[MaFLa] Mor Segev (IAS, CEU): Debating Optimism, Pessimism and the Value of Oneself: The Case of Aristotle and Schopenhauer - Wednesday, 27 May, 11:00 a.m.

[StB at elte.hu]

Mor Segev (IAS, CEU) előadása 2020. május 27., szerda, de. 11 óra kezdettel zoomon, meghívót Andrey Demidovtól lehet kérni, ld. a lap alján.

 

 

 

The Institute for Advanced Study at CEU is pleased to invite you to its next Fellow Seminar by

 

 Mor Segev

Junior Core Fellow at IAS CEU

 

Debating Optimism, Pessimism and the Value of Oneself: 

The Case of Aristotle and Schopenhauer

 Wednesday, 27 May, 11:00 a.m.

(Zoom invitation will be sent to the participants until 27 May)

 

According to philosophical optimism, the world is optimally arranged and valuable, and human life is preferable to our nonexistence. Arthur Schopenhauer attacks optimism primarily for two problematic consequences that he thinks it has, one theoretical and the other practical. First, he thinks that optimism cannot successfully account for the many observable imperfections contained in the world, at least without recourse to such ideas as personal immortality, which he deems dubious. Second, he thinks that adopting optimism leads to egoism and consequently to moral depravity and cruelty. In keeping with this critical evaluation, Schopenhauer advances his own pessimistic view, according to which the world is valueless and human nonexistence is preferable to human life. Schopenhauer himself traces both his critique of optimism and his own pessimistic approach back to classical antiquity. In this talk I argue that Aristotle was quite aware of pessimism in its ancient form and rejected it, opting instead for an optimistic philosophical system. Aristotle’s optimism, furthermore, is capable of responding to the worries raised by Schopenhauer.

       This talk presents part of a book project analyzing and evaluating several prominent views in the long history of the debate between philosophical optimism and pessimism. Apart from Aristotle and Schopenhauer, the book explores works by Maimonides, Spinoza, Nietzsche and Camus.

 



​​Image:Aristotle and Schopenhauer








Mor Segev is a Junior Core Fellow at the IAS CEU and an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of South Florida. Prior to his appointment at USF, he was a graduate student in the Philosophy Department at Princeton University. Segev's work includes a monograph analyzing Aristotle’s view of traditional religion and its natural political function (Aristotle on Religion, Cambridge 2017), a paper on Schopenhauer’s reading of a key passage in Aristotle’s corpus (“‘Obviously all this Agrees with my Will and my Intellect’: Schopenhauer on Active and Passive Nous in Aristotle’s De Anima III. 5”, British Journal for the History of Philosophy 2014), and articles on Aristotle’s psychology and politics.

 

For non IAS Fellows: Please RSVP Andrey Demidov at DemidovA at ceu.edu <mailto:DemidovA at ceu.edu> 





 



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