Pessimism and Skepticism, Cartesian and Pyrrhonian

This paper attempts to clarify and expand the analysis of philosophical pessimism by way of a productive analogy with philosophical skepticism. First, I advance the analogy: as skepticism is to knowledge, so pessimism is to hope. Second, I unpack several important implications of this analogy for understanding philosophical pessimism. Finally, I argue that while a Cartesian interpretation of philosophical pessimism is epistemically suspect, a Pyrrhonian interpretation is not.