Dark Matters : : Pessimism and the Problem of Suffering / / Mara van der Lugt.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter EBOOK PACKAGE COMPLETE 2021 English
• VerfasserIn: van der Lugt, Mara,
• Place / Publishing House: Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [2021]; ©2021
• Year of Publication: 2021
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (472 p.)

An intellectual history of the philosophers who grappled with the problem of evil, and the case for why pessimism still holds moral value for us todayIn the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, philosophers engaged in heated debates on the question of how God could have allowed evil and suffering in a creation that is supposedly good. Dark Matters traces how the competing philosophical traditions of optimism and pessimism arose from early modern debates about the problem of evil, and makes a compelling case for the rediscovery of pessimism as a source for compassion, consolation, and perhaps even hope.Bringing to life one of most vibrant eras in the history of philosophy, Mara van der Lugt discusses legendary figures such as Leibniz, Hume, Voltaire, Rousseau, Kant, and Schopenhauer. She also introduces readers to less familiar names, such as Bayle, King, La Mettrie, and Maupertuis. Van der Lugt describes how the earliest optimists and pessimists were deeply concerned with finding an answer to the question of the value of existence that does justice to the reality of human suffering, but how they were fundamentally divided over what such an answer should look like.A breathtaking work of intellectual history by one of today's leading scholars, Dark Matters reveals how the crucial moral aim of pessimism is to find a way of speaking about suffering that offers consolation and does justice to the fragility of life.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction Philosophy in a Minor Chord -- Chapter 1 The Complaint: Bayle and Malebranche on Physical Evil -- Chapter 2 The Optics of Optimism: Leibniz and King Respond to Bayle -- Chapter 3 Of Hope and Consolation: Voltaire and the Deists -- Chapter 4 When Stoicism Meets Pessimism: La Mettrie and Maupertuis -- Chapter 5 The Dispositional Problem of Evil: David Hume -- Chapter 6 The Art of Suffering: Jean-Jacques Rousseau -- Chapter 7 The Failure of Theodicy: Immanuel Kant -- Chapter 8 The Flute-Playing Pessimist: Arthur Schopenhauer -- Chapter 9 Dark Matters: Pessimism as a Moral Source -- Acknowledgements -- Bibliography -- Main Primary Sources -- Other Primary Sources -- Secondary and Modern Sources -- Index