2010 Fall Proseminar Class Notesb

October 12, 2010

Suggestions for finding contributions to Existentialism seminar

• Track the main tenets or principles that come up in authoritative reference sources.
• Pick a figure based on your browsing of the range of existentialisms. Try to represent their thought in a post or provide a link or resource to read.
• Existentialism has many critics. Research the reactions of existentialism thought from the mid-20th century. Report briefly.
• Research "existential psychology"
• Read a work of existential literature, such as a story from Camus, or Sartre's "No Exit"

Free books on Camus and Sartre

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBkQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.truly-free.org%2F&ei=AwOuTKnrJIn2swO0hYWIDA&usg=AFQjCNGOjRm1WuvH1lphJcgmbq0CRU4Y0g&sig2=msLlfEGqWfSkEb0vk6aiCg

I would recommend Sartre work Intimacy it is a collection of short stories including

Intimacy

The Wall

The Room

Erostratus

The Childhood of a Leader

Particularly the last listed is very interesting and I think little read. 
Also the entire book is only around 130 pages, so it is, if not an easy read, at least a quick read.

Videos

Human, All Too Human : Nietzsche (1999) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-184240591461103528&hl

Sartre the road to freedom http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=3552873038348468860&hl

Martin Heidegger http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-858369328131624007&hl=en

F. Nietzsche

This is an interesting thought experiment given by Nietzsche in [u]The Gay Science[/u]:

The greatest weight.-- What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: "This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence - even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!" Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus?... Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?

from Nietzsche's The Gay Science, s.341, Walter Kaufmann transl.

This is a similar thought experiment undertaken by Bill Murray: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_yDWQsrajA

Camus

The Myth of Sisyphus

So i decided to take a look at Camus', "The Myth of Sisyphus." In this book, Camus seems to assume Sarte's maxim: Existence precedes essence. For Camus, the implications of this statement are clear. With the lack of an a priori meaning to human existence, there leaves no real justification. Therefore, Camus concludes that the notion of human life is "absurd" and thus completely devoid of justification. Early in this book, Camus poses two scenarios that one may choose in response to the absurdity of life... either to make a leap of faith in God or to commit suicide.

For Camus, suicide seems like a rational approach to this problem. However, he offers a third explanation: to defy the absurdity of life. For Camus, this third option suggests that man is capable of recognizing the absurdity of life. In recognizing it, he is capable of actively choosing to defy it and live life to its fullest. One such way that we can live life to the fullest is to collect as many diverse experiences as one possible can throughout their life.

Camus illustrates what he means using the myth of Sisyphus. In mythology, Sisyphus is damned to perpetually push a large rock up a hill. Day in and day out he toils at it. For Camus, human existence is much like Sisyphus' fate. Doomed to habit and monotony without any real discernible or justifiable goal, Sisyphus realizes that he can never reach his goal. However, he recognizes it and live with it. He defies his fate by living with it and finding happiness. This is what Camus believes we should do as beings.

Camus is an existentialist because he assumes many of the fundamental credos of human subjectivity and lack of an "a priori". For Camus, it is an existential "choice" for everyone to find meaning in life. He places the burden of meaning solely on the human individual rather than on any other entity.

Please feel free to add anything or change anything if you feel that i may have misrepresented Camus in any way.Kobywarren 06:23, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Karl Jaspers

I decided to do a little research on Karl Jaspers because I just stumbled on his name. I have never heard of this philosopher before and thought it would be interesting to learn about. Most of the videos and stuff that are online are in German so I can't really understand them. I found an article about him in which I will pick out what I think are the main points. (I would have bought the book, but I wouldn't have received it until Wednesday)

Karl Jaspers (1883-1969) first went to college to become a doctor and graduated in 1908. He went back to school in 1913 for psychology. Jaspers became interested in philosophy in his 40s. Most of his publications were under a ban in 1938 and he was constantly at risk for his life and works while Hitler was dictator.

In one of Jaspers' books, "The Idea of the University" the third edition, he talked about the relationship between science and philosophy. At one point he says science and philosophy "differ by nature in their origins, methods and understanding of truth."

After understanding his view on science and philosophy, it seemed easier to understand his "all-embracing" idea. This idea comes from his lectures on "Reason and Existence" in 1935. The example that he uses to explain this thought is "an invisible horizon from which all new horizons emerge rather than as something that is itself directly perceptible." I'm not sure if I am reading this correctly but I believe by this he is talking about being and that it is not possible to completely understand being (human being) but it is possible to understand parts of it because we can look into and study other beings. I think that he wants us to be more open to all beings not just looking into one kind of being in order to be able to find some self-discovery.

I could be completely wrong about this, so if anyone has any ideas or knows anything about Jaspers, please add it.--Jjohnson9 19:30, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Lincoln Swain

While looking up Christian Existentialism, I happened upon the name “Lincoln Swain”. Apparently, Swain is an American Christian Existentialist. However, when I attempted to research him, I came up with almost nothing (apparently this is because Lincoln Swain may be this philosopher’s pseudonym)! I was able to find a couple excerpts from his work Dare to Defy, though, one of which is called “A Birthday Party for Whores” (I would have tried to buy the book but it would not have arrived soon enough). In it, he discusses the dangers of objectification and how society has found this tool useful and necessary in order to destroy others and isolate ourselves from the rest of the world. Not like this is anything new, per se, to any of us. But he argues that a turn to agape will “short-circuit” this objectification. He has the reader recall how Christ, when he was crucified, invited the thief up to heaven with him. At the end of this short article, Swain claims that agape is the agent through which humanity can stop “hate, fear and isolation”. (One quote in this excerpt stuck out to me in particular: “You are born a human being, but you must fight for your humanity against savagery at all times.”) The full excerpt can be found at: [1]

The other excerpt I found from this book was called The Anti-Purpose Driven Life. In this section, Swain specifically addresses the existentialist idea that people are in charge of creating who they are. His Christian version of this, as opposed to Sartre’s atheistic version, is that “God wants us to create ourselves as we live, to create our own purpose for existence.” This is the test that God puts humans through, that they must create themselves through their own lived experiences. Circumstances, such as being born illegitimately or being told by the media that you aren’t good enough how you are, are not what define you as a person. Swain tells of the kinds of people who live in their past so that they can either avoid the present/future, or so they can use it as an excuse for their present situation. But that is not an excuse for him, since it is not allowing yourself to act, and it is by acting in the present that you define yourself. Despite his belief in God, Swain also mentions that he does not believe in predestination. To him, “free will is a gift from God” and that humans should not use fate as a crutch for their lives. The full excerpt can be found at: [2] --Scobb 00:46, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

While Dostoyevsky's personal status as an existentialist is questionable, his contributions to the existential thought are widely agreed upon. The first part of his Notes From the Underground has been called "the best overture for existentialism ever written," and his novel, The Brothers Karamazov, is also cited as a premiere existential work.

From what I've been able to gather, when approaching Dostoyevsky's contributions to existentialism, it's important to keep in mind that Dostoyevsky himself wasn't necessarily an existentialist (but rather, perhaps, a religious mystic), but the characters in his novels are. In Crime and Punishment, for example, its been argued that the main character experiences an existential crisis - his realization of the lack of a priori morals or values, his decision to act without the constraint of these values (i.e. to kill), and afterwards, his subsequent decision to adopt the moral framework of Orthodox Christianity.

It seems to me (although I'm not sure I can substantiate this right now) that Dostoyevsky's contribution to existentialism stems mainly from his creation of characters for whom existence is a problem. In other words, their problem is that they aren't sure how to exist, or how to use the freedom that existence brings. Mharmond 06:35, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Criticisms of Existentialism

Criticism by Marxists

Herbert Marcuse argued that existentialists, especially Sarte, generalize the anxiety of their societies and the feeling of meaningless that their culture gave them as a natural and universal experience. Marxists prior to Marcuse had argued that Existentialism argues that people should, as Sarte puts it in his response to it, "dwell in quietism of despair". Sarte responds in a lecture in 1946 that existentialists are just saying you should only try to do what you can do yourself, and that they say you are responsible for your actions and so they are encouraging people to act against situations they dont like. Skolmes 00:05, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Criticism of Heidegger and Sarte

A philosopher named Robert Scruton wrote criticisms of Sarte and Heidegger. He points out a contradiction in both Heidegger's theory of "inauthenticity" and Sarte's theory of "bad faith." For Scruton, the contradiction lies in the fact that both concepts seem to pass judgement on lifestyles. In their conceptual framework, both philosophers scrap the concept of a priori meaning to human life. As a result, it would seem that the implication of this is that you cannot pass judgement on anyone. Therefore, concepts of "inauthenticity" and "bad faith" seem to inadvertently suggest that there is indeed a "correct" way to live one's life.

in my opinion, i think that this is a bit of a stretch to make, especially when dealing with Sarte. Sarte basis his idea of Bad faith on the rejection of one's existential responsibilities. Sarte doesn't really pass judgement. Its more like he is just pointing out that these people are rejecting the nature of their own existence. Besides, whether or not one finds this reprehensible isn't necessarily a contradiction. For Sarte, the individual decides for himself what has meaning. Sarte is simply acting in accordance to his own definition of meaning. He applies this standard to others because according to him, that is what man does when he chooses. He choses not only for himself, but for everyone.

Kobywarren 01:18, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Existential Psychology

Background on existential psychology, which has a large emphasis on existential psychotherapy.

Rollo May

Rollo May was an American existential psychologist whose works are often related to existentialism as well as humanism (especially relating to psychology).

May proposed that existentialism is not at odds with psychology, or other sciences, but instead it adds a new dimension to the knowledge we already have on those subjects. Rather than try to understand humanity solely from a "dehumanizing" scientific viewpoint (which he understood as similar to a deterministic viewpoint), May advocated for approaching humans in a highly individualistic light, where each person cannot be fully understand by another.

"As a practicing therapist and teacher of therapists, I have been struck by how often our concern with trying to understand the patient in terms of the mechanisms by which his behavior takes place blocks our understanding of what he really is experiencing."

“I, for one, believe we vastly overemphasize the human being’s concern with security and survival satisfactions because they so neatly fit our cause-and-effect way of thinking. I believe Nietzsche and Kierkegaard were more accurate when they described man as the organism who makes certain values – prestige, power, tenderness – more important than pleasure and even more important than survival itself."

May, Rollo. "The Discovery of Being: Writings in Existential Psychology." London: W.W. Norton &, 1983. ---Nkornblum 06:22, 11 October 2010 (UTC)