atheistic existentialism
TRANSCRIPT
EXISTENTIALISM Existentialism is a philosophical
approach based on the assumption that individuals are free and responsible for their own choices and actions.
Hence, we are not victims of circumstance because we are what we have chosen to be.
http://www.tiki-toki.com/timeline/entry/18173/The-History-of-Existentialism
EXISTENTIALISM The roots of existentialism started with the
so called "Father of Existentialism", Søren Kierkegaard, who lived in the 19th Century.
Existentialism's peak came in the 1940's with great thinkers such as Sartre, de Beauvoir, Camus and Merleau-Ponty all coming out with not only traditional philosophical essays, but also plays, novels, and short stories that all reflected the existential school of thought.
http://www.tiki-toki.com/timeline/entry/18173/The-History-of-Existentialism
• A philosophy that exalts individualism• Emanated during the 20th century in both Germany and France
• Human beings began to turn to themselves as the sole authority for their standards and valuations.
• The existence of the individual should be the focus of philosophical inquiries.
• Humans are thrown in the world without meaning and subsequently fashion their essences accordingly through their volitions.
JOHANN KASPAR SCHMIDT better known as Max Stirner, was a German
philosopher His main work is The Ego and Its Own,
also known as The Ego and His Own (Der Einzige und sein Eigentum)
He attended the University of Berlin, where he studied philology, philosophy, and theology.
He attended the lectures of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, who was to become a source of inspiration for his thinking.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Stirner
Stirner participated in discussions with a group of young philosophers called "Die Freien" ("The Free"), and whom historians have subsequently categorized as the Young Hegelians.
Some of the best known names in 19th century literature and philosophy were involved with this discussion group, including Bruno Bauer, Karl Marx, and Friedrich Engels.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Stirner
JOHANN KASPAR SCHMIDT
• Stirner’s philosophy is affiliated with EGOISM, a belief that the gratification of selfish concerns is the ultimate aim of human life.
•Egoist – “A man who instead of living to an idea – i.e., a spiritual thing – and sacrificing to it his personal advantages serves the latter.”
• “The spirit, which alone the Christian loves, is nothing; in other words, that the spirit is – a lie.”
•“Enjoyment of life is using life up.”
• Making the most out of life. Attaining self-actualization.
• “Nothing is more to me than myself.”
• “I am my species, am without norm, am without law, without model, and the like.”
• Attacks the belief in predestination which is revered by organized religion.
“Ownness” or “Self Ownership”
- through this, the ego sustains and empowers personal liberty and subjective powers
Man has his free will.
THEORY IN SOCIAL RELATIONS
Altruism is a guised form of egoism.
Actions done for the benefit of others is in truth, actions for self gratification.
THEORY IN SOCIAL RELATIONS
All forms of social interactions operate under the function of “utility”.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE Influential German philosopher
Often referred to as one of the first existentialist philosophers along with Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855), Nietzsche's revitalizing philosophy has inspired leading figures in all walks of life.
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In his brilliant but relatively brief career, he published numerous major works of philosophy, including Twilight of the Idols and Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
In these works of the 1880s, Nietzsche developed the central points of his philosophy. One of these was his famous statement that "God is dead," a rejection of Christianity as a meaningful force in contemporary life.
http://www.biography.com/people/friedrich-nietzsche-9423452#literary-and-philosophical-work-of-the-1880s
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
The last decade of his life was spent in a state of mental incapacitation.
He died on August 25, 1900.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
NIETZSCHE… Affirms a complete rejection of metaphysical
and religious truths as grounds for reality Contends that the spiritual dimension is
illusory. The existence of God, afterlife and
immortality are nothing but imaginary causes.
How can the individual achieve its highest level of
affirmation in a world void of a Divine providence?
WILL TO POWER
“The drive to dominate the environment…This Will to Power is more than simply the will to survive. It is, rather, an inner drive to express a vigorous affirmation of all a person’s power.”
It allows individuals to reach their highest potentials through the overcoming of barriers and constraints.
“What is happiness?- The feeling that power increases – that a resistance is overcome.”
MASTER MORALITY / ARISTOCRATIC MORALITY
Holds that good is identified as that which is powerful and noble
Practitioners of this are the noblemen – those who determine their morals according to their own personal standards.
Practiced by the lowest class in the society, the slaves.
“essentially the morality of utility” reveres weakness as a virtue while nobility
and strength as vices
SLAVE MORALITY
Slave morality gradually became the basis of Christianity.
Christianity advocates virtues that promote forms of powerlessness and self sacrifice.
SLAVE MORALITY
CRITICISM ON THE TEACHINGS OF CHRISTIANITY
1. “Pity is hazardous to human existence.”
Pity has a depressive effect which makes one powerless.
CRITICISM ON THE TEACHINGS OF CHRISTIANITY
1. Condemns the maxim, “Love thy enemies.”
Loving one’s enemy is not the natural instinct of human beings.
The virtues of Christianity as guides to survival will only result in martyrdom and stagnation of one’s potentials for self actualization.
“Where the will to power is lacking there is decline.”
Encourages the complete liberation from the dogmas of Christian religion.
CRITICISM ON THE TEACHINGS OF CHRISTIANITY
CRITICISM ON THE TEACHINGS OF CHRISTIANITY
Revaluation of all morals- a shift from the slave morality of the Christian religion to the morality of the noble aristocrats, master morality
The higher type of human self reached through freeing one’s self from slave morality and having the values of master morality.
Enables individuals to revitalize faith in their creative powers and this earthly existence.
ÜBERMENSCH
This should not be viewed as one who is ruthless or unguided, but an individual who lives life according to an aesthetic phenomenon – fusion between “Dionysian” and “Apollonian” elements.
ÜBERMENSCH
Dionysus Apollo
DIONYSIAN ELEMENT
Derived from the Greek god Dionysus, the god of fertility and wine*
Represents the unruly passion or ‘the instinct’
*http://www.greekmythology.com/Other_Gods/Dionysus/dionysus.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollonian_and_Dionysian
The Dionysian is based on chaos and appeals to the emotions and instincts.
APOLLONIAN ELEMENT Derived from Apollo, the Greek god of of
music, truth and prophecy, healing, the sun and light, plague, poetry, and more.*
Symbolizes the ability for order and restraint, or intelligence and rationality
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo
The idea of the Übermensch is one who acts according to passionate
drives but at the same time, establishes self regulation over the
instincts.
ÜBERMENSCH
Martin Heidegger was born September 26th, 1889 in Messkirch, Schwarzwald, Germany.
Heidegger’s study of classical Protestant texts by Martin Luther, John Calvin, and others led to a spiritual crisis, the result of which was his rejection of the religion of his youth, Roman Catholicism.
As a lecturer at the University of Freiburg starting in 1919, Heidegger became heir apparent to leadership of the movement that Edmund Husserl had founded, phenomenology.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/259513/Martin-Heidegger
MARTIN HEIDEGGER
In 1933, he became a member of the Nazi Party, and helped to institute Nazi educational and cultural programs at Freiburg and vigorously promoted the domestic and foreign policies of the Nazi regime.
MARTIN HEIDEGGER
http://www.egs.edu/library/martin-heidegger/biography/
Heidegger's original treatment of such themes as human finitude, death, nothingness, and authenticity led many to associate him with existentialism.
His work had a crucial influence on the French existentialist Jean Paul Sartre.
Heidegger died in Freiburg on May 26th, 1976.
http://www.egs.edu/library/martin-heidegger/biography/
MARTIN HEIDEGGER
WHAT IS BEING?
I order to respond to the metaphysical question of Being, one must inquire through a particular aspect of Being, the existing individual self or Dasein (There being).
DASEIN Portrayed as one who adopts an authentic
mode of being. Entails the procurement of self realization. Parallel to the Stirnerian Egoist and the
Nietzschean Superman
A “being in the world”
Self realization can only be obtained through communion with other selves.
When Dasein loses authenticity through an adherence to the conditions of the human sphere it becomes an inauthentic form of existence, the das Man.
DASEIN
Referred to as ‘the project towards the future’; ‘Dasein is a Being towards death.’
Upon the awareness of death, Dasein experiences anxiety (Angst), thus, adopts the das Man mode of existence
In order to reclaim the authenticity of Dasein, one must accept that death is an inescapable fact of human living.
DASEIN
ALBERT CAMUS Albert Camus was born in Mondovi,
Algeria on 7th November 1913.
In 1923, Camus was accepted into the lycée and eventually was admitted to the University of Algiers.
To earn money, he took odd jobs: as a private tutor, car parts clerk, and assistant at the Meteorological Institute.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Camus
His views contributed to the rise of the philosophy known as absurdism.
Camus did not consider himself to be an existentialist despite usually being classified as one, even during his own lifetime.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Camus
ALBERT CAMUS
Camus died on January 4, 1960 at the age of 46, in a car accident.
ALBERT CAMUS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Camus
ABSURDITY Camus’ philosophy centers on the belief
that life in general is fundamentally meaningless.
There’s nothing special in life.
ABSURDITY Founded on his denial of God as the
basic foundation of human existence
The individual self as the sole legitimate authority of standards and valuations.
Life is meaningless because we just keep on doing things on a daily
routine on the dictates of others.
Individual authenticity can be sustained by embracing the futility of human existence and to acquire self progress by attaching value in one’s struggle with the absurd.
JEAN PAUL SARTRE Sartre was born on June 21, 1905 in Paris
In 1920s, Sartre developed interest in philosophy while reading essay of Henri Bergson, Time and Free Will
He earned a doctorate in philosophy in Paris at the École Normale Supérieure, absorbing ideas from Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Husserl and Heidegger, among others.
http://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/jean-paul-sartre-234.phphttp://www.biography.com/people/jean-paul-sartre-9472219#early-life
After World War II, he emerged as a politically engaged activist.
He published Being and Nothingness, The Flies and No Exit, the existentialist works that would make him a household name.
He was an outspoken opponent of French rule in Algeria.
He embraced Marxism and visited Cuba, meeting with Fidel Castro and Che Guevara.
He opposed the Vietnam War and participated in a tribunal intended to expose U.S. war crimes in 1967.
http://www.biography.com/people/jean-paul-sartre-9472219#world-war-ii-and-politics
JEAN PAUL SARTRE
http://www.biography.com/people/jean-paul-sartre-9472219#world-war-ii-and-politics
JEAN PAUL SARTRE
Simone de Beauvoir, Sartre and Fidel Castro
http://www.biography.com/people/jean-paul-sartre-9472219#world-war-ii-and-politics
JEAN PAUL SARTRE
Simone de Beauvoir, Sartre and Che Guevara
In October 1964, Sartre was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. He declined the prize, becoming the first Nobel Laureate to do so.
Sartre's physical condition deteriorated in the 1970s, and he became almost completely blind in 1973. He died in Paris on April 15, 1980
http://www.biography.com/people/jean-paul-sartre-9472219#later-life-and-death
JEAN PAUL SARTRE
SARTRE
His major work is…
Here, he mentions that there are two regions of being: being in itself (en soi) and being for itself (pour soi)
Being in itself (en soi)- an un-free entity- devoid of consciousness and is subject to the causal laws of nature- determinate objects of the universe
Being for itself (pour soi)- possesses consciousness and freedom- existence of human being
“EXISTENCE PRECEDES ESSENCE”
Human beings are free and self-determining.
“Man exists, turns up, appears on the scene, and, only afterwards, defines himself.”
Human beings are defined through their own choices.
FACTICITY Facticity
- “facts of our existence” – birth, education, culture, social status, etc.
These facticities are inescapable.
FACTICITY
Facticity
- But individuals can conquer their facticity by choosing the meaning they have for them.
“MAN IS CONDEMNED TO BE FREE.”
We are not just responsible for ourselves but we can also be accountable for the welfare of others.
BAD FAITH an individual’s state of inauthenticity
Bad Faith results from the escape of an individual from the consequences of his decisions through excuses.
“HELL IS THE OTHER” Other is anyone who undermines both
one’s freedom and individuality.
The existence of the individual is reduced from a conscious free subject to an object for another self.
“HELL IS THE OTHER”
When a man is caught peeping by another person, he fells shame and thereby reduced to an
object fro another self.
CONCLUSION Atheistic existentialists, despite their
criticisms on the dogmas of organized religions and human traditions, are not in favor of advocating forms of extreme acts of lawlessness and behaviors that are against the mode of human conduct.
They stress self regulation and ownership over one’s life.
They also claim that an authentic lifestyle entails individual responsibility, that humans must become highly reflective of the possible outcomes of their desired course of action.
They show us the value of being unique individualized persons with creativity and diverse modes of self actualization.
Finally, they argue that we can achieve the highest form of self affirmation by overcoming the social tensions in our society. Through this, we may gradually secure self empowerment.
BIBLIOGRAPHY Books:
Websites: http://www.tiki-toki.com/timeline/entry/18173/The-History-of-Existentialism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Stirner http://www.tiki-toki.com/timeline/entry/18173/The-History-of-Existentialism#vars!panel=134168! http://www.biography.com/people/friedrich-nietzsche-9423452#literary-and-philosophical-work-of-the-1880s http://www.greekmythology.com/Other_Gods/Dionysus/dionysus.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/259513/Martin-Heidegger http://www.egs.edu/library/martin-heidegger/biography/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Camus
http://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/jean-paul-sartre-234.php
http://www.biography.com/people/jean-paul-sartre-9472219#early- life http://www.biography.com/people/jean-paul-sartre-9472219#world-war-ii-and-politics http://www.biography.com/people/jean-paul-sartre-9472219#later-life-and-death http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollonian_and_Dionysian http://www.picgifs.com/reaction-gifs/
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