Peter Wessel Zapffe
Sees human consciousness as an evolutionary excess: people bear it only by limiting it, and the only way out would be to stop passing on life.
Life
Peter Wessel Zapffe (1899-1990), born in Tromsø, was a Norwegian philosopher and lawyer, also a renowned mountaineer. In "The Last Messiah" (1933) he argues that human consciousness is an evolutionary excess: humans bear it only by limiting it through four means (isolation, anchoring, distraction, sublimation). He concludes that the only way out would be to stop passing on life. He also wrote on the tragic and on mountaineering.
Main works
A pessimistic essay on human consciousness and the mechanisms by which we make it bearable.
Humorous accounts and reflections on mountaineering and life in the mountains.
Doctoral thesis on the tragic.
Positions
click a row to see the evidenceHe treats religious belief as one of the devices (anchoring) by which people shield themselves from existential dread.
Zapffe, "The Last Messiah" (1933)
Humans crave a meaning the world does not provide; life offers none given, and people cope by artificial means.
Zapffe, "The Last Messiah" (1933)
Consciousness made humans a biological misfit, so they suffer from a surplus of mind they must keep repressing.
Zapffe, "The Last Messiah" (1933)