3. Existentialism: A philosophy that began in the
19th century and became fashionable in the
20th century, post World War II years, as a
way to reassert the importance of human
individuality and freedom.
Existentialism Main Ideas
The individual has the sole responsibility for
finding meaning in life Despite absurdity,
alienation and boredom, one must live life
with passion and sincerity. “Any life-view with
a condition outside it is despair."
4. According to existentialism: (1) Existence is always
particular and individual—always my existence, your
existence, his existence, her existence. (2) Existence is
primarily the problem of existence (i.e., of its mode of
being); it is, therefore, also the investigation of the
meaning of Being. (3) That investigation is continually
faced with diverse possibilities, from among which the
existent (i.e., the human individual) must make a
selection, to which he must then commit himself. (4)
Because those possibilities are constituted by the
individual’s relationships with things and with other
humans, existence is always a being-in-the-world—i.e., in
a concrete and historically determinate situation that
limits or conditions choice. Humans are therefore called,
in Martin Heidegger’s phrase, Dasein (“there being”)
because they are defined by the fact that they exist, or
are in the world and inhabit it.
5. “No Excuses!” • “The message of Existentialism is
that every one of us, as an individual, is responsible
— responsible for what we do, responsible for who
we are, responsible for the way we face and deal
with the world, responsible, ultimately, for the way
the world is. It is, in a very short phrase, the
philosophy of 'No excuses!' We cannot shift that
burden onto God, or nature, or the ways of the
world.” - Professor Robert Solomon
“I think, therefore, I am.” • Existentialism begins
with the idea that your existence is the only original
certainty. • You might not know anything else, but
you at least know you exist (in some way) because
you are thinking. • Existentialism holds that your
existence is your pre-eminent truth and reality.
6. existentialism is opposed to any doctrine that views human
beings as the manifestation of an absolute or of an infinite
substance. It is thus opposed to most forms of idealism, such
as those that stress Consciousness, Spirit, Reason, Idea, or
Oversoul. Second, it is opposed to any doctrine that sees in
human beings some given and complete reality that must be
resolved into its elements in order to be known or
contemplated. It is thus opposed to any form of objectivism
or scientism, since those approaches stress the crass reality of
external fact. Third, existentialism is opposed to any form of
necessitarianism; for existence is constituted by possibilities
from among which the individual may choose and through
which he can project himself. And, finally, with respect to the
fourth point, existentialism is opposed to any solipsism
(holding that I alone exist) or any epistemological idealism
(holding that the objects of knowledge are mental), because
existence, which is the relationship with other beings, always
extends beyond itself, toward the being of those entities; it is,
so to speak, transcendence.
7. existentialism, Philosophical movement oriented toward two
major themes, the analysis of human existence and the
centrality of human choice. Existentialism’s chief theoretical
energies are thus devoted to questions about ontology and
decision. It traces its roots to the writings of Søren
Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche. As a philosophy of
human existence, existentialism found its best 20th-century
exponent in Karl Jaspers; as a philosophy of human decision,
its foremost representative was Jean-Paul Sartre. Sartre finds
the essence of human existence in freedom—in the duty of
self-determination and the freedom of choice—and
therefore spends much time describing the human tendency
toward “bad faith,” reflected in humanity’s perverse attempts
to deny its own responsibility and flee from the truth of its
inescapable freedom.
9. SOREN KIERKEGAARD
Søren Kierkegaard, in full Søren Aabye Kierkegaard, (born
May 5, 1813, Copenhagen, Den.—died Nov. 11, 1855,
Copenhagen), Danish philosopher, theologian, and cultural
critic who was a major influence on existentialism and
Protestant theology in the 20th century. He attacked the
literary, philosophical, and ecclesiastical establishments of
his day for misrepresenting the highest task of human
existence—namely, becoming oneself in an ethical and
religious sense—as something so easy that it could seem
already accomplished even when it had not even been
undertaken. Positively, the heart of his work lay in the
infinite requirement and strenuous difficulty of religious
existence in general and Christian faith in particular.
“You become what you understand.”
― Soren Kierkegaard
10. FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Friedrich Nietzsche, (born October 15, 1844, Röcken, Saxony, Prussia
[Germany]—died August 25, 1900, Weimar, Thuringian States), German
classical scholar, philosopher, and critic of culture, who became one of the
most influential of all modern thinkers. His attempts to unmask the
motives that underlie traditional Western religion, morality, and
philosophy deeply affected generations of theologians, philosophers,
psychologists, poets, novelists, and playwrights. He thought through the
consequences of the triumph of the Enlightenment’s secularism, expressed
in his observation that “God is dead,” in a way that determined the agenda
for many of Europe’s most-celebrated intellectuals after his death.
Although he was an ardent foe of nationalism, anti-Semitism, and
power politics, his name was later invoked by fascists to advance the very
things he loathed.
"Sometimes people don't want to hear
the truth because they don't want their
illusions destroyed."
~ Friedrich Nietzsche
11. FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, in full Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky,
Dostoyevsky also spelled Dostoevsky, (born November 11 [October 30, Old
Style], 1821, Moscow, Russia—died February 9 [January 28, Old Style], 1881,
St. Petersburg), Russian novelist and short-story writer whose psychological
penetration into the darkest recesses of the human heart, together with his
unsurpassed moments of illumination, had an immense influence on 20th-
century fiction.
Dostoyevsky is usually regarded as one of the finest novelists who ever lived.
Literary modernism, existentialism, and various schools of psychology,
theology, and literary criticism have been profoundly shaped by his ideas.
His works are often called prophetic because he so accurately predicted how
Russia’s revolutionaries would behave if they came to power. In his time he
was also renowned for his activity as a journalist.
If there is no God, everything is
permitted.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
12. MARTIN HEIDEGGER
Martin Heidegger, (born September 26, 1889,
Messkirch, Schwarzwald, Germany—died May 26, 1976,
Messkirch, West Germany), German philosopher,
counted among the main exponents of existentialism. His
groundbreaking work in ontology (the philosophical
study of being, or existence) and metaphysics
determined the course of 20th-century philosophy on
the European continent and exerted an enormous
influence on virtually every other humanistic discipline,
including literary criticism, hermeneutics, psychology,
and theology.
Man acts as though he were the
shaper and master of language, while
in fact language remains the master
of man.
Martin Heidegger
13. JEAN PAUL SARTRE
Jean-Paul Sartre, (born June 21, 1905, Paris,
France—died April 15, 1980, Paris), French
philosopher, novelist, and playwright, best
known as the leading exponent of existentialism
in the 20th century. In 1964 he declined the
Nobel Prize for Literature, which had been
awarded to him “for his work which, rich in ideas
and filled with the spirit of freedom and the quest
for truth, has exerted a far-reaching influence on
our age.”
If you are lonely when you're alone,
you are in bad company.
Jean-Paul Sartre
14. Albret camus
Albert Camus, (born November 7, 1913,
Mondovi, Algeria—died January 4, 1960, near
Sens, France), French novelist, essayist, and
playwright, best known for such novels
as L’Étranger (1942; The Stranger), La
Peste (1947; The Plague), and La
Chute (1956; The Fall) and for his work in leftist
causes. He received the 1957 Nobel Prize for
Literature.
Nobody realizes that some people
expend tremendous energy merely to
be normal.
Albert Camus
18. phenomenology, a philosophical movement originating in the 20th
century, the primary objective of which is the direct investigation and
description of phenomena as consciously experienced, without theories
about their causal explanation and as free as possible from unexamined
preconceptions and presuppositions. The word itself is much older,
however, going back at least to the 18th century, when the Swiss
German mathematician and philosopher Johann Heinrich Lambert
applied it to that part of his theory of knowledge that distinguishes
truth from illusion and error. In the 19th century the word became
associated chiefly with the Phänomenologie des Geistes
(1807; Phenomenology of Mind), by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel,
who traced the development of the human spirit from mere sense
experience to “absolute knowledge.” The so-called phenomenological
movement did not get under way, however, until early in the 20th
century. But even this new phenomenology included so many varieties
that a comprehensive characterization of the subject requires their
consideration.
19. Phenomenology was not founded; it grew. Its fountainhead was
Husserl, who held professorships at Göttingen and Freiburg im
Breisgau and who wrote Die Idee der Phänomenologie (The Idea of
Phenomenology) in 1906. Yet, even for Husserl, the conception of
phenomenology as a new method destined to supply a new
foundation for both philosophy and science developed only
gradually and kept changing to the very end of his career. Husserl
was trained as a mathematician and was attracted to philosophy by
Brentano, whose descriptive psychology seemed to offer a solid basis
for a scientific philosophy. The concept of intentionality, the
directedness of the consciousness toward an object, which is a basic
concept in phenomenology, was already present in Brentano’s
Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkte (1874; Psychology from
an Empirical Standpoint): “And thus we can define psychic
phenomena by saying that they are those phenomena which,
precisely as intentional, contain an object in themselves.” Brentano
dissociated himself here from the Scottish philosopher Sir William
Hamilton, known for his philosophy of the “unconditioned,” who had
attributed the character of intentionality to the realms of thought and
desire only, to the exclusion of that of feeling.
20. The man behind the phenomenological movement
was mathematician turned philosopher named
Edmund Husserl (1859-1938). He had an aim very
similar to Descartes: to arrive at “philosophy as a
rigorous science”. But, unlike Descartes who was
impressed by the progress of the sciences of his time,
Husserl came to this goal as a result of dissatisfaction
with the sciences of his time. According to him, the
natural sciences start out with a lot of presuppositions.
In particular, he was reacting against the naturalistic
psychology of his time which treats of the mental
activity as casually conditioned by events of nature,
in terms of stimulus-reaction relationship. This kind of
psychology would presuppose therefore that man is a
mechanistic animal.
22. Edmund Husserl
Edmund Husserl, (born April 8, 1859, Prossnitz, Moravia, Austrian
Empire [now Prostějov, Czech Republic]—died April 27, 1938, Freiburg im
Breisgau, Ger.), German philosopher, the founder of Phenomenology, a
method for the description and analysis of consciousness through which
philosophy attempts to gain the character of a strict science. The method
reflects an effort to resolve the opposition between Empiricism, which
stresses observation, and Rationalism, which stresses reason and theory,
by indicating the origin of all philosophical and scientific systems and
developments of theory in the interests and structures of the experiential
life. (See phenomenology.)
Experience by itself is not science.
Edmund Husserl
![FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Friedrich Nietzsche, (born October 15, 1844, Röcken, Saxony, Prussia
[Germany]—died August 25, 1900, Weimar, Thuringian States), German
classical scholar, philosopher, and critic of culture, who became one of the
most influential of all modern thinkers. His attempts to unmask the
motives that underlie traditional Western religion, morality, and
philosophy deeply affected generations of theologians, philosophers,
psychologists, poets, novelists, and playwrights. He thought through the
consequences of the triumph of the Enlightenment’s secularism, expressed
in his observation that “God is dead,” in a way that determined the agenda
for many of Europe’s most-celebrated intellectuals after his death.
Although he was an ardent foe of nationalism, anti-Semitism, and
power politics, his name was later invoked by fascists to advance the very
things he loathed.
"Sometimes people don't want to hear
the truth because they don't want their
illusions destroyed."
~ Friedrich Nietzsche](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/existentialismreport-250608061348-9769924f/85/Existentialism-REPORT-pptx-topic-on-philosophy-10-320.jpg)
![FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, in full Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky,
Dostoyevsky also spelled Dostoevsky, (born November 11 [October 30, Old
Style], 1821, Moscow, Russia—died February 9 [January 28, Old Style], 1881,
St. Petersburg), Russian novelist and short-story writer whose psychological
penetration into the darkest recesses of the human heart, together with his
unsurpassed moments of illumination, had an immense influence on 20th-
century fiction.
Dostoyevsky is usually regarded as one of the finest novelists who ever lived.
Literary modernism, existentialism, and various schools of psychology,
theology, and literary criticism have been profoundly shaped by his ideas.
His works are often called prophetic because he so accurately predicted how
Russia’s revolutionaries would behave if they came to power. In his time he
was also renowned for his activity as a journalist.
If there is no God, everything is
permitted.
Fyodor Dostoevsky](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/existentialismreport-250608061348-9769924f/85/Existentialism-REPORT-pptx-topic-on-philosophy-11-320.jpg)
![Edmund Husserl
Edmund Husserl, (born April 8, 1859, Prossnitz, Moravia, Austrian
Empire [now Prostějov, Czech Republic]—died April 27, 1938, Freiburg im
Breisgau, Ger.), German philosopher, the founder of Phenomenology, a
method for the description and analysis of consciousness through which
philosophy attempts to gain the character of a strict science. The method
reflects an effort to resolve the opposition between Empiricism, which
stresses observation, and Rationalism, which stresses reason and theory,
by indicating the origin of all philosophical and scientific systems and
developments of theory in the interests and structures of the experiential
life. (See phenomenology.)
Experience by itself is not science.
Edmund Husserl](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/existentialismreport-250608061348-9769924f/85/Existentialism-REPORT-pptx-topic-on-philosophy-22-320.jpg)
