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The standard perception is that existentialism is only about alienation, despair, angst, and absurdity.
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If not only God, but reason and objective value are dead, then man is abandoned in an absurd and alien world. The philosophy for man in this “age of distress” must be a subjective, personal one. A person’s remaining hope is to return to his “inner self”, and to live in whatever ways he feels are true to that self.
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ince the 1950s, Western philosophy has been divided into analytic schools, focused on science, language, and communication, and the metaphysical, experiential approaches of Continental schools.
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The Continental schools are considered more experiential; existence is random and even absurd. As a more detailed review of Western philosophy before existentialism demonstrates, the analytical and Continental can be traced through Immanuel Kant (1724–1804). The conclusions philosophers reach often reflect how they respond to Kant.
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The scientists want to reduce thought to equations (logical calculus) to prove their views, while the artists want to seek to persuade audiences with parables and poetry.
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expressions of opposed, indeed antagonistic, habits of thought – Benthamite empiricist-utilitarian and Coleridgean-hermeneutic-romantic — that make up the philosophical self-understanding of a specific culture.
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scientific conception of the world, advanced by Carnap and the Vienna Circle, and the existential or ‘hermeneutic’ experience of the world in Heidegger.
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The theological and metaphysical aspects of “truth” were also important to philosophers. Then came the industrial revolution and a shift towards analytical philosophy: searching for truth without considering the transcendent.
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Not all analytical philosophers believe truth and reason are external to sentient existence. Most twentieth-century philosophical debates argued not about “truth” but rather how and why we create understandings of truth
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there is a truth is also a leap of faith.
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Continental philosophy might be viewed as a reaction to the analytical, scientific approach to philosophy. The more science explains about the universe, the less important human existence seems. Knowlege and understanding actually increase our alienation from the universe and its natural laws. Humanity is reduced to nothing more than yet another random lifeform
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examine life as it is experienced — something considered beyond science.
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science could not find, or give, meaning to human existence. Science, for these philosophers, was a tool but not necessarily the best philosophical tool.
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While the Existentialist is not, in any serious sense, an irrationalist, he is certainly not a ‘rationalist’ in the philosophical sense that contrasts with ‘empiricist’.
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holding that all knowledge is the product of experience.
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for the Existentialist, rest on the false premise that mind and world are logically independent of one another, like a spectator and the show before him. The ‘rationalist’ differs from the ‘empiricist’ only in holding that the spectator arrives with a rich intellectual apparatus through which the passing scene gets filtered.
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individual can define the self
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introspection can lead to a metaphysical transformation. S
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philosophical critique of the social practices of the modern world
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s towards a notion of individual or societal emancipation.
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intention of identifying some sort of transformation, whether personal or collective.
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Phenomenology and related movements are sometimes referred to as experiential because they are concerned with the experiences of the individual. How one person experiences life is unique.
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status of reason and rationality versus the irrationality of much of human existence is a conflict that is at the heart of disagreements in the Continental tradition
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impulse to critique, to rebel against something.
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to criticize the present, to promote a reflective awareness of the present as being in crisis,
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Philosophy in the Continental tradition has an emancipatory inten
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Edmund Husserl and his assistant Martin Heidegger were not existentialists, though they contributed to the development of phenomenology and, therefore, existentialism.
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science could only know the world in a certain way which it had already presupposed, but that this was not the way the world was apprehended by individuals.
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The basic assumption of phenomenology is that we experience the world as a series of conscious observations and interpretations. We explore existence at a distance, as observers of our own lives.
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“I” as something external to our thoughts. You can try to think about thinking about yourself, but there is always a strange, difficult to comprehend distance between thought and object.
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all consciousness is consciousness of an other-than-consciousness. In other words, it is the very nature of consciousness to aim towards (to ‘intend’) an other
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we study experience, the world as it is lived and observed by humans.
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focus clearly on the experienced phenomena.
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Phenomenology is about meaning, and meaning occurs only when a living being uses an object or concept. Meaning comes from experience and application.
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zen-like meditation on objects, including the self. In the language of phenomenology, we must “bracket” reality to consider objects properly. Yes, this does resemble spiritual meditation more than traditional philosophy.
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nearly spiritual approach to observation
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elevates the philosopher to seer.
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The stated goal of phenomenology is to describe lived experience without obscuring the description through misapplication of scientific concepts
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Even phenomenolgists didn’t always agree on the end results of their method
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ideal phenomenology was illusory. Humans cannot suspend belief in reality, even though philosophers often write of the absence of reality or universals
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Eventually, the existentialist thinkers came to describe the ideal phenomenology as an impossible, illogical task. Though phenomenology continues to influence the social studies, language arts, and general humanities, the existentialists realized the phenomenological method was destined to fall short of its aims.
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it makes our basic relationship to the world theoretical rather than practical,
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we were originally ‘in the world’ instrumentally by means of our practical concerns and that philosophy should analyse this ‘pre-theoretical’ awareness in order to gain access to being. [
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‘a complete [phenomenological] reduction is impossible’ because you cannot ‘reduce’ the existing ‘reducer’.
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Sartre’s interests were more in politics than pure philosophical theory
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we should do more than think about philosophy — it must be lived.
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two enfants terribles of the nineteenth century, Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche, both of whom were known to have influenced Heidegger, Jaspers and Sartre.
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Existentialism, broadly defined, is a set of philosophical systems concerned with free will, choice, and personal responsibility. Because we make choices based on our experiences, beliefs, and biases, those choices are unique to us — and made without an objective form of truth. There are no “universal” guidelines for most decisions, existentialists believe. Instead, even trusting science is often a “leap of faith.” Existentialism is, at its core, individualistic.
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No, this is not the “self-actualized individual” of some New Age belief system, but the individual who can and does confront the disorienting absurdity and alienation of an aware and engaged existence. No higher power or “Truth” offers security and reassurance to the existential individual: he or she is alone, yet surrounded by The Other.
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existentialism appear to agree on little, except for their emphasis on individualism. This intense focus on the individual is not expressed uniformly.
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emphasizing individuality is not without risks. It might be admirable in the face of the Industrial Revolution and Information Age to resist dehumanization, but it can also lead to a perverse focus on the singular, isolated one who must still live among others.
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It is commonly acknowledged that existentialism is a philosophy about the concrete individual. This is both its glory and its shame. In an age of mass communication and mass destruction, it is to its credit that existentialism defends the intrinsic value of what its main proponent Sartre calls the ‘free organic individual’, that is, the flesh-and-blood agent.
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Though individualism is stressed by existential writers, they also address the struggles of balancing the self and “The Other” in a social existence.
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The thinkers’ lack of faith in science and technology, their disillusionment with the Industrial Revolution, was accompanied by a loss of faith in the traditions of European philosophy.
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the act of living (and dying).
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have free will and with that comes despair.
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series of choices, creating anxiety and stress.
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Some things are irrational or absurd, without explanation.
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Existence precedes essence.
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Time is of the essence.
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Humanism. Existentialism is a person-centred philosophy. Though not anti-science, its focus is on the human individual’s pursuit of identity and meaning amidst the social and economic pressures of mass society
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Existentialism is a philosophy of freedom. Its basis is the fact that we can stand back from our lives and reflect on what we have been doing. In this sense, we are always ‘more’ than ourselves. But we are as responsible as we are free.
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Ethical considerations are paramount.
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people create an essence while all other things have an essence and are then created or understood by people.
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If you have a new idea for a tool, the idea exists before the object you intend to create. However, you can understand your idea only via words or symbols already known. This means all comprehension of “essense” is limited by existing language. Questions of philosophy eventually confront matters of language and expression. What we know is complicated when we try to share knowledge or wisdom. Each time we communicate, some loss of meaning occurs.
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We communicate via images, sounds, and touch. For most of us, what we think is converted to a form of “unspoken speech” in our minds. This means we can only understand and explain things in some form of spoken word. Philosophers dealing with ideas of deconstruction and postmodern linguistics have come to appreciate the limits of language and the social implications of words
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Existentialism has been questioning “truth” since Kierkegaard and Nietzsche pondered how we come to understand knowledge. Kierkegaard suggested truth was personal, a question of faith even when pondering mundane matters. The idea that truth could be individual was radical, especially since Kierkegaard focused on the “truth” of Christianity. For Nietzsche, the problem of truth was one of interpretation: you and I will interpret accurate data differently.
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The analytical philosophers have traditionally viewed language and grammars as closer to “truth” than Continental philosophers do. This is a fundamental, defining difference between analytic and Continental schools of thought.
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The philosophical term for the study of Being is ‘ontology’ and Existentialism, when viewed as a philosophical endeavour, is essentially an ontological analysis (as opposed to, say, ‘epistemology’, the study of knowledge). Being is not open to scientific analysis — at least, not as we currently understand science. And yet Existentialism, and those writers who have contributed to Existential thought, treat their pronouncements upon human being as if they were giving us ‘facts’.
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Language shapes us, while we also have some power to shape language. Because language is not static, we can argue for new words, new meanings, and even new grammars. Unfortunately, no language is a perfect representation of ideas, and our ideas are shaped by existing language.
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Mankind is the only known animal, according to earth-bound existentialists, that defines itself through the act of living. In other words, first a man or woman exists, then the individual spends a lifetime changing his or her essence.
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Without life there can be no meaning; the search for meaning in existentialism is the search for self… which is why there is existential psychotherapy.
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While essence and existence can be confusing concepts, the basic nature of free will means that a person can only be defined in terms of his or her choices and the path towards the future charted by those choices.
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“authenticity” appears throughout the works of existential thinkers. The term actually traces back to Kierkegaard, who also explained the challenges of being true to yourself in the face of social pressures.
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The demand for authenticity contributes to one of the criticisms of existentialism: since no one can be entirely authentic, can anyone be existential? Or is the pursuit of authentic existence sufficient, something like the pursuit of good in some religions
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Existentialism is not (necessarily) depressing. Existentialism is about life: existentialists believe in living — and in fighting for life. We define ourselves by living; suicide would indicate you have chosen to have no meaning.
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Camus understands death in a different way. It is the absurdity of life that we exist and that simultaneously death renders everything futile. Why not commit suicide, then? Because that would show that we were certain that life was not worth living, and to be certain we would have to know what the meaning of life is.
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What happens when we realize that even life itself is a choice? The initial response is existential “angst” and “despair” because this means getting out of bed every day is a choice.
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The existentialists conclude that human choice is subjective, because individuals finally must make their own choices without help from such external standards as laws, ethical rules, or traditions. Because individuals make their own choices, they are free; but because they freely choose, they are completely responsible for their choices.
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The existentialists emphasize that freedom is necessarily accompanied by responsibility.
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or existentialism, responsibility is the dark side of freedom. When individuals realize that they are completely responsible for their decisions, actions, and beliefs, they are overcome by anxiety. They try to escape from this anxiety by ignoring or denying their freedom and their responsibility. But because this amounts to ignoring or denying their actual situation, they succeed only in deceiving themselves.
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Existentialism is rooted decidedly in post-Industrial Revolution Western culture. The migration of people from small farming communities to crowded cities revealed that even among thousands, or millions, of people it is possible to be alienated as an individual. Philosophers began to ask if it was possible for humans to be anything other than alienated from each other.
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Both Kierkegaard and Nietzsche can be seen as outsiders, in their writings and in their lives, and it is a feature of Existentialism that its precepts and many of its examples present us with alienated figures.
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oday, alienation is an important concern of not only philosophers, but also of psychologists and social theorists. Alienation, as a state of being, has implications both personal and social.
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For Continental philosophers, including those associated with existentialism, the emergence of analytical philosophy contributed to alienation. The Industrial Revolution was followed by a technology revolution and the emergence of the “knowledge economy” that emphasizes science and technical solutions to problems, including social problems.
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xistentialism is associated with literature, theatre, music, and film.
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As a writer, I know the power of creative writing, especially when you want to explore how an individual reacts to situations. Academic writing tends to be not only dry but, bluntly, much of it is horrible. By mastering other literary forms, the existentialists became more effective writers in general.
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By communicating through art, existential thinkers of the past and present aim to reach the mass audience — moving existentialism from university philosophy departments to the general public. Using art to reach the public illustrates trust in the public, an egalitarian view of philosophy.
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Politics of Freedom
Philosophy is political, and most political theories have been shaped by philosophy. Existentialism’s lack of a unified set of principles and its emphasis on individualism might imply that it is somewhat removed from public political action.
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Because of this emphasis on radical individualism, existentialism is sometimes compared to Ayn Rand’s objectivism or political libertarianism. Like existentialists, Rand and her followers used the arts to further a philosophy. However, objectivism claims there are basic, universal truths of human nature and experience. Rand’s works and objectivism embody a neo-liberal philosophy of personal self-interest and, by some, of greed. Most of the existential thinkers of the twentieth century are associated with left-leaning democratic socialism and even communism. Yes, this is also contradictory on its face, reflecting the complexity of any attempt to unravel existentialism.
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Existential thinkers as diverse as Kierkegaard and Sartre were not concerned with which beliefs (or unbelief) someone held, but instead the existential thinkers worried that too many people accept the values of community leaders uncritically. Nietzsche worried about following the “herd” instead of establishing personal beliefs and values.
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Existentialism often finds itself excluded from “serious” discussions of philosophy because it seems fleeting — and even anti-philosophical.
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Among the criticisms of existentialism is that many of the celebrated figures were alienated from their own families, friends, and communities. This personal alienation resulted in a psychological need to rationalize their personal isolation, according to some critics. Kierkegaard, Kafka, and Nietzsche had unusual relationships with the people closest to them,
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Belief in pure free will would require rejecting all science or embracing the narcissistic view that some individuals are inherently superior.
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Advancements in science have revealed the limits of “free will” and the human brain. Neurology, psychiatry, and other disciplines suggest a range of human conditions such as bipolar disorder, obsessive compulsion, depression, attention deficit, and others are physical in origin.
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Especially among various radical groups and students, existentialism is associated with anarchism, nihilism, and fatalism. The criticism that existentialism can lead someone to these radical political movements is correct only insofar as people have found ways to co-opt Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, and other existential thinkers. I
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complex analyses of rebellion and resistance
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existentialism is associated with anarchy,
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violent protests of anarchists,
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Fatalism is the most extreme political movement associated, correctly or not, with existentialism.
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existentialism does not support any of the following:
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some problems with Western philosophical traditions. The basic problem is that humans are not good, sharing, generous creatures. Children are what we remain our entire lives… greedy, manipulative, brats.
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Children are not nurtured to behave poorly — the challenge is to socialize a child. We struggle to be social creatures. Society is unnatural. Rules are difficult.
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“Mine” is naturally a child’s way of thinking. It is soon followed by “I didn’t do it!”
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Existentialism assumes we are best when we struggle against our nature. Mankind is best challenging itself to improve, yet knowing perfection is not possible. Religions present rules, yet the believers know they cannot live by all of those rules. The “sin-free” life is beyond human nature.
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The Struggle
The word “existential” is used to describe so many people, fictional characters, choices, and situations that it has been reduced to meaning any dilemma revealing the true nature of a person. The notion of dilemma reduces “existential” to an adjective describing too many common choices. Existentialism properly defines a broader philosophy, in which life itself is a choice.
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Unlike the existentialists, Siddharta is a stoic in nature: accept things as they are, don’t try to change them or control them. Curiously, the Buddha is rebellious in that his response rejects social norms. Siddharta was rejecting the Hindu teachings of his time, much as Kierkegaard challenged the ritualized nature of Christianity. But, Siddharta was not an “active” rebel (though all choices are active choices). He was, in many ways, teaching a passive resistance that the existentialists would reject.
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22 Nov 13
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e following as an example of over-simplifying existentialism:
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Existentialism was a philosophy born out of the Angst of post-war Europe, out of a loss of faith in the ideals of progress, reason and science which had led to Dresden and Auschwitz. If not only God, but reason and objective value are dead, then man is abandoned in an absurd and alien world. The philosophy for man in this “age of distress” must be a subjective, personal one.
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A person’s remaining hope is to return to his “inner self”, and to live in whatever ways he feels are true to that self.
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The hero for this age, the existentialist hero, lives totally free from the constraints of discredited traditions, and commits himself unreservedly to the demands of his inner, authentic being.
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satire, a caricature
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To describe existentialism as an expression of an age… is to suggest that its claims could be only temporarily and locally valid.
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Existentialism, in other words, belongs to philosophy, not to the social sciences.
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None of the great existentialist tomes contains the word ‘existentialism’. R
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The basic assumption of phenomenology is that we experience the world as a series of conscious observations and interpretations. We explore existence at a distance, as observers of our own lives. Even when we try to understand ourselves, we are then thinking about “I” as something external to our thoughts. You can try to think about thinking about yourself, but there is always a strange, difficult to comprehend distance between thought and object.
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Phenomenology is about meaning, and meaning occurs only when a living being uses an object or concept. Meaning comes from experience and application. The phenemologist attempts to separate the observed object from perceptions of the object. It’s a complex and confusing concept, admittedly.
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Existentialism, broadly defined, is a set of philosophical systems concerned with free will, choice, and personal responsibility.
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…[W]hat sets it apart from most other philosophies is that it begins with the ‘individual’ rather than the 'universal' and so does not aim to arrive at general truths: its insistence on personal insights as the only means to real understanding entails that it makes no claims to objective knowledge.
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Nietzsche had insisted that all knowledge was interpretation and that there was no ‘original’ non-interpreted text. In other words, what counted as knowledge was interpretation ‘all the way down’.
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17 Mar 12
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07 Sep 11
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29 Jul 11
Susan BistricanA great introduction to existential philosophy as we'll be applying it to the Russian literary tradition.
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Existentialism was a philosophy born out of the Angst of post-war Europe, out of a loss of faith in the ideals of progress, reason and science which had led to Dresden and Auschwitz. If not only God, but reason and objective value are dead, then man is abandoned in an absurd and alien world. The philosophy for man in this “age of distress” must be a subjective, personal one. A person’s remaining hope is to return to his “inner self”, and to live in whatever ways he feels are true to that self. The hero for this age, the existentialist hero, lives totally free from the constraints of discredited traditions, and commits himself unreservedly to the demands of his inner, authentic being.
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18 May 11
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11 May 11
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The standard perception is that existentialism is only about alienation, despair, and absurdity.
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Existentialism, broadly defined, is a set of philosophical systems concerned with free will, choice, and personal responsibility.
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without an objective form of truth
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Existentialism is, at its core, individualistic.
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The question of “truth” is often linked to language by philosophers. The pragmatists theorize that truth is the best, and generally dominant, description of a phenomenon. Some existentialists appear to embrace this view of truth, though they are not in the same philosophical tradition as pragmatists.
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being true to yourself in the face of social pressures.
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there was a public pressure to conform to society and that this necessarily led to ‘inauthenticity’, and that a certain feeling or mood, ‘anxiety’, indicated or revealed to us that the true nature of our lives is founded on choices which we must make based only on what we as individuals create as values. As such, we are therefore forced to make choices based on ‘nothing’ that is certain: our existence has no grounding, or, to put it in a more dramatically Existential way, we are suspended over an abyss.
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Albert Camus
Existentialist, Absurdist;
AtheistFrench-Algerian author and journalist. Resistance member during WWII with Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, de Beauvoir. Brought “humanism” to his existentialism.
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22 Apr 11
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umans define themselves through the act of living (and dying)
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Free will implies responsibility for choices and actions
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One must commit to decisions, or they aren’t authentic decisions.
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Life either has no meaning (atheists) or the meaning cannot be understood (theists)
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its focus is on the human individual’s pursuit of identity and meaning amidst the social and economic pressures of mass society for superficiality and conformism.
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the underlying concern is to invite us to examine the authenticity of our personal lives and of our society
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To be authentic is to choose your own path in life, though that might or might not comply with social norms.
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He described how there was a public pressure to conform to society and that this necessarily led to ‘inauthenticity’
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individuals finally must make their own choices without help from such external standards as laws, ethical rules, or traditions
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18 Apr 11
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22 Nov 10
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30 Nov 09
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28 Apr 09
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The basic problem is that humans are not good, sharing, generous creatures
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Existentialism requires the active acceptance of our nature.
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we are best when we struggle against our nature.
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— it must be lived.
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it must be lived
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it must be lived
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not good, sharing, generous creatures
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Existentialism requires the active acceptance of our nature
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Creator imposed limits on free will
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it must be lived
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humans are not good, sharing, generous creatures
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Existentialism requires the active acceptance of our nature.
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free will
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the active acceptance of our nature.
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Existentialism assumes we are best when we struggle against our nature.
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25 Apr 09
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humans are not good
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active acceptance of our nature
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we are best when we struggle against our nature
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meaning any dilemma revealing the true nature of a person
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life is suffering
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existential notion of rebelling or fighting to establish a meaning
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passive resistance
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Existentialism is about being a saint without God; being your own hero, without all the sanction and support of religion or society.
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fighting for life
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- Mankind has free will.
- Life is a series of choices, creating stress.
- Few decisions are without any negative consequences.
- Some things are irrational or absurd, without explanation.
- If one makes a decision, he or she must follow through.
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subjective
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13 Mar 09
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29 Oct 08
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11 Feb 08
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21 Apr 07
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07 Apr 07
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21 Mar 07
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07 Mar 07
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Children are what we remain our entire lives… greedy, manipulative, brats. Some people disguise it better than others.
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04 Sep 06
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19 Apr 06
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07 Dec 05
Gordon RossThe existentialists emphasize that freedom is necessarily accompanied by responsibility. Furthermore, since individuals are forced to choose for themselves, they have their freedom — and therefore their responsibility — thrust upon them. They are “c
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