EXISTENTIALISM Journal #1

(One or more of these will be revised and turned in for real)

Is it more important what you intend to be or think you are

or is it what you do. In other words, you think of yourself
as honest and yet you cheated on the last quiz (and
justified it somehow)? Are you the sum of your actions
or your intent? If you have bad thoughts about hurting
kittens, are you a bad person?
Before you thought about who you were, were you you?
 I think, therefore, I am.
--Rene Descartes
 Good intentions pave the road to hell.
--Fortune Cookie
MEDICAL WARNING:
AS WITH THEORIES OF EVOLUTION, PSYCHOANALYSIS,
BUDDHISM (AND SO ON) THAT WE WILL LOOK AT THIS YEAR,
EXISTENTIALISM DEALS WITH INTENSE THEOLOGICAL
(“RELIGIOUS STUDY”) AND ONTOLOGICAL (“STUDY OF
BEING”) AS WELL AS EPISTEMOLOGICAL (“STUDY OF
KNOWLEDGE”) ISSUES. MR. I. IS NOT ENDORSING
EXISTENTIALISM AS BEING ANYTHING MORE THAN MERE
THEORY. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR LEARNING THE
TENETS OF EXISTENTIALISM; YOU DO NOT HAVE TO LOVE
THEM OR EVEN LIKE IT ALL THAT MUCH.
EXISTENTIALISM CAN BE A WEE BIT DEPRESSING IF VIEWED
IN A “LIFE-IS-MEANINGLESS, GLASS-HALF-EMPTY” LIGHT.
TAKE HEART!
THERE WILL BE AN ESSAY. THE TOPIC IS (SURPRISE-
SURPRISE) EXISTENTIALISM. I SUGGEST YOU TAKE COPIOUS
NOTES IF YOU DON’T WISH TO FAIL.
 Do we have to take notes?
 This Power Point will be online. It does
not, however, make total sense on its own
because it was created to be narrated by
the all knowing, all powerful Oz.
 Therefore, you probably want to jot down
examples and explanations that go with
the slides. You will be tested on
understanding, NOT regurgitation.
A complex philosophy
emphasizing the
absurdity of reality
and the human
responsibility to make
choices and accept
consequences!

ANDREW WYETH
Christina’s World (1948)
 It was during the
Second World War,
when Europe found
itself in a crisis
faced with death and
destruction, that the
existential
movement began to
flourish, popularized
in France in the
1940s…

GEORGIO DE CHIRICO
Love Song
Big Ideas of Existentialism

Despite encompassing a
huge range of philosophical,
religious, and political
ideologies, the underlying
concepts of existentialism MARK ROTHKO
are simple… Untitled (1968)
 Cogito ergo sum.

Existence Precedes Essence

Existentialism is the title of the set of philosophical
ideals that emphasize the existence of the human being,
the lack of meaning and purpose in life, and the solitude
of human existence… “Existence precedes essence”
implies that the human being has no essence (no essential
self).
 Absurdism
• The belief nothing can explain or
rationalize human existence.
• There is no answer to “Why am I?”
• Humans exist in a meaningless, irrational
universe and any search for order will
bring them into direct conflict with this
universe.
“You will never be happy if
you continue to search for
what happiness consists of.
You will never live if you are
looking for the meaning of
life.”

“It was previously a question of finding out

whether or not life had to have a meaning to be
lived. It now becomes clear, on the contrary, that
it will be lived all the better if it has no
meaning.”
 Choice and Commitment
• Humans have freedom to choose
• Each individual makes choices that
create his or her own nature
• Because we choose, we must accept risk
and responsibility for wherever our
commitments take us
• “A human being is absolutely free and absolutely responsible. Anguish is
the result.” –Jean-Paul Sartre
 Dread and Anxiety

MAN RAY
Les Larmes (Tears)
 Dread and Anxiety
• Dread is a feeling of general
apprehension. Kierkegaard interpreted it
as God’s way of calling each individual to
make a commitment to a personally valid
way of life.
• Anxiety stems from our understanding
and recognition of the total freedom of
choice that confronts us every moment,
and the individual’s confrontation with
nothingness.
Nothingness and Death

EDVARD MUNCH
Night in Saint Cloud (1890)
 Nothingness and Death
• Death hangs over all of us. Our
awareness of it can bring freedom or
anguish.
• I am my own existence. Nothing structures
my world.
• “Nothingness is our inherent lack of self. We are in
constant pursuit of a self. Nothingness is the creative
well-spring from which all human possibilities can be
realized.” –Jean-Paul Sartre
Today

• You are going to read your pages

• We will discuss what is happening as you
read
• In that discussion, you are going to use a
new phrase
• So first you need to learn it
• So here is the next slide
All existentialists are concerned with the study of being or
ontology.
TO REVIEW: An existentialist believes that a person’s life
is nothing but the sum of the life he has shaped for himself.
At every moment it is always his own free will choosing
how to act. He is responsible for his actions, which limit
future actions. Thus, he must create a morality in the
absence of any known predetermined absolute values.
God does not figure into the equation, because even if God
does exist, He does not reveal to men the meaning of their
lives. Honesty with oneself is the most important value.
Every decision must be weighed in light of all the
consequences of that action…
Life is absurd, but we engage it!
Edward Hopper “New York Movie” (1939)
 Human Subjectivity

“I will be what I choose to be…”

It is impossible to transcend
human subjectivity.
“There are no true connections
between people…”
My emotions are yet another
choice I make. I am
responsible for them.

Edward Hopper “New York Movie” (1939)

 Subjectivity vs. Objectivity
 In reason, subjectivity refers to the property of
perceptions, arguments, and language as being
based in a subject's point of view, and hence
influenced in accordance with a particular bias.

 As I Lay Dying presents a world that is

completely subjective (if you rule out Faulkner
ordering the chapters and choosing the
speakers)
 Objectivity
 Subjectivity’s opposite property is
objectivity, which refers to such as based
in a separate, distant, and unbiased point
of view, such that concepts discussed are
treated as objects.
 A scientist and a spiritual man have one
thing in common– each seeks to
understand an objective truth in the
world.
 In philosophy, subjectivity refers to the specific
discerning interpretations of any aspect of
experiences. They are unique to the person
experiencing them, the qualia that are only
available to that person's consciousness.

 Though the causes of experience are thought

to be objective and available to everyone,
(such as the wavelength of a specific beam of
light), experiences themselves are only
available to the person experiencing them (the
quality of the color itself).
 In philosophy, an objective fact means a truth that
remains true everywhere, independently of human
thought or feelings. For instance, it is true always and
everywhere that '2 and 2 make 4'.
 A subjective fact is a truth that is only true in certain
times, places or people. For instance, 'That painting is
good' may be true for someone who likes it, but it is
not necessarily true that it is a good painting pure and
simple, and remains so always no matter what people
think of it.

 If the painting could claim this, someone who thought

the painting was bad would be completely wrong, in
the same way someone who says the sun goes around
the earth is wrong. So the reliability of mathematics is
an objective truth, whereas the beauty of paintings is
probably a subjective one
 Human existence cannot be captured by
reason or objectivity –– it must include
passion, emotion and the subjective…

Each of us is responsible for

everything and to every
human being.
–Simone de Beauvoir

GEORGIA O’KEEFFE
Sky Above White Clouds I (1962)
No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre
Second
Empire
 Second Empire is an
architectural style that
was popular during the
Victorian era, reaching
its zenith between 1865
and 1880, and so named
for the “French”
elements in vogue
during the era of the
Second French Empire.
 Bad Faith
 when individuals negate their true nature in an
attempt to become a self they are not.

 The classic example is Sartre's waiter who is always

just slightly too friendly, too helpful, too willing to
play the part of a waiter rather than being the less
friendly, helpful and waiter-like self he would be if
he were not assuming the identity of "waiter."

 In assuming the role of "waiter," Sartre's character has

negated himself by denying his authentic ego with all its
characteristics not becoming of a waiter.
 When the picture a man has of
himself is provided by those who
Bad Faith
see him, in the distorted image of
himself that they give back to
him, he has rejected what the
philosopher has called reality. He
has, moreover, rejected the
possibility of projecting himself
into his future and existing in the
fullest sense.
 Bad Faith …
 In social situations we
play a part that is not
ourselves. If we
passively become that
part, we are thereby
avoiding the
important decisions
and choices by which
personality should be
formed
 One of the most important implications of bad
faith is the abolition of traditional ethics and
morality.

 Because being a moral person requires one to

deny authentic impulses and change one's
actions based on the will of a person other than
oneself, being a moral person is one of the
most severe forms of bad faith.
 The mere appearance of another
person causes one to look at
him/herself as an object, and see
his/her world as it appears to the
other. This is not done from a
specific location outside oneself,
it is non-positional. This is a
recognition of the subjectivity in
others.
• Sartre describes being alone in a park, at this time,
all relations in the park (e.g. the bench is between
two trees) are available, accessible and occurring-for
him.
• When another person arrives in the park, there is
now a relation between that person and the bench,
and this is not entirely available to him. The relation
is presented as an object (e.g. man glances at
watch), but is really not an object, it cannot be
known. It flees from him. The other person is a
"drainhole" in the world, they disintegrate the
relations of which Sartre was earlier the absolute
centre.
Sartre and Seinfeld and Subjectivity

 Essence– general components that exist

before a thing does. Outside of time.
 EXAMPLE– A carpenter wants to build a
bed. He knows the essence (wood
frames, legs, etc.) of a bed before the
concrete bed exists. It must exist in his
mind first.
 Consciousness
 It has no physical properties…isn’t that mystical
or spiritual or ‘otherworldly”?

 Isn’t that an “essence”? Doesn’t it perceive the

world before we can create it through decisions?

 Is situational– exists only in context of others in

a particular situation. Isn’t this bad faith?
 Objects/ human subjects
 In the world of objects, the essence comes first.
In the world of human subjects, it is different.
 MAN IS THE ONLY BEING THAT HAS
INTELLIGENCE TO CONCIEVE OF AN ESSENCE.
 He exists (physically) before any consciousness
of himself.
 HE CAN ONLY FORM THE ESSENCE OF HIMSELF
AFTER HE EXISTS
 Some Famous
Existentialists
• Søren Kierkegaard
(1813-1855)
• Friedrich Nietzsche
(1844-1900)
• Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-
“A woman is not born…she
1980)
is created.”
• Albert Camus (1913-
de Beauvoir’s most famous text is
1960) The Second Sex (1949), which some
claim is the basis for current
gender studies…
 L’Étranger (The Stranger or The
Outsider)
• Written by Albert Camus in 1942 (who did not sail the
ocean blue)
 Albert Camus dissociated himself
from the existentialists but
acknowledged man’s lonely condition
in the universe. His “man of the
absurd” (or absurd hero) rejects
despair and commits himself to the
anguish and responsibility of living as
best he can.

Basically, man creates himself through the choices he makes.

There are no guides for these choices, but he has to make them
anyway, which renders life absurd…
 Camus’ absurd world
• The world of values is never predictable nor
controllable.
• A gap exists between man’s intellectual
constructs (meaning) and the universe
(reality).
• He cannot justify new values by appeal to
convention. “Americans have always
valued free speech.”
 Remember “Memento Mori”
• No ‘essential self’– Earl is the sum of each
decision he makes
• No social designed morals, ethics, or
purpose (revenge is his purpose)
• No rewards or punishments from society
• No connection to history, or the future
• What if God has already left us behind?
Nietzsche and Nihilism Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
“Every belief, every considering
something-true is necessarily That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
false because there is simply no And then is heard no more; it is a tale
true world. Nihilism is…not
only the belief that everything Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
deserves to perish; but one Signifying nothing.
actually puts one’s shoulder to
the plow; one destroys. For
some time now our whole
European culture has been
moving as toward a catastrophe,
with a tortured tension that is
growing from decade to decade:
restlessly, violently, headlong,
like a river that wants to reach
the end…” (Will to Power)
Macbeth
 Relation to Sartre
• Conditions (social constructs) hem him in,
isolating him from the world in a way that
cats and stones are not isolated.
• Human– being for itself
• Cat, stone– being of itself
 Alienation or
Estrangement
• From all other
humans
• From human
institutions
• From the past
• From the future
• We only exist right now,
right here…
EDGAR DEGAS
“L’absinthe” (1876)
 Kurt Vonnegut. So it goes.
1922-2007
 Comedy Central :
Motherload