Mara Van Der Lugt

“As Schopenhauer writes in the second volume, commenting on the ending of the first: 'it is in keeping with this that, when my teaching reaches its highest point, it assumes a negative character, and so ends with a negation.' But Schopenhauer's point is that this is a relative nothing, not an absolute nothing: it is a nothing that might yet be something, if seen from a different perspective: 'Now it is precisely here that the mystic proceeds positively, and therefore, from this point, nothing is left but mysticism'.
Mysticism: the knowledge of the incommunicable: the great foe of Enlightenment philosophers from Bayle to Kant. Surely, if mysticism begins where philosophy ends, Schopenhauer's point must be: so much the worse for mysticism. But while it is true that Schopenhauer sees mysticism and philosophy as incommensurable in principle, nevertheless, as Young points out, Schopenhauer evaluates mysticism positively. Not only do the last words of the first volume leave open a space for mystical knowledge by the relativity of nothingness - but in the second volume, Schopenhauer also points to the wide agreement of mystical experience across different cultures and traditions. Hence, against the common interpretations of Schopenhauer as nihilist or 'absolute pessimist', Young argues that such readings are 'insensitive to the intense theological preoccupation that permeates, particularly, Book IV'. According to Young, Schopenhauer's concept of resignation is not purely negative, but also oriented towards some darkly intuited positive element: an existence of another kind. When Schopenhauer says that the saintly ascetic achieves redemption, he is speaking of an other-wordly state, and that is why he opposes Stoic ataraxia, which, being a this-worldly solution, leads away from salavation, rather than towards it. In Young's view, therefore, not only does Schopenhauer accept a 'field of illuminism' or mysticism - but 'it is upon the veridicality of mystical insight into another, ecstatic world, a world relative to which this one is a mere "dream", that, for Schopenhauer, our only chance of "salvation" depends.”
― Mara Van Der Lugt, Dark Matters: Pessimism and the Problem of Suffering

“Everything is always changing in nature, writes La Mettrie; everything is subject to the vicissitudes of fate. Suddenly, the clouds can obscure the warmth of the sun, but also, conversely, in the darkest night a star can appear at the horizon to bring joy to us mortals: 'It is hope, whose soft rays sometimes pierce adversity itself, and come to raise up within the downcast soul a dismayed and withered courage' [DB, 209, (third edition); DB, 227 (second edition)]. If everything is subject to change, then so too is adversity. Things can always get worse, but also, things can always get better, and it is in this knowledge that we may find our hope. That which makes life tragic is also what makes it comic; that which takes away our hope is also what gives it back to us. This kind of hope may seem but a feeble one, it is true, but from La Mettrie's point of view at least it is a solid hope, a true hope (like many pessimists, he is averse to 'false' hope), which it can only be for him because it is also, crucially, a secular hope. And it is this notion of hope as well as consolation, that makes La Mettrie not only a pessimistic optimist, but also a hopeful pessimist.”
― Mara Van Der Lugt, Dark Matters: Pessimism and the Problem of Suffering