologie des Geistes, ed. J. Hoffmeister, Leipzig 1937, pp. 163 ff.).
SCHOPENHAUER, ARTHUR (v.), who elevated p. into a system, the fundamental difference among all religions does not consist, as is usually believed, in whether they are monotheistic, polytheistic, pantheistic, or atheistic, but solely in whether they are optimistic or pessimistic—that is, whether they represent the existence of this world as justified in itself and therefore praise and exalt it, or instead regard it as something that can be understood only as a consequence of our guilt and therefore properly ought not to exist” (Die Welt etc., Reclam ed., II, Leipzig n.d., p. 196 f.; Italian trans., II, Bari 1930, p. 206). In his view, Christianity’s victory over Judaism and Greco-Roman paganism consists entirely and exclusively in its p.; but Schopenhauer is mistaken both because he forgets Christianity’s entire positive and constructive aspect, including with regard to earthly existence, insofar as it must prepare eternal life, and because the self-denial demanded by Christianity presupposes that immediate existence and the life of the senses actually provide joy and satisfaction for a sphere of consciousness (cf. Kierkegaard’s criticism of Schopenhauer, in Diario 1854; Italian trans., III, Brescia 1951, pp. 121 ff., 132, 135 ff.).
Enlightenment p. found its highest lyrical expression in the poetry of G. Leopardi (v.). existentialism (v.), since being is traced back to “nothingness” as its phenomenological-dialectical foundation (Heidegger), or is projected toward an unattainable Whole (Jaspers’s Kantian Umgreifende), truth remains without an outcome. Absolute p. is then inevitable in Sartre’dualism (v.) of Pour-soi (subject) and En-soi (object), which consequently declares man and his aspiration to rise higher to be a “useless passion” (L’être et le néant, Paris 1943, p. 708).
The definitive victory over p. lies in the metaphysical foundations of individual freedom, personal immortality, and divine Providence, which guides the development of history and will finally judge it, both for the individual and for humanity as a whole.