Existentialism

"Existentialism is a doctrine that renders human life possible." Jean Paul Sartre: Existentialism is a Humanism

"Existentialism is nothing else but an attempt to draw the full conclusions from a consistently atheistic position." Sartre

Could any of you please explain existentialism to me? I've been learning about it in my philosophy class but I just don't quite get it yet. Something to deal with the analysis of individual existence and why you are who you are and what makes you that. How you define your own existence, what are the beginnings and ends of existence and how are they determined.

If someone would like to enlighten me on this, it would be greatly appreciate.

Thanks,
Will

yea i want to hear this too.

If you don't understand something, research it. Easiest way to understand something complex without having someone write you their own essay about it.

Ok i took an existentialism class last year. My answer would be better then but ill give it a shot.

The key term is "existence precedes essence". I forget who coined this term but it basically means that your individual existence, enables you to be who you are. There is not an essence of things before there is their actual existence. Being itself is more important than the theory of being. Sartre, a french existentialist, denies that man has a nature. He thinks rather that man is tossed into the world and is what he makes it, and is what he makes himself.

A key theme in existentialism is FREE WILL. You become your essence by making choices and taking responsibility for your actions, no matter the consequences. Determinism is a cop out for those who are not willing to accept their actions and shaping who they are, what the world is. Everything you do matters.

Despair is another theme, it is related to responsibility. Sartre says "man is condemned to being free", meaning that we can never sit back and let life happen to us. We are perhaps constantly in despair because we never know if we are making the right decisions, but we still must be brave and make the decisions as best we can.

Nietzsche seemes to have a bleak look on life. He declared that life is terrible and tragic, and that we live in a meaningless world. Those who can grasp this, and not be defeated by the struggles of life, is said to have the Will to Power, one who lives deliberately and consciously.

Nietzsche, Sartre, De Beauvoir, Buber, Heidegger are famous existentialists.

Sartre and De Beauvoir are perhaps the easiest to read and understand. but Nietzsche is my favorite.

I wish i could remember more and explain it well, but this is a pretty good primer.

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Originally posted by Sesquipedalian Dreams
Nietzsche seemes to have a bleak look on life. He declared that life is terrible and tragic, and that we live in a meaningless world. Those who can grasp this, and not be defeated by the struggles of life, is said to have the Will to Power, one who lives deliberately and consciously.

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Nietzsche, the closet Nihilist.

Nihilists realize that all life is pointless, yet that this is all we have so we must make the most out of it. A.K.A. the Will To Power.

If you are curious

I read Kafka's The Metamorphosis and The Trial and I also read Jean Paul Sartre's No Exit in 10th grade. I wrote a paper also dealing with both authors and Existentialism.

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The key term is "existence precedes essence". I forget who coined this term but it basically means that your individual existence, enables you to be who you are.

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I believe it was Kierkegard. At any rate, It would say that higher levels conciousness are gained and achieved through being who you are and introspection, it isn't inherent.

I think the myth of sisyphus by albert camus does a pretty god job explaining existentialism.

We're all like sisyphus, rolling boulders up a hill for eternity. Even if we get near the top, we collpse on our own weight and it goes tumbling. Sisyiphus served this position of endless taxation because he ignored some god's orders and chose to live a life of freedom and bliss but he got captured and sentenced to an eternity of work.

We're in world where the work never ends, so yeah it's pointless because there's no point to make, no conclusion to reach, and nothing we ultimately gain from being here.

I've found recently I've become a lot like the character from the stranger

Existentialism has a variety of meanings, I think.

But what I understand it to mean is this:

The universe is mute and uncaring; there is no God and reality is not conscious of human struggles. In other words, there is no inherent 'meaning' in the universe; no real moral standards, no purpose, nothing. The aforementioed is really Nihilism, but what Existentialism adds is that humans must therefore make their own meanings in the universe. Give your life a meaning and set your own morals, and then live your life to the full according to that collection of meanings.

In this sense I suppose I would really consider myself an Existentialist. I often feel very alone in this reality, but I have personally given myself a purpose to achieve, and as a result I am content.

Edit: Fucking hell, spockman.

Existentialism doesn't state that the world is dead and uncaring, it just seems that way based on people's reactions. The universe could very weel be alive with a mind and heaven and hell and the whole shibang, but it doesn't matter. What you in front of you is existence, everything else is trash.

Existentialism as I understand it is almost Nihilism. A meaningless universe is a vital aspect of it.

They deal with completely different areas of esoteric analysis.

You haven't lived until you have thought about death all the time

I don't know what you mean by 'esoteric analysis'...

I mean philosophies dealing with the concept of the afterlife, the meaning of life, etc...

While Nihilism and Existentialism both arrived at the thought form that there is no objective value in rality, nihilism focused on the concept of morality and existentialism was talking about consciousness itself, arguing life is your own point of view.

I would say both views reflect different oulooks on reality. If I asked you, "Is there an objective good?" a person conditioned by religion would say yes. A deprogrammed person would probably evaluate the implications of the question and reply "No, but there are important values inplace by societ and evolution..."

But it all depends on how far your deprogramming goes. I would say the whole idea is to analyze concepts and values that are supposedly "intrinsic" and see if they're really necessary in order to imagine a logical concept of existence. While I think nihilism states no objective values are intrinsic to existence, existentialism thinks more about conciousness itself and what it is "to be." For existentialism, concepts to imagine the universe are unnecessary. You're born, you live, you die. An existentialist would say don't get caught up in whether the universe is finite or not, in whether we have essense or not. The answer is there is no answer.

There are sub-sects of Existentailism that are theistic, actually. MAny of it's founders, actually. Kierkegard, for example.