Existentialism For Dummies

To understand Sartre you need to understand how it is he wrote that book. He has a way of constantly contradicting himself, then explaining the contradiction with another contradiction and that with another, essentially making a full circle and explaining one of the contradiction with the original contradiction. That explains itself why it is that I think I can explain Sartre in only a few pages, but always fail, because to explain even a small piece of his philosophy in a few pages is to appear as if I’m making a direct non-contradictory claim, which is self-defeating. That is why his book is so long while seemingly only containing a small amount of “philosophical material”. For every point he makes (whether it be about his specific use of the term ‘nothingness’, bad faith, authenticity, being-in-the-world, being-for-others and freedom itself) he has to use that style of contradiction.

It is necessary because his philosophy is about more than all those semi-concrete points is about, what I can for lack of better words, call a new perspective. My understanding of that perspective is always fleeting, because it isn’t what I’m used to. But, perhaps to give an insight into it let me give a response to the discussion going on in this thread about determinism. In the book itself (which is all that matters) Sartre never says what his view on determinism is, what he does do is show why it doesn’t matter. We are equally free whether or not determinism exists and we are equally free whether or not we believe determinism exists. To even discuss determinism one must use a perspective antithetical to the one I have so much difficulty explaining. The term ‘determinism’ is loaded with cultural ideas; such as the idea that there was a world with differentiated objects for billions of years before human life emerged and that all events including the emergence of human life are due to causal principals. Then from their one only needs to ask if those causal principals allow some randomness. The only reason he even needed to mention determinism is to make it clear that he wasn’t even speaking in that sphere of thought and for one other reason:

Some people confuse the idea that everything may be determined with the idea that certain determined things or events can always be known. If one believes that, then they are more susceptible to making choices in bad faith - based on the idea that what others are telling him to believe must be so, because they are already determined and known. But, everything one knows, one chooses to know - if one hears someone tell them something as if it were fact they can always choose to see it as fiction.

Think of it this way, if a powerful being knew the future of Earth for the next one hundred years and was outside of Earth and any influence on Earth then we would never know of him and it would be irrelevant if he wrote or let’s say “carved” a prediction of the next hundred years on a material for which the act of carving can be dated. Then one hundred years later he came to Earth and let scientists date his prediction and verify it. The knowledge of that would take nothing from our freedom. In fact if he had been exerting control in various ways without our knowledge that would have taken nothing away from our freedom, in fact isn’t that example the equivalent of saying that we are governed by forces we don’t understand?

Perhaps one may laugh at that idea today, because we understand the laws of physics, but before the laws of physics were formulated people were in fact governed by forces they didn’t understand. But, I’m speaking in a historical context; a modern person who simply is so under-educated to have never heard of the laws of physics is also governed by forces he doesn’t understand, but that only matters to him if he should do something stupid and later realize that it could have been avoided.

The issue that I still am unfamiliar with is how much this difficult to explain perspective that Sartre is using was influenced by Husserl’s phenomenology and Heidegger in general. I was reading out of order, I read Sartre without knowing the historical contexts he was speaking from - anything about his influences. So just like Gamer discovered he knew about existentialism before he knew that the term applied to his knowledge, I have to wonder how many concepts from Sartre that I attempt to explain using my terminology already have readymade terms. Perhaps this difficult to explain perspective that he speaks from is actually called the phenomenological approach. Which refers to what Moreno was saying:

human existence has no essential meaning as far as the big picture…the only real meaning is that there is none…
very pleasant thought…from the dummy

Ah, OK, I could have known that I suppose. I asked because it seemed like either you were melacholi or I had missed some part of a dialogue between you and me.

By seeing them as essence rather than ‘something’ that was not at all determined by past behavior.

Really?

Cause your posts give the impression that such a thought upsets you. You always seem to be looking for something.

of course my beliefs about reality upset me…now I need to find my way in a world without meaning…very upsetting…

If there was meaning then you would have to find it. And you would have to find the correct meaning when presented with various meanings.

In a world without meaning, there is nothing to find. That makes life much easier.

what do you believe

It makes life much easier, but not necessarily more pleasant, - or pleasing.

Not by a longshot. O:)

You cannot know that since you either live in a world which has meaning or you live in world without meaning. You have never experienced the other state and therefore you are unable to compare.

If you are comparing, then it is a reality compared to a fantasy.

I wasn’t really trying to compare. Why does meaning even matter when trying to evaluate pleasure or pleasantness?

I was just making the point that an easier life isn’t necessarily equivalent, nor should be equated with the amount of pleasure or pleasantness that it provides. O:)

Generally speaking, to act in good faith one must give others essence as they must give everything else.

There is no “blank slate” freedom from past behavior. From the specific perspective Sartre’s using the issue is only that one must know their past behavior for it to be something they can try to overcome, but by knowing it one isn’t free from it, and if one doesn’t know their past behavior then it is nothing and one can’t overcome nothing. We aren’t free from anything in reality or reality itself, we are only free to choose reality. But, once again I was speaking from a specific perspective; when I, personally, observe others I see them usually ignorant of reality and the past (the reality I choose to know), but still very much subjected to it.

For schnitzel, homey. I think the best way to tie a knot around existentialists is by their descriptive work on actual human existence. The part where we disagree is about existentialism being either (1) logical, or (2) normative. Logic works by taken-for-granted rules, or laws, where proofs and things follow deductively from them. As for the normative side of things… well, how should you live if you’re a existentialist? And why?

I Think I tend to agree, I am just not sure that’s what Sartre thought.

That’s like asking what/how to paint if you happen to be holding a brush. The answer is: something/now.

Normative, for those who would otherwise study the brush, bristle by bristle, and forget to paint anything while there’s still time. Or stand around waiting for someone to tell them what to paint, or wait for an audience to paint for…thinking that without an audience, what’s the point? WHY should I paint THAT and for WHO?

How do you cash in this analogy, or how and why do you “paint” with an existentialist viewpoint? Exercise your freedom. Bind yourself to laws of your OWN making. How do you make laws? Find the natural laws within. At risk of sounding clumsy, I define it as those laws hidden in plain view in your deepest heart, woven into one’s being, that which hold literary or aesthetic value, thus yielding the highest lasting positive impact when adhered to. How did it get that way? Not relevant, although it could all be Darwinian. Point is, you get to decide what has meaning, but not totally, most of that is decided for you. You get to decide whether or not you are in touch with it. Like the quote in my signature says.

Socially, we should live assuming that others have the same freedoms, and we should integrate this knowledge into our own set of laws and behaviors, to further define our laws.

In regard to logic, I see it as similar to Des Cartes. You start with the axiom “there exists” and move outward geometrically*, empirically & rationally, until you conclude, quite logically, that you are an existentialist, and that you know, more or less, how you might as well live.

Existentialism is more of a playing field itself, and the strategies on the field, and the science of game, may be better served with a Spinozan point of view. In other words, other philosophies are still worthwhile, but Existentialism is the king daddy.

*don’t ask

One time on actor’s studio sean penn was asked his favorite word. He said: courage.

I thought: fuckin’ A.

Courage is flipping the bird at the heavens and the void inside you. We are free to rebel against the human condition. Courage is the way to do it. Courage under fire, courage unto death. Why is this a fuckin A moment for me? I don’t know. But it’s freeing as all hell and as pure as 2+2.

Gamer, would you say those two quotes show an apt comparison between an element of our descriptions of existentialism, despite our difference in terminology?

I think that the question, “WHY would I paint that?” is an important one—but I certainly don’t want that to make me the person who studies the brush, bristle by bristle, never actually painting anything. Maybe this is a conflict…? Or maybe it just requires a day-planner, and not outright rejecting justificatory questions (like “WHY?”), as if existentialism were basically the fickle philosophy of teenage girls, who just do and like things whimsically.

Here’s a beef that I might have with existentialism, generally. Two staple concepts are at odds with each other: (a) authenticity, and (b) “existence preceeds essence”. When I paint, I want to be expressing who I am—true to myself, authentic. It’s like Nietzsche said; he said that he writes because he’s pregnant, with ideas, and he’s got to get them out. On the other hand, existentialists imply that there’s NO essential guidance you can find by looking within yourself, because essence doesn’t preceed anything. What am I supposed to be authentic in relation to?

This makes sense to me. (But side point: Binding yourself to a law of your own making actually sounds a bit more like my boy Immanuel Kant). But anyways, here’s my beef now…

Existentialists don’t usually think there’s any ultimate meaning/purpose in existence. (I take an “ultimate meaning/purpose” to just be anything for which it does not make sense to continue to ask the “WHY?” question. An ultimate meaning/purpose is one that is it’s own justification). So when I go searching in plain view in my deepest heart, whatever, that stuff is to me going to be an ultimate meaning/purpose. —Not because I am a god, but just because that stuff justifies what I do no differently than believing in a God would. It is the ultimate foundation of what I do. I build off of it. It’s essence.

Maybe we’re on the same page.

Here’s what I’m thinking, in a nutshell: If there’s really nothing in the heavens, and nothing but a void inside me… then there’s nothing left over to flip the bird to either one. But obviously, I don’t want to be counting bristles either way.

Moreno, Just in case your doubt is because of Sartre’s later work, let me mention that I was only describing what were Sartre’s views as he was writing Being and nothingness.

I’d like to use an analogy to show the difference between how I know that book and how one who had a thorough philosophical education may know that book. I know I wrote a lot, perhaps it would only be necessary to thoroughly read the paragraph in bold and the last paragraph. I simply wish to show why I may be considered to have a certain form of expertise on this subject and why my word on this matter may have more validity than one might expect (and I would also note that this subject and it alone is what I would claim I have philosophical expertise on).

I’ll first describe the differences between myself and the one who had a thorough philosophical education. The latter person studied many prior philosophers before arriving and Being and Nothingness, in many cases they were asked to do so at what I would consider an unnatural pace such as just a few years, for whatever philosophical work they read they were asked to read/hear a modern philosophers (one who had also had original studied philosophy in the same way) views including in many cases their instructor. They often did not have time to decide what they think of each philosophical work and simply had to defer to contemporary philosophers/their instructor, they certainly did not have the time to integrate the philosophies into a more broad perception of who they are. Then when they came to Being and Nothingness they had to levels of bias working against them, the fact that they may be inclined to take every piece they read and relate it to their vast prior education and the fact that with that book as the others they will be asked to study it while reading/listening to a contemporary philosopher’s/instructor’s views.

But, that is just their initial education. Those modern philosophers who would claim expertise may have spent the next forty years in continued study of that book, but I think we can both agree that many of the biases they were given while initially studying the book stayed with them and kept them from seeing the book in an entirely authentic manner (you may note the irony).

This is how I learned about Being and Nothingness. About three years ago ninety percent of what I had read was fiction and I had never read a complete philosophical work or modern philosopher’s review of one or heard an instructor’s views on one. In fact the only philosopher I had ever read was Dennet. I also simply knew nothing of the subject of the history of philosophy. The relevant background I had was years of spending hours at a time whenever I got the chance reflecting on philosophical concepts. But, it should be noted that they were antagonistic to Sartre’s views (at the time all I knew was that Sartre insisted we must find our own meaning and I still thought that meaning was set in stone and only need to be found, long some long lost treasure). But, I was drawn to his book after sampling many others simply because the writing style drew me in. For some reason I appreciated that it was not written in a way that would insult one’s intelligence, but went right into abstraction and rarely left.

I had to learn that book as if I was learning a new language; it was that incomprehensible at first. I read the book at least four times (throughout about one and a half of the next two years) before I ever discussed it with anyone. I couldn’t help but have an intuitive understanding of it after reading it that many times with nothing but the text itself for and a relatively few words from the translator. Sartre convinced me that that I wasn’t going to find the truth hidden somewhere. Sartre gave me a good way of explaining this dynamic of truth to myself. I still didn’t know the meaning of many of the words he was using including all the Greek and German for which the translator rarely bothered to translate and I never looked them up. So explaining the book to others has always been difficult, but one can be assured that I know what I’m saying.

The analogy between me and the one with the formal education in Sartre can be made between one with a formal education in the English language itself and one with an informal. Let’s say there are two adults from a culture mostly isolated from Western ideas. With a language that is about as far remove from English as possible. So neither had any formal western education. An English professor (let’s say an American) moved there and spent five years tutoring one of them; ‘A’. He taught him formal English and that was all that they spoke to each other. And he taught him an enormous vocabulary and the historical contexts of many of the English language’s words as well as the history of the language itself. And perhaps he even taught him some aspects of the cultures of the English speaking people, both historically and modern.

Then the other person; ‘B’, moved to America and lived and worked with a family that owned a small business, in a Midwest town that was mostly culturally homogeneous for whom they could be said to reflect the stereotypical American culture (I know that’s vague). He never learned to read and they never bothered to tell him much about the rest of the outside world. He became fluent in the exact form of English that was spoken in that family’s neighborhood and learned practically everything about their culture, simply by living and working amongst them.

Now let’s say that many people in the culture that both people are from immigrated to America including ‘A’. Perhaps a different part of the country than where ‘B’ was living. So ‘B’ moved to be with them. Let’s say they were the first of their culture to get established in America. So basically they had to heavily rely on the education that ‘A’ and ‘B’ had gotten. Both ‘A’ and ‘B’ could help teach them English, and translate for them initially. ‘A’ would be useful knowing how to read and he could teach others to read and tell them all the historical knowledge he has (should they be interested). ‘B’ would simply just know the culture through his prior emersion and would be of much more use. For people unfamiliar with the culture and who must do their best to find a place to live and work he would have knowledge that ‘A’ simply couldn’t help them with. And if someone from their culture should have a cultural misunderstanding and go to them for help, only ‘B’ would really be able to explain to them the problem (no matter how hard ‘A’ might try).

Stu-bones,

You are the resident Sartre aficionado. I honestly recognize that you know more about B/N than the rest here. But you don’t need to make your magnum opus a proof it. It’s showing off.

I sincerely must thank you for that comment. By the way, I’ve long known that if I ever had a question about Kant you’re the one to ask.

In fact, I would be interested in knowing what influences Kant had on Nietzsche, Husserl and Heidegger, should you care to get into that or give me a link.

yes

Yours is a great description of the vexation of being a thinking human.

The paradox, the unscratched itch, the pissedoffness or (if you’re lucky like me) the free-floating, drowning terror of having to consider that there’s no God and no soul within me.

Existentialism is saying it doesn’t matter. Because what’s left over, the ONLY thing left over, is this experiential fact of flipping the bird, in the wanting to, and in the doing of so many things…and there’s a measure of peace to be had in doing, having done, and knowing what game you’re playing.

Whatever the heavens did and are doing to lock us in our prisons and torture us with our vicious infinite-regression intellects, it has given us an out, it has given us existentialism.

If there is a God, he would need to be an existentialist.