The following are my raw notes from the lecture about Existentialism. We have not had a seminar about it so there will be no seminar notes to follow, but I will write a much more detailed post about existentialism in the second semester.
Kirkegaard:
- Contempary of Nietzche
- Hated existence, but suicide would be a sin
- Believed that life was futile/pointless
- Thought that you may as well believe in something, he chose Christianity
- Leap of faith
- Subjective perception of everything
- Nothing is intrinsic
- All you can say is that you are here at the moment - probably
- Husserl's Duck/Rabbit is an example of subjectification:
- The Duck/Rabbit image shows that the problem with perception is intention
- You have to choose which animal you want to see
- Choosing is fundamental of human existence.
Heidegger:
- Student of Husserl
- Thought western civilisation was not sustainable
- Thought we need to go back to nature and away from technology
- Constantly looking towards the future
- The past = guilt and shame
- The present = dread of the future (similar to Freud and Kirkegaard)
- The future = unknown
- Dassein = being
- Each of us has a dassein to deal with the dread of the future/distract us
- The fact that we are here now is pure luck = thrown-ness
Jean-Paul Satre:
- Student of Heidegger
- Took from Heidegger the ideas of being and dread
- Hell is other people - wrote a play called No Exit based on this belief
- Thought you should live in good faith by being brutally honest about everything.
Existential dilema = to what extent do you collaborate with something you find morally repugnant?
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