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!

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.

ANDREW WYETH

Christina’s World (1948)

A complex philosophy

emphasizing the

absurdity of reality

and the human

responsibility to make

choices and accept

consequences!

GEORGIO DE CHIRICO

Love Song

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…

MARK ROTHKO

Untitled (1968)

Big Ideas of Existentialism

Despite encompassing a

huge range of philosophical,

religious, and political

ideologies, the underlying

concepts of existentialism

are simple…

Existence Precedes Essence

Cogito ergo sum.

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).

See: ―Existentialism and Human Emotions‖ by Sartre,

example of the paper-cutter (p2)

ESSENCE

Essence– general components that exist before a thing does—created to serve the purpose of ―the creator‖.

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.

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

A) Existence precedes essence (hence the name

“existentialism”): there are no or pre-existing conditions that

guide or determine man’s behavior or essence.

B) Leads to the “absurd condition” man seeks meaning in a

meaningless world (universe unconscious of our existence).

C) Man is condemned to be free. Leads to modern despair

from man’s overwhelming sense of responsibility and

recognition of his fundamental aloneness in an indifferent

universe.

D) The artist/existentialist achieves meaningful happiness by

facing the pain and still affirming life.

Let’s give it a try! Journal Time!

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

• Example: Sartre’s Spanish Civil War story (Friesian.com link)

The peril of Subject/Object

relationships

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HbYS

cltf1c

Some Famous

Existentialists

• Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)

• Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

• Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-

1980)

• Albert Camus (1913-

1960)

―A woman is not born…she

is created.‖

de Beauvoir’s most famous text is

The Second Sex (1949), which some

claim is the basis for current

gender studies…

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)

Edward Hopper ―New York Movie‖ (1939)

Human Subjectivity

It is impossible to transcend

human subjectivity.

―I will be what I choose to be…‖

―There are no true connections

between people…‖

My emotions are yet another

choice I make. I am responsible

for them.

GEORGIA O’KEEFFE

Sky Above White Clouds I (1962)

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

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.

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

MAN RAY

Les Larmes (Tears)

Dread and Anxiety

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. • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DE3OYSVpycY

Responsibility

• But accepting such total responsibility entails a profound

alteration of my attitude towards life. Sharing in the

awesome business of determining the future development

of humanity generally through the particular decisions I

make for myself produces an overwhelming sense

of anguish. Moreover, since there is no external authority

to which I can turn in an effort to escape my duty in this

regard, I am bound to feel abandonment as well. Finally,

since I repeatedly experience evidence that my own

powers are inadequate to the task, I am driven to despair.

There can be no relief, no help, no hope. Human life

demands total commitment to a path whose significance

will always remain open to doubt

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.

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

Bad Faith

When the picture a man has of himself is provided by those who 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.

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.

Another of Sartre’s examples involves a young woman on a first date. She ignores the obvious sexual implications of her date's compliments to her physical appearance, but accepts them instead as words directed at her as a human consciousness. As he takes her hand, she lets it rest indifferently in his, refusing either to return the gesture or to rebuke it. Thus she delays the moment when she must choose to either acknowledge and reject his advances, or submit to them. She conveniently considers her hand only a thing in the world, and his compliments as unrelated to her body, playing on her dual human reality as a physical being, and as a consciousness separate and free from this physicality.

Bad Faith

It is also a key aspect of living in bad faith to allow others to define or help define our choices or ourselves.

Am I a good person? A hard worker?

Some subjective aspects of self: How good looking are you? How smart are you? Are you funny?

MORALITY AND ETHICS

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.

Remember this

weirdness?

Louis H. Leiter saw in the tale a cogent argument

for existentialism:

"A Country Doctor" comments on man, who,

buffeted by the scheme of things, is unable to

transcend the part assigned him by the absurdity

of that existence. Because he does not lack

conscious knowledge of his condition, but refuses

to act in the face of his portentous freedom, the

doctor, an archetype of the anti-existential hero,

deserves his fate. Lacking the human stuff

necessary to create and structure situations, he

permits himself to be manipulated by the groom,

the family, and the horses; but he becomes, by

submitting, a tool within the situations they create.

Never, consciously, does he attempt through an

overt act, until too late, to establish his own

essence, to rise above any manipulative value he

possesses for others. As doctor he is a thing, an

object, a tool; as man he is nothing.

Nietzsche and Nihilism

―Every belief, every considering

something-true is necessarily

false because there is simply no

true world. Nihilism is…not

only the belief that everything

deserves to perish; but one

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)

Out, out, brief candle!

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more; it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

Macbeth

Absurdism

• The belief nothing can explain or

rationalize human existence.

• There is no answer to ―Why am I?‖ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4u2ZsoYWwJA

• Humans exist in a meaningless, irrational

universe and any search for order will

bring them into direct conflict with this

universe. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYZsApGC0BE

• Key Text—The Stranger, specifically, the trial.

―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.‖

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

• See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkAPW5Iq6hM

Nothingness and Death

EDGAR DEGAS

―L’absinthe‖ (1876)

Alienation or

Estrangement

• From all other

humans

• From human

institutions

• From the past

• From the future

• We only exist right now,

right here…

L’Étranger (The Stranger or The

Outsider)

• Written by Albert Camus in 1942

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…

The ABSURD WORLD

Conspicuous in its lack of logic, consistency, coherence, intelligibility, and realism, the literature of the absurd depicts the anguish, forlornness, and despair inherent in the human condition.

Counter to the rationalist assumptions of traditional humanism, absurdism denies the existence of universal truth or value.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5U1-OmAICpU

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.”

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

Meursault (page 65-67)

• Does not analyze himself-- No thoughts or

concerns for past or future

– Future cannot be predicted or planned for—this

life is as good as any

– The world is Absurd and planning for it is

pointless (―Want to make God laugh? Make a

plan‖)

Regret, guilt, remorse

• Does not analyze himself- They are based

on values outside of your own

– They are for others (can you feel regret without

thinking of others?)

– These feelings distract from the moment

Afterlife, God, spirituality (67-69, 101-104, 118-121)

• He does not bother to imagine an afterlife or

God—focus on this life

• Spirituality is supposed to add something to

this world (the chaplain asks if when he

stares at a stone he sees the sorrows of

others or the face of God. Meursault sees a

stone.)

Relation to Sartre (p123)

• Conditions (social constructs) hem him in,

isolating him from the world in a way that

cats and stones are not isolated.

• Alienation

Existential Riddles (from The New Yorker. Yes,

The New Yorker.

• A farmer has to transport a fox, a chicken,

and a sack of corn across a river. She can

carry only one item at a time. If left

together, the fox will eat the chicken, and

the chicken will eat the corn. How does the

farmer do it?

• The farmer begins by carrying the chicken across

the river. But, as she does so, she notices her

reflection in the water. She can barely recognize

the person staring back at her, holding a chicken.

―What’s happened to me?‖ she asks herself. She

hasn’t picked up a paintbrush in more than a year.

Now she’s carrying farm animals and sacks of

grain across rivers. Is this why she spent two years

at RISD?

• A man sees a boat that is full of people. And

yet there isn’t a single person on the boat.

How is this possible?

• Everyone on the boat is married, so there isn’t one single person on the

boat.

• The man wonders if it’s legal for a transportation system to

discriminate against unmarried people. It doesn’t seem legal, but

maybe maritime laws are different? Perhaps if things had ended

differently with Heather, the man would be on the boat, too. He laughs

sadly to himself. He was always single, even when he was with

Heather. Love is an illusion. There are no purely unselfish actions.

Heather and Dale deserve each other.