existentialism notes, sartre, nietzsche, camus, ortega

7/30/2019 Existentialism Notes, Sartre, Nietzsche, Camus, Ortega

1/4

Nietzche

Man killed God through skepticism and use of reason, without realizing it

Mad man proclaims what future holds in general, audience doesn't understand.

The belief in absolute is dying.

Absolutism leads to Nihilism which leads to Perpectivism

Social conformism is coming to an end, age of individuality is beginning.

Individuality=creativity and originality

Nihilism=No truth, No meaning, Illusion, Age of Doubt

Praising an age which will prepare for the age afterwards

Praising perspectivism

Endorsing a war of ideas

Praising mental courage for individuality and creativity

Live Dangerously in creative terms, don't be held back or afraid of rejection or failure.

Praising men who have courage to risk failure

Perspectivism=Knowledge and truth for own sake

Free Death Knowing when to die is knowing when you have no room for future growth or improvement.

When you become bitter and hopeless and have reacher your peak

Best not to stagnate

You should die when you want to, not before or afterwards

Best to die before you become bitter

See the present moment as perfect. Find life to be so worthwhile that you want it to last forever.

Die at that moment.

When perfection is achieved, death is not to be feared.

Jesus died too young because had he lived longer he would have recanted his teachings.

Jesus would have come to love the imperfect world, he would look past absolutism

Absolutism is absurd, not possible to die free death with absolutism.

B/C standard demands perfection, you're guaranteed to fail.

When man becomes his own God then he sets his own values.

If you reject absolutism then your left to your own accord for what is failure and success.

Greater the risk, greater the potential gain or loss.

Amount of risk you take is proportional to character. More risk, stronger person.

Man who takes most risk and accepts life so completely=Overman. Will take same life over andover again.

Living dangerously is not just taking risk but taking risk for the sake of the benefit it provides.

Ortega A human being's essence is never stuck; unlike a stone. However, this makes us choose projects

because not doing so will make us uncomfortable. We don't have instincts, we have power over

instincts since we have awareness, and can rationalize

Adult is human, infant is not.

Infants are hard-wire, have no power. But it has capacity to learn. Only biologically human.

Children have emergence of self-definition

Animals have no past, present, or future, humans do.

You do nothing so you find things to do.


2/4

Each choice opens new choices which are unique to the previous choice.

Each project determines future projects.

Even though man has a capacity to invent for himself, there are still constraints which cannot beundone.

We are free by compulsion.

Projects take place of animal instincts

There is no ready made way of living for a human being.

All humans choose projects, even if unconscious

we have burden of knowledge and freedom

what we find in modern world is growth of reflective awareness

To be free means to lack an essence. Being free is also an essence though

The one constraint in human life is inconsistency

Non-Eleatic concept of being is the modern view on being

Project is a temporary static entity/being.

The constraints of projects is circumstance; Because we exist in time, the set of projects

available to us is narrowed by previous projects.

Choosing and experiencing projects is a learning process. Knowledge is gained from thisprocess.

Inherent feature of all projects is inadequacythe apparent short comings and limitations ofeach project. Because human beings are imperfect.

The new projects chosen aught to be improvements on previous projects, given the situation

Recognizing that man has no nature and has to choose project has moral, political, cultural...etcconsequences.

Next project should improve on last project. one aims at avoiding in the new project the

drawbacks of the old.

Human beings cannot have a final project since each project has inadequacies

There is no such thing as a single set of possibilities, since projects depend on situation and

each situation brings new possibilities.Sartre

Human evil = outcome of human choiceresult of irresponsibility (thought or action)

Opinions should not be immunized to scrutiny by others. Opinions are subject to evaluation

Responsible freedom of individual to account for how you think and what you do.

Proper freedom = not harming in any way any human being based on group membership

Any one who denies moral equality for all human beings is irresponsible and evil

no exemption for obligation to think in a responsible manner

Not all judgments are of equal value

1.) No such opinion that doesn't involve the opinion of the whole individual.

1. Human beings are emotional beings so human beings are a combination of emotion andmind.

2. Antisemite allows emotion of hatred in his life which it does not deserve.

3. Hating any one group is an attitude toward men in general. Its a view of all of humanitywith hatred at its core.

4. Hatred pervades the person's life and those around him.

We don't have emotions, we choose emotions.

Anti-semite chooses to ignore his ability to choose.

Rationalization always involves self-deception


3/4

Anti-semitism = concept/conception of a type of group/person and concept of interpretations of

evil (scorn/insult) and emotional responses to evil (anger/hostility).

Languages and cultures contain an immense system of concepts, represented by words.

The psychological process of becoming a certain type of person involves the combination of

specific concepts to form a system.

Interpretations of externals determines emotional response; not the external itself; not without

reference to social and individual concepts. This judgment is a choice, not determined byexternal factors. Nothing makes someone angry: one chooses anger ( consciously or

otherwise) as an appropriate or worthwhile responses,

The ignorant ( the anti-Semite) refuses to accept the responsibility to choose the appropriate

responses to externals. There is a deficiency in this individual.

Right/good, though/action: the admittance that one is not born with a value system/system of

belief, and welcoming the fact that all identities he owns/identifies with are ultimately chosen.To accept responsibility for these identities, and their possible outcomes.

Rationalization: Fabrication of reasoning for doing things to justify unreasonable

beliefs/behavior, or to mask true reasoning from oneself in instances where one is not willing toadmit something to oneself.

Responsible individual: accept accountability for one's beliefs (thought) and behavior (action).One must first become a responsible individual before he can be a responsible member of anygroup.

The irresponsible individual lives life like a stone, with an absolute essence, in order to never

have to deal with the burden of responsibility.

Purpose of all beliefs is truth, nobody wants false beliefs, thats the purpose of reason.

In Anti-Semite, emotion comes before reason. He never questions his emotion of hate.

Anti-Semite connects with the tradition of hate.

Even anti-semite joins crowd to get rid of burden of self-definition

Power is self-control

Only certain types of community are permissible. Mob or crowd don't think, they act from blindemotion, but mob is a type of community.

A truly moral community is one composed of individuals who think for themselves.

Individual questions how people are treated and how they ought to be treated.

We have a belief in the autonomy of moral beliefs, people have freedom in moral and politicalbeliefs, but this needs to be balanced with equality, giving maximum but not absolute moral and

political freedom.

Self-Knowledge is necessary for responsibility, thats why the attainment of self-knowledge is

necessary.

Individuality = use of freedom to pursue projects and goals. Responsibility is recognizing

freedoms so that individual can attain individuality. Community is composed of individuals

exercising autonomy to pursue individuality while recognizing other's autonomy. Responsibility is to question everything so nothing is take for granted.

Anti-Semite doesn't want to exercise choice.

The anti-semite doesn't want to be a human being ultimately, he wants to be unchangeable like a

stone.

Christian humanism was first doctrine concerned with being human and what it means to behuman.

Existentialism is a doctrine which affirms value of human life in absence of God

Humans are objects and subjects.


4/4

Subjects are beings which choose and act according to capacity for self-definition

Certainty is an enemy of responsibility

If you are able to see positive aspects of existentialism then you will find it comforting.Christian humanismeach human being is made in image of God and his nature is chosen by

God.

existentialism notes, sartre, nietzsche, camus, ortega

Documents