The preceding chapters have attempted to track the philosophical evolution of Nietzsche’s thought concerning the value of life, and its associated controversies, by refocusing some of his key insights within the historical context of the Pessimismusstreit or ‘pessimism dispute’ of 1860–1900. By putting Nietzsche into dialogue with the less-known pessimists and their greatest critics, of whom he read closely, three major theses find support.
(1) A full elucidation of Nietzsche’s understanding and critique of pessimism reveals that it is best considered as multi-faceted. Far from there being one single, unified assault on pessimism, Nietzsche, instead, offers a number of criticisms that ought to be disentangled, including that (i) pessimism is epistemically unwarranted or incoherent; (ii) pessimism depends upon an impoverished account of well-being or flourishing; (iii) pessimism is merely expressive of a state of exhaustion or ‘degeneration’; and (iv) pessimism and its quietistic consequences are at odds with the desirable end of life affirmation. Some of these criticisms are interrelated (e.g., i and iii; ii and iv), while others do not (obviously) sit well together (e.g., ii and iii).
(2) Nietzsche’s understanding and critique of pessimism was responsive to ongoing philosophical disputes, over, for instance, (i) the compatibility of naturalism and evaluations of life as such, (ii) the necessity of suffering for the realisation of non-hedonic goods, (iii) the possibility of social progress via science, (iv) the potential of aesthetic experience to make suffering bearable, (v) the psychological and historical causes of pessimistic sentiment, and so forth. All of these disputes were common in the Pessimismusstreit and familiar to Nietzsche, setting the parameters for his own philosophical articulation and subsequent critique(s) of pessimism.
(3) Nietzsche comes to occupy a unique space in the Pessimismusstreit. He is intellectually indebted to many of the existing articulations and critiques of pessimism (even if he does not explicitly credit them), meaning that many of his own claims and conceptual devices are often reformulations of earlier ideas. He nevertheless deploys them to navigate affinities with both pessimists and anti-pessimists alike, ending up with a distinctive position in which he accepts the descriptive component of pessimism that suffering is essentially ubiquitous, but rejects its evaluative component that non-existence is preferable to existence.
The import of these claims is, I believe, significant for how we ought to understand Nietzsche’s philosophical project, and thus for contemporary Nietzsche scholarship. Points (2) and (3) especially indicate that while he rarely is explicit that he is engaging with the likes of Hartmann, Plümacher, Bahnsen, and others, Nietzsche was attentive to the technical arguments and rhetorical devices typical of these pessimists, but also to the kinds of conceptual distinctions and philosophical manoeuvres from their greatest critics, be they neo-Kantians, positivists, materialists, or theologians. This speaks against interpretations of Nietzsche as merely a culture critic, operating somewhat amateurishly on the peripheries of the dominant philosophical disputes animating his intellectual environment. On the contrary, the Nietzsche I have tried to bring out in this study is one with acumen as both an astute culture critic sensitive to trends and concerns in broader society and a capable participant in one of the prevailing philosophical controversies of his day.
One of the broader exegetical insights that this investigation affords us – and which is reflected in points (1) and (2) in particular – is that the importance of Human, All Too Human for Nietzsche’s evolving philosophical comprehension of pessimism cannot be underestimated. This text is usually considered to mark a radical break with earlier Schopenhauerian/Wagnerian positions and to express a new enthusiasm for the epistemic and social power of the empirical sciences. The position laid out here is continuous with this interpretation, but I have attempted to demonstrate the significance of how this shift was partly prompted, and heavily informed, by Nietzsche’s reading of Dühring’s Der Werth des Lebens, a seminal text in the pessimism dispute. The positions defended in HH – some short-lived, some reformulations of themes in BT, and some laying the foundations for Nietzsche’s mature thought – demonstrate a philosopher working through how a new commitment to naturalism bears upon controversies at the forefront of the pessimism dispute. These include, for example, the function of art and its tension with science, the relation between enlarged empathy and existential despair, the (im)possibility of social progress and significantly reducing suffering (i.e., the ‘social question’), and the sentimental nature of our value judgements and their epistemic limits.
Perhaps the most general import of points (1)–(3) is that Nietzsche’s occupation with the problem of pessimism provides a backdrop against which many of his best-known and most celebrated philosophical ideas can be comprehensively understood. This is the case in two ways: either (1) they significantly inform Nietzsche’s critique of pessimism (as does, for example, his eventual naturalism, critique of metaphysics, drive-psychology, and account of aesthetic experience) or (2) they are themselves significantly informed by Nietzsche’s critique of pessimism (as are, for example, his critique of Christianity and its related morality, the concept and function of eternal recurrence, his diagnosis of nihilism(s), and his normative ideal of affirmation). The essential issues of the pessimism dispute, then, are a focal point anchoring many of Nietzsche’s ideas that have attracted philosophers’ attention.
I have characterised Nietzsche’s determined resistance to the claim that non-existence is preferable to existence as a ‘struggle’ for reasons that are, I hope, now apparent. Not only does Nietzsche radically change his mind about the nature of pessimism and how it is to be best combated; his mature thought also entertains a multitude of seemingly distinct critiques of the view that do not (obviously) sit well together. In particular, while the Nietzsche of the 1880s comes to think of pessimism as a non-cognitive state that requires diagnosis and treatment – rendering philosophical critiques of pessimism impotent – he nonetheless often cannot help himself when it comes to rational criticism of it as a theory. This is evident, for example, in his important challenges to hedonism as a plausible axiological standard, and one that he sees underpinning the pessimism popular in his day. A further reason for Nietzsche’s seeming ambivalence towards pessimism, and that informs my characterisation of his project of life affirmation as a ‘struggle’, is due to the precarious philosophical and personal allegiance Nietzsche retains toward Schopenhauer throughout his writing. A large part of the reason why this allegiance is strained is on account of Nietzsche’s developed interest in naturalism and his exposure to neo-Kantian critiques of metaphysics. But as we have seen, it is also the result of Schopenhauer’s legacy being claimed – or, more precisely, distorted – by the post-Schopenhauerian pessimists from the 1870s onwards, for whom Nietzsche had little but disdain. I have argued that this disdain is nevertheless principled, and at least partly grounded in legitimate philosophical disagreement. What this distinction in admiration between Schopenhauer and the post-Schopenhauerian pessimists shows, I think, is that nuance is required to understand Nietzsche’s remarks about the pessimism dispute as opposed to his remarks about pessimism proper, as he conceives of it. While he comes to dismiss the former as an error-ridden and superficial squabble over the balance of pain and pleasure in the world, he retains respect for the latter – Schopenhauer’s question of whether life can be affirmed as meaningful at all – as a genuine challenge, and for which he advocates a ‘pessimism of strength’ as a solution.
My aims in this book have been wholly exegetical. I have sought not to defend Nietzsche’s claims but rather to elucidate them to a greater degree by placing them in their appropriate historical context. Be that as it may, it is my hope that Nietzsche’s provocative thought may provide new avenues of interest for contemporary ethicists. The Pessimismusstreit has been near-forgotten, and for now the question of the value of life remains only on the fringes of academic philosophy. Yet many of its constitutive questions – be they axiological, epistemic, or metaphysical – remain hotly contested. Moreover, Nietzsche as ‘culture critic’ may have more direct relevance for those suspicious that his diagnosis of the ‘last men’ is uncomfortably close to the bone for contemporary European society. Where God remains dead, pervasive suffering is far from a distant memory, and grand narratives are looked upon with mistrust, Nietzsche’s naturalistic attempt at a wholly pragmatic ‘justification’ of existence – one in which aesthetic experience may have the tools to make us feel that life is worthy of affirmation – may strike modern readers as a daring but alluring recourse.
