Cosmic Pessimism | Eugene Thacker

"The night-side of thought." "A melodrama of the futility of the brain." "A poetry written in the graveyard of philosophy." So begins the work of the philosopher whose unabashed and aphoristic indictments of the human condition have been cropping up recently in popular culture. 

Today we find ourselves in an increasingly inhospitable world that is, at the same time, starkly indifferent to our species-specific hopes, desires, and disappointments. In the Anthropocene, pessimism is felt everywhere but rarely given its proper place. Though pessimism may be, as Eugene Thacker says, the lowest form of philosophy, it may also contain an enigma central to understanding the horizon of the human. 

Written in a series of fragments, aphorisms, and prose poems, Thacker's Cosmic Pessimism includes artwork by artist Keith Tilford, commissioned for this edition. In this short but thought-provoking treatise, Thacker explores the varieties of pessimism and its often-conflicted relation to philosophy. "Crying, laughing, sleeping--what other responses are adequate to a life that is so indifferent?" 

About the Author

Eugene Thacker is the author of several books, including In The Dust of This Planet and Infinite Resignation. He teaches at The New School in New York City.