Alexander Pruss's Blog

One of the striking things to me about Aristotle is the pessimism. For instance, in Book IX of the Nicomachean Ethics , we’re told that vici...

A well-known problem, noticed by Meirav, is that it is difficult to distinguish hope from despair. Both the hoper and the despairer are unsu...

Despair is hopeless.

If it is physically guaranteed that virtue will perish, despair is the right attitude. If there is no life after death at least for ...

If there is no hope of an afterlife, all is hopeless. If all is hopeless, ultimate despair is the right attitude. Ultimate de...

The following argument is valid, and is sound if we take the conditional in (2) to be material. (Premise) In despairing, one e...