Thank you for the invite. Just a little about M, I am a Registered Nurse of 13 years and getting my B.A. in creative writing. I already have several short stories, many essays editorials, poems-many, and book reaction papers-classics literature;Fydor Dostoevsky, Franz Kafka, Albert Camus, Kurt Vonnegut, and many others. I own, we all own, the group site The Existentialists, which is also a literature, history, politics, Sociology, neuroscience-huge, experience, anything. Here is my interpretation of my definition of Existentialism, as it is not a philosophy, but a way of life and has been here since the beginning of history. Heraclitus the grandfather and the only true source of education of it. Kafka, Nietzsche, and Dostoevsky too. Sartre, Heddinger, and the likes promoted its structure and form to be presented in a more acceptable and understanding way. Nothing to be taken from them. Here is my essay: Discussion on origin and substance of Existentialism: Always go too far, because thats where youll find the truth — Albert Camus First of all lets start with a full understanding into the definition of Existentialism; A group of attitudes that emphasizes existence rather than essence and sees the inadequacy of human nature to explain the enigma of the universe as the basic philosophical question. The term is so broadly and loosely used that as exact definition is not possible. It had its beginnings in the writings Soren Kierkegaard. Martin Heidegger and is important in its formulation, Jean-Paul Sartre did the most to give it form and popularity. Existentialism has found art and literature to be unusually effective methods of expression; in the novels of Franz Kafka, Dostoyevsky, Camus, and Simone de Deauvoir. Also in the plays of Sartre and Samuel Beckett. I follow Kafkas view and exploration of existentialism. I will elaborate more on this later. Basically, the existentialist assumes that existence precedes essence- that the significant fact is we and things in general exist but these things have no meaning for us except as we can create meaning through acting upon them. Sartre claims the fundamental truth lies within Descartes formula: “ I think, therefore, I exist.” the philosophy is concerned with the personal commitment of this existing individual in the human situation. It attempts to codify the irrational aspect of human nature, to objectify, non-being or nothingness and see it as a universal fear, to distrust concepts, and to emphasize experimental concreteness. The existentialists point of departure is human beings immediate awareness if their situation. A part of this is a sense of meaninglessness in the outer world; this meaninglessness produces discomfort, anxiety, loneliness in the face of limitations, and a desire to invest experience with meaning by acting upon the world, although efforts to act in a meaningless, “ absurd” world lead to anguish, greater loneliness, and despair. This freedom and responsibility are the sources for their most intense anxiety. Such a philosophy can result is nihilism and hopelessness. I want to emphasize the word “ can”, both nihilism and hopelessness do not have to necessarily be pointed characteristics associated with existentialism. The existential view can and does assert the possibility of improvement. Most pessimistic systems find the source of their despair in the fixed imperfections of human nature or of the human context; the existentialist, however, denies all absolute principles and holds that human nature is fixed only in that we have agreed to recognize certain human attributes; it is therefore, subject to change if human beings can agree on other attributes or even change be a single person if that person acts authentically in contradiction to the collective accepted moral principles. Hence, for the existentialist, the possibilities of altering human nature and society are unlimited, but at the same time, human beings can hope for aid in making such alterations only from within themselves. Okay. I think we can pretty much agree, on most, if not all of these factors and related conditions which comprise the definition. However, I recently took a greater and holistic look into the beginnings of existentialisms dynamic, misleading, and often at times misunderstood elements which make it up. One important piece youll find is in Darwins theory of Evolution. Some would see it as counter-intuitive for the fact that science uses a term called essentialism, similar to existentialism, but only in terminology of the terms not in the contextual meaning of them. Essentialism is determined by a set of characteristics and properties which make something what it is. According to essentialism, things are defined by their “ essences” and that “essence” is necessary for their existence. Existentialism, on the other hand, is similar to this only in that a set of characteristics renders existence; existentialism proposes that a persons actions and free will determine their development and meaning to exist. In short the sciences deduce that what a thing is made up of “ is” determines what it “ does”. On the other hand existentialist place it the other way, it is what we “ do” that determines our “ existence” or who we are. Although Darwins Theory of Evolution seems to contrast with the core beliefs in biologists interpretation of essentialism, it is strongly relevant and relatable to existential thought. Darwins belief was that there existed “ a struggle for existence” that goes along the same vein as the existentialists, that there is a struggle for finding meaning and purpose to exist. He writes, “I should premise that I use the term struggle in a large and metaphorical sense, including dependence of one being on another, and including (which is more important) not only the life of the individual, but success in leaving progeny” (Darwin 133). Darwin also states that this struggle not only applies to the individual’s existence but to the legacy they leave as a result of their existence. To me, this could easily translate into existential thought, as it requires the individual to act in order to exist. Darwin’s theory proposes a life that is random, purposeless, and having no distinct plan, which is similar to some views of existential thought that condemns life as meaningless. Another important piece you will find and had influenced several of the creators and authors of existentialism is Ralph Waldo Emerson. He was a American essayist, poet, and lecturer, who led the transcendental movement in the mid 19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism. This occurred to me while I was reading and re-reading the definition and relating his term of the Oversoul to Kafkas ( the indestructible). In his essay called American Scholar and Self Reliance he elaborates what this means. Emerson writes the self in question is the deepest, most primal and impersonal human nature, a manifestation of the monistic force generating the universe rather than private lunacy or savage animality. This reliance, writes Buell, requires not impulsive assertion of personal will but attending to what the whole man tells you. Unsurprisingly, Emerson did not find examples of such flawless self-reliance in any actual persons, since what he seems to have intended was an ideal, somewhat Rousseauvian, connection with the roots of our being, uncorrupted by the hypostatizations of transient culture, a connection expressive of the universes deepest tendencies as manifested in the quasi-mystical now moments of human existence-what Heidegger and Virginia Woolf were to treat as revelatory moments of being. Friedrich Nietzsche discovered Ralph Waldo Emerson in the 1860s, as a schoolboy . . . became an immediate and, as it turned out, lifelong enthusiast of the Americans work [and] quickly discovered his crucial philosophical affinity with Emerson: a dream of individual power set against what Emerson called conformity, the common or official beliefs that surround us.2 And beyond this, Buell traces Emersonian influence on Whitman, Santayana, Ralph Ellison, and many others. In his essay the American Scholar Emerson states, he needs an original, self-reliant, creative relation to the universe. At the very same time Emerson was articulating these thoughts in New England, Kierkegaard was expounding similar thoughts from Denmark in an attack against an historical Christianity that he found incompatible with faith. Turning Plato upside down to view truth as becoming rather than being, Kierkegaard saw reality as wholly dialectical: Let it be a word, a proposition, a book, a man, a fellowship, or whatever you please: as soon as it is proposed to make it serve as a limit, in such a way that the limit is not itself dialectical, we have superstition and narrowness of spirit. Emerson himself could have said this, and in fact did say it many times: This one fact the world hates; that the soul becomes! For Kierkegaard, Truth is Subjectivity: that which really happened (the past) is not necessarily reality. . . Like Emerson, Kierkegaard writes at the inception of a movement later to be identified as existentialism, a product of Romantic subjectivity that rejects hypostatization of the past in favor of the authenticity of the ongoing moments of being that constitute becoming, of living in the creative power of the present moment out of which you make an intelligible life. Religion begins to be transformed into religious experience, playing down history, churches, and doctrines while authenticating itself as subjectivity and, except for the literalism of fundamentalism, is henceforth to be treated by advanced theologians as psychology. Although Emerson was willing to countenance (for heuristic purposes) the supra-historical force of an Oversoul, a putative world-spirit that lay within and authenticated human being, Kierkegaard fled from an Hegelianism that violated his deepest sense of truth as subjectivity. This powerful existentialist strain, sweeping its way through Nietzsche, Freud, Sartre, and many others, reached its apogee (or nadir) in the writings of Heidegger. In Being and Time, Heidegger carried Emersonian subjectivity and self-reliance to a point of new extremity. If Emerson had rejected historical Christianity as a series of rectifications that destroyed the authority of subjectivity, Heidegger went even further-rejecting not only the Catholicism of his youth but most of the Western philosophical tradition because of its conception of reality as fixed substances rather than psyches existing in time. However, through all of this there is not ever a mention of Emerson being a fore runner with the inception of this new philosophy, which is driven by a passion against religious and cultural dogmas that reinforce stasis like thinking and conformity. Although he is indeed a co-father of existentialism with Kierkegaard, for some reason he has not generally been acknowledged as such. Even in Robert Denoon Cummings Starting Point, a philosophical history of existentialism, Emerson cannot be found in the index, and the major emphasis there is on Kierkegaard and Heidegger. And how, in this undeniably existential light, is it possible for us to understand the seemingly numinous Oversoul, always hovering in the wings but, like the Holy Ghost, impossible to photograph? For a thinker who compulsively swept the Augean stables of moonshine (while providing plenty of his own), what can we make of this seeming inconsistency, this throwback into spooks (even though Emerson didnt mind being inconsistent) ? I recently joined a Stoicism group and found many good writings and ideas. But what I discovered is that this philosophy is full of absolutes. The philosophy principles state you must do A. in order to receive B. Furthermore, you have to believe in specifics without exception. I have noticed this standardization within many philosophys except one; existentialism. Consequently, existentialism is the opposite of philosophy in that it is only through growth and change that we begin “to know thyself” in the process of finding and identifying youre own unique and individual principles of integrity and character. I believe these spiritual awakenings, not related to religious in any way, does not lie in any destination , but lies waiting in hope and will through the journey. It is this “hope” or “will” that provides the basic definition to Franz Kafkas “ the indestructible”. Thus fulfills your soul with earned essence validating your existence, to yourself first and then the universe; to let it be known that you were here in the everlasting “now”. Its much more than that but that is for you to puzzle together. To piece out youre identification and meaning of existentialism. Through your own process of finding your own way you begin to view life and the meaning of it, not only in the absurd, but in a new enlightenment of “being” and transcendentalism; beyond self-actualization. As I stated earlier existentialism has no ridged dogmas or superstitions to follow, and were the most flexible of philosophys. In fact we go against rules if it interferes with our striving to honor ones principles or values and existence. To exist you have to stand for something greater than what conventional rules of society entails. Rules are arbitrary. Everything in life is provisional. “We regarded any situation as raw material for our joint efforts and not as a factor conditioning them: we imagined ourselves to be wholly independent agents. ... We had no external limitations, no overriding authority, no imposed pattern of existence, We created our own links with the world, and freedom was the very essence of our existence” (Simone de Beauvoir, 1963). I follow Kafkas the indestructible in that as long as we are above ground and able to continue we are indestructible in our quest; our “hope” in will and striving to continue when all else is against us. We march on into the unknown to find that meaning to test our resolve of courage. I am starting to understand that it is not so much about about finding self meaning in a meaningless world, but rather the hope in love and truth of meaning. The nature of meaningless is irrelevant, even though it is ubiquitous. This makes finding meaning a challenge and there lies “the indestructible”- hope, determination, will, and most of all love. Love can never be conquered and overcomes and trumps any bad or so called “evil”. [Tis dearness only that gives everything its value.] As a consequence, even if you searched your whole life and never found the meaning that satisfied you, it will appear to you through patience; it will become clear to you that it was in the journey, rather than in the destination or lack of. Kafka recognizes and refers to patience quite frequently through riddles of abstractions. I feel it is this unique element which has to be addressed as an element of the philosophy, and a crucial one at that. The philosophy is ethereal like wisdom and once youve obtained it does not mean you get to keep it. You may not even know you have obtained till years later. One has to experience it, either through identification in active reading of literature in the existential author; Camus, Kafka, Dostoevsky, Huxley, Zamyatin, etc. And in the application of refusal or non-compromise of your core principles and ideals,whether it involves risk or loss. Such as risking stake in a work place duty which violates youre own moral imperatives, virtue, and self worth. Or adhering to arbitrary and unsubstantial rules or laws from any Government or State agency. It is through these external collisions of conflict with the internal authentic and unambiguous self that you begin to become, to exist. Even at the expense of catastrophic consequences of standing up for your individualitys importance of value and virtue; this is all part of the journey to creating who you are and what you are. What you earn is integrity, honor, and self-respect for you, not for anyone else. You have to respect and love yourself before you can give of yourself. And it is these characteristics that no man or god can take from you. I believe as long as I have a presence in the “here” and “now” I have eternity. The past is meaningless and the future unwritten: I create and re-create my essence in the here and now. “A man is like a novel: until the very last page you dont know how it will end. Otherwise it wouldnt be worth reading.” ― Yevgeny Zamyatin, We By Mark Miller Reference: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Overcoming the Oversoul William Harmon, A HANDBOOK T PART TWO: As I am learning and understanding more of this complicated way of creating life, a real live and living existence I had to provide further review and key concepts which go along with this essay: As i have presented in numerous essays existentialism is not really a philosophy, it is a new type of philosophizing. In philosophy you are a spectator you read and observe form a distance, no involvement. Right? Existentialism is not about passiveness, you are the actor , the player involved by participating. Thus, in understanding this concept you can never really understand existentialism if he/she preserves the role of spectator. The existentialist world is in fact a stage and all those who really want to know the doctrine for themselves will have to live in this world as players,each with his own exists and entrances, each with his own drama of life to enact. what does this men? Now this is a key concept for you to work on your own, to really get this you have to place yourself in a conflicting or otherwise situation which there are no answers, no help, or way out through use past experience and learning. The environment and context are foreign. Which could involve placing yourself in a dangerous and possibly deadly predicament. But what becomes of you is being, who becomes his own “truth”; alive and authentic. For it was you who grabbed down deep into your true being and acquired the will the strive to find a way. “The Indestructible” In what what way? Maybe a way out? A way in? It is for you to figure that out; as I elucidated before you are the actor, there is no correct way or codes or rules. When an existentialist chooses values, he cannot choose evil as such. He must choose good, because , because by his very act of voluntary, personal choice, he is affirming a worthwhile value. The good for the existentialist if always positive affirmation of the self. Evil lies in following the crowd..However, the act of free choice involves personal responsibility for its commission. Do no harm, take no liberty or property away from anyone. Furthermore, the student must not be shielded from his consequences, it is those consequences that play a role in how he will choose to act. To developed self-reliance as the keys to character, the student must experience extreme loneliness and frustration. There are no moral codes to follow here. Nor guides of actions. You must look within yourself for these when placed in a situation where the solution to way out lies inside you. There is no mom or dad to call, or money to rely on, or even hope. To take advantage of outside help only serves to takes you farther away from you, and closer to non-existence. Most Americans do not exist they are not alive nor are they dead, they are neither. That is the purpose of existentialism to observe our selves in form of truth. The existential teacher has three goals 1. the treatment of subject manner in such a way as to discover its truth in free association-Basically by discussing it after providing a generalized view of it. 2.autonomous functioning of the mind in such a way to produce in his charges a type of character that is free, charitable, and self moving 3.Evidence that his student hold something to be true because they have convinced themselves that it is true. Not that truth is revealed, but rather it has been brought out afresh by the individual-He/she finds it through the first two. Man is always what he is yet to be; and the true human is the one whose face is toward the future, whose life is yet to be made. Man is not a stone or a plant and cannot rest his case on the fact that he is present in the midst of the world; man is man only by his refusal to be passive, by the urge which thrusts him toward things with the aim of dominating and shaping them; for him, to exist is to remake existence, to live is to will to live. Not like in dominating animals or living entities, but dominating fears, conflicts, obstacles. By-Mark Miller
Posted on: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 23:47:55 +0000
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