List of philosophical pessimists

List of philosophers who have notably expressed philosophically pessimistic views in their works and contributed to its history.

List

Image	Name	Date of birth	Date of death	Nationality
	Julius Bahnsen [1] [2]	30 March 1830	7 December 1881	German
	Ernest Becker [3] [4] : 158–159	27 September 1924	6 March 1974	American
—	David Benatar [5] [6] [7]	8 December 1966	—	South African
	Ray Brassier [8] [9] [10]	22 December 1965	—	British
	The Buddha [4] : 130  [11] [12]	c. 563 BC	c. 483 BC	Indian
	Julio Cabrera [13] [14] [15]	1944	—	Argentinian
	Albert Camus [16] [17] [18] [19]	7 November 1913	4 January 1960	French
	Albert Caraco [20]	8 July 1919	7 September 1971	French-Uruguayan
	Emil Cioran [17] [21] : 396	8 April 1911	20 June 1995	Romanian
—	David E. Cooper [22]	1 October 1942	—	British
—	Hegesias [21] [23]	c. 290 BC	c. 290 BC	Greek
	Drew Dalton [24]	?	—	American
	Baltasar Gracián [21]	8 January 1601	6 December 1658	Spanish
	John Gray [9] [19] [25]	17 April 1948	—	English
	Eduard von Hartmann [1] [2] [6] [7]	23 February 1842	5 June 1906	German
—	Ulrich Horstmann [26]	31 May 1949	—	German
	Omar Khayyam [27]	18 May 1048	4 December 1131	Persian
	Giacomo Leopardi [1] [17] [21] : 396	29 June 1798	14 June 1837	Italian
—	Thomas Ligotti [4] [9] [19] [21] : 405	9 July 1953	—	American
	al-Ma'arri [27]	December 973	May 1057	Arab
	Philipp Mainländer [1] [2]	5 October 1841	1 April 1876	German
	Carlo Michelstaedter [28]	3 June 1887	17 October 1910	Italian
	Friedrich Nietzsche [7] [17] [21] : 396	15 October 1844	25 August 1900	German
	Olga Plümacher [1] [2]	27 May 1839	c. 15 June 1895	German
	Blaise Pascal [17] [21] : 396  [29]	19 June 1623	19 August 1662	French
	Arthur Schopenhauer [6] [7] [30] [31]	22 February 1788	21 September 1860	German
—	Agnes Taubert [1] [2]	7 January 1844	8 May 1877	German
—	Eugene Thacker [9] [10] [29]	?	—	American
—	Herman Tønnessen [32]	24 July 1918	2001	Norwegian-Canadian
	Miguel de Unamuno [17] [29] [33]	29 September 1864	31 December 1936	Spanish
	Peter Wessel Zapffe [6] [34] [35]	18 December 1899	12 October 1990	Norwegian

References

1. Beiser, Frederick C. (2016). Weltschmerz: Pessimism in German Philosophy, 1860–1900. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-876871-5. OCLC   929590292.
2. Sully, James (1877). Pessimism: A History and a Criticism. London: Henry S. King & Co.
3. Becker, Ernest (2007). The Denial of Death. Free Press. ISBN   978-1-4165-9034-7.
4. Ligotti, Thomas (2011). The Conspiracy Against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror. New York: Hippocampus Press. ISBN   978-0-9844802-7-2. OCLC   805656473.
5. Benatar, David (2017). The Human Predicament: A Candid Guide to Life's Biggest Questions. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-063381-3.
6. Coates, Ken (2016). Anti-Natalism: Rejectionist Philosophy from Buddhism to Benatar. First Edition Design Publishing. ISBN   978-1506-902-40-1.
7. Prescott, Paul (2012). "What Pessimism Is" (PDF). Journal of Philosophical Research. 37: 337–356. doi:10.5840/jpr20123716.
8. Brassier, Ray (2007). Nihil Unbound: Enlightenment and Extinction. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN   978-0230522046.
9. Schmitt, Mark (2023). Spectres of Pessimism: A Cultural Logic of the Worst. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN   978-3031253515.
10. Stewart-Kroeker, Peter (2023). Nihilism: Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Now. Open Philosophy 6 (1):178-95.
11. Sully, James (1877). Pessimism: A History and a Criticism. London: Henry S. King & Co. p.  38.
12. Cooper, David E. (2018). Animals and Misanthropy. Routledge. p. 6. ISBN   978-1138295940. Schopenhauer, for example, inherited from the Buddha a pessimistic view of the world as an arena of suffering.
13. Cabrera, Julio (2019). Discomfort and Moral Impediment: The Human Situation, Radical Bioethics and Procreation. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN   978-1-5275-1803-2. OCLC   1078636651.
14. Casey, M. (2019) “Book Review: Discomfort and Moral Impediment by Julio Cabrera (Cambridge Scholars Publishing: 2019)”, Dianoia: The Undergraduate Philosophy Journal of Boston College, (VI), pp. 91–97. doi: 10.6017/dupjbc.v6i1.11741.
15. Cabrera, Julio (2020). La Forma del Mundo: Ensayo sobre la muerte del ser. Elementos de Metafilosofía Primera [The Form Of The World: Essay on the death of being. Elements of the First Metaphilosophy.] (in Spanish). Ed. do Autor. ISBN   978-6500084023. Archived from the original on 2025-04-14.
16. Camus, Albert (2018). The Myth of Sisyphus. Translated by O'Brien, Justin. New York: Vintage International. ISBN   978-0-525-56700-4. OCLC   1076457902.
17. Dienstag, Joshua Foa (2009). Pessimism: Philosophy, Ethic, Spirit. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. ISBN   978-0-691-14112-1.
18. Simpson, David. "Albert Camus (1913—1960)". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy . Retrieved 2025-06-30. He also studied Schopenhauer and Nietzsche—undoubtedly the two writers who did the most to set him on his own path of defiant pessimism and atheism.
19. Tripathi, R. L. (2025). The Paradox Of Human Existence: Pessimism, Meaning And The Limits Of Progress. International Journal of Creative Thoughts Research 13 (6):19.
20. Caraco, Albert (1982). Le bréviaire du chaos (in French).
21. van der Lugt, Mara (2021). Dark Matters: Pessimism and the Problem of Suffering. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN   978-0-691-20662-2.
22. Cooper, David E. (2024). Pessimism, Quietism and Nature as Refuge. Agenda Publishing. ISBN   978-1788217705.
23.   Laërtius, Diogenes. "Socrates, with predecessors and followers: Hegesias (subsection of Aristippus)"  . Lives of the Eminent Philosophers . Vol. 1:2. Translated by Hicks, Robert Drew (Two volume ed.). Loeb Classical Library.
24. Dalton, Drew M. (October 15, 2023). The Matter of Evil: From Speculative Realism to Ethical Pessimism. Northwestern University Press. ISBN   978-0810146402.
25. Gray, John (2007). Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN   978-0374270933.
26. Horstmann, Ulrich (1985). Das Untier: Konturen einer Philosophie der Menschenflucht (in German). Suhrkamp. ISBN   978-3518376720.
27. Rozveh, Nasser Ghasemi (2013). "The Comparative Survey of Pessimism in Abul Ala Al-Maarri and Hakim Omar Khayyam Poems" (PDF). Journal of Basic and Applied Scientific Research. 3 (3): 405–413. ISSN   2090-4304. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 July 2024.
28. Michelstaedter, Carlo (2004). Persuasion and Rhetoric. Yale University Press. ISBN   9780300104349.
29. Thacker, Eugene (July 17, 2018). Infinite Resignation. Repeater. ISBN   978-1912248193.
30. Schopenhauer, Arthur (2010) [1818]. Welchman, Alistair; Janaway, Christopher; Norman, Judith (eds.). The World as Will and Representation. Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511780943. ISBN   978-0-521-87184-6.
31. Schopenhauer, Arthur (2018) [1844]. Welchman, Alistair; Janaway, Christopher; Norman, Judith (eds.). The World as Will and Representation. Vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9780511843112. ISBN   978-0-521-87034-4.
32. Herman Tønnessen - Happiness is for the Pigs: Philosophy versus Psychotherapy (1966)
33. Unamuno, Miguel de. The Tragic Sense of Life . Retrieved 1 November 2024.
34. Zapffe, Peter Wessel (2004) [1933]. "The Last Messiah". Philosophy Now. No. 45. Translated by Tangenes, Gisle R. pp. 35–39. ISSN   0961-5970.
35. Zapffe, Peter Wessel (2024). On the Tragic. Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publishers. ISBN   978-1-636-67488-9.