Evil, Suffering, and Pessimism: Readings from the Darker Side of Modern Philosophy

Is it possible to explain the existence of evil under the supposition of a supremely good creator? Are we ourselves the cause of most of the suffering that befalls us? Is life generally more painful than it is pleasant, and if so is non-existence preferable to existence? Is happiness ever even attainable? These questions occupied some of the best-known philosophers of the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries—figures such as G. W. Leibniz, Pierre Bayle, David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire, Immanuel Kant, Arthur Schopenhauer, and Friedrich Nietzsche. They were also richly discussed by writers often since excluded from the philosophical canon, such as Ottobah Cugoano, Mary Astell, and Olga Plumacher. In this unique and provocative anthology, one will find philosophers bending their intellectual efforts to the darker side of life.