Existentialism The philosophers Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche foreshadowed existentialism. Existentialism is a term that has been applied to the work of a number of nineteenth and twentieth century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differ- ences,[1][2] took the human subject — not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual[3][4] and his or her conditions of existence — as a starting point for philosophical thought. Existential philosophy is the "explicit conceptual manifestation of an existential attitude"[5] that begins with a sense of dis- orientation and confusion in the face of an apparently meaningless or absurd world.[6][7] Many existentialists have also regarded traditional systematic or academic philosophy, in both style and content, as too abstract and remote from concrete human experience.[8][9] One gives one’s life meaning through action; life has no value unless one gives it value. History Existentialism emerged as a movement in twentieth- century literature and philosophy, foreshadowed most notably by nineteenth-century philosophers Søren Ki- erkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche, though it had fore- runners in earlier centuries. In the 20th century the Ger- man philosopher Martin Heidegger influenced other ex- istentialist philosophers such as Sartre, Simone de Beau- voir and Albert Camus. Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Franz Kafka also described existential themes in their literary works. Although there are some common tendencies amongst "existentialist" thinkers, there are major differ- ences and disagreements among them (most notably the divide between atheistic existentialists like Sartre and theistic existentialists like Tillich); not all of them accept the validity of the term as applied to their own work.[10] Origins The term "existentialism" seems to have been coined by the French philosopher Gabriel Marcel around 1943[11][12][13] and adopted by Jean-Paul Sartre who, on October 29, 1945, discussed his own existentialist posi- tion in a lecture to the Club Maintenant in Paris. The lec- ture was published as L’existentialisme est un humanisme, a short book which did much to popularize existentialist thought.[14] The label has been applied retrospectively to other philosophers for whom existence and, in particular, hu- man existence were key philosophical topics. Martin Heideggr had made human existence (Dasein) the focus of his work since the 1920s, and Karl Jaspers had called his philosophy "Existenzphilosophie" in the 1930s.[15][16] Both Heidegger and Jaspers had been influenced by the Danish philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard. For Kierkegaard the crisis of human existence had been a major theme.[17][18][19] He came to be regarded as the first ex- istentialist,[20] and has been called the "father of exist- entialism".[21] In fact he was the first to explicitly make existential questions a primary focus in his philo- sophy.[22] In retrospect, other writers have also impli- citly discussed existentialist themes throughout the his- tory of philosophy. Examples include: • the Buddha’s teachings,[23] • the Bible in the Books of Genesis,[24] Ecclesiastes,[25] and Job,[25] • Saint Augustine in his Confessions,[26] • Averroes’ school of philosophy, • Saint Thomas Aquinas’ writings, • Mulla Sadra’s transcendent theosophy, • William Shakespeare’s Hamlet.[27] From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Existentialism 1 19th century The Søren Kierkegaard Statue in Copenhagen. As early as 1835 in a letter to his friend Peter Wilhelm Lund, the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard wrote one of his first existentially sensitive passages. In it, he describes a truth that is applicable for him: What I really lack is to be clear in my mind what I am to do, not what I am to know, except in so far as a certain knowledge must precede every action. The thing is to understand myself, to see what God really wishes me to do: the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die. ... I certainly do not deny that I still recognize an imperative of knowledge and that through it one can work upon men, but it must be taken up into my life, and that is what I now recognize as the most important thing. —Søren Kierkegaard, Letter to Peter Wilhelm Lund dated August 31, 1835, emphasis added[28] The early thoughts of Kierkegaard would be formalized in his prolific philosophical and theological writings, many of which would later form the modern foundation of 20th century existentialism.[22][29] Kierkegaard and Nietzsche Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche were two of the first philosophers considered fundamental to the ex- istentialist movement, though neither used the term "existentialism" and it is unclear whether they would have supported the existentialism of the 20th century. They focused on subjective human experience rather than the objective truths of mathematics and science, which they believed were too detached or observational to truly get at human experience. Like Pascal, they were interested in people’s quiet struggle with the apparent meaninglessness of life and the use of diversion to es- cape from boredom. Unlike Pascal, Kierkegaard and Ni- etzsche also considered the role of making free choices, particularly regarding fundamental values and beliefs, and how such choices change the nature and identity of the chooser.[30][31] Kierkegaard’s knight of faith and Ni- etzsche’s Übermensch are exemplars who define the nature of their own existence. These idealized individu- als invent their own values and create the very terms under which they excel. Kierkegaard and Nietzsche were also precursors to other intellectual movements, includ- ing postmodernism, nihilism, and various strands of psychology. Dostoyevsky and Kafka Two of the first literary writers who were important to existentialism were the Czech author Franz Kafka and the Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky.[32] Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground details the story of a man who is unable to fit into society and unhappy with the identit- ies he creates for himself. Many of Dostoevsky’s novels, such as Crime and Punishment, covered issues pertinent to existential philosophy while offering story lines diver- gent from secular existentialism: for example in Crime and Punishment one sees the protagonist, Raskolnikov, experience existential crises and move toward a world- view similar to Christian Existentialism, which Dosto- evsky had come to advocate. Kafka created often surreal and alienated characters who struggle with hopelessness and absurdity, notably in his most famous novella, The Metamorphosis, or in his master novel, The Trial. In his philosophical essay The Myth of Sisyphus, the French existentialist Albert Camus describes Kafka’s oeuvre as "absurd in principle",[33] al- though he also finds present the same "tremendous cry of hope" as is to be found in religious existentialists such as Kierkegaard and Shestov, and which Camus himself rejects.[34] From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Existentialism 2 The cover of Kafka’s absurdist 1915 novella Die Verwandlung (The Metamorphosis), about a man who is inexpicably trans- formed into a beetle Early 20th century In the first decades of the 20th century, a number of philosophers – some working independently, but all in- fluenced in varying degrees by Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Dostoevsky – developed positions which were exist- entialist in all but name. The Spanish philosopher Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo, in his 1913 book The Tragic Sense of Life in Men and Nations, emphasized the life of "flesh and bone" as opposed to that of abstract rationalism. Unamuno rejected system- atic philosophy in favor of the individual’s quest for faith. He retained a sense of the tragic, even absurd nature of the quest, symbolized by his enduring interest in Cervantes’ fictional character Don Quixote. A novelist, poet and dramatist as well as philosophy professor at the University of Salamanca, Unamuno’s short story about a priest’s crisis of faith, "Saint Manuel the Good, Martyr" has been collected in anthologies of existential- ist fiction. Another Spanish thinker, Ortega y Gasset, writing in 1914, held that the human existence must al- ways be defined as the individual person combined with the concrete circumstances of his life: "Yo soy yo y mi circunstancia" ("I am myself and my circumstances"). Sartre likewise believed that human existence is not an abstract matter, but is always situated ("en situation"). Although Martin Buber wrote his major philosophic- al works in German, and studied and taught at the Universities of Berlin and Frankfurt, he stands apart from the mainstream of German philosophy. Born into a Jewish family in Vienna in 1878, he was also a scholar of Jewish culture and involved at various times in Zionism and Hasidism. In 1938, he moved permanently to Jerus- alem. His best-known philosophical work was the short book I and Thou, published in 1922. For Buber, the fun- damental fact of human existence, too readily over- looked by scientific rationalism and abstract philosoph- ical thought, is "man with man", a dialogue which takes place in the so-called "sphere of between" ("das Zwis- chenmenschliche").[35] Two Russian thinkers, Lev Shestov and Nikolai Berdyaev became well-known as existentialist thinkers during their post-Revolutionary exiles in Paris. Shestov, born into a Russian-Jewish family in Kiev, had launched an attack on rationalism and systematization in philo- sophy as early as 1905 in his book of aphorisms All Things Are Possible. Berdyaev, also from Kiev but with a background in the Eastern Orthodox Church, drew a radical distinction between the world of spirit and the everyday world of objects. Human freedom, for Berdyaev, is rooted in the realm of spirit, a realm independent of scientific notions of causation. To the extent the individual human being lives in the objective world, he is estranged from au- thentic spiritual freedom. "Man" is not to be interpreted naturalistically, but as a being created in God’s image, an originator of free, creative acts.[36] He published a major work on these themes, The Destiny of Man in 1931. Gabriel Marcel, long before coining the term "exist- entialism", introduced important existentialist themes to a French audience in his early essay "Existence and Objectivity" (1925) and in his Metaphysical Journal (1927).[37] A dramatist as well as a philosopher, Marcel found his philosophical starting point in a condition of metaphysical alientation; the human individual search- ing for harmony in a transient life. Harmony, for Marcel, was to be sought through "secondary reflection", a "dia- logical" rather than "dialectical" approach to the world, characterized by "wonder and astonishment" and open to the "presence" of other people and of God rather than merely to "information" about them. For Marcel, such presence implied more than simply being there (as one thing might be in the presence of another thing); it con- noted "extravagant" availability, and the willingness to put oneself at the disposal of the other.[38] Marcel contrasted "secondary reflection" with abstract, scientific-technical "primary reflection" which he associated with the activity of the abstract Cartesian ego. For Marcel, philosophy was a concrete activity From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Existentialism 3 undertaken by a sensing, feeling human being incarnate — embodied — in a concrete world.[39][40] Although Jean-Paul Sartre adopted the term "existentialism" for his own philosophy in the 1940s, Marcel’s thought has been described as "almost diametrically opposed" to that of Sartre.[41] Unlike Sartre, Marcel was a Christian, and became a Catholic convert in 1929. In Germany, the psychologist and philosopher Karl Jaspers — who later described existentialism as a "phantom" created by the public,[42] — called his own thought, heavily influenced by Kierkegaard and Nietz- sche — Existenzphilosophie. For Jaspers, "Existenz-philo- sophy is the way of thought by means of which man seeks to become himself...This way of thought does not cognize objects, but elucidates and makes actual the be- ing of the thinker."[43] Jaspers, a professor at the University of Heidelberg, was acquainted with Martin Heidegger, who held a pro- fessorship at Marburg before acceding to Husserl’s chair at Freiburg in 1928. They held many philosophical dis- cussions, but later became estranged over Heidegger’s support of National Socialism. They shared an admira- tion for Kierkegaard,[44] and in the 1930s Heidegger lec- tured extensively on Nietzsche. Nevertheless, the extent to which Heidegger should be considered an existential- ist is debatable. In Being and Time he presented a method of rooting philosophical explanations in human exist- ence (Dasein) to be analysed in terms of existential cat- egories (existentiale); and this has led many commentat- ors to treat him as an important figure in the existential- ist movement. One of the most known novels of Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf, is considered a clear example of an existen- tial novel. It is the reflexion of a deep spiritual crisis of Hesse in the 1920s. The main character, Harry Haller, is a portrait of a man who faces a human condition dilemma: "who am I?". There are two living souls within his chest: a man and a wolf. The eternal struggle between virtues and instincts takes him to a journey through his inner desert, to some answers related to buddhist-like doctrines. After the Second World War Following the Second World War, existentialism became a well-known and significant philosophical and cultural movement, mainly through the public prominence of two French writers, Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, who wrote best-selling novels, plays and widely-read journalism as well as theoretical texts. These years also saw the growing reputation outside Germany of Heideg- ger’s book Being and Time. Sartre had dealt with existentialist themes in his 1938 novel Nausea and the short stories in his 1939 col- lection The Wall, and had published a major philosophic- al statement, Being and Nothingness in 1943, but it was in the two years following the liberation of Paris from the German occupying forces that he and his close associ- ates — Camus, Simone de Beauvoir, Maurice Merleau- Ponty, and others — became internationally famous as the leading figures of a movement known as existential- ism.[45] In a very short space of time, Camus and Sartre in particular, became the leading public intellectuals of post-war France, achieving by the end of 1945 "a fame that reached across all audiences."[46] Camus was an ed- itor of the most popular leftist (former French Resist- ance) newspaper Combat; Sartre launched his journal of leftist thought, Les Temps Modernes, and two weeks later gave the widely reported lecture on existentialism and humanism to a packed meeting of the Club Maintenant. Beauvoir wrote that "not a week passed without the newspapers discussing us";[47] existentialism became "the first media craze of the postwar era."[48] French philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir By the end of 1947, Camus’s earlier fiction and plays had been reprinted, his new play Caligula had been per- formed and his novel The Plague published; the first two novels of Sartre’s The Roads to Freedom trilogy had ap- peared, as had Beauvoir’s novel The Blood of Others. Works by Camus and Sartre were already appearing in foreign editions. The Paris-based existentialists had be- come famous.[49] From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Existentialism 4 Sartre had travelled to Germany in 1930 to study the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl and Martin Heideg- ger,[50] and he included critical comments on their work in his major treatise Being and Nothingness. Heidegger’s thought had also become known in French philosophical circles through its use by Alexandre Kojève in explicat- ing Hegel in a series of lectures given in Paris in the 1930s.[51] The lectures were highly influential; members of the audience included not only Sartre and Merleau- Ponty, but Raymond Queneau, Georges Bataille, Louis Althusser, André Breton and Jacques Lacan.[52] A selec- tion from Heidegger’s Being and Time was published in French in 1938, and his essays began to appear in French philosophy journals. Heidegger read Sartre’s work and was initially im- pressed, commenting: "Here for the first time I en- countered an independent thinker who, from the found- ations up, has experienced the area out of which I think, Your work shows such an immediate comprehension of my philosophy as I have never before encountered."[53] Later, however, in response to a question posed by his French follower Jean Beaufret,[54] Heidegger distanced himself from Sartre’s position and existentialism in gen- eral in his Letter on Humanism.[55] Heidegger’s reputation continued to grow in France during the 1950s and 1960s. In the 1960s, Sartre attempted to reconcile existential- ism and Marxism in his work Critique of Dialectical Reason. A major theme throughout his writings was freedom and responsibility. Albert Camus was a friend of Sartre, until their falling- out, and wrote several works with existential themes in- cluding The Rebel, The Stranger, The Myth of Sisyphus, and Summer in Algiers. Camus, like many others, rejected the existentialist label, and considered his works to be con- cerned with people facing the absurd. In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus uses the analogy of the Greek myth to demonstrate the futility of existence. In the myth, Sisyphus is condemned for eternity to roll a rock up a hill, but when he reaches the summit, the rock will roll to the bottom again. Camus believes that this existence is pointless but that Sisyphus ultimately finds meaning and purpose in his task, simply by continually applying himself to it. Simone de Beauvoir, an important existentialist who spent much of her life as Sartre’s partner, wrote about feminist and existential ethics in her works, including The Second Sex and The Ethics of Ambiguity. Although often overlooked due to her relationship with Sartre, de Beau- voir integrated existentialism with other forms of think- ing such as feminism, unheard of at the time, resulting in alienation from fellow writers such as Camus. Frantz Fanon, a Martiniquan-born critic of colonialism, has been considered an important existentialist.[56] Paul Tillich, an important existential theologian fol- lowing Søren Kierkegaard and Karl Barth, applied French-Algerian philosopher, novelist, and playwright Albert Camus French philosopher and novelist Simone de Beauvoir existential concepts to Christian theology, and helped introduce existential theology to the general public. His seminal work The Courage to Be follows Kierkegaard’s analysis of anxiety and life’s absurdity, but puts forward the thesis that modern man must, via God, achieve self- hood in spite of life’s absurdity. Rudolf Bultmann used Kierkegaard’s and Heidegger’s philosophy of existence From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Existentialism 5 to demythologize Christianity by interpreting Christian mythical concepts into existential concepts. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, an existential phenomeno- logist, was for a time a companion of Sartre. His under- standing of Husserl’s phenomenology was far greater than that of Merleau-Ponty’s fellow existentialists. It has been said that his work, Humanism and Terror, greatly influenced Sartre. However, in later years they were to disagree irreparably, dividing many existentialists such as de Beauvoir, who sided with Sartre. Michel Foucault would also be considered an existentialist through his use of history to reveal the constant alterations of cre- ated meaning, thus proving history’s failure to produce a cohesive version of reality. Colin Wilson, an English writer, published his study The Outsider in 1956, initially to critical acclaim. In this book and others (e.g. Introduction to the New Existential- ism), he attempted to reinvigorate what he perceived as a pessimistic philosophy and bring it to a wider audi- ence. He was not, however, academically trained, and his work was attacked by professional philosophers for lack of rigor and critical standards.[57] Concepts Focus on concrete existence Existentialist thinkers focus on the question of concrete human existence and the conditions of this existence rather than hypothesizing a human essence. However, even though the concrete individual existence must have priority in existentialism, certain conditions are commonly held to be "endemic" to human existence. What these conditions are is better understood in light of the meaning of the word "existence," which comes from the Latin "existere," meaning "to stand out." Man exists in a state of distance from the world that he nonetheless remains in the midst of. This distance is what enables man to project meaning into the disinter- ested world of in-itselfs. This projected meaning remains fragile, constantly facing breakdown for any reason — from a tragedy to a particularly insightful moment. In such a breakdown, we are put face to face with the na- ked meaninglessness of the world, and the results can be devastating. It is in relation to the concept of the devastating awareness of meaningless that Albert Camus claimed that "there is only one truly serious philosophical prob- lem, and that is suicide" in his The Myth of Sisyphus. Al- though "prescriptions" against the possibly deleterious consequences of these kinds of encounters vary, from Kierkegaard’s religious "stage" to Camus’ insistence on persevering in spite of absurdity, the concern with help- ing people avoid living their lives in ways that put them in the perpetual danger of having everything meaningful break down is common to most existentialist philosophers. Existence precedes essence A central proposition of existentialism is that existence precedes essence, which means that the actual life of the individual is what constitutes what could be called his "essence" instead of there being a predetermined es- sence that defines what it is to be a human. Although it was Sartre who explicitly coined the term, similar no- tions can be found in the thought of many existentialist philosophers, from Kierkegaard to Heidegger. It is often claimed in this context that man defines himself, which is often perceived as stating that man can "wish" to be something — anything, a bird, for instance — and then be it. According to most existentialist philo- sophers, however, this would rather be a kind of inau- thentic existence. What is meant by the statement is that man is (1) defined only insofar as he acts and (2) that he is responsible for his actions. To clarify, it can be said that a man who acts cruelly towards other people is, by that act, defined as a cruel man and in that same in- stance, he (as opposed to his genes, or "the cruel nature of man", for instance) is defined as being responsible for being this cruel man. As Sartre puts it in his Existentialism is a Humanism: "man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world – and defines himself afterwards." Of course, the more positive, therapeutic aspect of this is also im- plied: You can choose to act in a different way, and to be a good person instead of a cruel person. Here it is also clear that since man can choose to be either cruel or good, he is, in fact, neither of these things essentially. [58] Angst Angst, sometimes called dread, anxiety or even anguish is a term that is common to many existentialist thinkers. It is generally held to be the experience of our freedom and responsibility. The archetypal example is the exper- ience one has when standing on a cliff where one not only fears falling off it, but also dreads the possibility of throwing oneself off. In this experience that "nothing is holding me back", one senses the lack of anything that predetermines you to either throw yourself off or to stand still, and one experiences one’s own freedom. It can also be seen in relation to the previous point how angst is before nothing, and this is what sets it apart from fear which has an object. While in the case of fear, one can take definitive measures to remove the object of fear, in the case of angst, no such "constructive" meas- ures are possible. The use of the word "nothing" in this context relates both to the inherent insecurity about the consequences of one’s actions, and to the fact that, in experiencing one’s freedom as angst, one also realizes that one will be fully responsible for these From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Existentialism 6 consequences; there is no thing in you (your genes, for instance) that acts in your stead, and that you can "blame" if something goes wrong. Not every choice is perceived as having dreadful pos- sible consequences (and, it can be claimed, our lives would be unbearable if every choice facilitated dread), but that doesn’t change the fact that freedom remains a condition of every action. One of the most extensive treatments of the existentialist notion of Angst is found in Søren Kierkegaard’s monumental work Begrebet Angest (The Concept of Dread). Angst is often described as the drama an adolescent troubles with during their developmental years. In pop- culture ’angst’ is used to describe a particular attitude, often towards family or governmental systems. In this light, the angst of popular teenage life could be used to describe the often-theorized ’existential crisis’ that is adolescence. Freedom The existentialist concept of freedom is often misunder- stood as a sort of liberum arbitrium where almost any- thing is possible and where values are inconsequential to choice and action. This interpretation of the concept is often related to the insistence on the absurdity of the world and that there are no relevant or absolutely good or bad values. However, that there are no values to be found in the world in-itself does not mean that there are no values: each of us usually already has his values be- fore a consideration of their validity is carried through, and it is, after all, upon these values we act. In Kierkegaard’s Judge Vilhelm’s account in Either/ Or, making choices without allowing one’s values to con- fer differing values to the alternatives, is, in fact, choos- ing not to make a choice — to flip a coin, as it were, and to leave everything to chance. This is considered to be a refusal to live in the consequence of one’s freedom; an inauthentic existence. As such, existentialist freedom isn’t situated in some kind of abstract space where everything is possible: since people are free, and since they already exist in the world, it is implied that their freedom is only in this world, and that it, too, is restric- ted by it. What is not implied in this account of existential freedom, however, is that one’s values are immutable; a consideration of one’s values may cause one to recon- sider and change them. A consequence of this fact is that one is not only responsible for one’s actions, but also for the values one holds. This entails that a reference to common values doesn’t excuse the individual’s actions: Even though these are the values of the society the indi- vidual is part of, they are also his own in the sense that s/he could choose them to be different at any time. Thus, the focus on freedom in existentialism is related to the limits of the responsibility one bears as a result of one’s freedom: the relationship between freedom and responsibility is one of interdependency, and a clarifica- tion of freedom also clarifies what one is responsible for. Facticity A concept closely related to freedom is that of facticity, a concept defined by Sartre in Being and Nothingness as that "in-itself" of which you are in the mode of not being. This can be more easily understood when considering it in relation to the temporal dimension of past: Your past is what you are in the sense that it co-constitutes you. However, to say that you are only your past would be to ignore a large part of reality (the present and the future) while saying that your past is only what you were in a way that would entirely detach it from you now. A denial of one’s own concrete past constitutes an inauthentic lifestyle, and the same goes for all other kinds of facti- city (having a body (e.g. one that doesn’t allow you to run faster than the speed of sound), identity, values, etc.). In relation to freedom, facticity is both a limitation and a condition of your freedom. It is a limitation in that a large part of your facticity consists of things you couldn’t have chosen (birthplace, etc.), but a condition in the sense that your values most likely will depend on it. However, even though your facticity is "set in stone" (as being past, for instance), it cannot determine you: The value ascribed to your facticity is still ascribed to it freely by you. As an example, consider two men, one of which has no memory of his past and the other remem- bers everything. They have both committed many crimes, but the first man, knowing nothing about this, leads a rather normal life while the second man, feeling trapped by his own past, continues a life of crime, blam- ing his own past for "trapping" him in this life. There is nothing essential about his committing crimes, but he ascribes this meaning to his past. However, to disregard your facticity when you, in the continual process of self-making, project yourself in- to the future, would be to put yourself in denial of your- self, and would thus be inauthentic. In other words, the origin of your projection will still have to be your facti- city, although in the mode of not being it (essentially). Another aspect of facticity is that it entails angst, both in the sense that freedom "produces" angst when limited by facticity, and in the sense that the lack of the possibil- ity of having facticity "step in" for you to take respons- ibility for something you have done also produces angst. Authenticity and inauthenticity The theme of authentic existence is common to many existentialist thinkers. It is often taken to mean that one has to "find oneself" and then live in accordance with this self, but in one sense, if one considers the self to be substantial or "fixed," that the self truly is some thing From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Existentialism 7 you can find if you look hard enough, this is a misunderstanding. What is meant by authenticity is that in acting, one should act as oneself, not as One, one’s genes or any other essence. The authentic act is one that is in accordance with one’s freedom. Of course, as a condition of freedom is facticity, this includes one’s facticity, but not to the degree that this facticity can in any way determine one’s choices (in the sense that one could then blame one’s background for making the choice one made). The role of facticity in relation to authenticity involves letting one’s actual values come into play when one makes a choice (instead of, like Kierkegaard’s Aesthete, "choos- ing" randomly), so that one also takes responsibility for the act instead of choosing either-or without allowing the options to have different values. In contrast to this, the inauthentic is the denial to live in accordance with one’s freedom. This can take many forms, from pretending choices are meaningless or random, through convincing oneself that some form of determinism is true, to a sort of "mimicry" where one acts as "One should." How "One" should act is often de- termined by an image one has of how one such as one- self (say, a bank manager) acts. This image usually cor- responds to some sort of social norm, but this does not mean that all acting in accordance with social norms is inauthentic: The main point is the attitude one takes to one’s own freedom and responsibility, and the extent to which one acts in accordance with this freedom. Despair Commonly defined as a loss of hope,[59] Despair in exist- entialism is more specifically related to the reaction to a breakdown in one or more of the "pillars" of one’s self or identity. If one has invested a lot of oneself in being something, a waiter or an "upstanding citizen," and one finds oneself in a situation in which one has done something or had something happen to oneself that compromises this being-thing, one would normally find oneself in a state of Despair, a hopeless state. An athlete who loses his legs in an accident may despair if he has nothing to "fall back on," for instance. What sets the existentialist notion of Despair apart from the dictionary definition is that Despair is a state one is in even when one isn’t overtly in Despair: As long as one has based one’s identity on such pillars so that one is vulnerable to having one’s world break down, one is considered to be in perpetual Despair. As Kierkegaard defines it in his Either/or: "Any life-view with a condi- tion outside it is despair."[60] In other words, it is pos- sible to be in despair without despairing. The Other and The Look The Other (when written with a capital "o") is a concept more properly belonging to phenomenology and its account of intersubjectivity. However, the concept has seen widespread use in existentialist writings, and the conclusions drawn from it differ slightly from the phe- nomenological accounts. The experience of the Other is the experience of another free subject who inhabits the same world as you do. In its most basic form, it is this ex- perience of the Other that constitutes intersubjectivity and objectivity. To clarify, when one experiences someone else, and that this Other person experiences the world (the same world that you experience), only from "over there", the world itself is constituted as ob- jective in that it is something that is "there" as identical for both of the subjects; you experience the other person as experiencing the same as you. This experience of the Other’s look is what is termed the Look (sometimes The Gaze). While this experience, in its basic phenomenological sense, constitutes the world as objective, and yourself as objectively existing subjectivity (you experience your- self as seen in the Other’s Look in precisely the same way that you experience the Other as seen by you, as subjectivity), in existentialism, it also acts as a kind of limitation of your freedom. This is because the Look tends to objectify what it sees. As such, when one exper- iences oneself in the Look, one doesn’t experience one- self as nothing (no thing), but as something. Sartre’s own example of a man peeping at someone through a keyhole can help clarify this: At first, this man is entirely caught up in the situation he is in; he is in a pre-reflex- ive state where his entire consciousness is directed at what goes on in the room. Suddenly, he hears a creaking floorboard behind him, and he becomes aware of himself as seen by the Other. He is thus filled with shame for he perceives himself as he would perceive someone else do- ing what he was doing, as a Peeping Tom. The Look is then co-constitutive of one’s facticity. Another characteristic feature of the Look is that no Other really needs to have been there: It is quite possible that the creaking floorboard was nothing but the move- ment of an old house; the Look isn’t some kind of mys- tical telepathic experience of the actual way the other sees you (there may also have been someone there, but he could have not noticed that you were there). It is only your perception of the way another might perceive you. Reason Emphasizing action, freedom, and decision as funda- mental, existentialists oppose themselves to rationalism and positivism. That is, they argue against definitions of human beings as primarily rational. Rather, existential- ists look at where people find meaning. Existentialism asserts that people actually make decisions based on the meaning to them rather than rationally. The rejection of reason as the source of meaning is a common theme of existentialist thought, as is the focus on the feelings of From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Existentialism 8 anxiety and dread that we feel in the face of our own radical freedom and our awareness of death. Ki- erkegaard saw strong rationality as a mechanism hu- mans use to counter their existential anxiety, their fear of being in the world: "If I can believe that I am rational and everyone else is rational then I have nothing to fear and no reason to feel anxious about being free." However, Kierkegaard advocated rationality as means to interact with the objective world (e.g. in the natural sci- ences), but when it comes to existential problems, reas- on is insufficient: "Human reason has boundaries".[61] Like Kierkegaard, Sartre saw problems with rational- ity, calling it a form of "bad faith", an attempt by the self to impose structure on a world of phenomena — "the Other" — that is fundamentally irrational and random. According to Sartre, rationality and other forms of bad faith hinder us from finding meaning in freedom. To try to suppress our feelings of anxiety and dread, we confine ourselves within everyday experience, Sartre asserts, thereby relinquishing our freedom and acquiescing to being possessed in one form or another by "the look" of "the Other" (i.e. possessed by another person — or at least our idea of that other person). In a similar vein, Camus believed that society and religion falsely teach humans that "the Other" has order and structure.[62] For Camus, when an individual’s consciousness, longing for order, collides with the Other’s lack of order, a third ele- ment is born: absurdity. The Absurd The notion of the Absurd contains the idea that there is no meaning to be found in the world beyond what meaning we give to it. This meaninglessness also encom- passes the amorality or "unfairness" of the world. This contrasts with "karmic" ways of thinking in which "bad things don’t happen to good people"; to the world, meta- phorically speaking, there is no such thing as a good per- son or a bad thing; what happens happens, and it may just as well happen to a "good" person as to a "bad" per- son. This contrasts our daily experience where most things appear to us as meaningful, and where good people do indeed, on occasion, receive some sort of "re- ward" for their goodness. Most existentialist thinkers, however, will maintain that this is not a necessary feature of the world, and that it definitely isn’t a property of the world in-itself. Be- cause of the world’s absurdity, at any point in time, any- thing can happen to anyone, and a tragic event could plummet someone into direct confrontation with the Absurd. The notion of the absurd has been prominent in literature throughout history. Søren Kierkegaard, Franz Kafka, Fyodor Dostoevsky and many of the literary works of Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus contain de- scriptions of people who encounter the absurdity of the world. Albert Camus studied the issue of "the absurd" in his essay The Myth of Sisyphus. Relation to Nihilism Though nihilism and existentialism are distinct philo- sophies, they are often confused with one another. A primary cause of confusion is that Friedrich Nietzsche is an important philosopher in both fields, but also the ex- istentialist insistence on the absurd and the inherent meaninglessness of the world. Existentialist philosoph- ers often stress the importance of Angst as signifying the absolute lack of any objective ground for action, a move that is often reduced to a moral or an existential nihil- ism. A pervasive theme in the works of existentialist philosophy, however, is to persist through encounters with the absurd, as seen in Camus’ The Myth of Sisyphus, and it is only very rarely that existentialist philosophers dismiss morality or one’s self-created meaning: Kierkegaard regained a sort of morality in the religious (although he wouldn’t himself agree that it was ethical; the religious suspends the ethical), and Sartre’s final words in Being and Nothingness are "All these questions, which refer us to a pure and not an accessory (or impure) reflection, can find their reply only on the ethical plane. We shall devote to them a future work."[63] Hence, existentialists believe that one can cre- ate value and meaning, whilst nihilists will deny this. Criticism Herbert Marcuse criticised Existentialism, especially Be- ing and Nothingness (1943), by Jean-Paul Sartre, for pro- jecting anxiety and meaninglessness onto the nature of existence itself: "Insofar as Existentialism is a philosoph- ical doctrine, it remains an idealistic doctrine: it hypo- statizes specific historical conditions of human existence into ontological and metaphysical characteristics. Exist- entialism thus becomes part of the very ideology which it attacks, and its radicalism is illusory".[64] In 1946, Sartre already had replied to Marxist criticism of Exist- entialism in the lecture Existentialism is a humanism.[65] In Jargon of Authenticity, Theodor Adorno criticised Heideg- ger’s philosophy, especially his use of language, as a mystifying ideology of advanced, industrial society, and its power structure. In Letter on Humanism, Heidegger criticized Sartre’s existentialism: Existentialism says existence precedes essence. In this statement he is taking existentia and essentia according to their metaphysical meaning, which, from Plato’s time on, has said that essentia precedes existentia. Sartre reverses this statement. But the reversal of a metaphysical statement remains a metaphysical statement. With it, he stays with metaphysics, in oblivion of the truth of Being. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Existentialism 9 In From Descartes to Wittgenstein, Roger Scruton says that Heidegger’s concept of inauthenticity and Sartre’s concept of bad faith were self-inconsistent; both deny any universal moral creed, yet speak of these concepts as if everyone were bound to abide them. In chapter 18, he says: "In what sense Sartre is able to ’recommend’ the authenticity, which consists in the purely self-made morality, is unclear. He does recommend it, but, by his own argument, his recommendation can have no object- ive force." However, despite the seemingly moral tone present in each, both Heidegger and Sartre stress throughout their respective works that these are not to be taken as evaluative concepts, and if we take their word for this (as Scruton does not), there is no inconsist- ency in this regard. Both authors appeal to the reader in all regards to decide for him/herself. Logical positivists, such as Carnap and Ayer, say Ex- istentialists frequently are confused about the verb "to be" in their analyses of "being".[66] They argue that the verb is transitive, and pre-fixed to a predicate (e.g., an apple is red): without a predicate, the word is meaning- less. Another alleged confusion, in existentialist meta- physical literature, is that existentialists try to under- stand the meaning of the word "nothing" (the negation of existence) by presuming it must refer to something. Borrowing Kant’s argument[67] against the ontological argument for the existence of God, logical positivists ar- gue that existence is not a property. Existentialists would respond to both claims by an appeal to the read- er’s intuitive understanding on the matter, which is guided to this end through the descriptive content of their works. They treat the matter as beyond the scope of argument and logic. Influence outside philosophy Cultural movement and influence The term existentialism was first adopted as a self-refer- ence in the 1940s and 1950s by Jean-Paul Sartre, and the widespread use of literature as a means of disseminating their ideas by Sartre and his associates (notably novelist Albert Camus) meant existentialism "was as much a lit- erary phenomenon as a philosophical one."[68] Among existentialist writers were Parisians Jean Genet, André Gide, André Malraux, and playwright Samuel Beckett, the Norwegian Knut Hamsun, and the Romanian friends Eugène Ionesco and Emil Cioran. Prominent artists such as the Abstract Expressionists Jackson Pollock, Arshile Gorky, and Willem de Kooning have been understood in existentialist terms, as have filmmakers such as Jean-Luc Godard and Ingmar Bergman.[68] Also, existential theolo- gical influence is apparent in Angel’s Egg, a Japanese anime feature film produced by Tokuma Shoten in 1985 which blends surrealistic and existentialist qualities. Film The French director Jean Genet’s 1950 fantasy-erotic film Un chant d’amour shows two inmates in solitary cells whose only contact is through a hole in their cell wall, who are spied on by the prison warden. Reviewer James Travers calls the film a "...visual poem evoking homo- sexual desire and existentialist suffering" which "... con- veys the bleakness of an existence in a godless universe with painful believability"; he calls it "... probably the most effective fusion of existentialist philosophy and cinema."[69] Stanley Kubrick’s 1957 anti-war film Paths of Glory "il- lustrates, and even illuminates...existentialism" by ex- amining the "necessary absurdity of the human condi- tion" and the "horror of war".[70] The film tells the story of a fictional World War I French army regiment which is ordered to attack an impregnable German stronghold; when the attack fails, three soldiers are chosen at random, court-martialed by a "kangaroo court", and ex- ecuted by firing squad. The film examines existential ethics, such as the issue of whether objectivity is pos- sible and the "problem of authenticity".[71] On the lighter side, the British comedy troupe Monty Python have explored existential themes throughout their works, from many of the sketches in their original television show, the Flying Circus, to their last major re- lease and the 1983 film The Meaning of Life.[72] Of the many adjectives (some listed in the introduction above) that might indicate an existential tone, the one utilized the most by the group is that of the absurd. Some contemporary films dealing with existential is- sues include Fight Club, Waking Life, and Ordinary People[73]. Likewise, films throughout the 20th century such as Taxi Driver, High Noon, Easy Rider, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, A Clockwork Orange, Apocalypse Now, The Seventh Seal, Ikiru, I ♥ Huckabees, and Blade Runner also have existential qualities.[74] Notable directors known for their existentialist films include Ingmar Bergman, François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Michelangelo Anto- nioni, Akira Kurosawa, Stanley Kubrick, Andrei Tarkovsky, and Woody Allen.[75] Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York focuses on the protagonist’s desire to find existential meaning in life as he sees its end.[76] Theatre Jean-Paul Sartre wrote No Exit in 1944, an existentialist play originally published in French as Huis Clos (meaning In Camera or "behind closed doors") which is the source of the popular quote, "Hell is other people." (In French, "l’enfer, c’est les autres"). The play begins with a Valet leading a man into a room that the audience soon real- izes is in hell. Eventually he is joined by two women. After their entry, the Valet leaves and the door is shut and locked. All three expect to be tortured, but no tor- turer arrives. Instead, they realize they are there to From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Existentialism 10 torture each other, which they do effectively, by probing each other’s sins, desires, and unpleasant memories. Existentialist themes are displayed in the Theatre of the Absurd, notably in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, in which two men divert themselves while they wait ex- pectantly for someone (or something) named Godot who never arrives. They claim Godot to be an acquaintance but in fact hardly know him, admitting they would not recognize him if they saw him. Samuel Beckett, once asked who or what Godot is, replied, "If I knew, I would have said so in the play." To occupy themselves they eat, sleep, talk, argue, sing, play games, exercise, swap hats, and contemplate suicide—anything "to hold the terrible silence at bay".[77] The play "exploits several archetypal forms and situations, all of which lend themselves to both comedy and pathos."[78] The play also illustrates an attitude toward man’s experience on earth: the poignancy, oppression, camaraderie, hope, corruption, and bewilderment of human experience that can only be reconciled in mind and art of the absurdist. The play ex- amines questions such as death, the meaning of human existence and the place of God in human existence. Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead is an absurdist tragicomedy first staged at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1966.[79] The play expands upon the exploits of two minor characters from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Comparisons have also been drawn to Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot, for the presence of two cent- ral characters who almost appear to be two halves of a single character. Many plot features are similar as well: the characters pass time by playing Questions, imper- sonating other characters, and interrupting each other or remaining silent for long periods of time. The two characters are portrayed as two clowns or fools in a world that is beyond their understanding. They stumble through philosophical arguments while not realizing the implications, and muse on the irrationality and random- ness of the world. Jean Anouilh’s Antigone also presents arguments founded on existentialist ideas.[80] It is a tragedy in- spired by Greek mythology and the play of the same name (Antigone, by Sophocles) from the 5th century B.C. In English, it is often distinguished from its antecedent by being pronounced in its original French form, approximately "Ante-GŌN." The play was first per- formed in Paris on 6 February 1944, during the Nazi oc- cupation of France. Produced under Nazi censorship, the play is purposefully ambiguous with regards to the re- jection of authority (represented by Antigone) and the acceptance of it (represented by Creon). The parallels to the French Resistance and the Nazi occupation have been drawn. Antigone rejects life as desperately mean- ingless but without affirmatively choosing a noble death. The crux of the play is the lengthy dialogue con- cerning the nature of power, fate, and choice, during which Antigone says that she is "... disgusted with [the]...promise of a humdrum happiness"; she states that she would rather die than live a mediocre existence. Critic Martin Esslin in his book Theatre of the Absurd pointed out how many contemporary playwrights such as Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco, Jean Genet, and Ar- thur Adamov wove into their plays the existential belief that we are absurd beings loose in a universe empty of real meaning. Esslin noted that many of these play- wrights demonstrated the philosophy better than did the plays by Sartre and Camus. Though most of such playwrights, subsequently labeled "Absurdist" (based on Esslin’s book), denied affiliations with existentialism and were often staunchly anti-philosophical (for example Ionesco often claimed he identified more with ’Pataphysics or with Surrealism than with existential- ism), the playwrights are often linked to existentialism based on Esslin’s observation.[81] Music Many solo artists and bands have released existentially themed works ranging from single songs to entire al- bums. Some of these artists have focused and built their entire careers exploring these themes. Notable examples include Jim Morrison of The Doors, Scott Walker, Roger Waters of Pink Floyd, Trent Reznor of the industrial band Nine Inch Nails[82] among others. Also in Electron- ica style, a good example is Enigma for the albums MCMXC a.D., Le Roi Est Mort, Vive Le Roi! and The Screen Behind the Mirror. Theology Christ’s teachings had an indirect style, in which his point is often left unsaid for the purpose of letting the single individual confront the truth on their own.[83] This is evident in his parables, which are a response to a question he is asked. After he tells the parable, he re- turns the question to the individual. An existential reading of the Bible demands that the reader recognize that he is an existing subject studying the words more as a recollection of possible events. This is in contrast to looking at a collection of "truths" which are outside and unrelated to the reader, but may devel- op your reality/God.[84] Such a reader is not obligated to follow the commandments as if an external agent is for- cing them upon him, but as though they are inside him and guiding him from inside. This is the task Ki- erkegaard takes up when he asks: "Who has the more difficult task: the teacher who lectures on earnest things a meteor’s distance from everyday life-or the learner who should put it to use?"[85] Existentially speaking, the Bible doesn’t become an authority in a person’s life until they authorize the Bible to be their personal authority. Existentialism has had a significant influence on theo- logy, notably on postmodern Christianity and on theolo- gians and religious thinkers such as Nikolai Berdyaev, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Existentialism 11 Karl Barth, Paul Tillich, Wilfrid Desan and John Macquarrie. Existential psychoanalysis and psychotherapy One of the major offshoots of existentialism as a philo- sophy is existential psychology and psychoanalysis, which first crystallized in the work of Ludwig Bin- swanger, a clinician who was influenced by both Freud, Edmund Husserl, Heidegger and Sartre. A later figure was Viktor Frankl, who had studied with Freud and Jung as a young man. His logotherapy can be regarded as a form of existential therapy. An early contributor to existential psychology in the United States was Rollo May, who was influenced by Ki- erkegaard. One of the most prolific writers on tech- niques and theory of existential psychology in the USA is Irvin D. Yalom. The person who has contributed most to the development of a European version of existential psychotherapy is the British-based Emmy van Deurzen. With complete freedom to decide, and complete re- sponsibility for the outcome of decisions, comes anxiety (angst). Anxiety’s importance in existentialism makes it a popular topic in psychotherapy. Therapists often use existential philosophy to explain the patient’s anxiety. Psychotherapists using an existential approach believe that a patient can harness his anxiety and use it con- structively. Instead of suppressing anxiety, patients are advised to use it as grounds for change. By embracing anxiety as inevitable, a person can use it to achieve his full potential in life. Humanistic psychology also had major impetus from existential psychology and shares many of the fundamental tenets. Terror management theory is a developing area of study within the academic study of psychology. It looks at what researchers claim to be the implicit emotional reactions of people that oc- cur when they are confronted with the knowledge they will eventually die. See also • Abandonment • Angst • Anguish • Atheist Existentialism • Existential humanism • Existential crisis • Existential phenomenology • Existential meaning • Existentiell (Heideggerian terminology) • List of major thinkers and authors associated with existentialism • Existential therapy • Psychodrama • Lightness • Meaning of Life • Colin Wilson • The Ister (film) • Human, All Too Human (TV series) • Martin Heidegger • Karl Jaspers • Soren Kierkegaard Notes [1] John Macquarrie, Existentialism, New York (1972), pages 18–21. [2] Oxford Companion to Philosophy, ed. Ted Honderich, New York (1995), page 259. [3] John Macquarrie, Existentialism, New York (1972), pages 14–15. [4] D.E. Cooper Existentialism: A Reconstruction (Basil Blackwell, 1999, page 8) [5] Solomon, Robert C. (1987). From Hegel to Existentialism. Oxford University Press. pp. 238. ISBN 0195061829. http://books.google.com/ books?id=3JA3vyj4slsC&pg=PA238. [6] Robert C. Solomon, Existentialism (McGraw-Hill, 1974, pages 1–2) [7] D.E. Cooper Existentialism: A Reconstruction (Basil Blackwell, 1999, page 8). [8] Ernst Breisach, Introduction to Modern Existentialism, New York (1962), page 5 [9] Walter Kaufmann, Existentialism: From Dostoevesky to Sartre, New York (1956), page 12 [10] Walter Kaufmann. Existentialism: From Dostoevsky to Sartre. (Cleveland: The World Publishing Company, 1956) 11 [11] D.E. Cooper Existentialism: A Reconstruction (basil Blackwell, 1999, page) [12] Thomas R. Flynn, Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2006, page 89 [13] Christine Daigle, Existentialist Thinkers and Ethics (McGill-Queen’s press, 2006, page 5) [14] L’Existentialisme est un Humanisme (Editions Nagel, 1946); English Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism and Humanism (Eyre Methuen, 1948) [15] John Potevi, A Dictionary of Continental Philosophy (Yale University press, 2006, page 325) [16] Thomas R. Flynn, Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2006, page 89 [17] S. Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, "A First and Last Declaration": "...to read solo the original text of the individual, human-existence relationship, the old text, well known, handed down from the fathers, to read it through yet once more, if possible in a more heartfelt way." [18] Michael Weston, Kierkegaard and Modern Continental Philosophy (Routledge, 2003, page 35) [19] Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kierkegaard/ From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Existentialism 12 [20] Christine Daigle, Existentialist Thinkers and Ethics (McGill-Queen’s press, 2006, page 5) [21] Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kierkegaard/ [22] ^ Ferreira, M. Jamie, Kierkegaard, Wiley & Sons, 2008. [23] Mulder Jr., Jack. Mystical And Buddhist Elements in Kierkegaard’s Religious Thought, Edwin Mellen Press, 2006 [24] Kierkegaard, Søren. Fear and Trembling, Penguin Classics, 1985 [25] ^ Kierkegaard, Søren. Works of Love, Princeton University Press, 1998. [26] Storm, D. Anthony. Søren Kierkegaard: A Primer [27] Kaufmann, Walter. From Shakespeare to Existentialism. Princeton University Press, 1980 [28] Kierkegaard, Søren. The Essential Kierkegaard, edited by Howard and Edna Hong. Princeton, 2000 [29] Marino, Gordon. Ed. Basic Writings of Existentialism. Modern Library, 2004. [30] Luper, Steven. "Existing". Mayfield Publishing, 2000, p.4–5 [31] Ibid, p. 11 [32] Hubben, William. Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Kafka, Scribner, 1997. [33] Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus (Trans. Justin O’Brien, Hamish Hamilton, 1955, page 104) [34] Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus (Trans. Justin O’Brien, Hamish Hamilton, 1955, page 107) [35] Maurice S. Friedman, Martin Buber. The Life of Dialogue (University of Chicago press, 1955, page 85) [36] Ernst Breisach, Introduction to Modern Existentialism, New York (1962), pages 173–176 [37] Samuel M. Keen, "Gabriel Marcel" in Paul Edwards (ed.) The Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (Macmillan Publishing Co, 1967) [38] John Macquarrie, Existentialism (Pelican, 1973, page 110) [39] John Macquarrie, Existentialism (Pelican, 1973, page 96) [40] Samuel M. Keen, "Gabriel Marcel" in Paul Edwards (ed.) The Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (Macmillan Publishing Co, 1967) [41] Samuel M. Keen, "Gabriel Marcel" in Paul Edwards (ed.) The Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (Macmillan Publishing Co, 1967) [42] Karl Jaspers, "Philosophical Autobiography" in Paul Arthur Schilpp (ed.) The Philosophy of Karl Jaspers (The Library of Living Philosophers IX (Tudor Publishing Company, 1957, page 75/11) [43] Karl Jaspers, "Philosophical Autobiography" in Paul Arthur Schilpp (ed.) The Philosophy of Karl Jaspers (The Library of Living Philosophers IX (Tudor Publishing Company, 1957, page 40) [44] Karl Jaspers, "Philosophical Autobiography" in Paul Arthur Schilpp (ed.) The Philosophy of Karl Jaspers (The Library of Living Philosophers IX (Tudor Publishing Company, 1957, page 75/2 and following) [45] Ronald Aronson, Camus and Sartre (University of Chicago Press, 2004, chapter 3 passim) [46] Ronald Aronson, Camus and Sartre (University of Chicago Press, 2004, page 44) [47] Simone de Beauvoir, Force of Circumstance, quoted in Ronald Aronson, Camus and Sartre (University of Chicago Press, 2004, page 48) [48] Ronald Aronson, Camus and Sartre (University of Chicago Press, 2004, page 48) [49] Ronald Aronson, Camus and Sartre (University of Chicago Press, 2004, chapter 3 passim) [50] Rüdiger Safranski, Martin Heidgger — Between Good and Evil (Harvard University Press, 1998, page 343 [51] Entry on Kojève in Martin Cohen (editor), The Essentials of Philosophy and Ethics(Hodder Arnold, 2006, page 158); see also Alexandre Kojève, Introduction to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit (Cornell University Press, 1980) [52] Entry on Kojève in Martin Cohen (editor), The Essentials of Philosophy and Ethics(Hodder Arnold, 2006, page 158) [53] Martin Hediegger, letter, quoted in Rüdiger Safranski, Martin Heidgger — Between Good and Evil (Harvard University Press, 1998, page 349) [54] Rüdiger Safranski, Martin Heidgger — Between Good and Evil (Harvard University Press, 1998, page 356) [55] William J. Richardson, Martin Heidegger: From Phenomenology to Thought (Martjinus Nijhoff,1967, page 351) [56] Macey, David. Franz Fanon: a Biography. New York City: Picador, USA. p. 129–130. [57] K. Gunnar Bergström, An Odyssey to Freedom University of Uppsala, 1983, page 92;Colin Stanley, Colin Wilson, a Celebration: Essays and Recollections Cecil Woolf, 1988, page 43) [58] Baird, Forrest E.; Walter Kaufmann (2008). From Plato to Derrida. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-158591-6. [59] http://www.tfd.com/despair [60] http://books.google.com/ books?id=GJHlYmo7kXEC&printsec=frontcover&dq=either- or&ei=VMizSaryPKeGzgSjsLHtCg#PPA531,M1 [61] Soren Kierkegaard’s Journals and Papers Vol 5, p. 5 [62] Camus, Albert. "An Absurd Reasoning" [63] Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, Routledge Classics (2003). [64] Marcuse, Herbert. "Sartre’s Existentialism". Printed in Studies in Critical Philosophy. Translated by Joris De Bres. London: NLB, 1972. p. 161 [65] Text at marxists.org From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Existentialism 13 [66] Carnap, Rudolf, Uberwindung der Metaphysik durch logische Analyse der Spache [Overcoming Metaphysics by the Logical Analysis of Speech], Erkenntnis (1932), pp.219–241. Carnap’s critique of Heidegger’s "What is Metaphysics". [67] Kant, Critique of Pure Reason A:595–602. B:623–627 [68] ^ Steven Crowell entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy by 2004-08-23 [69] © James Travers 2005 http://72.14.205.104/ search?q=cache:iPYJjAhhAuMJ:filmsdefrance.com/ FDF_Un_chant_d_amour_rev.html [70] Holt, Jason. "Existential Ethics: Where do the Paths of Glory Lead?". In The Philosophy of Stanley Kubrick. By Jerold J. Abrams. Published 2007. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 081312445X [71] Holt, Jason. "Existential Ethics: Where do the Paths of Glory Lead?". In The Philosophy of Stanley Kubrick. By Jerold J. Abrams. Published 2007. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 081312445X [72] "amazon.com’s Films with an Existential Theme". http://www.amazon.com/Films-with-an-Existential- Theme/lm/2XUY93GON1RKW. Retrieved on 2009-02-02. [73] Existential & Psychological Movie Recommendations [74] Existentialism in Film [75] Existentialist Adaptations - Harvard Film Archive [76] "Review: ’Synecdoche, New York’". http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/movies/ la-et-synecdoche24-2008oct24,0,5252277.story. Retrieved on 2008-11-17. [77] The Times, 31 December 1964. Quoted in Knowlson, J., Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett (London: Bloomsbury, 1996), p 57 [78] Cronin, A., Samuel Beckett The Last Modernist (London: Flamingo, 1997), p 391 [79] Michael H. Hutchins (14 August 2006). "A Tom Stoppard Bibliography: Chronology". The Stephen Sondheim Reference Guide. http://www.sondheimguide.com/ Stoppard/chronology.html. Retrieved on 2008-06-23. [80] Wren, Celia (12 December 2007). "From Forum, an Earnest and Painstaking ’Antigone’". Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ article/2007/12/11/AR2007121102254.html. Retrieved on 2008-04-07. [81] Kernan, Alvin B. The Modern American Theater: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1967. [82] "The Existential Notion that "God is Dead" in Industrial Music". http://facweb.stvincent.edu/academics/ religiousstu/writings/rodkey1.html. Retrieved on 2009-02-02. [83] Palmer, Donald D. Kierkegaard For Beginners. 1996. Writers And Readers Limited. London, England. p.25 [84] Hong, Howard V. "Historical Introduction" to Fear and Trembling. Princeton University Press. Princeton, New Jersey. 1983. p. x [85] Kierkegaard, Soren. Works of Love. Harper & Row, Publishers. New York, N.Y. 1962. p. 62 References • Razavi, Mehdi Amin (1997), Suhrawardi and the School of Illumination, Routledge, ISBN 0700704124 • Albert Camus Lyrical and Critical essays. Edited by Philip Thody (interviev with Jeanie Delpech, in Les Nouvelles litteraires, November 15, 1945). pg 345. Further reading • Appignanesi, Richard; and Oscar Zarate (2001). Introducing Existentialism. Cambridge, UK: Icon. ISBN 1-84046-266-3. • Cooper, David E. (1999). Existentialism: A Reconstruction (2nd ed.). Oxford, UK: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-21322-8. • Luper, Steven (ed.) (2000). Existing: An Introduction to Existential Thought. Mountain View, California: Mayfield. ISBN 0-7674-0587-0. • Marino, Gordon (ed.) (2004). Basic Writings of Existentialism. New York: Modern Library. ISBN 0-375-75989-1. • Szymczyk, Michael (2004). Toilet: The Novel. Bloomington: Authorhouse (USA). ISBN 978-1418423865. • Solomon, Robert C. (ed.) (2005). Existentialism (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-517463-1. • Appignanesi, Richard (2006). Introducing Existentialism (3nd ed.). Thriplow, Cambridge: Icon Books (UK), Totem Books (USA). ISBN 1-84046-717-7. • Sartre, Jean-Paul. Being and Nothingness. • Sartre, Jean-Paul. Existentialism and Humanism. • Rose, Eugene (Fr. Seraphim) (1994). Nihilism: The Root of the Revolution of the Modern Age. Saint Herman Press (1 September 1994). ISBN 0-938635-15-8. External links • Friesian interpretation of Existentialism • Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Existentialism • "Existentialism is a Humanism", a lecture given by Jean-Paul Sartre • Bioexistentialism • The Existential Primer Journals and articles • Stirrings Still: The International Journal of Existential Literature • [1] Existential Analysis published by The Society for Existential Analysis Existential psychotherapy • An Introduction to Existential Counselling • International Society for Existential Therapy From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Existentialism 14 • HPSY.RU — Existential & humanistic psychology History of existentially-humanistic psychology’s development in formerly Soviet nations Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existentialism" Categories: Existentialism, Modernism, Philosophical movements, Metaphysical theories This page was last modified on 17 May 2009, at 22:10 (UTC). All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. 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