在西方哲学中,哲学上的悲观主义不是一个单一的一致的思潮,而是相对松散的一群思想家用他们彼此相似的观点组成的。[5]在Weltschmerz: Pessimism in German Philosophy, 1860-1900, Frederick C. Beiser(英语:Frederick C. Beiser)指出悲观主义的核心命题是“生活并不值得过,没有存在好过存在,或者活着比不活更坏。”[6] 然而,对很多哲学上的悲观主义者来说,这种对生命的观点并不直接导致自杀是值得追求的,而只是追求反出生主义,也就是停止繁殖,来慢慢让苦痛消失。[7][8][9]
赫拉克利特拒绝了认为一个如此多样的世界可以二元分割的立场,阿那克西曼德曾经被迫采取这个立场。他不再区分物理世界和形而上的世界,不再区分一个拥有各种确定性的领域和一个不可被定义的“不确定”领域。在迈出这一步之后,没有什么能阻止他做出第二个更大胆的否定:他完全否定了存在。因为他所保留的这个世界[...]没有一处体现出持久性、不灭性或者像阻挡水的墙。赫拉克利特用比阿那克西曼德更大的声音宣称:“除了变化之外我没看到任何东西。不要被欺骗了。如果你相信你在持续产生和消失的海洋中看到了陆地,那只是你短视的错误,而不是事物的本质。你为事物赋予名字,仿佛它们是牢固和持续存在的,但即使你第二次踏入的一条河也不会是之前的那一条。” The Birth of Tragedy. 5, pp. 51–52
Hegesias(英语:Hegesias of Cyrene)认为所有外在的物体、事件、行动甚至死亡对于智者来说都是无所谓的,“愚蠢的人期望生存,但对智者来说这没有所谓。” 根据西塞罗,Hegesias写了一本名为《饿死(Death by Starvation)》的书,说服了不少人死亡比活着更值得向往。因此,托勒密二世禁止了Hegesias在亚历山大城授课。[39]
从公元前三世纪,斯多葛学派就把“遇见坏事(the premeditation of evils)”当作一种练习,即专注于最坏可能的情况。[40]
巴尔塔沙·葛拉西安
叔本华广泛接触了巴尔塔沙·葛拉西安的作品,并且认为他的小说《El Criticón》对于“那些想要在大千世界繁荣的人”“毫无疑问是特别的……是一本可以常常被用到的……生命的伴侣。”[41]叔本华的悲观主义受葛拉西安影响,他也将葛拉西安的《The Pocket Oracle and Art of Prudence》翻译到德语。他赞赏葛拉西安的箴言式风格,并常常在自己的作品里引用他。[42]葛拉西安的小说《El Criticón(批评家)》是一个人类寻求幸福的长篇寓言,但是在这个地球上没有结果。《El Criticón》描绘了一个惨淡荒凉的人类境况,《Pocket Oracle》是一本关于如何生活在一个他认为充满了欺骗和幻灭的世界里生存的箴言。[43]
^Schopenhauer, Arthur. The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 1. Dover Publications. 1966. ISBN 9780486217611(英语).
^ 3.03.1Benatar, David. The Human Predicament: A Candid Guide to Life's Biggest Questions. Oxford University Press. 2017. ISBN 978-0190633813(英语).
^J. Cabrera, Discomfort and Moral Impediment: The Human Situation, Radical Bioethics and Procreation, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2019. [1] A thirty-page extract on the publisher's website. J. Cabrera, Mal-estar e moralidade: situação humana, ética e procriação responsável, Brasília: UnB, 2018 (original Portuguese edition).
^Beiser, Frederick C. Weltschmerz: Pessimism in German Philosophy, 1860-1900. Oxford University Press. 2018. ISBN 978-0198822653(英语). The philosophical discussion of pessimism in late 19th-century Germany shows a remarkable unanimity about its central thesis. According to all participants in this discussion, pessimism is the thesis that life is not worth living, that nothingness is better than being, or that it is worse to be than not be.
^Arthur Schopenhauer, Studies in Pessimism, translated by Thomas Bailey Saunders (1913).On the Sufferings of the World, p. 15: "If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone, would the human race continue to exist? Would not a man rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation as to spare it the burden of existence? or at any rate not take it upon himself to impose that burden upon it in cold blood". On Suicide, p. 48: "In my chief work I have explained the only valid reason existing against suicide on the score of mortality. It is this: that suicide thwarts the attainment of the highest moral aim by the fact that, for a real release from this world of misery, it substitutes one that is merely apparent."
^Benatar, David. Still Better Never to Have Been: A Reply to (More of) My Critics. The Journal of Ethics. 2013, 17 (1/2, p. 148): 121–151 [2022-05-13]. S2CID 170682992. doi:10.1007/s10892-012-9133-7. (原始内容存档于2022-06-16). A few of my critics have claimed that I am committed to the desirability of suicide and even speciecide. They clearly intend this as a reductio ad absurdum of my position. However, I considered the questions of suicide and speciecide in Better Never to Have Been and argued that these are not implications of my view. First, it is possible to think that both coming into existence is a serious harm and that death is (usually) a serious harm. Indeed, some people might think that coming into existence is a serious harm in part because the harm of death is then inevitable.
^Ligotti, Thomas. The Conspiracy against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror.. Hippocampus Press. 2011: 50. ISBN 978-0984480272. Simply because someone has reached the conclusion that the amount of suffering in this world is enough that anyone would be better off never having been born does not mean that by force of logic or sincerity he must kill himself. It only means he has concluded that the amount of suffering in this world is enough that anyone would be better off never having been born.
^Schopenhauer, Arthur. The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 2. Dover Publications. 1966. ISBN 9780486217628(英语).
^Leopardi, Giacomo. Essays and Dialogues. University of California Press. 1983. ISBN 9780520049284.
^Arthur Schopenhauer, Wicks, Robert "Arthur Schopenhauer", Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2017 [2022-05-13], (原始内容存档于2021-05-23), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2011 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)
^Eykman, Christoph, Tymieniecka, Anna-Teresa , 编, Thalassic Regression: The Cipher of the Ocean in Gottfried Benn's Poetry, Poetics of the Elements in the Human Condition: The Sea: From Elemental Stirrings to Symbolic Inspiration, Language, and Life-Significance in Literary Interpretation and Theory, Analecta Husserliana (Springer Netherlands), 1985: 353–366, ISBN 978-94-015-3960-9, doi:10.1007/978-94-015-3960-9_25(英语)
^ 28.028.1Stoneman, Ethan. No, everything is not all right: Supernatural horror as pessimistic argument. Horror Studies. 2017-04-01, 8 (1): 25–43. doi:10.1386/host.8.1.25_1.
^Seed, David. Hell is a city: symbolic systems and epistemological scepticism in The City of Dreadful Night. Byron, Glennis; Punter, David (编). Spectral Readings. Spectral Readings: Towards a Gothic Geography (Palgrave Macmillan UK). 1999: 88–107. ISBN 978-0-230-37461-4. doi:10.1057/9780230374614_6(英语).
^Burkeman, Oliver. The Antidote: Happiness for people who can't stand positive thinking. Text Publishing. 2012: 32–33 [2013-01-22]. ISBN 9781921922671. (原始内容存档于2022-06-16). [...] the Stoics propose a[n] elegant, sustainable and calming way to deal with the possibility of things going wrong: rather than struggling to avoid all thought of these worst-case scenarios, they counsel actively dwelling on them, staring them in the face. This brings us to an important milestone on the negative path to happiness — a psychological tactic that William [B.] Irvine argues is 'the single most valuable technique in the Stoics' toolkit'. He calls it 'negative visualization'. The Stoics themselves, rather more pungently, called it 'the premeditation of evils'.
^Duff, E. Grant. Balthasar Gracian. fortnightlyreview.co.uk. 2016-03-26 [1 February 2019]. (原始内容存档于2022-06-16).
^Beiser reviews the commonly held position that Schopenhauer was a transcendental idealist and he rejects it: "Though it is deeply heretical from the standpoint of transcendental idealism, Schopenhauer's objective standpoint involves a form of transcendental realism, i.e. the assumption of the independent reality of the world of experience." (Beiser, Frederick C., Weltschmerz: Pessimism in German Philosophy, 1860–1900, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, p. 40).
^Beiser, Frederick C., Weltschmerz: Pessimism in German Philosophy, 1860–1900, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, p. 213 n. 30.
^ 56.056.1Beiser, Frederick C., Weltschmerz: Pessimism in German Philosophy, 1860–1900, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, pp. 147–8.
^Beiser, Frederick C., Weltschmerz: Pessimism in German Philosophy, 1860–1900, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, p. 231.
^Beiser, Frederick C., Weltschmerz: Pessimism in German Philosophy, 1860–1900, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, p. 202.
^Nietzsche, Friedrich, Die fröhliche Wissenschaft, book V.
^Beck, AT; Steer, RA; Kovacs, M, Hopelessness and eventual suicide: a 10-year prospective study of patients hospitalized with suicidal ideation, American Journal of Psychiatry, 1985, 142 (5): 559–563, CiteSeerX 10.1.1.462.6328, PMID 3985195, doi:10.1176/ajp.142.5.559
^Beck, AT; Weissman, A; Lester, D; Trexler, L, The measurement of pessimism: the hopelessness scale, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology (Journal of Consulting and Clinical), 1974, 42 (6): 861–5, PMID 4436473, doi:10.1037/h0037562
^Wender, PH; Klein, DF, Mind, Mood and Medicine, New American Library, 1982