At Virgil’s tomb - a poem by Philipp Mainländer

Virgil's tomb, painting by Joseph Wright

By Philipp Mainländer

Shall I praise you on your ashes?

What one deserves who joyful life ignoring,

All people’s misfortunes clashes

And even at the grave, is glorifying them?

No doubt, your fame is still assured,

Stands firm like stone vault, attained.

And even after thousands of years,

It’s now, like before, maintained.

It’s true that driven by the golden Musa,

Despite the clouds of the past,

I’m running to the bay

Where the greatest men of epochs last

The altar built eternal.

Goethe: "Every extraordinary person has a mission"

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Every extraordinary person has a particular mission which he is called upon to fulfill. When he has accomplished it, he is no longer needed on earth in the same form, and Providence uses him for something else...

Instinctive roots of philosophical pessimism – Part II

Percy Shelley

We continue to study the instinctive roots of philosophical pessimism, started in the first part of the article.

In spite of the optimistic influences which belong to Christianity we find individual writers entertaining the gloomiest conceptions of existence. Much of this complaint takes the shape of antagonism to some optimistic idea put forth in the name of theology or of philosophy.

Instinctive roots of philosophical pessimism – Part I

Sophocles

We can often hear the opinion that pessimism is just a mode of mood and not a very good one. Modern "hurray-optimists" in science, and especially in psychological “scientific” field constantly repeat the mantra that the man himself is an architect of his own happiness.

Unfortunately, they often forget that every carnage of the last century has been arranged just by very optimistic people who believed in the progress of humanity or a single nation towards great happiness. Naturally, all these doctrines did not shun anything for the sake of their dogmas.

Towards absolute nothingness of Philipp Mainländer

By Vladislav Luchianov

When Diogenes Laertius walked through the streets of the ancient Greek city and was asked why he went about with a lamp in a broad daylight, the philosopher confessed, “I am looking for an honest man.” With the same success, we can try to find translated into English works of the 19th-century German philosopher Philipp Mainländer, whose philosophical and poetic writings are distinguished by such a rare thing nowadays as intellectual honesty and uncompromising ideas. There is absolute nothing about this thinker translated into English.