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Pessimism
Often misunderstood as a negative disposition, pessimism is a long-standing tradition in modern political philosophy with roots in ancient philosophies of the self, such as Stoicism and Epicureanism. Like its opposite, optimism (which takes a variety of philosophical forms in liberalism, Marxism, and pragmatism, for example), pessimism presupposes modern linear conceptions of time, which replaced the cyclical accounts of ancient philosophers and historians in the late Renaissance period. Although its best-known exponent is probably Arthur Schopenhauer, pessimism appears at least as early as the works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Other prominent pessimists are Giacomo Leopardi, Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, Miguel de Unamuno, E. M. Cioran, Albert Camus, Theodor Adorno, and Hannah Arendt. This entry summarizes the major themes of pessimism and briefly describes some of the ...
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