Because, to them, philosophy is really just a priori, there is no idealistic solution to make everyone all cheerful again.

It's because of the philosophical outlook they chose to embrace and couldn't escape from once it became a habit. A healthy philosophy embraces all physical, mental, and spiritual aspects of life and a purpose for full engagement into life. Without it, the spiritual aspect of the mind will fall into atrophy/melancholy.

If you noticed it, take heed of their path and try a different one. I chose sports and the arts as well as my own individual spirituality. One must take charge of their own life. This is where the most important choice lies.

I think it depends on one's perspective. If one is predisposed to the melancholic viewpoint, as it were, then it can seem like many if not most major philosophers are cheerful optimists.

There seems to be a great deal of the feeling of 'melancholy' in reading any philosophical piece from the greats of philosophy. This seems particularly true in continental philosophy, the existentialists, strangely enough even in the philosophy of both early and later Wittgenstein, and evident particularly in Aristotelian logic. I would dare say that most continental philosophy is imbued with melancholy.

Now, to ask the less esoteric and more direct question.

What is all this melancholy about or over? — Posty McPostface

I'm not sure what you're talking about.

What sort of melancholy is evident in the philosophical work of Wittgenstein and in Aristotelian logic?

For the sake of clarity, I'll note my inclination to distinguish ancient Hellenic philosophy, like that of Aristotle, from Western philosophy, including the so-called "continental" tradition; and I'll emphasize Wittgenstein's association with the so-called "analytic" tradition that runs from Austrians and Germans like Frege through anglophone philosophers from Russell to the present day.

A Nervous Splendor: The Wittgenstein Family had a Genius for Misery

Because serious, prolonged and consistent reflection inevitably results in a radical disvaluing of the world, after which it is realized that there are absolutely no convincing reasons as to why it should exist.

What is all this melancholy about or over? — Posty McPostface

Philosophy means paying deep, prolonged attention to intricate questions. It is based on making a big deal about tiny details. People who live their lives as intellectual beings inside their own heads are drawn to it. That type of person also tends toward a melancholic personality type. Melancholia is the term formerly used for depression.

If you want to laugh, try those wacky eastern philosophies.

With knowledge comes sorrow. Knowlege without wisdom is vain, hence the sorrow also is vain.

Knowlege without wisdom is vain, hence the sorrow also is vain. — Lone Wolf

That doesn't make sense. Knowledge without wisdom is sorrow, with wisdom, we recognise the sorrow is vanity, because knowledge is vanity, because wisdom is. I think. All I know is ignorance is bliss. Maybe.

Wisdom is not knowledge, but it is a prudent application of knowledge. One may be very knowledgeable but will be miserable because omniscience remains beyond humanity. This is vain; ever searching but never finding. Wisdom limits and ends the circle of this meaningless quest.

Because serious, prolonged and consistent reflection inevitably results in a radical disvaluing of the world, after which it is realized that there are absolutely no convincing reasons as to why it should exist. — darthbarracuda

The more I think about the world, the more I love it. The more I feel home in it. I belong here. All of us do. You do. Some philosophies hide that fact. I don't know why.

Wisdom is what I have been searching for all my life, whether within me or an example in another, so are you saying that this search is in vain?

Wisdom is not in vain, but knowledge alone is. Depending solely on your own understanding and capacity to achieve wisdom is vain.

The more I think about the world, the more I love it. The more I feel home in it. I belong here. All of us do. You do. Some philosophies hide that fact. I don't know why. — T Clark

Someone is sane. Can the same be said of other philosophers? I wish there was some sanity check before reading Nietzsche or Schopenhauer. There is some great comfort in the nihilism of the continentals that I've read about on these forums. Why care if there's no obligation to care according to Nietzsche or Schopenhauer?

I had thought that in ancient texts Melancholia was what we might now call 'depression', although I could be wrong. But I has also rather thought that philosophy was supposed to be the remedy for such ills, although obviously, one has to have some experience of them in order to seek a remedy.

Schopenhauer at least understood the possibility of transcendence of 'the will', through aesthetic contemplation and asceticism. I don't know if Nietzsche had anything corresponding to transcendence at all.

The whole point about transcendental philosophies is *not* being bound by 'the world', 'the world' signifying identification with the body, with circumstances, with personal history and everything that implies. The means by which to sever such attachment differ greatly from one cultural form to another, but that is what they are basically concerned with. That is why the word 'therapy' is derived from an ancient philosophical school, the 'therapeutae', who were 'physicians of souls'; a connotation which lives on in the modern term.

Wisdom is not in vain, but knowledge alone is. Depending solely on your own understanding and capacity to achieve wisdom is vain. — Lone Wolf

You cannot attain wisdom without knowledge; wisdom is, to a degree, what Aquinas said: love takes up where knowledge leaves off. So, your algorithm here is problematic.

Here's some "melancholy" Nietzsche:

There are heights of the soul from which tragedy itself no longer appears to operate tragically; and if all the woe in the world were taken together, who would dare to decide whether the sight of it would NECESSARILY seduce and constrain to sympathy, and thus to a doubling of the woe?
...

There are books which have an inverse value for the soul and the health according as the inferior soul and the lower vitality, or the higher and more powerful, make use of them. In the former case they are dangerous, disturbing, unsettling books, in the latter case they are herald-calls which summon the bravest to THEIR bravery.

...
Happiness and virtue are no arguments. It is willingly forgotten, however, even on the part of thoughtful minds, that to make unhappy and to make bad are just as little counter-arguments. A thing could be TRUE, although it were in the highest degree injurious and dangerous; indeed, the fundamental constitution of existence might be such that one succumbed by a full knowledge of it—so that the strength of a mind might be measured by the amount of "truth" it could endure—or to speak more plainly, by the extent to which it REQUIRED truth attenuated, veiled, sweetened, damped, and falsified.
...https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4363/4363-h/4363-h.htm

The distance, and as it were the space around man, grows with the strength of his intellectual vision and insight: his world becomes profounder; new stars, new enigmas, and notions are ever coming into view. Perhaps everything on which the intellectual eye has exercised its acuteness and profundity has just been an occasion for its exercise, something of a game, something for children and childish minds. Perhaps the most solemn conceptions that have caused the most fighting and suffering, the conceptions "God" and "sin," will one day seem to us of no more importance than a child's plaything or a child's pain seems to an old man;—and perhaps another plaything and another pain will then be necessary once more for "the old man"—always childish enough, an eternal child! — N

He's esoteric and elitist. But what a poet!
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4363/4363-h/4363-h.htm

All melancholy emerges from the attribution of meaning; how one connects things in their thought/belief.

That's it in a nutshell.

What is all this melancholy about or over? — Posty McPostface

I thought so too. It seems we're both wrong.

1) Philosophy is about being grounded in truth - that's the claim.

2) The truth is elusive and many issues are still unresolved. The truths that we can see - obvious ones - are painful: suffering, disease, poverty, death, torture, etc. etc.

1 + 2 = melancholy. The math is correct.

However, philosophers, at least on this forum, are a happy bunch.

I can't explain it but if you ask me, I think the relationship between truth and emotion, particularly happiness, is complex.

You cannot attain wisdom without knowledge; wisdom is, to a degree, what Aquinas said: love takes up where knowledge leaves off. So, your algorithm here is problematic. — TimeLine

Did you even read what I wrote? I said

Wisdom is not knowledge, but it is a prudent application of knowledge. — Lone Wolf

Therefore, it is true you cannot have wisdom without some knowledge. The point I made was that knowledge without wisdom (which is entirely possible) is vain.

2) The truth is elusive and many issues are still unresolved. The truths that we can see - obvious ones - are painful: suffering, disease, poverty, death, torture, etc. etc. — TheMadFool

Love, friendship, health, pleasure, joy, interest, fearlessness, conversation, fellowship, curiosity, understanding, compassion, gratitude, generosity

Wisdom is not knowledge, but it is a prudent application of knowledge. One may be very knowledgeable but will be miserable because omniscience remains beyond humanity. This is vain; ever searching but never finding. Wisdom limits and ends the circle of this meaningless quest. — Lone Wolf

Lao Tzu says, and I think he's right:

In pursuit of knowledge,
every day something is added.
In the practice of the Tao,
every day something is dropped.

I think it's fair to associate the Tao with wisdom. In my experience, wisdom means giving something up - release, surrender.

In pursuit of knowledge,
every day something is added.
In the practice of the Tao,
every day something is dropped.

I think it's fair to associate the Tao with wisdom. In my experience, wisdom means giving something up - release, surrender. — T Clark

It depends on what you are giving up. If you gave up happiness, that is obviously not wise. But if you gave up chasing the wind of omniscience, then yes, that is wise. :P
I do agree though, that wisdom must be a release and surrender. One must come to the realization that humans are not very powerful relative to the vastness of the universe; hence inability requires submissiveness to a superior. To learn contentment and acceptance of this is also wise.

I'm a big fan of the idea that you can know a lot about people based on their bodies, and there is some recent literature that links depression with inflammation. You really need to eat right and exercise. Also, appearing thin doesn't mean that you don't have dangerous levels of fat around your organs, or inflammation.

It depends on what you are giving up. If you gave up happiness, that is obviously not wise. But if you gave up chasing the wind of omniscience, then yes, that is wise. — Lone Wolf

I wasn't saying every act of release or surrender is wise. All A is B, but not all B is A.

The more I think about the world, the more I love it. The more I feel home in it. I belong here. All of us do. You do. Some philosophies hide that fact. I don't know why. — T Clark

Being-at-home-in-the-world and enjoying the transmutations of others into the Same is fine and all, but this is separate from the question as to whether or not the world, i.e. the totality that actually exists (and not necessarily a network of meanings in our lives), is justified. Certainly it is inappropriate to suggest a warm, home-made apple pie and a temporarily satisfied biological synthesis are enough to ensure the goodness of existence.

Really, happiness is a delirious escape into the infinite, a transcendence of Being, precisely because Being is not good. All around us there is Being, pressing in and threatening to consume us into the fanged plenum. We're always trying to flee it or keep it at bay, like a peasant shaking a torch at the wolves. Get back! Get back! Leave me be! I do not wish to be disturbed!

Being-at-home-in-the-world and enjoying the transmutations of others into the Same is fine and all, but this is separate from the question as to whether or not the world, i.e. the totality that actually exists (and not necessarily a network of meanings in our lives), is justified. Certainly it is inappropriate to suggest a warm, home-made apple pie and a temporarily satisfied biological synthesis are enough to ensure the goodness of existence.

Really, happiness is a delirious escape into the infinite, a transcendence of Being, precisely because Being is not good. — darthbarracuda

Clearly from what I have written, I disagree. I have not been happy much in my life, but I've always known that the world is good and I belong here. Even when I was at my unhappiest I knew and felt that. We were created along with the world, as part of the world, by whatever mechanism you want to propose. This has been going on for billions of years. How could we possibly not belong here?

Clearly from what I have written, I disagree. I have not been happy much in my life, but I've always known that the world is good and I belong here. Even when I was at my unhappiest I knew and felt that. We were created along with the world, as part of the world, by whatever mechanism you want to propose. This has been going on for billions of years. How could we possibly not belong here? — T Clark

Nature makes "mistakes", things that don't belong. Frankly it's surprising to me we've managed to hold on for as long as we have. Nature puked us out from its bowels, like everything else.

Nature makes "mistakes", things that don't belong. Frankly it's surprising to me we've managed to hold on for as long as we have. Nature puked us out from its bowels, like everything else. — darthbarracuda

This is a very funny caricature of what most people think philosophy is about. I don't see any sign that you intend it to be ironic.

I wasn't saying every act of release or surrender is wise. All A is B, but not all B is A. — T Clark

Yes, one would have to be very simple-minded to think such. One must learn to recognize what should be held onto, and what should be released.