existentialism

On Being An Existentialist
Stuart Greenstreet chooses to tell us how to become authentically existentialist.

Then it collided with “the Sixties” here in America. And I was hooked. In part because I had just gone through my own tumultuous experiences in Vietnam. Existentialism, along with Marxism managed to sweep a lot of us into an entirely radical frame of mind. A profound manifestation of dasein as I came to interpret it.

Then my own main complaint…

A “school of philosophy” is one thing, bringing it down out of the intellectual clouds and noting its relevance pertaining to lives that are often in conflict regarding value judgments, another thing altogether.

This is perhaps why the book that had [by far] the most profound impact on me is this one: amazon.com/BLOOD-OTHERS-Sim … 0394724119

Why? Because life doesn’t get much more existential than in the midst of a world war where so much is at stake if the resistance against Hitler had failed. In fact, that is often the case. If one lives a life that is basically unchanged year in and year out, there is often little to test your own value judgments. Only the most hardcore objectivists manage to explain everything in terms of their own arrogant dogmas.

As for those, “key concepts: ‘anguish’, ‘bad faith’, ‘facticity’, ‘commitment’, and ‘authenticity’”? Is there any philosophy of life able to pin them down…essentially? Indeed, the reason so many folks I have come across rejected existentialism is precisely because, in my view, they insist that they can be. Just anchor your Self to one or another objectivist “Ism”.

Only I’m also quite clear that this is no less applicable to me as well.

Next up, however:

ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 1&t=176529
ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 1&t=194382
ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 5&t=185296

Unless, of course, I’m wrong.

Colin Wilson As Hydra
Vaughan Rapatahana examines the many heads of the English Existentialist.

As though, what, eventually philosophers might actually come around to grasping the optimal inner state that all rational men and women are obligated to pursue?

Got that? Okay, bring it out into the world of conflicting value judgments and explore it with us in terms of the actual behaviors that you have chosen of late.

Start here: youtu.be/6o1ztDRyCMc?si=-N2upu-_aLJwRkk7

So, it seems to revolve in large part around the limitations of reason. And the extent to which you commense “reasoning” from the perspective of “I” or “we”. Or in how the two become intertwined historically and culturally. Both subjectively in terms of cerebral pursuits and subjunctively in terms of intuitive or emotional reactions.

Would that we could all be Vulcans then? On the other hand, that doesn’t make the either/or world any less applicable regarding much of what we do from day to day in our interactions with others. And Star Trek rarely focused much attention on the Vulcan mind and moral conflagrations, did it? Only that Spock and Kirk and all the rest of them aboard the Enterprise were on a mission to rid the galaxy of collectivism.

And while there may well be “more to life” than can be pinned down by philosophers and scientists, what exactly might that entail given this or that set of circumstances? And, again, along with the magnificence of nature comes this part:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_earthquakes
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_l … _eruptions
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_t … l_cyclones
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tsunamis
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_landslides
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fires
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deadliest_floods
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_t … ore_deaths
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_diseases
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extinction_events

Of course: theoretically.

Colin Wilson As Hydra
Vaughan Rapatahana examines the many heads of the English Existentialist.

We’ll need a context of course.

From my frame of mind, this frame of mind resolves largely around the assumption that existentialism provides you with considerably more options in living your life. With the moral objectivists, it’s just one more rendition of “what would Jesus do”? Ever and always it comes down to having no other option but that which most of these folks…

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r … traditions
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p … ideologies
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_s … philosophy

…subscribe to. Their own or another rendering of “or else”. Some being more adamant here than others. In other words, you might wind up in a reeducation camp. Or a gulag. Or even in Hell itself.

On the other hand, some existentialists will rally around the option they call an “authentic life”. Alas, in my view, we’ll need a context there as well.

So, is this or is this not another rendition of Nietzsche’s Übermensch? God’s dead but what’s to stop us from mimicking Him as best we can in dealing with the flocks of sheep, the masses, the multitudes, the herds, the rabble.

As for those “objective values of existence”, well, Mr. Existentialist Romantic, let’s bring them down out of the philosophical clouds.

Then the part where Wilson is described as a “mystic” in turn. Cue William Blake?

Introspection? In other words, mystics are “somehow” able to convince themselves mentally, emotionally and psychologically that given just how grim and precarious life can be on this side of the grave, there surely must be something else “out there” to anchor their “intrinsic self” to. Maybe not God exactly but certainly not oblivion.

OK this went from a poor second hand source where introspection is in other words… or mystics are actually what follows above.

Maybe this is a kind of brainstorming thread. I probably don’t get the culture.

Colin Wilson As Hydra
Vaughan Rapatahana examines the many heads of the English Existentialist.

All I can do here is ask others if they think they understand what he is suggesting that Wilson is himself conveying with this “New Existentialism”. Cite particular examples – experiences – from your own life that might illustrate the text for us.

Alas, from my own perspective, clarity is precisely what we can never hope to achieve in regard to the outsider’s [or even the insider’s] value judgments. Unless, in regard to particular sets of behaviors involving conflicting goods, someone here can provide us with a “rigid logical progression” to an objective morality.

Again, however, “peak experiences” in regard to what set of circumstances? And then the part where ethicists attempt to pin down the optimal behaviors given their own subjective/subjunctive understanding of the world around them. And, of course, those who go beyond their own set of assumptions and insist that others must accept them too.

One can’t help but wonder how that might have been applicable to Adolph Hitler and to all the other alleged “moral monsters” down through the ages who were instead convinced that their value judgments reflected the most rational and virtuous of world views.

Now all we need is a world where the countless “peak experiences” among objectivists did not precipitate one or another inquisition or crusade or jihad or death camp or gulag or uprising or revolution.

Cue the Philosopher Kings?

You would like people to interpret Wilson through the writing of this other person and give examples from their own lives?

Now all we need is a world where the countless “peak experiences” among objectivists did not precipitate one or another inquisition or crusade or jihad or death camp or gulag or uprising or revolution.

Cue the Philosopher Kings?
[/quote]
Generally speaking I don’t see Wilson as espousing objective morals. He seemed interested in what one could possibly experience. Also, I can’t really see him as a system builder, but someone who was curious about peripheral people in society, people who saw things differently and from a variety of perspectives. He was also very curious in what would have been called then ‘altered states.’ Existentialism in general is not about objective values, though some existentialists promoted certain values, but otherwise it was seen as each person’s project, if they chose to engage in it, to come up with their own, subjective meanings and values. Wilson, compared to Sartre, for example, has no organized position. He’s a collector of experiences and ideas.

But if you’re going to critique his ideas and Maslow’s you might as well read the originals. In a thread nearly devoid of discussion, it would be a miracle if someone thought they could decipher what the quoted commentator means when he interprets Wilson. Perhaps you wouldn’t then presume that Maslov’s ideas will lead to a new set of death camps, etc. As far as I know he didn’t believe in objective morals and I doubt he would conflate the tantrums of psychopaths with peak experiences, which are not filled with rage. One can in fact help but wonder what you wondered, but I understand that you wondered that, for some reason.

It’s like the above post was made by taking slips of paper out of a couple of hats, one with people who have written about psychology/philosophy and the other with some philosophical concepts and then giving the slips of paper to a weak AI to somehow tie it all together.

But this forum seems to be all about solitary OP writers posting to mainly themselves - your threads and Lorikeet’s dominating. Good luck with the project.

Iambiguous has been informed that his posts are mainly to himself, and he’s rejected that theory. He thinks that he has thousands of people seriously reading his words, seriously considering his ideas. He doesn’t realize most people click into the thread, read a few words until they realise they’re not interested, and then click out.

We’re doing a very naughty thing by even replying in here. We’re giving him the impression that he DOES have an audience. He’s going to ride on this high for months and months, the high he gets from having real human responses in his threads.

Maybe that’s okay, he deserves to feel good.

That’s interesting. I had no idea what these last couple of posts were meant to be. But if it’s a kind of online memoir of associations, meant mainly for himself, they’re not so strange. They’re like a blog or what once was private: a diary.

Yes, he’s writing mostly for himself, even though he likes to imagine thousands of readers. To me, he must only be writing for himself because he doesn’t write in a way that invites any kind of engagement or conversation with anybody else. I think he actively dislikes conversation and engagement, in fact.

Is an Existentialist Ethics Possible?
Does Sartre’s philosophy give us any clues about how we should live? Yes, says Jonathan Crowe – he showed us that we can’t avoid choosing.

Again, putting this in historical perspective, the early French existentialists were reacting to a world that had endured the First World War, the Great Depression, the Second World War, the Cuban Missile Crisis and “the Sixties”. How could their philosophy not be profoundly existential?

Same with all the rest of us. To what extent has our own life been bursting at seams with any profound and prolonged changes?

Whereas, from my frame of mind, the “for all practical purposes” approach to ethics [and to politics] confronts us with the actual convoluted complexities of human interactions socially, politically and economically. Sure, an ethical theory can be constructed out of a world of words…but how does it fare given the points I raise on this thread: ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 1&t=176529

And [of course] given a particular set of conditions, an actual situation you find yourself in involving conflicting goods.

Exactly. Then, I believe, it’s back to this:

Even today there are any number of, at times, disparate cultures around the globe that have sustained conflicting ethnologies and traditions and conventions and customs and folkways and mores and laws.

Okay, you’re a philosopher, an ethicist. Your task is to take all of that into consideration and “think up” the most rational and virtuous behaviors these dissimilar and ofttimes incompatible cultures ought to practice if they wish to be thought of as rational and virtuous.

In other words…

Even grasping how the world is, is predicated by and large on how your own culture – and your own individual experiences – shaped and molded you over the course of a lifetime into particular sets of assumptions regarding [among other things] these factors:

Then the wrinkles I throw in here pertaining to “the gap”, “Rummy’s rules”, Benjamin Button, dasein, contingency, chance and change and any number of additional postmodern ambiguities.

Is an Existentialist Ethics Possible?
Does Sartre’s philosophy give us any clues about how we should live? Yes, says Jonathan Crowe – he showed us that we can’t avoid choosing.

Which, in my view, reflects the manner in which those like Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir spoke of “authenticity” less in terms of what we believe and more in terms of the recognition that what we believe is often a manifestation of the actual life that we lived. Rather than accepting the belief that, God or No God, mere mortals are able to actually arrive at the most rationally authentic way to live.

Thus, “Hell is other people” because they seek to objectify us in dividing up the is/ought world into “one of us” [the righteous few] vs. “one of them” [the ignoble many].

Again, just as existentialism is grasped by particular individuals out in particular worlds understood in conflicting ways, interacting with others given the Benjamin Button Syndrome, criticisms of it reflect, in turn, the same rooted subjectively in dasein sets of assumptions.

That’s why over and again I’m no less insistent that regarding existential ethics and moral nihilism, even among staunch advocates there are often communication breakdowns.

The complexities, in part, revolve around all the variables in our lives that we simply do not either fully comprehend or control.

Then, for moral nihilists my ilk, this part:

[quote]
If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values “I” can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction…or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then “I” begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically.

Just for the record…

FS knows absolutely nothing at all about my motivations and intentions here. I post mostly as a way to sustain exchanges with a handful of folks I’ve come to know “virtually” over the years. One going all the way back to MSN’s “Friends of Brainstorm” and the Yahoo Philosophy Groups.

Also, while I am actually more than ever into exchanging philosophy [6 to 8 hours a day] my friend Rebecca introduced me to a forum that attempts to explore the world around us at the intersection of science and philosophy. There are only about 6 to 8 regular contributors that I can discern, but the exchanges there reflect precisely the sort of “serious philosophy” that revolves around both the existential parameters of our lives and in respecting each other’s intelligence.

Is an Existentialist Ethics Possible?
Does Sartre’s philosophy give us any clues about how we should live? Yes, says Jonathan Crowe – he showed us that we can’t avoid choosing.

Trust me: easier said than done given just how far removed we can become from grasping the lives of those that are very, very different from our own. This and the manner in which, in regard to our own life, the Benjamin Button Syndrome suggests there are any number of variables that are beyond our fully understanding or controlling. After all, where do you draw the line between what you were indoctrinated to believe as a child and what you have come to believe today as an adult?

And then the part where, given a particular set of circumstances, what you ascribe to be the embodiment of freedom others insist is the embodiment of slavery. Think those who embrace one or another God or No God liturgy. Think capitalism vs. socialism, genes vs. memes, “I” vs. “we”, pragmatism vs. idealism, moral nihilism vs. deontology.

Instead, we have any number of moral objectivists among us who prefer to stay up in the “general description intellectual clouds”.

A philosophical take:

Got that? Okay, again, given a specific context likely to be familiar to most of us here, you tell me how you connect the dots between moral obligations and freedom. Then elaborate on how your own conclusions are derived from unprejudiced truths applicable to all of us essentially rather than subjective assessments rooted existentially in dasein.

Is it possible for religious beliefs to coexist with scientific advancements, or are they fundamentally incompatible? Can faith and reason find common ground in our increasingly technologically advanced world?

I have all of this on my mind.

I could say that a psychologist showed me her tits and ruin her life. Even though she never did.

She could say I forcibly pulled up her shirt and get me kicked out.

That’s trust. We can fuck with people forever …

Trust matters.

I know what I can get away with.

I choose not to do it.

Is an Existentialist Ethics Possible?
Does Sartre’s philosophy give us any clues about how we should live? Yes, says Jonathan Crowe – he showed us that we can’t avoid choosing.

Then back to the real world, however, where men and women construe freedom in very different…often conflicting…ways. Given particular sets of circumstances embedded in very different lives. Then that part where this is, in turn, by and large, the manifestation of dasein.

In other words, what I wouldn’t give to have Sartre right here among us responding to the points I make regarding all of this. How, “for all practical purposes” is existential freedom itself not as likely to bring you to a fractured and fragmented moral philosophy?

Any No God existentialists here who are not themselves confronted with this:

All we need then is a context, right?

Then those like me who suggests that freedom is valuable because there is no getting around the plethora of conflicting goods in any particular human community. What are the options then?

1] might makes right where only those who are able to enforce their own political rendition of freedom prevail
2] right makes might where a consensus is reached in the community – God or No God – and freedom revolves around necessity
3] democracy and the rule of law where politics and elections tend to encourage moderation, negotiation and compromise among even the moral objectivists

And then those who embrace one or another rendition of moral nihilism – sociopaths, the ruling class, the deep state – where motivations and intentions revolve around “me, myself and I”. Around political and economic power, around narcissism.

Got that? Okay, given a moral conflagration of note, you tell me how Sartre might have gone about illustrating his text.

Is an Existentialist Ethics Possible?
Does Sartre’s philosophy give us any clues about how we should live? Yes, says Jonathan Crowe – he showed us that we can’t avoid choosing.

That’s not my point, of course. Instead, I focus on the what I construe to be the profoundly problematic nature of the “self” itself. We discuss things here like “freedom” and “justice” and “equity” and “value judgments”. And clearly what seems “self-evident” to some regarding them seems clearly “preposterous” to others.

And I doubt that those who describe themselves as existentialists are not themselves all up and down the moral and political spectrum. It’s not like one becomes an existentialist and as such gains access to insights needed to pin down good as opposed to evil behaviors.

And then eventually – maybe, perhaps – you can bring this new theory down out of the philosophical clouds and note how it is entirely applicable to, oh, I don’t know, the actual lives we live?

Anyone here with a new theory willing to take a chance that it is self-evidently true in regard to the real world?

After all, all I can do [here] is to challenge those who claim to have access to self-evident moral truths. Why are the self-evident? How can others go about abandoning their own moral philosophies and come instead to grasp the inherent and necessary and clearly obvious nature of your own moral dogmas?

The Golden Rule (respect consent) is in every major culture in history because consent violation self-destructs. Our continued existence speaks for itself. Keep the dialogue going, and we’ll smooth away the rough … dross.

Hasn’t it already? Adaptability was one of the humans most characteristic superpower. We share ingenuity incapable of otherwise not known to anybody but
ourselves with which we share with humanity.

Doomsday devices were better left in the hands of the professionals rather than in just mans mind to think clearer than other-wise rationally rather than un-directed. It’s proponents were ontological proof of said manufacture, the registry, the cereal number, ect. The key factors as to why such proclivities exist is cause they need moral reason as to discern their own foolishness.

Science puts clear these thoughts into laws which they cannot themselves discover how to escape without trepidation. They wind up finding goodness in life and excuse themselves from ever realizing their consciousness was technology and look further into the more undiscovered territory of biology.

To study and analyze pattered existence of technology over due course it does it without leaving this plane of existence first taking with it the storm of foreverness and beyond that even towards oblivion.

Where technogym still is dominate and the mal-manufacture of said bionics superimposed on a vitriolic human base. This creation comes from one source as did every technology.

The explorers didn’t just stop on the basin of the Columbian river. It went on further into that. And than it shot a doggo into space and called it a day. Yet they all seemed too eager as to what was technically progress and biological ontology, (science).

There is no separation from these two. I’d rather choose to benefit all of mankind rather than just a few at a time. Smell me…

Gary Cox interview

Gary Cox is the author of several books on existentialism and general philosophy. The 10th anniversary edition of his bestselling self-help book How to Be an Existentialist was published recently. Gavin Smith talks with him about existentialism.

And the reason for this is not all that hard to discern. No God? Then “all things can be rationalized”. And that’s just pertaining to “what would Jesus do”? on this side of the grave. Crueler still for most atheists, however, is the part where “somehow” they have to handle the part where we die and “I” is obliterated for all of eternity.

And what truth is particular might that be?

Unless, of course, those are precisely the things that you do dwell on. Unless, of course, as an existentialist, you are yourself a cynical, pessimistic nihilist. The point being that existentialism is no less a frame of mind – a philosophy of life – rooted subjectively in dasein rooted in all of the many, many very, very different lives that we can sustain as individuals.

Or, perhaps, there are existentialists among us who insist that, as with IC and his True Christians, there are in fact True Existentialists as well. And I’m not one of them.

This is the part where I remind everyone that while a particular philosophy of life can be very important to some, for others what is of far greater importance is the actual day to day to day circumstances that they encounter in the course of living that life.

So, philosophically, you can be cynical and pessimistic. You can champion nihilism. But if you have a fantastic job, a fantastic family, a fantastic collection of friends, a fantastic collection of music and art…so what? If you are in good health, financially secure, and basically live your fantastic life on your own terms, how hard can it really be to put that grim philosophy on the back burner?