Philipp Mainländer | The Most Depressing Philosopher

warning if you're having a good day and consider yourself pretty happy do not watch this video and on a more serious note if you're depressed or having a really bad day also do not watch this video Philip mainlander has become one of the most requested philosophers to cover for my forgotten philosopher series and this is arguably due to his notoriety as the most pessimistic philosopher it was only since the beginning of this year 2024 that his work the philosophy of redemption was finally given a physical English translation by Christian RIS finally making mainlander accessible to

many of us Philip mainlander was born as Philip bats in Hessa Germany in 1841 many people in his family including Philip himself struggled deeply with mental illness when he was 16 Philip was studying at a commercial school to become a merchant when his older brother Daniel took his own life despite these hardships Philip continued to study and work eventually finding employment in Italy it was here that he discovered philosophy specifically the work of Arthur schopenhauer who became a strong influence in pH ph's own philosophy after his mother passed away when he was just 24 he

went deeper and deeper into philosophy searching for the answers to these questions that he had when he turned 32 he joined the military becoming a Cavalry Soldier but felt tired and just worn out so he left early during the months leading up to his conscription he started working on the philosophy of redemption he decided to use the pen name Philip mainlander which referenc his hometown after finishing the book it was finally published around 1876 on April 1st of that year year however mainlander took his own life he was just 34 years old many questions remain

as to mainlander motive behind his suicide but by reading his book we could try to determine what led him down this path the book is divided into six chapters analytics physics Aesthetics ethics politics and metaphysics so this really does cover almost all the different fields of philosophy now I don't know about you but me I'm an Ethics guy and this is an Ethics Channel but to really understand mainlander thought we can't just jump to the ethics section and only read that but on the other hand a good chunk of this book is isolated within the

field that it's talking about especially a chapter on Aesthetics but thankfully I'll be your guide in determining what's relevant and not in order to get a general overview of mainlander thought let's start with his metaphysics for mainlander the world we live in right now is full of individuality and movement no two things are alike whether it be people or rocks or plants we all have these differences that may be minuscule but are differences nonetheless we are in a world of Multiplicity furthermore there is a constant movement everywhere as people we move towards bettering or sustaining

Our Lives we move when we want something we move when we get something we are constantly moving this is not so much a physical movement although there is a lot of that but rather a kind of spiritual movement we're always after something and even an aesthetic monk has to eat sleep and breathe the same applies to animals plants and yes even inorganic materials such as chemicals now we'll return to what what ultimately motivates this movement but for now we have our general overview of the world we live in according to mainlander it's full of Multiplicity

and full of movement if we examine ourselves further then we find ourselves in ceaseless motion our force is essentially restless and unceasing but where did all this come from what was the first movement that set this all up following a chain of causality mainlander determines that this came from essentially the opposite of the world we are in now this world of Multiplicity and moov movement came from a single unity and rest the first motion and the arising of the world are one and the same the transformation of the simple Unity into the world of Multiplicity

I know this is abstract and I'm proud of you for sticking with me so to summarize before all of this there was this simple Unity where there was just one thing and there was no movement this Unity then disintegrated into the world we live in now with multiplicity and individual entities and movement what's interesting to me is that this sounds similar to The Big Bang Theory no not that awful show but the idea that there was this one which dispersed into a multiplicity however mainlander takes a very controversial turn when he starts to name this

Unity we also have the right to give this Essence that familiar name which from time immemorial has designated what no imaginative power no Flight of the boldest fancy no thinking however deep or abstract no composed devout Soul no ecstatic mind wrapped on high as ever attained God yes the simple Unity that preceded this world is God God was he was one he was all and he was at rest but then God disintegrated and out of him came the multiplicity and movement we see in the world God has died and his death was the life of

the world so we have another God is dead proclamation in philosophy but this time it's more metaphysical as opposed to n's emphasis on meaning but we now have our general outline of mainlander metaphysics which will help us when we determine his ethic and possibly determine his motivations for taking his own life next I want to return to this movement that we find in the world we live in now what exactly is this movement and what's motivating it for mainlander this movement which governs not just all of our activities but the activities for the organic and

inorganic world is the will to life if you're a schopenhauer fan then you've probably heard this term before in a very general sense the will to life is an innermost drive to exist and to continue existing this is done by doing things to preserve your life but also by having Offspring so you feel that your existence will continue on through them we could do a whole video on the will to life but that's the general summary but wait a minute if everything is motivated by a will to life why did mainlander take his own life

isn't that contrary to the will to life that states that we should aspire to preserve our life and further our existence well this is where mainlander takes a sharp turn from shophow and says that the will to life is a facade that hides our true will the will to death every everything in the world is Will to death which in the organic realm appears more or less veiled as will to life wait what how on Earth does one's desire to keep existing somehow hide a secret fact that we inherently have a will to death for

mainlander the end result of existence in the end is always death it's inescapable nature will grow old and eventually die to will life is just to prolong that process to age slowly but still eventually die to live life is to age and to age is to slowly die therefore by willing life you will aging sickness and eventually your own demise he is at his foundation will to death because the chemical ideas which constitute his type and coming and going maintain him in existence want death but since they can only attain it through weakening and there

is no more effective means to this than the Willing of life so the means steps demonically in front of the end life in front of death and man manifests himself as pure will to life to Mainland their everyone intrinsically wants the same thing to die people just get to that destination differently this will to death is what I'd call potential motive number one for mainlander suicide but there's two more I want to talk about the second potential motive is found in the section on ethics and it concerns what true happiness is and what the value

of human life is let's get mainlander overall conclusion out of the way first life in general is a wretchedly miserable thing it has always been wretched and miserable and will always be wretched and miserable and it is better not to be than to be so that's a pretty bold statement let's see what he uses to back it up firstly as we stated before there's a ceaseless Motion in our lives that causes us to will life continuously we want to exist but we also want to exist in a particular way I.E we have desires but to

desire something we have to be without that thing in the first place which gives a feeling of displeasure and when we get that thing the moment of happiness is usually fleeting it's like when you were a kid and you had an intense desire desire for a certain toy when you got that toy it was nice at first but you quickly grew out of it likewise every met desire must be accompanied by the pain of that initial unmet desire every Vivid feeling of pleasure must therefore be purchased with a vivid feeling of unpleasure and with every

purchase of this kind the will ultimately gains nothing life is therefore mostly suffering any pings in pleasure will eventually disappear and this must be purchased through suffering mainly under sites examples of great thinkers who came to to the realization that life is suffering the most understandable of these examples is the Buddha who grew up as a prince with every desire he could possibly want being met and yet he ultimately saw the inherent suffering in life now if you're still not convinced mainlander has one more argument that life is suffering you might say okay mainlander life

is suffering but that's because of things like hunger War pain sickness poverty and all the other hardships in life if we could do away with all of that then life wouldn't be suffering mainlander accept CS this Challenge and asks us to Envision a utopian society where all the problems of the world are solved motivated by the will to life Humanity has progressed and moved to a point where there is no hunger no war no sickness science has literally reached its limit and discovered everything would this utopian society be free of suffering no for mainlander they

would succumb to extreme boredom the will to life and movement is still there inherent in US humans but there' be nowhere left to go thus leading us again to mainlander conclusion that life is suffering but more importantly he sees what The Logical conclusion of such a utopian state would be thus if Humanity finds itself in the ideal State then there can be no rest but with shall it then move there is but one motion left to it the motion towards complete Annihilation the motion out of being into non-being and Humanity will carry out this Motion

in irresistible Yearning For the Rest of absolute death so our potential motive number one was a will to death and now our potential motive number two is this idea that life is suffering finally I want to get to the last potential motive which to me was the most disheartening I'll say remember mainlander metaphysics how in the beginning was God who was a resting simple Unity which then disintegrated into this world of Multiplicity and movement well mainlander is careful not to speak too much on this God since he's Transcendent but if God disintegrated himself then what

does that imply non-being must simply have earned preference over superbeing or else God and his perfect wisdom would not have chosen it yes if we take mainlander metaphysical scheme very seriously it's implied that God himself chose to commit suicide or chose non-being over being this was definitely the most impactful part of reading mainlander now look I ultimately disagree with him and think foundationally he's too quick to call this Unity God but if you're mainlander and in your philosophical scheme God took his own life then that's a further motivating force making it potential motive number three

it's probably not one or the other which leads to mainlander decision but rather a combination of three or more there is a lot in this book I didn't cover but hopefully this motivates you to pick it up yourself as it's a brand new release and we want to encourage more obscure philosophy books to be translated into English but yep that's the life and philosophy of Philip mainlander I want to take this time to remind everyone that there are many philosophical systems and they could be debated and critiqued to infinity and beyond on this channel alone

we've covered many conflicting World Views so if you find yourself agreeing with mainlander on things just know that he is not the end all Beall of philosophy and you should continue to explore other viewpoints furthermore if you are suffering from depression please seek professional help and if you are having suicidal ideations then contact the National Suicide Prevention lifeline on the screen right now thanks for sticking with me on this long video but I know mainlander was highly requested so I really wanted it to be high quality on a related note feel free to leave suggestions

for other forgotten philosophers below if you did enjoy this video then be sure to like subscribe and hit the Bell button for more and with that I wish you all a beautiful rest of your day [Music]