Dark Matters

An intellectual history of the philosophers who grappled with the problem of evil, and the case for why pessimism still holds moral value for us today.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, philosophers engaged in heated debates on how God could have allowed evil and suffering in a creation that is supposedly good. Dark Matters traces how the competing philosophical traditions of optimism and pessimism arose from early modern debates about the problem of evil, making a compelling case for rediscovering pessimism as a source of compassion, consolation, and perhaps even hope.

Bringing to life one of the most vibrant eras in the history of philosophy, Mara van der Lugt discusses legendary figures such as Leibniz, Hume, Voltaire, Rousseau, Kant, and Schopenhauer. She also introduces readers to less familiar names such as Bayle, King, La Mettrie, and Maupertuis. Van der Lugt describes how the earliest optimists and pessimists were deeply concerned with finding an answer to the question of the value of existence, one that does justice to the reality of human suffering, though they were fundamentally divided over what such an answer should look like.

A breathtaking work of intellectual history by one of today's leading scholars, Dark Matters reveals how the crucial moral aim of pessimism is to find a way of speaking about suffering that offers consolation and does justice to the fragility of life.

Dark Matters is history of philosophy at its best - scholarly, argumentative, and lively. Van der Lugt traces the ways in which the problem of theodicy - of justifying the works of God in a world full of evil - was transformed across the eighteenth century into the choice between optimism and pessimism, understood not as psychological expectations of the future but as philosophical alternatives in the face of suffering. - John Robertson, University of Cambridge

This beautifully written and carefully argued book deploys a hermeneutics of sympathy for those philosophers who wonder whether life is worth living at all. The effects are a kind of alchemy: while one contemplates the most awful thoughts, van der Lugt's expert and gentle guidance creates the joy that comes from knowing one is not wholly alone in the world. - Eric Schliesser, University of Amsterdam