Introduction: Welcome to the Psychosphere ix Jacob Graham and Tom Sparrow Part I "It's All One Ghetto, Man . a Giant Gutter in Outer Space": Pessimism and Anti-natalism 1 1 Why Life Rather than Death? Answers from Rustin Cohle and Arthur Schopenhauer 3 Sandra Shapshay 2 Grounding Carcosa: Cosmic Horror and Philosophical Pessimism in True Detective 11 Christopher Mountenay 3 Hart and Cohle: The Hopeful Pessimism of True Detective 22 Joshua Foa Dienstag 4 Loving Rust's Pessimism: Rationalism and Emotion in True Detective 31 Rick Elmore 5 Rust's Anti-natalism: The Moral Imperative to "Opt Out of a Raw Deal" 42 Chris Byron Part II "we Get the World We Deserve": Cruelty, Violence, Evil, and Justice 53 6 Where Is the Cruelty in True Detective? 55 G. Randolph Mayes 7 Nevermind: Subjective and Objective Violence in Vinci 65 Luke Howie 8 Naturalism, Evil, and the Moral Monster: The Evil Person in True Detective 76 Peter Brian Barry 9 "But I Do Have a Sense of Justice": Law and Justice in the Bleak World of Vinci 87 Beau Mullen Part III "everybody's Nobody": Consciousness, Existence, and Identity 97 10 A Dream Inside a Locked Room: The Illusion of Self 99 Evan Thompson 11 I Am Not Who I Used to Be, But Am I Me? Personal Identity and the Narrative of Rust 108 Andrew M. Winters 12 "The Light Is Winning" 120 Sarah K. Donovan 13 The Tragic Misstep: Consciousness, Free Will, and the Last Midnight 132 Daniel P. Malloy Part IV "this Is My Least Favorite Life": Noir, Tragedy, and Philosopher-detectives 143 14 The Tragedy of True Detective Season Two: Living Our "Least Favorite Lives" 145 Alison Horbury 15 The Noir Detective and the City 158 Chuck Ward 16 Cohle and Oedipus: The Return of the Noir Hero 169 Daniel Tutt Part V "Time Is a Flat Circle": Time in True Detective 177 17 Time Is a Flat Circle: Nietzsche's Concept of Eternal Recurrence 179 Lawrence J. Hatab 18 Eternal Recurrence and the Philosophy of the "Flat Circle" 186 Paul A. DiGeorgio Known Associates 196 Index 201.