Simon Critchley on Optimism | Big Think

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Simon Critchley on Optimism New videos DAILY: https://bigth.ink/youtube Join Big Think Edge for exclusive videos: https://bigth.ink/Edge ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Simon Critchley on the philosophers of optimism. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Simon Critchly: Simon Critchly is Professor and Chair of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York. He is the author of many books,including On Heidegger's Being and Time and Infinitely Demanding: Ethics of Commitment, Politics of Resistance. The Book of Dead Philosophers was written on a hill overlooking Los Angeles, where he was a scholar at the Getty Research Institute. He lives in Brooklyn. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRANSCRIPT: Question: Who is the most optimistic philosopher in history? Critchley: The cheerful philosophers, maybe in the history of philosophy, most cheerful philosopher in the book is David Hume and Hume is a fascinating example because Hume is an atheist and dies as an atheist. Adam Smith, in a correspondence with Hume’s doctor, the word that keeps coming up in the exchange is cheerfulness, Hume’s good humor, Hume’s humor, Hume’s cheerfulness, and he was visited on 2 occasions by James Boswell who was Samuel Johnson’s biographer, because Boswell was offended that Hume was going to go to his death as an atheist. He didn’t bel

Published 2012-04-24 · Watch on YouTube ↗
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