Existentialism
As someone who is trying to understand all that is existentialism, I was wondering how many on here consider themselves to be existentialists?
I got the below descricption of Existentialism from the Americian existentialist, and Sartre transcriber Hazel Barnes. If you dont know her, she has this wonderful 10-part series on existentialsim titled Self Encounter, now on YouTube.
"The function of Existentialists values is to liberate humankind from craven fear, petty anxiety and apathy or tedium. Existentialists values intensify consciousness, arouse the passions, and commit the individual to a cause of action that will engage their total energies."
I got the below descricption of Existentialism from the Americian existentialist, and Sartre transcriber Hazel Barnes. If you dont know her, she has this wonderful 10-part series on existentialsim titled Self Encounter, now on YouTube.
"The function of Existentialists values is to liberate humankind from craven fear, petty anxiety and apathy or tedium. Existentialists values intensify consciousness, arouse the passions, and commit the individual to a cause of action that will engage their total energies."
Comments (219)
where having blessedly died Im being bullied towards rebirth into human form
despite my pleas I be allowed to rest in permanent peace.
My bed wet from sweat, I futilely try to convince my own autistic brain
I want to live, the same traumatized dysthymic brain displacing me
from the functional world.
Within my nightmare a mob encircles me and insists that lifes a blessing,
including mine.
I ask them for the blessed purpose of my continuance. I insist
upon a practical purpose.
Give me a real purpose, I cry out, and its not enough simply to live
nor that its a beautiful sunny day with colorful fragrant flowers!
Im tormented hourly by my desire for emotional, material and creative gain
that ultimately matters naught, I explain. My own mind brutalizes me like it has
a sadistic mind of its own. I must have a progressive reason for this harsh endurance!
Bewildered they warn that one day on my death bed Ill regret my ingratitude
and that Im about to lose my life.
I counter that I cannot mourn the loss of something I never really had
so Im unlikely to dread parting from it.
Frustrated they say that moments from death Ill clamor and claw for life
like a bridge jumper instinctively flailing his limbs as though to grasp at something
anything that may delay his imminent thrust into the eternal abyss.
How can I in good conscience morosely hate my life
while many who love theirs lose it so soon? they ask.
Angry I reply that people bewail the unfair untimely deaths of the young whove received early reprieve
from their life sentence, people who must remain behind corporeally confined
yet do their utmost to complete their entire life sentenceeven more if they could!
The vexed mob then curse me with envy for rejecting what theyd kill forcontinued life through unending rebirth.
Then why dont you just kill yourself? they yell,
to which I retort I would if I could.
My life sentence is made all the more oppressive by my inability to take my own life.
Then well do it for you. As their circle closes on me, I wake up.
Could there be people who immensely suffer yet convince themselves
they sincerely want to live when in
fact they dont want to die, so greatly they fear Deaths unknown?
No one should ever have to repeat and suffer again a single second that passes.
Nay, I will engage and embrace the dying of my blight![/i]
I guess I'm an absurdist (e.g. epicurean-spinozist).
How does existentialism liberate anyone from 'craven [contemptibly lacking in courage; cowardly] fear? Petty anxiety? Apathy? Tedium?
There are various meditation practices that can 'intensify' consciousness.
Is arousing the passions and committing the individual to a cause that will engage their total energies a desirable end? What if the cause is evil?
The program on YouTube dates back to 1961. Nothing wrong with 1961. It's just that "educational television", the video style, soundtrack, and so forth are very dated. I'm an old guy and I remember the period. Ten hours of Hazel the talking head? It sort of looked like more tedium.
One definition said: "The existentialists argued that our purpose and meaning in life came not from external forces such as God, government or teachers, but instead is entirely determined by ourselves."
That sounds nice, but from whence came the content of my mind which was capable of grappling with my purpose and meaning? The church, school, parents, peers, etc. had a lot of opportunity to provide content before I got around to defining purpose and meaning. How we exist in the world isn't our choice either -- not for the formative years, anyway. After one has existed for a couple of decades, one can pompously declare one's authentic purpose and meaning, like it was a revelation.
Baloney. People do what they can to get through the day in one piece.
:100: :smirk: Like the rest of nature, almost everyone takes paths of least resistance (or effort).
I have read about 50% of everything that Simone de Beauvoir wrote, plus books by Robert G. Olson and Hazel Barnes, plus Sartre, whom I find rather impenetrable, especially Being and Nothingness. So, Ive still a long way to go to understand it better; it does attract me.
I read the other day that Sartre wrote 17 pages of text for everyday he was alive. And Id be willing to bet that de Beauvoir did the same. So lots to read, just from those two.
I don't think existential could liberate anyone. Existentialism is not actually a philosophical system . It doesn't have a unified structure. Only common concept is the supremacy of existence over essence and the existential crisis. There can't be a perfect definition for existentialism.
Both Sartre and de Beauvoir said that existentialism is best understood through plays, literature and poetry. The unified structure you speak of is completely inherent and obvious in these formats.
Can you prove there cant be a perfect definition of existentialism?
If youve read the novels of existentialists writers, you will find in them, the structure of the philosophy of existentialism.
Rob
The essence of existentialism...?
Something's amiss here.
a philosophical theory or approach which emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining their own development through acts of the will.
Since I believe there is nothing but emotion in this metaverse, and that emotion exists to support a single law of nature, free will, choice, then I fairly well agree with existentialism.
The agency of any individual is only properly moral agency. There is nothing but morality and then choice which is more towards it by intent or less so as a failure of intent, eg immorality.
The definition should to me be for moral agents and 'individual' is a less than best term. The entire universe is alive and although colloquially 'life' is not a condition or state shared by much of the matter in the metaverse, the real truth is that the universe is entirely alive and possessed of free will down to each and every particle, sub-atomic, macroscopic, etc; all of them. Within ANY scope of examination, that scope may be declared a moral agent and that agent indeed has choice. Free will is the only law of the universe. All other 'laws' or phenomena are only permutations of choice made by all entities in the metaverse.
Also, it should be stated that 'determining their own development' is confusing. Indeed choice is part of that process of free will, but ANY locus or scope can be examined. And then it would be cautionary to add in the idea that OTHER moral agents also affect ... you ... or any moral agent. So it is technically a delusion for self empowerment only. That assertion is itself overturned if and only if the unity principle is embraced as truth. That principle effectively states that 'You are me and I am you' All separations are delusional and we are all of us only a part of the same all.
Lastly there should be more clarity on the term 'will' in that definition. My own model of the metaverse suggests to me that the term 'will' relates best only to the emotion of desire. Although that is the default stand in for motivation and intents, my model asserts that to restrict choice to 'will' is blatantly incorrect. There are in fact three emotions and only three. These are fear, anger, and desire. So, my model's definition of existentialism (trying to paraphrase it as intended in a better way) is this:
a philosophical theory or approach which emphasizes the existence of moral agents as morally responsible via their use of the balance of free will and the only force in the universe, choice. {To clarify further, morally responsible means they can fail and intend immoral choices}
FWIW, my very very short take on (the ethical dimension) of existentialism ...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/719420
I think that it is problematic to try to describe oneself as being or not being an existentialist. Having read the ideas of some of the writings, such as Camus, Nietzsche and Sartre, I embrace some aspects of the philosophy, possibly the nature of existentialist anxiety, but I wouldn't go as far as to define myself as an existentialist, anymore than I embrace aspects of Buddhism but don't call myself a Buddhist.
Labels of philosophical thinking are useful for navigating ideas but not in a boxed way. I am often left perplexed by equal opportunities parts of forms, asking about religion. I often end up ticking the 'other' box and thinking that an essay would be more appropriate. It may be that the spirit of existentialism is opposed to boxes and labels, in the pursuit of freedom itself.
Pretty awful definition.
There's presently a boom in discussions about existentialism vs nihilism on Reddit. Some of the best subreddits are closed to new members, but there are still good ones around.
I find Transcendence of the Ego by Sartre to be the clearest expression of the idea as a point of departure.
The view of it as a change of paradigm suffers from what many other attempts do. The effort to defeat classification leads to new classifications.
Say some more - only thing I came away with from Sartre was the familiar - existence precedes essence.
Can one call oneself an existentialist without irony?
Well, what do you think? :wink:
You get to decide.
You have to decide for yourself, not just give me the nod... :wink:
I remember the crowds lining the street when Sartre died.
Were they being ironic?
Existentialism only works until you take it seriously.
We'll that's not much different from most ideas, I'd suspect.
How do you take existentialism seriously? That seems to be the real quesion that the OP leads us towards.
In the 1980's there was a reemergence of existentialism around Melbourne and many people I knew would walk around with copies of Being and Nothingness and Camus' The Outsider, with no more commitment to the ideas inside them that they would have a few years later to the ideas Foucault and Derrida, when copies of their works were carried about.
Candyland sums up their relation... Camus was not an existentialist.
Didn't matter in 1980's Melbourne.
Heidegger's Being and Time is by far more important. Sartre is derivative. Not that I didn't find him helpful. I like the way he brought for the "uncanny" nature of contingency of the world in Nausea. Creepy, but fascinating. But the foundational for this is best explored in Heidegger, who is seminal: post modern thinking, most of it, is a response to him.
You could dwell on the right way to define it, but when a group of people has latched onto the word because it's become useful in their philosophical grappling, you can just let the meaning drift to whatever they mean by it.
So when you were in your 20s-30s did you ever wonder about the power of humans to choose who and what they will be? Or did the abysmal events of the 20th Century leave you hopeless?
Far from being my main interest in philosophy. But it could surprise me in the future.
The answer to this question resonates on this thread. Of what value is a philosophical idea if it does not change lives? Or does philosophy as an approach to life live on mysteriously within endless discussions of Russell's paradox and something arising from nothing? Much of what I have read is inconsequential, like the pure mathematics I have enjoyed.
:rofl:
Quoting jgill
Art is almost always inconsequential. Perhaps philosophy, along with pure math and other things, is an art they may be done for the sake of themselves.
Is anyone?
How does that compare to the average person?
36% more than the average. :wink:
Hence, if one is an existentialist, then he/she is not an existentialist. If one is not an existentialist, then he/she could be an existentialist. (Because they don't deny that they are the existentialist.)
Do you have sources on Heidegger denying the label? I see that Camus and Sartre have.
Yes. Where I've seen the OP discussed elsewhere, the issue is a psycho-social one rather than a quest to squeeze nuance out of jargon.
Quoting flannel jesus
In Existentialism and Humanism Sartre writes,
Heidegger, in his critique of Sartre, writes:
I went with "no" because the only existentialist philosopher I know of who could and has made that claim is Sartre, and I tend to think of "existentialism" more as a historical category than a thesis. I'd group Heidegger, Sartre, Camus, and Levinas in the historical category of "existentialism" through their themes, though I agree that there's a difference to be had between Sartre's existentialism and Camus' absurdism, and really between all of them, when we get into the details between them.
Historically I'd group these together in spite of most of them rejecting the label because they are all dealing with individual choice in a world without ethical answers. Each proposes a kind of meta-answer that's not a direct answer as much but a way of reflecting upon how we choose without objective value: Heidegger proposes authenticity, Sartre proposes good faith, Camus proposes heroic pursuit, and Levinas proposes the face-to-face encounter. (at least to put them each into a catch-phrase)
A world without answers: The background proto existentialists I think through are Nietzsche and Kierkegaard. The broadest theme that unites these writers is Nietzsche's notion of the death of God, interpreted as a loss of collective meaning and purpose, which seems very obvious to me that Kierkegaard is struggling with that same question but from a more theological side, with the additional interpretive difficulty of creating characters to speak different viewpoints.
But in spite of all that I'd say I'm influenced by these writers, and often try to think of how to put a softer form of existentialism out there because it often resonates with me, but feels too harsh.
Maybe you could claim to be an existentialist.
In the most elemental sense, yes. I had the opportunity to choose and follow paths that gave meaning to my life. Others may not be so lucky.
This explains so much. Anyone who writes that much is going to come across pompous, lacking imagination and any semblance of contact with the real world.
'tis a joke ;)
Sure, that goes for most things here. :wink:
I'm still not sure why existentialism not, say, Stoicism (which might be of similar use). Or other more accessible schools of philosophy.
When I read existentialism back in the 1980's, for me it felt more grounded and practical and focused on real world behaviors. If philosophy seems overwhelmingly theoretical and abstract, existentialism seems like a good way in. When Sartre writes, 'We are our choices" to me it seemed an immediate and vivid account of what it can mean to be human. Of course attempting to read Being and Nothingness, I got bogged down in the phenomenology and psychoanalysis which seemed incomprehensible and stultifying. Sartre seems to oppose the idea of an unconscious which is fixed and drives our behaviors (our histories and experiences) and posits a kind of total freedom which I find unlikely. Thoughts?
Here it is https://chat.openai.com/share/b09c2b41-b04f-4502-8133-373d9a68ffc6
Character.ai gave me this:
[hide="Reveal"][/hide]
Pardon me for perhaps confusing the discussion but some element of Sartre putting forth a less restrained vision of change is part of his embrace of Marx's view of the ideal and the real as invention rather than as discovery.
Camus was an opponent to this view as a close contemporary.
Ok. I can see that.
Do you mean that if the Nazi soldier took responsibility for his decisions, he'd go home and stop wrecking the world?
The war would end. That's actually how WW1 ended: a German mutiny. The French soldiers had also mutinied earlier, but the French government managed to get them back to the battlefield. The Russian soldiers also mutinied. It was a weird war.
It's not enough to just notice that soldiers have the power to mutiny. You need a culture that emphasizes that fact: that no one is locked into a role. You can be anyone. You can be the president, for instance. That was the guiding vision behind the creation of the USA. Martin Luther King Jr referenced that vision in a speech he gave on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
Crazy, but true: the American vision is about freedom of identity. Voting is a ritual that broadcasts that ideal: that you're responsible for your government.
Thoughts?
Everyone has the choice to disobey. It's in human nature, look at any child. We need more individual rebellion.
I don't think it is. It's a secret.
I don't think an existential existence requires rebellion. Maybe sometimes it does.
This was always my understanding - and, as with the Shapiro reference, I think its true. People f'ing it up doesn't change the basis.
I think about that every time I vote, so I don't feel so bad. :grin:
Please prove why the logic wouldn't work out.
Quoting flannel jesus
Heidegger doesn't seem to have had been interested in Existentialism. I haven't seen his comment on it. He is more interested in Metaphysics i.e. problems with existence and being. Hence his denial of himself being an existentialist has been presumed.
Because other people than that short list of people could be existentialists. "These people denied they are, therefore nobody is" isn't much of an argument. My gramma denies she's a Muslim, therefore nobody's a Muslim.
It is not just that fact, but definition of existentialism has been obscure. What is your definition of existentialism and existentialist?
The claim was based on the inductive principle,
1. that the most famous would-be existentialists were denying that they were the existentialists.
2. Definition of existentialist is obscure.
3. It is impossible to go and ask the whole population on the earth if they are existentialist in practicality.
Therefore it is safe to conclude, that there is no such people who are existentialist.
Stanford seems to think Sartre self-identified as an existentialist
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/existentialism/#:~:text=Indeed%2C%20the%20major%20contributors%20are,embrace%20a%20conception%20of%20radical
Josh provided this quote from Sartre to support that:
Quoting Joshs
Existentialism is an activity or state more than a concept, related to a stream of consciousness type of awareness / feeling somehow that is often fleeting - but can endure as a default until you get too pedantic for even yourself. Forcing a modus operandi is almost always fatal to good humour ;).
When are you abstract and aware? And when are you lost in a pattern? Both are useful pursuits.
Everyone is an existentialist. Sometimes. Else you are only counting half (or so)
Quoting Metaphyzik
Given what I said before about N and K, I disagree -- existentialism can certainly be an activity or state, but it's also a concept -- and not less than an activity or a state.
Olive branch: "Everyone is an existentialist sometimes" -- I certainly think activity is important, but it seems to me you're saying "existentialism" is nothing but nomenclature. I'd disagree with that.
I agree. For Sartre, individual existence is freedom. For Heidegger, individual existence is being-in-the-world. For Nietzsche, individual existence is will to power.
I often see the notion of existence over essence or existence preceding essence. Yet it seems to me that Heidegger, Sartre, and Nietzsche are saying that existence is our essence, i.e., being-in-the-world is our essence, freedom is our essence, will to power is our essence. And even if that is the only common concept, it is a significant concept.
That is good.
I've always thought existence how one actively exists creates (one's) essence becomes who one is. They (usually) reject the notion of "our essence" which is why (most) "existentialists" also deny the (non-subjective) designation. In any case, "being-in-the-world", "freedom" and "will-to-power" do not seem to me, according to primary sources, either synonymous with each other or equivalent to "existence".
I meant that defining things is nomenclature. Its a tautology. Including existentialism of course. A polite joke.
Its just fodder for thought . Existentialism is notoriously hard to define, at least the definitions and explanations always seem strained even from those brilliant long dead philosophers.
All the old references are Interesting of course but maybe - just maybe - existentialism fits better as a state of mind than anything else.
They are not synonymous and the lack of clarity is on me. For Sartre, human existence is freedom. For Nietzsche, human existence is will to power. For Heidegger, human existence is being-in-the-world. But no, Sartre's freedom is not the same as Nietzsche's will-to-power and neither are the same as Heidegger's being-in-the-world. I apologize for any confusion. .
Reason alone suggests that if human existence is X, then X is human existence. That does not mean that other entities might not exist in the colloquial sense of the term. But they are not using their terms in a colloquial sense and they do not equivocate.
For example, Heidegger identifies three modes of being (ready [or unready] to hand, present to hand, and existence). Heidegger assigns the term existence as the mode of being for entities having the characteristics of Dasein. (That kind of Being towards which Dasein. . . always does comport itself. . . we call existence Being and Time at 32.). By default, the mode of being for all entities not having the characteristics of Dasein is either ready [or unready] to hand or present to hand.
Existence belongs only and always to Dasein and Dasein is the only being that is and always is being-in-the-world. Existence is being-in-the-world. There is no wiggle room.
I do find it interesting that not a single arguably significant philosopher felt the need to define it. And sadly, defining terms for purposes of which philosophers meet the definition makes it easier to ignore philosophers that are likely worth reading.
I appreciate the reply, Arne, but I do not read these three philosophers this way. 'How one exists creates one's essence' is the gist of my understanding of existentialism: essence becomes and is not 'what is' (e.g. will to power, freedom, or being-in-the-world). 'Existence precedes essence' means existence necessarily does not have an essence just as a lump of clay necessarily is not a bowl or statue. 'Existence' is necessary, 'essence" is contingent: 'to exist is to make (choose) one's essence'. None of them are primarily concerned with the "Human", but only with, IIRC, becoming (intentionally) For-Itself, (transvaluatively) Übermensch or (authetically) Dasein, respectively. Whatever else existentialism may mean, existence lacks essence, or every existent needs (though most don't strive for) an essence. IMO, to say "human existence" in this context, Arne, already says too much (or not enough).
No self-respecting existentialist would actually accept the label for themselves..
Or a fun way of saying it: they wouldnt ever belong to a club that would have themselves as a member. Aka Groucho Marx.
They did however try to define their world views, some of which were not entirely cogent to be honest.
Sartre: Justification for Revolutionary violence aka any means justifies the ends? We can have meaning by acting in certain ways (hardly a profound statement)?
Heidegger: is another language - or sub- language - really necessary in order to explain what you mean?
Camus and neitzche seem to be in another conversation altogether, as their world views are more couched in nihilistic considerations.
Quoting 180 Proof
I do not expect people to read them as I do. And your reading on the existence/essence issue is more dynamic and richer than mine and I adopt it.
But to say that existence precedes essence is to beg the question of what is the existence that precedes essence of the human. For Sartre, the existence that precedes essence of the human is freedom. For Heidegger, the existence that precedes essence of the human is being-in-the-world. For Nietzsche, the existence that precedes essence of the human is will to power.
And when the context is set by someone "trying to understand all that is existentialism" (Please see OP), putting teeth to the ambiguous notion of "existence precedes essence" is in order.
Similarly, to not say "human" existence and "human" essence when someone is "trying to understand all that is existentialism" is to risk the gravest of all existentialist sins, i.e., writing the "human" out of the equation, literally.
Perhaps I am an existentialist?
Perhaps you are. I'm not ...
Its the same when someone asks me if I believe in God, I generally and sincerely respond "sometimes". I enjoy reading Heidegger and Nietzsche, but I can find no reason to exempt either from the Nietzschean sense that perhaps its all an illusion. . .
As much psychology as philosophy. Pardon an intrusion into a discussion about past philosophers.
:D
I can't help myself sometimes.
Quoting Metaphyzik
I think there's something to be said for this. Contrary to my impulse to define everything by its history it's not like that history is gone or somehow stopped with the authors I listed. One could be an existentialist and in this sense I think you're right to say it's a state of mind, or a mood, or a temperament -- the unity between existentialists or existentialisms is more along those lines.
Ingmar Bergman comes to mind as a non-philosopher existentialist in The Seventh Seal and Winter Light -- I'm sure he does elsewhere too these are just the ones that came to mind as good examples of existentialism that's not defined by concepts or dead philosophers (though it is a dead film maker :D )
Was Kierkegaard an existentialist? In what sense yes or no?
He's been called the Grandfather of existentialism. He drew attention away from grand project building (like Hegel) to the experience of being alive: to that 'quality of being that comes to rest in the sanctuary of the form.'
I assume this quotation is from Hazel Barnes.
It gives me a a starting-point to explain my attitude to existentialism.
The quotation suggests that it belongs alongside Stoicism and Epicureanism (and perhaps Scholastic Christianity and Buddhism) in that basing a way of life on a philosophy of life. I realize that the distinction is a complicated, but it enables me to articulate my own attitude.
As a way of life, existentialism had and has considerable appeal. Despite its tendency to atheism (though there are or were Christian Existentialists and Kierkegaard), it has the classic elements of a religion - a diagnosis of the human condition and a recipe for escaping it. (The escape, of course, is explained by Hazel Barnes' quotation "Existentialists values ........ arouse the passions, and commit the individual to a cause of action that will engage their total energies." This recipe is more or less content-free so differs from full-on religions.)
This explains, I would think, why it became so influential across so many fields. The, as it were innate, appeal, was surely reinforced by the post-war world and the coincidence that Sartre and de Beauvoir appeared on the scene at that time. It captured and reinforced the liberation experienced by many people as WW2 ended. (After thought - It would be quite wrong to think that the end of WW2 in any way influenced Kierkegaard or Nietzsche or Heidegger or Sartre. The development of existentialism must surely have been influenced by the nineteenth and possibly the early twentieth century. I'm only saying that the end of WW2 affected the reception of it.)
I think it deserves to be up there with Stoicism &c and so to be a serious contribution to the philosophical tradition. But no, I'm not going to sign up.
Why?
I don't intend to try to find fault with Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger and Sartre all at the same time. But here's one fundamental issue I choose to discuss. I think it is clearest in Sartre, though I could be wrong.
The starting-point for Existentialism is our being "thrown" into the world and life. So it is hard to understand why Sartre's Being-for-itself turns out to be something so abstract and more or less instantly recognizable as a Cartesian subject. (Heidegger's version is, to my mind, even more abstract and even more puzzling.) But the greatest issue with this very attractive idea is that it presupposes that our lives start as conscious, reflective beings - more or less, as adults. But we start our lives either at birth or shortly before. We become reflective beings some years after that - and we don't have any choice in the matter, or perhaps better, we are incapable of meaningful choices for some time after our lives begin. Though it is true that the world that I am part of and which makes me what I am is a not a matter of choice, but of chance, in a sense.
The idea is that, as subjectivities, we are radically free. Existence precedes essence. If I wanted to be picky, I could expatiate on the point that to exist requires an essence. But I get the point, I think. Roughly, we create ourselves in our interactions with the world - or does the world create us by its interactions with us? Both.
The complete last sentence of Hazel Barnes' quotation is "Existentialists values intensify consciousness, arouse the passions, and commit the individual to a cause of action that will engage their total energies." A promise of relief from the real pains of anxiety in a meaningless world and also a promise of trouble and fear. But perhaps that's just me. Either way, we are born as embodied beings with instincts primarily directed to survival and reproduction and a drive to seek patterns in the world and a tendency to respond to reward and punishment appropriately. Not quite Sartre's (or the empiricists') blank sheet of paper.
While I understand the appeal of commitment as an escape from anxiety and that values become valuable 0nly when human beings adopt them, the process puzzles me because in itself, it seems as random and meaningless as everything else. This, if I remember right, is what we are presented with in Camus' Outsider. But, again from memory, Mathieu's commitment in the third book of Sartre's Roads to Freedom is actually very similar; it doesn't read like a choice made in an enthusiastic moment of decision; or that's how I remember it.
Finally, looking back at the first sentence in Hazel Barnes' quotation - "The function of Existentialists values is to liberate humankind from craven fear, petty anxiety and apathy or tedium." - I notice the powerful rhetoric that she chooses to attach to "humankind", "fear" and "anxiety". This is not existentialist cool at all, is it? Her commitment here is to rouse people from apathy and tedium, in ways that seem to me now strongly reminiscent of the rhetoric that many existentialists wanted to escape from.
[/i]
Was Buddhism possibly a kind of proto-existentialism in some general way? :chin:
Beatniks love both, if that shows anything lol. Maybe jazz music is existential too? :cool: :ok:
Hear! Here!
Their! There!
And everywhere in between!
Quoting Arne
K. seem to have had close connection to Christianity and God in many of his writings. How does his concept of God fit into existentialism?
His view of the condition of truth being found outside of what 'belonged' to oneself was brought together with needing to make decisions that shaped what life will be. Our ability is directly involved with those choices.
I mean, what is the difference to you? I am not specifically ... after ... you, on that point, more curious. But the thing is, can just being be wrong?
I think that the final answer there is no, which to me confuses subjectivists and often has them say, well then you are a subjectivist. Nope.
Being in the world, being here, alive, involves will to power. It also involves freedom. Now, the thing is, each of those is on a scale.
Even being in the world, physically present, can be a tragic thing, because you can be a corpse. If you then say, that is not you, then you lose. Because that is what being-in-the-world must mean right? Alive? Or does it? With my model all particles are alive. That means the corpse IS alive in its own way. Even the atoms are choosing. Their moral agency is super low though. The extreme moral agent, the human identity is dead.
But then you could say, ok well that's on/off. The other two differ in that freedom is a scale. Will-to-power is a scale. And let's say then RELATIVE to others you are either an exemplar and 'winning' or you are failing. So, again, a scale.
For the most part though, in my model and belief, the latter two are mostly involving desire, a single emotion. Being in essence in the world in my model is anger, which is responsible for mass itself.
And then thought has no connection to the world, without both the body and the will-to-power intact. So fear (thought) requires desire and anger.
---
So, to me, there is no particle in the entire metaverse that does not partake of this same math, this same model, choice. Free will and choice are the only essence in existence. We make far too much of some things. But it is true that evolution drives the formation, the integration, of entities with more and more moral agency.
That moral agency though is an absolute value +- the effect number. It means the great moral possibility ONLY comes with the risk of equal evil.
Though Kierkegaard was the first existential philosopher I read seriously, it has been many years But I will do the best I can from memory.
For Kierkegaard, an existentialist scorn for philosophical system building is accompanied by an existentialist scorn for theological system building. (including and maybe especially the hierarchically organized Christian religion throughout Europe.).
And just as philosophy should focus upon how to live an authentic life, so too should Christian theology focus upon how to live an authentic Christian life. He considered as absurd the philosophical and theological attempts to prove/disprove the existence/nonexistence of God. Instead, the commitment to live an authentic Christian life must be rooted in a "leap of faith." And so one who lives an authentic Christian life is the Knight of Faith.
I hope that helps.
For Heidegger, a corpse cannot be "in" the world. The only entity that can be "in" the world is Dasein. Any entity not having the characteristics of Dasein (such as a corpse) are "within" the world that Dasein is "in".
Nietzsche might be a good fit. And I recommend reading his books in the order in which they were published. There is a consistency in the development of his thought from the first book to the last.
The undead then, a being, yet sans the curriculum vitae! En soi! La mort c'est tout!
But most philosophers use that word, Dasein, in a selfish way to show humans as some sort of unique entity. I claim they/we are only a natural and inevitable progression of essence from the beginning of time and natural law. And further the specific form and general state of humanity hovers around an absolute value based on the fractal ramifications of evolution, arbitrary, despite all delusions to the contrary. Some fellow with a razor might shave away the silliness, the conceit. The simplest explanation is that there is nothing special going on here.
That Enneatype 4 delusion, the need to be special is, after all, an immoral aim. You belong, we all belong, and cannot be made to un-belong; despite over-expressed desire, denying the actual essence, the anger infusion, as desire recoils from its own reflection when it sees improperly, ... unworthiness.
Now, step back son, yah bother me! You pays yer money! You takes your chances!
Sadly, and apparently it is not evident that I have read quite a bit of it. And gleaned much over the years when I was forced to look up his own words rather than accept others' interpretations. Thankfully, that process left me convinced I was not as deluded as some suspect. But you know, I've always had a penchant for maladroit grandiosity.
It may be time to take on the polluted rivers again!
Quoting Arne
Great points. Thanks for your replies. :cool: :up:
Quoting BCQuoting Chet Hawkins
Thanks. I'm sightly familiar with nihilism. Not enough to have ever heard of positive nihilism.
As it is for just sitting, in Soto Zen, the reward is in the doing.
The question has a second, and more apt meaning if the emphasis on "existed" is interpreted, not as "were there any (existentialists)" but rather, did any who wrote "existentialism" do existentialism? Did any make the final movement which they themselves called for: I e., the leap, the becoming authentic, and so on?
Nihilism starts when people stop grasping for distractions that keep them from facing the fact that "All is vanity.". All that stuff that keeps people struggling and fretting doesn't really mean anything.
From there, you can be happy about it because your heart has been unburdened, or you can be sad because... your heart has been unburdened.
Nihilist discussion groups spend a lot of time talking about both ends of it. Existentialism comes up for obvious reasons.
Perhaps I'm [i]not[/I] slightly familiar with nihilism. I thought it meant I am the only thing that exists. But I don't want to derail the thread.
(Wiki)
Without interference, perhaps, but philosophical thoughts are posted here on the Forum before they pass.
Where Kierkegaard intersects with existentialist themes is about man's relationship to God rather than about God. I feel the need to write, when talking about this, when K. writes man he definitely means men rather unfortunately.
Here's an inaccurate summary based off of reading Fear and Trembling many years ago and Sickness Unto Death in January.
You realise you've very small compared to God and depend upon Him for your salvation from the finitude you're condemned to. You are only welcomed into Heaven through the sustained affirmation of God in your life. Your choice to love God above all else must occur indifferently to reason, as a judgement to love God for a reason debases Him and your soul by confining them to the wretched vicissitudes of our concerns. If instead you embrace God, you don't confine yourself or the world into those horrible and false auspices of perspective.
Each of those sentences can be secularised if you feel like buggering poor K.
You're finite, and thrown into a world. You'll only find this world welcoming if you somehow affirm what is sacred in it as its highest value. You need to do this as an expression of your "essence" - your soul, which is also kinda sorta just saying that you are - you "exist" - as you were made. And you can come up with all kinds of copium for whatever.
Finitude. affirmation, essence=existence, authenticity and inauthenticity, absurd paradoxes in the heart of everything... the infinity of God, how very unreasonable that appears, and how nevertheless you must believe are the OG existentialist themes. Though Big K is a Trope Maker rather than Trope Codifier.
I don't think anyone in thread is claiming otherwise, but I need to say: it's also quite reductive to unify the existentialists as anything but a bunch of people who talk a lot about the fundamental aspects of being human from a humanised perspective. Kind of similar to saying that postmodernist philosophers all say the same thing.
I was carelessly using Soto as an analogy. I.e., like for Soto, the reward in Zazen is not in the purported goal of Satori, but rather, in the sitting itself. The sitting is Enlightenment.
Thus your point too, might be addressed as follows.
If you are after "mindfullness" whatever that is, let the [philosophical] thoughts [posted here, or otherwis] just pass without interference.
If, on the otherhand, philosophy is what you're after, do philosophy (which necessarily requires "interference"), not with a goal in mind, but simply for the sake of doing philosophy. As suggested below:
"If God were to hold all Truth concealed in his right hand, and in his left only the steady and diligent drive for Truth, albeit with the proviso that I would always and forever err in the process, and to offer me the choice, I would with all humility take the left hand."
Gotthold Lessing
Indeed, I came upon it a bit later, in the late 1950s, and it became popular among young, adventurous men - particularly from California - looking for a path forward that was new and exciting. I suspect its popularity dwindled during the Korean and Vietnam wars when one's path to an exciting and adventurous life either threaded for many through dense jungles or for others freezing cold and was not a freely chosen one.
The Golden age of climbing is now seen by many as the mid 1950s and early 1960s, especially regarding Hillary's conquest of Everest and similarly impressive feats in Yosemite Valley. I got caught up in that adventurous period and, like others, discovered existentialism - an approach to life that correlated well with climbing. But, its popularity dwindled, I suspect, during the decades that followed, especially the Vietnam conflict. I really don't know. It worked for me all the rest of my life.
Quoting Ludwig V
That's the obvious bug in the ointment, of course. I can only reflect on my own upbringing. As an only child of an roaming academic, I felt a sense of individual responsibility that allowed me to expand my thinking beyond traditional bounds. And when I chose to become a climber through a fluke during my junior year in high school in Georgia, my parents were shocked, but composed. However, when I joined a fellow young climber from Atlanta and we drove to Colorado in the summer of 1954, my father later revealed to me he bought burial insurance for his son.
On the other hand, a friend roughly my age grew up in difficult circumstances, with an absentee and violent father, and he also chose the existentialist path. And another, coming from very humble circumstances, also without a father, may have considered himself an existentialist, but I don't recall talking about the subject. The first of these became known as the most revered climber of that era and in later life created a prominent clothing company. The second became a billionaire.
Quoting Ludwig V
Barnes seems to view existentialism in a extreme form. It provides a focus - or more than one - and a feeling of the power of an individual to control much in his life. Not all of it by any means. How much of this feeling of control exists before the acceptance of this philosophy varies.
Quoting Ludwig V
All I can say is that her comments seem bizarre and don't fit those who I knew who considered themselves existentialists.
Well, My own perspective agrees that 'God' is a weird way to think of things. But 'Truth', 'Love', and 'All' work just fine for the same thing without the casting a deity in your own image or culture's wishes thing.
Morality to me, is all that there is in the universe and Nihilism, positive or not, is immoral. Meaning is all there is here, including instantiated meaning, e.g. choosers, like humanity. That IS what being-in-essence means, the ability to choose. But since to me the entire universe, every particle is possessed of this being-in-essence, it strikes me as a term, like so many, that adds more confusion than it clears up.
You can decide to get all wonky about locus of choice. That is what most Nihilists and ... maybe you ... or BC seem to be doing to me, with comments about what God, teachers, and government cant or should not or
The ONLY key point is ... is morality objective as a law of the universe. To me the answer is obviously yes because nothing could connect or stay together or act in any meaningful way without that truth in place. So, demanding that YOU are the only one who can deliver a should to you, is colossally missing the point. This is multiplied in impact when it is also realized that objectively, we are all part of 'All' and cannot be separated in any way from 'All'. To me that underscores a relationship with all of reality wherein and whereby effectively 'You ARE me and I AM you'. And that erases the dubious and entirely immorally selfish perspective of 'only I can decide blah blah' or if you like empowers it. But that means it empowers EVERYTHING, every atom, every teacher, every government, me, you, and the kitchen sink as not an 'external' source of impact on you, but an intimate connected part of you, demanding you get real and stay moral for the genuine happiness of 'All'.
Part of that was the Nuremberg trials in which Nazi soldiers were asked to explain their actions. According to folklore, they said they were soldiers, and they were doing as they were told. The basis for rejecting this answer from the Nazis is that it puts all the blame on the role these men were playing, as if they were nothing but the role.
Existentialism starts with a separation between the role you're playing and some other amorphous thing: call it Being, spirit, etc. The point is that you have a choice regarding the role you invest yourself in. You're something beyond any particular role. So the Nazi soldiers could have divested the role of soldier and become something else. It's from an existentialist standpoint that we reject racism, sexism, eugenics, religious intolerance, etc. We start morality from a focus on the subject.
Those who reject subjectivism are saddled with a foundation that welcomes racism, whether they realize that or not.
I agree. People act as if Heidegger is handing out awards to entities having the characteristics of Dasein. Perhaps the check is in the mail.
But that a pre-ontological being is in a unique position when it comes to describing its own ontological structure strikes me as a no brainer.
Yes. It's an important idea, at least in Sartre. This is where the tricky ideas of bad faith and authenticity come in. (I don't know the others well enough to be sure how they deal with this. I'm sure you are aware of the difficulties about these ideas. I would have included it in my post, but, to be honest, I felt it was long enough already and I was a bit short of time.
Quoting frank
There's much I don't know about Nuremberg, but they did choose to concentrate on the highest officials. I don't know whether they just didn't bother with the rank and file, or felt it would have been unfair to regard them as being as much responsible for what went on as the those in command. I do know that Eichmann tried this defence when he was tried in Israel and it was rightly rejected.
I agree that the distinction between the role I'm playing and who I am is very important here. But I don't think it was specifically based on existentialism, though it's more than likely that Hannah Arendt would have discussed it in her writing on Eichmann's trial.
I mean ... it's confusing that you say this. You say you agree and then disagree.
The entire freaking point is that we are not that special and accepting that we both are and are not at the same time, is the right moral choice, in other words, a wise balance.
To admit to this false exceptionalism is to fall prey to a basic form of self-indulgence, pride, and thereby fail.
Again, ALL other species do have the seed of this thing, and only that truth led by pains imaginable, to us. {I detest when people say 'beyond your imagination', because almost nothing is}.
We are ourselves only the seeds of hopefully better selves. But it does give one pause. Perhaps the Fermi paradox represents the universal failing AT THIS STAGE of moral aims. Rare indeed must be the species that transcends that hurdle. Desire is overwhelming us all. Religion was an insufficient opiate. Now we have cut out the middleman. Gummies and porn are far more effective. And the new monarchy of inherited Old Money is putting the fate of the human world into less and less capable inheritors who grew up on the teat of excess and privilege. It's not looking very Dasein up in here. This is the age of the Orc!, The Formorian!
It is telling indeed that you say 'within' which is the clarion call of desire, chaos, self-indulgence. Wisdom counsels instead that without IS within. Wisdom is about balance. And there is no balance between good and evil. That has always been another self-indulgent delusion tempting us to be cowardly, lazy, and self-indulgent by turns. The real balance is between order and chaos and the good is only achieved by maximum effort allowing both to soar while remaining balanced.
That is why the more careful redefinition of Existentialism is needed. In fact, the old waves of philosophy of course hinted at some truths, but we MUST do BETTER. Grow or die!
Yes, a new and exciting path forward was very much the theme at the time. I was aware of it in the late fifties and early sixties. Without realizing it at the time, my existential choice was made in the late sixties when I abandoned a conventional career I had started in favour of philosophy. It was a quite revolutionary step in my life, but was not consciously based on existentialism. I jjust hated the social environment I was working in. I didn't look seriously at existentialism until some ten years later when I found myself teaching Being and Nothingness to undergraduates. That was quite an eye-opener for me, and it has remained influential even though I never signed up, as it were. The intellectual influences in the late sixties were indeed different; that's a complicated question.
I agree with you that some philosophers suggest Heidegger is using Dasein as a way to give some sort of normative status to humans and I disagree with those philosophers.
Heidegger is not making normative claims. A bird is in the unique position of being a bird. A fish is in the unique position of being a fish. A human being is in the unique position of being a human. And it is from that position that he is describing being a human.
Heidegger is unable to describe being a bird or being a fish in the same way that he is able describe being a human, i.e., from the inside. Heidegger is not handing out any awards. Being-in-the-world is not a privileged status. It is a fundamental state of being for that being whose mode of being is existence. It comes with no rewards.
Bad faith indeed. Morality must be more clearly defined and suggestions made about it. I see the core issue as being that being has become nothingness, or close to it. We are seeing how many directions of low we can tease ourselves towards. Since morality is the hardest thing there is, and objective finally, how many people are going to vote for wise things? Philosophers had best get busy. We need some new Billy Shakes (or perhaps Francis Bacon) to school these pilgrims. Thomas Becket was old wisdom.
The Dragon of Ignorance is winning hard.
YES there are! That is the metaphysical hurdle we are just beginning to come to grips with as a species. Granted a few of us have always been a bit saucy and into caviar of the spirit, wisdom. But these days the love of wisdom is being translated into 'My self-indulgent grift for the unwary'
As true as all of that may be, it is important to keep in mind that those are your claims and not Heidegger's.
Why say that? I am not pretending to be Heidegger. That's a very confusing reply.
Being-in-the-world is a fundamental state, not a social status. It doesn't make anybody special.
Although I agree, as I understand it, that has no bearing on our conversation. I was the one claiming that no exalted scenario was implied. The reason I wrote that is because it seemed to me you implied that Dasein was reserved for humans, which is indeed a deluded state, status, social, empirical, ... whatever. If that is Heidegger's assertion, I would deny it, and much of what we seemed to agree upon previously (as I understood it) would mean that you were then agreeing that his tack was slightly wrong.
Also, social status is fundamental as well. It is composed of the SAME seed evolved to the social state as we call it. But atoms then have a social state as well and that is the SAME fundamental thing as ours is. We like to 'put on airs' as if we are different. We do have more moral agency only, but all of t hat complexity is grounded only in the same thing, natural law. There is no escape from law. It's the law.
That kind of underscores my point. Nothing is not fundamental. The concept of fundamental is in error. Everything is fundamental. When you suggest that something is not by saying that something specific is, you are breaking with truth. You are separating instead of integrating. This is a big part of the problem of choice. We can and do delude ourselves. The real challenge to to get to the heart of why, to uncover that ubiquitous fundamental nature of all, of belonging. Accepting on a deeper level means not going on about the separation in any way.
This may be 'full of sound and fury signifying nothing', but I believe, as mentioned, we are going to have to do better with a new tier of philosophy to make progress. We seem to be in a massive eddy, a backwater buildup of a jam. Everything must change all at once. That is what integration means. We can't just get 1 or 3 or 6 things right. It has to be all of whatever there are for virtues. So, we need to detail the essence of wisdom, and it has to gel right back down to the start of 'time' and such. Natural law only is allowed. No distracting and tempting delusions. But hey, what do I know? (Nothing, because knowing is impossible) But belief is critical to wisdom and I do believe a lot!
How is the relationship God possible, if God is unknown? Does K defines what God is?
Quoting fdrake
Why "unfortunately"?
I don't think existentialism is the source either. I'm speculating that it was part of the times some how. Kierkegaard's generation included Abraham Lincoln, who was driven by the same idea: that freedom is found in grasping that you're more than the role you're playing. There's also a similarity between Lincoln's beliefs and what Kierkegaard expresses in Repetition. Maybe it was an odd coincidence, or maybe existentialism is coming from some aspect of a shared cultural story arc.
I made no such implication. Instead, I did and do assert that Heidegger is better situated to describe the fundamental ontological structure of a human than of a fish. It matters not to Heidegger if fish turn out to have the same fundamental ontological structure as human. But how would he know? He doesn't experience being as a fish.
Dasein is the term given to any and all beings having the characteristics of Dasein. Being a Dasein is not a social status among biological organisms and it comes with no entitlements.
It's very odd. There seems to be a lot of activity around this topic now.
You may be right that it was just something that was in the air at the time.
I tracked the idea of role theory in sociology back to George Herbert Mead - Wikipedia. Nothing earlier.
'Better situated' is perhaps a sobering but ultimately timid term to describe agency, the burden of experience. It may be more true than not, but it plays games with truth, rather than addressing truth head-on. Either way, fallibility means mistakes will be made. So, better by far to face the truth with equal measures of courage and analysis. That is to say: As far as we know from this 'situation' we are the best equipped to make any description of ... anything, including the fundamental ontological structure of a fish, and quite to the point INSTEAD OF that fish making the same effort. To mention the fact that we are not ACTUALLY fish is rather silly, even if it is of passing interest as a point of note, mostly to tame conceit.
But wholesale abandonment of the perspectives of other entities than humans would be nothing short of rank cowardice, an absurd departure from any hope of commonality and unity. That perspective almost is in tacit denial of the oneness of all things, a concept much more reasonable than this implied separation ever can be.
'So long and thanks for all the fish!'
We CORRECTLY anthropomorphize the universe. Each atom is alive is my belief. The SAME seeds that formed us formed the fish, and the dolphins, and the ostensible Vogons who need to destroy Earth (Hitchhiker's Guide). To become enamored of separation, rather than unity, is a moral error of a sort. It is a tendency of one emotion only, fear, the seed of all order, thought, reason, structure, and logic.
The reason I asserted that you implied Daesin was reserved for humans is that again in your response you indicate that Daesin is the term given to beings that have the characteristics of Daesin. That is a ridiculous point of view and precisely wrong for the reasons I already intimated. But to go further: The Oxford Academic:
Dasein is essentially in the world, because it continually interprets and engages with other entities and the contexts in which they lie. Only Dasein makes the world a unitary world at all, rather than a collection of entities. Dasein is the whole human being, and makes no distinction between body and mind.
So, even this much vaunted definition (I assume Oxford is acceptable) directs this concept to human only, effectively. And humorously although I was only vaguely remembering the term, it specifically commits the exact sin I described in its definition. It actually implies that humans are LESS aware and LESS moral because of the foolishness of something that is apparently valued in some way by the inventor of this nonsense, Daesin, ostensibly Heidegger. That is to say whoever came up with this idea had an obtuse pride in the separate facilities of a human being. What a strange thing (facetious) coming from an entity that just so happens to be human! And then the perversity is that from this separating and unaware viewpoint the arrogance then also decides that humans or Daesin 'makes the world a unity world'. No! The world was ALREADY unitary and that include the fish, the tree, every atom. ALL OF THEM continually interpret and engage with other entities and the contexts in which they lie. Now if you wish to start speaking properly, in terms of strength of that agency, the depth and complexity of it, without putting on airs and drawing lines where there are none, then I am down for that.
I also disagree in part with the 'no distinction between body and mind' bit. Then why do we suffer the persistent delusion that there is an essence break there? I can agree that all the universe is composed of parts that together make a whole. I can agree that all elements of that whole are unified by their submission to natural law. Precisely none break the rules. Fish, tree, and human, all are Daesin, just to greater or lesser degrees. The universe is alive. We live because it (the universe) did first. We are not separate or special except as a matter of degree of these characteristics. They are not again wholly reserved to us. And indeed the Oxford definition (and you whether you agree or not) imply that there is some special status to humanity in these assertions.
The distinction between body and mind is clear. Even today's humans are unable to assess this clarity properly though so it's too profound, too beautiful, to see or accept head-on. It surely scares the analytical types. But they, the analytical types are 'of the mind' or 'more given to order'. All order is based only finally in its pure essence from the universal part we call fear. That is why this cowardice is seen over and over again in logical and empirical and reductionist analysis. Fear is the limiting force in the universe, the only one. The mind is the realm of fear. But its purity is not real, only delusional. The universe has three main parts.
The body issue involves another part. That part is anger. Anger demands that our fears at least recede so that its analysis paralysis can be converted into being. So, there is most certainly and observably a
distinction between body and mind. Yet they are ALWAYS found unified because that to is the nature of reality.
I do not want to derail (entirely), but, for completeness the universe only has one more part besides fear and anger, or building block, if you will. That is desire. Desire is the fuel for the engine. It is chaos, energy. And just like anger, desire is properly balanced with fear in all things. Nature has or tends to this balance as a law.
So that is my model's EXTREMELY basic refutation of Daesin, ... unless ... Daesin is said to belong to every particle in the universe. The nonsensical application of any basic moral function, choice, to ONLY humans is one of the greatest errors of philosophy of all time, if not the greatest. Is is a hopeless conceit finally, born of delusional worthiness, rooted entirely in happenstance. So much for the glory of Daesin.
I wouldn't know about that. The Wikipedia article doesn't mention Heidegger.
But he does seem to have had some views that are vaguely reminiscent of him - and that are interesting for this thread (first tenet):-
I wish pragmatists would find something less narrow-minded than "useful". This is also of interest:-
Why does it strike you as narrow minded?
Because it doesn't recognize the complexity and variety of the things that we do.
Compare the Watsonian behaviourists who analyzed everything that we do into stimulus and response. It has a sort of rough and ready plausibility, but it doesn't get near to analyzing what people do. Skinner improved things because he added the idea that conditioning starts with spontaneous actions. Still it doesn't get near to understanding because we do some things for a purpose.
The utilitarians are so called because the first formulations of the theory proposed the we should maximize utility. Now, they talk about benefit because they had to recognize that not everything that we value is "useful". That is better, but still not comprehensive enough.
Aristotle was the first to recognize the hierarchy of action and purpose. I put down my book in order to get up from the chair in order to walk to the kitchen in order to open the fridge door, in order to get out a beer, in order to open it in order to drink it. At the end of the chain, there must be, Aristotle says, something that is done "for its own sake" and not "for the sake of something else". It's far from perfect, but something like it is clearly correct.
Sometimes people go for a walk for pleasure and specifically not for any purpose (useful). Hedonists and Epicureans say that we do everything for pleasure. The pleasure is not necessarily anything we do in addition to the walking as when we walk and talk; but often the pleasure is the walking. Is pleasure useful? What for? But pleasure is too narrow to capture all the things we do "for their own sake" unless you stretch it to include all the really important things in life, which are done for their own sake.
That Wikipedia article has a nice example of the confusions here:-
There is no distinction drawn here between the child's motivation and the result of the child's behaviour. No child ever plays in order to "learn to become both subject and object" even though that's the result of the play and evolution no doubt exploits that result. Some people seem completely unable to recognize that anything can be without purpose, so we get long explanations about art and morality (and even science) that seek to reduce them to something "useful".
I hope that helps.
I agree that it can be overdone, as if use is some sort of holy grail. Obviously the concept of use is dependent on its negation: the useless, like the sight of a beautiful sky while you're busting rocks.
Just purely logically - and this isn't my interpretation of K speaking this is me. A relationship to a God is possible even if it is unknown. Like a relationship to pollen in the air is possible and unknown, until you notice the hay fever.
As for K, I'm sure he'd see this as the wrong question. "If God is unknown" - this construes the principal flavour of relation one could have toward as God as epistemic. Like if you don't know something exists, how could you relate to it. That's troubled for two reasons.
The first is that we aren't cognisant of most things we take for granted in our environments and, moreover, our lives - this is also a broader existentialist theme. That you take a lot of stuff for granted, that you're born into that state, and have to take responsibility for who you are in the mess regardless.
The second is that, for K, he has a critique of reason anyway. You can be reasonable and in a state of complete stasis, doing nothing. But in that state you're committed to some things anyway. You're not gonna question how reasonable your reason is - how could you, it's a performative contradiction! It's something that you've posited as a value, something to live your life by. "The unexamined life is not worth living" style of thing... But you can live an examined life by positing other premises for it. Like a God. Even if there's no fundamental reason for believing in a God over and above anything else. Another existentialist theme - the absurd.
There's absolutely contradictions in that account. But K also has a funny relationship with contradictions, he sees these contradictions - between reason for belief and self creation, the irrelevance of knowledge of God and practical service to Him in your life - as essential to the human condition. So for him, the weird shit you're seeing (rightly) in this space of beliefs isn't an error in his reasoning, it's also something he's describing accurately.
So what're you going to do with this absurd reality? K. believes.
I do think that he consoles himself with the theology of the soul and bible stories too much, which I think is an encroachment of reason into a thoroughly and proudly unreasonable philosophy (so he's less of a "knight of faith" and more of a LARPer of faith). So even he couldn't absolve himself of the need to salve his analytical capabilities from the cognitive dissonances in faith!
But I'm sure someone could come up with a better interpretation and criticism of his work than me, too. So take this uncited pile of nonsense as what it is, an athiest waxing lyrical about faith on the internet.
'cos he's sexist as hell.
Being a Dasein is not a social status conferred upon selected biological organisms and comes with no entitlements.
The fish is entitled to do as it may.
Exactly. :smile:
I agree. The notion of essence as qualities grafted on to existence is a rationalizing of moral agency in a light we consider most favorable.
And I suspect Nietzsche would argue that "essence" is just another version of an Apollonian value framework grafted on to being in order to sublimate manifestations of will to power in a seemingly reasonable manner.
I've heard that claim before. I think they were both creative philosophers with very different aims, but somehow the philosophy bridged them.
I don't think it's a misinterpretation -- at least no more a misinterpretation than what Heidegger does with Aletheia; the man got criticized for not representing the notion historically correctly, but I do remember Heidegger's name and not the critic so there's that -- I just think they were both creative philosophers with different sentiments dealing with similar themes in wildly different circumstances.
EDIT: Though, to be fair, in my quadrivium of existentialists I pair Heidegger to Levinas, and Sartre to Camus.
I know Simone de Beauvoir was a contemporary, too, and I haven't mentioned her.
I do think that existentialism has something of a masculine energy to it[s]usually.[/s]
[s]EDIT2: Well... things change. There's definitely feminist existential phenomenology, among other things -- but the quadrivium which sets the stage in my mind is masculine. Derrida spoke of Levinas' work as obviously written by a man (and I agree there -- there are criticisms from other angles to be had; not that the masculine is bad, but the attempt at a universal frame kind of cuts off all the non-masculine existential-phenomenologists)[/s]
Meh... I'm not satisfied with that. There's a relationship there, but I don't have it thought out.
Quoting Moliere
I agree that all misinterpret. But Heidegger's interpretation of Aletheia is irrelevant to whether "existence precedes essence" is a fundamental tenet of existentialism.
And I make my argument for the sole purpose of cautioning "someone who is trying to understand all that is existentialism." Please see original OP.
Gotcha.
First thoughts and all that.
I was caught up on the notion that Sartre misinterprets Heidegger.
The idea that existence precedes essence stands on its own as does Sartre's philosophy insofar is it relies upon the idea that existence precedes essence. Whether the idea is an accurate interpretation of Heidegger is relevant only to whether the idea is fundamental to existentialism per se. And I suspect that is an issue that would interest neither Sartre nor Heidegger.
I thought you were saying the opposite in describing Sartre as misinterpreting Heidegger here:
Quoting Arne
So you're more saying "these are not fundamental" -- which I hope you see we agree on.
Well, ... Amen to that! Ha ha!
And that idealists would find something more attainable than perfection. Go figure!
What does that sound like? Balance.
Fear is thought is order. It takes high probability short-cuts because they are USEFUL.
Desire is passion is chaos is freedom. It demands everything especially the impossible, now, and wants to work for nothing.
Poo (anger) just is. Being just is. People never seem to understand that each emotion also includes a sub-section where it reflects itself back on to itself. The calm of Poo is an anger infusion to anger (calm).
Playing the who game is misdirection. Heidegger, Sartre, Kierkegaard, you , me, are all not the point. But we realize that if we are describing a philosophy finally and properly there is only one effective reference point, and that is ALL. Everything has to match or its not a philosophy. Saying or intimating that there is a philosophy of JUST parts is ridiculous on the surface of it. A similar poor choice would be that there is some temporal anomaly where truth or natural law is no longer the same. If natural law is law at all, then it must be omnipresent. That does not, of course, prevent laws working with each other in ways we yet do not understand, ... at all.
We call things anomaly when they do not agree with laws we have 'on the books' via our own observation. But finally that conflict MUST be resolved. There can be no anomalies. So, all an anomaly is is only our own errored interpretations about what natural law is. Nothing is breaking the REAL laws of nature. So the anomaly is always our observations and beliefs.
That is correct. I was being hyperbolic with the "pop psychology" and should have said to the effect "the notion that existence precedes essence is not a fundamental tenet of existentialism". I should save the hyperbole for Facebook.
I could have also been more careful in reading, and so forth.
Great explanation. Very informative and nicely put. :up:
Quoting fdrake
Was he? Never knew that. Any particular reason for him had been so? Or just a social trend at the time?
I think you can speculate that he had resentment from romantic misfortune, with some evidence. But, at least in Sickness Unto Death, he finds women of a weaker spiritual constitution than men. He definitely was a kind of... advanced sexist... he had a theory for it.
Edit: you can read that as a critic's regurgitation of gender norms at the time, but honestly I think we should hold our alleged Great Men to higher standards.
He broke up with her and then wrote his greatest works trying to come to terms with what he'd done to her. He didn't resent women.
I read K. many years ago, but haven't come across anything on sexism at all at the time of my reading K. He is known to have broken the marriage promise to his fiancee Regina for some reason. I am not sure what the reason for breaking the promise was.
The other philosophers who are publicly known to have been sexists are Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. For their reason for being sexists seem to be their personal experiences and situations with the opposite sex folks? Just guessing.
It is interesting to note that both Schopenhauer and Nietzsche were positing Will as the significant element in human values and the foundation of the mental operation and actions. Recall The World as Will and Representation and Will to Power?
Anyhow, I am not sure if the claim that K was sexist is an objective and fully accepted justified fact just from referring to some commentaries on his works or passages in his books.
From the existentialism's point of view, sexism would be the most inauthentic mode of thought, especially for a thinker like K. He propounded the most meaningful status for a being is the lone being standing in front of God facing him directly one to one. Discriminating or debasing the other races or sex in the system of thought of K doesn't seem to have a place in the K's system of ideas.
But your idea in the post sounds confident that K was. If so, how does sexism fit in the frame of existentialism? Can someone who are biased and prejudiced against the other people on the bases of sex or race be qualified as an existentialist? What would be the arguments on the point from the Ethics or Morality of Existentialism?
It might be ahistorical of me, but I'm going to read someone who believes women's natures are "devotion" and "submission" as a sexist. Regardless of why K believes it.
Quoting Corvus
Me neither!
There is a great deal packed into this sentence.
It does seem to me that the Humean separation of fact and value should really be considered more carefully. It seems inescapable that fact and value, although distinct, are interwoven in language in order to serve human interests and capacities. What would be the point of language if that were not so? It does seem that it would be more helpful to articulate the ways in which they interact rather than simply trying to separate them into separate discourses.
The notion of essence as qualities grafted on to existence is a metaphor that applies a model that may work quite well up to a point, but can seriously mislead us. We need to resist the tendency to apply the same model to all concepts and to be much more alive to the differences between them. for example, I've always wondered whether the Kantian claim that existence is not a predicate is consistent with the way that we talk about essence and existence in the context of existentialism. I can't believe that either Heidegger or Sartre were unaware of Kant. Are they contradicting him?
Quoting Arne
That's quite true. Though perhaps it is more true in Anglophone philosophy than elsewhere. I've encountered the claim before, but somehow I've missed the argument that shows that it is true. I feel I'm left with a blind choice, so I'm not happy. Thinking about it, I'm inclined to understand Sartre's "precedes" as a metaphor; but he doesn't seem to give us much to interpret it. Since the concept of bare existence seems incomprehensible, Heidegger's formulation seems more plausible, so I'm inclined to go with that. But I don't believe that I really understand either concept.
Quoting 180 Proof
Intuitively, I feel that there;s a good point here. These do seem to be inter-related concepts, But we need to think of essence as dynamic, constantly changing. The difficulty here is that if we regard essence as what endures through change, which, if I've understood correctly, was what Aristotle was after - in oder to reconcile Heraclitus with Parmenides. But it seems entirely appropriate, not only to the Heraclitean river, but also to human life.
Quoting Chet Hawkins
I assume you mean "in the existence of humans as people".
No, indeed, I am never so prosaic as that.
The ONLY thing in all of existence, including physical matter, is the state of free will, inflicting every particle in the universe with the burden of choice. Free standing free will, all that is, perfection, is well aware of ... everything. The existence of that background truth of perfection is the origin of fear, anger, and desire; the only parts of free will.
What we call the act of creation is an intentional process for sure that is not creation at all, because all there is is still free will and nothing new is created. But what is there is a set of internal choices to become something amid nothing, and according to the 'rules'. These 'rules' are what we typically refer to as laws of nature, and that designation is fine, as is. The interaction between those three emotions is the only thing happening anywhere, anywhen.
It is part of perfection that perfection is not static. That part is hard to understand, especially for us, who are now so far removed from that state. Perfecting a dimension is fine. That is what is being called perfection here. But there is always more perfecting to be done. And that takes effort. Effort implies flux, change. So even a specific dimension of perfection must change and then ... it's risking being not perfect in order to earn its way to transcend the next dimension.
So this process writ large and small across the metaverse is the whole becoming its parts to transcend its delusional wholeness. That could be called 'evolution' but let's face it that the idea transcends what the colloquial definition of the term intends, even if all the parts of the idea are analogous.
I will stop there to see if there is any interest in this tack. And of course it would probably be a new thread, so ....
I agree entirely. And these interactions, to be meaningful, must extend past the colloquial local time scope. That means they have to be eternal or laws to be 'of value'. Memorizing and truly creating delusional non-laws does not help us, and has led to entire eons of 'misinformation' as a dynasty. It is dynastic because investment, once made, seems to personal and deep to let go of. The increasing chaos these days is eroding this tendency and people are vacillating back and forth with no basis other than day to day whim and comfort. It's just survival mode, if you follow.
Our values have eroded precisely because they are not attached to objective aims. This is distinct from facts though, which are only beliefs, although that is a matter of debate for some. So when YOU say fact above, I would instead say truth-seeking. That implies we are not done yet. That implies that 'facts' are not the end of the work. And it implies that truth seeking as a process must relate to existing beliefs. I like all of that.
I have related insight into BOTH these perspectives and WHY the confusion arises.
Essense as a concept just means essential, foundational, base. It's the earliest part, the starting part(s). So the divide exists because of the trouble of whether what is essence is physical or otherwise. The divide exists because meaning and the physical world have not yet been properly combined.
Existence IS essence is a tacit nod to the physical world, practical, almost comfortable. But we are still AFFLICTED with meaning and value, so 'What then must we do?' It the 100,000 years of living dangerously! How do we relate meaning to the physical world? It does seem clear in the interactions, but not the ... essence ... of the physical world. I argue that lack of clarity is only for the willfully blind.
I am NOT saying awareness is easy. Like all virtues, maintaining the strength of that virtue takes effort. In the parlance of wisdom we would say, 'Wisdom is only earned through suffering!' We must then suffer our awareness. The Garden of Eden is delusional. Prefect awareness IS NOT a lack of awareness. And we just covered, awareness is suffering and takes effort. So perfection is a very violent thing. It is a change flux of perfect capacity and enormity.
So the other side of the essence argument is where I am. And apparently the 'precedes' argument is from more like my model, my belief set. That is to say, the physical world, all its essences, are not THE THING. Real essence is meaning. So meaning precedes and allows for the physical via its more fundamental essence. The 'laws of nature' of course play out to be causal to physical essence but only after or at least during (at the same time as) non-physical essence and its interactions.
So defining that non-physical realm of Plato's forms is much more important and essential, than our keen grasp of the obvious insistence on practical physical matters in the world today all about us would easily show. It takes real courage to pursue meaning beyond the physical and to have the balance amid that pursuit to resist temptations in the realm of imagination and forms only. That is because it SEEMS that we can have anything we want without 'negative' consequences. But that is only for the unwise, who want Truth without effort. What is worthy in essence takes perfectly maximal effort. That is wisdom.
And then of course, even if we believe this, the physical MUST match it. So, the physical allows us to glean insight into the preceding non-physical. And by the way, the model does not forbid the eternal physical. That is to say, when we say 'precedes' we are alluding to the dimension of time and that too may be in some way delusional. In such a case the essence ALWAYS included the physical by way of those very laws. So then to speak of 'preceding' essence is incorrect. Once the laws are known, ANY state could exist at any time but whether or not it does or does not is based on those laws. What are those laws becomes the critical matter of effort. Define wisdom! Define perfection! Define the GOOD!
Profuse apologies.
I'm afraid I haven't understood properly how the software the works when one quotes a quotation.
Quoting 180 Proof
Of course you are right. But that leaves me with three possibilities and no way of choosing between them or assessing which of them is correct. Actually, I expect that all of them are correct on their own terms. But that doesn't help very much. I'm just trying to work out how to deal with that. An existential (arbitrary) commitment doesn't seem very satisfactory.
That's why I said that they are inter-related. What I meant is something like this. Freedom is nothing without the power to do what you want. The power to do what you want is what makes freedom real. Both pre-suppose a world as the possibilities and hindrances that you choose from and act within.
I can see what you mean in what you write.
"Prosaic" is a complex idea, and quite annoying for those in a poetic or transcendental state of mind. Those are much more exciting.
Nonetheless, what is ordinary, everyday, and commonplace is what we start from and will return to. More than that, what is extraordinary and exciting, if prolonged, will become prosaic. We cannot do without poetry and we cannot do without prose.
I would rather say that I find it necessary to keep my feet (or at least one foot or toe) on the ground. You say: - Quoting Chet Hawkins
But Wittgenstein finds that the ideal, logical forms are indeed perfection and consequently are like a smooth, frictionless surface. He observes:-
Quoting Chet Hawkins
If you had said that every particle in the universe was free, I could have more or less followed you. What it means to say that every particle in the universal is burdened with choice escapes me entirely.
Communication requires a shared context. Given this starting-point, I'm afraid that we have a serious communication problem.
:evilgrin
Quoting Ludwig V
I agree with your sentiment, but, it is the need factor that is the thing to doubt in the sense of wisdom.
Amid perfection we would possibly say, 'We do not now NEED this rough surface. We are beings of will alone, and travel via desire or whim, in balance with the rules because otherwise inertia, speed, ... kills.' You are ONLY saying for us (or Wittgenstein and you, less me as a dread assertion) these training wheels of 'safe frictioned ground' are still needed. Ok! Come on in boo! The water is fine! Seek the internal balance to put off these fears, and skate when it is slippery. Less effort required (in one sense) if one only has earned the skill (effort in the balancing sense).
Quoting Ludwig V
Do not let this pass so easily. You give up and run at first blush? Let me be brazen enough to ask for the benefit of the doubt. You did not comment on ALL THAT OTHER information. So the topic was ... a) not addressed, or b) read but deemed altogether to unaddressable. It's kind of unknown.
You didn't JUST call me a quack so, on we go.
The seeds of moral agency are not amenable to the arbitrary science that in its failing cannot explain why the universe is alive. I mean science admits that SOME parts are alive. But in understanding unity and belonging, the real understanding is that anything IS anything else in the final sense. That means the essence of what is includes life ALWAYS, ... AT EVERY LEVEL. That is whether or not the current science is aware enough yet to agree with truth. That is because current science IS current awareness. But perfection (truth) is an objective delivery of all awareness. So seeking the higher patterns of wisdom, includes awareness but vice versa IS NOT true. This means wisdom >> intelligence.
How about 'subjective commitment' instead?
I'm not sure what you're getting at. But it's not about the commitment, thought there's plenty to say about that. It's about which of three/four possible commitments to make and what would be good reasons to prefer one over another.
Perhaps it is enough to understand the interactions.
Quoting Chet Hawkins
Not quite the intended meaning. Wittgenstein was saying that the ideal world seems more comprehensible, but that is largely illusion. In order to make progress, we need resistance, and that requires the rough ground. For him, it is the ideal that has the training wheels, and the rough ground is where the work gets done.
Quoting Chet Hawkins
I can sort of follow the first two sentences here - except that the reason science cannot explain why the universe is alive is that not all of the universe is alive. But the fact that science cannot explain something doesn't tell us very much at all. The last sentence here is beyond my understanding, as is the rest of the paragraph. I can see that you are arguing that wisdom is more than intelligence. I wouldn't disagree with that. But I don't see where it gets us.
Heidegger was well aware of Kant. However, Heidegger defines existence in a non-traditional manner. For Heidegger, "existence" is one of three modes of being (existence, ready (or unready) to hand, and present to hand.). In turn, existence is that mode of being that belongs to Dasein and only to Dasein There is no such thing as a non-existing Dasein and no such thing as an existing entity that is not a Dasein. So the least we can say is that Heidegger does not mean the same thing as Kant when he uses the term "existence." And Sartre uses the term in much the same way as Heidegger. And I am unaware of the degree to which Sartre was aware of Kant.
So for existentialism in general, "existence" applies to a much smaller domain of entities than it does for Kant. And even if Heidegger, Sartre, and Nietzsche agree in what they mean by existence, they do not agree regarding the ontological bottom line for those entities whose mode of being is existence. Though Being-in-the-world (Heidegger) freedom (Sartre), and will to power (Nietzsche) are respective ontological bottom lines, they are not the same.
In some sense and for existentialists, existence is the predicate.
I agree. And it may be something he would rather not have said. It neither adds to nor detracts from his fundamental argument. But it does distract.
I'm clutching at straws here. At first sight, you may be saying that existence is the "is" in any predicate.
Do you mean something like "existence is the possibility of attaching any predicate to something" or maybe something along the lines that if you apply any predicate to something, that something exists.
Quoting Arne
Does that mean that Dasein is the only thing that exists? I suppose if Da sein means something like "there is", that would make some sense. "exists" is a bastard concoction, and I wish it could be abolished in favour of "there is". But it would make it a lot harder to formulate a lot of philosophy. Perhaps that's a good thing.
No. Existence is a mode of being always belonging to and only belonging to Dasein. Applying any predicate to any entity not having the characteristics of Dasein will not cause that entity to "exist."
Quoting Ludwig V
Yes. Dasein is the only entity that "exists" within the Heideggerian sense of the term. The ontological status of entities not having the characteristics of Dasein are ready-to-hand or present to hand.
Exactly. And that is why Heidegger went to great lengths to give existence a precise meaning within the context of his philosophy. And so long as Heidegger tells you "this" is what I mean by existence and he then employs existence consistent with what he means by existence, then there is no confusion regarding existence as used within the context of his philosophy. Existence is Dasein's and only Dasein's mode of being. All entities not having the characteristics of Dasein have a mode of being other than Existence.
It sounds a contradiction. Another contradiction with K. is his emphasis on human relationship with God. From what I read about existentialism, the existentialist don't believe in God. Most of them seem to reject God. They would rather believe in Freedom of individuals, absurdity and isolation. If that is the major character of existentialism, then K. seem to had been an anti-existentialist or different type of existentialist.
Or, there is no "choice." Everything is interconnected. Every action is a reaction to a trigger(s); the same principle applying to each trigger.
Is this not so from subparticles to suicide? a triggered b triggered c triggered molecular bonding. x triggered y triggered z triggered suicide. Even when the free act of choosing seems indisputable, like in difficult decisions where one wishes one had no choice, the difficulty, the process, and the final action were each reactions to triggers.
Choice is the illusion which arises when we (humans uniquely) construct and superimpose meaning retroactively (albeit often with lightning speed) onto the autonomous activities of Nature (said construction and superimposition also caused by triggers).
Quoting Chet Hawkins
Or does it take no courage at all, but only imagination and forms? Is meaning also autonomously constructed and superimposed as part of an evolved system we have come to think of as directed by the Subject, "I"; and to "know" as our Mind?
Where in Nature is there striving for meaning? Where outside of human minds is meaning pursued?
:up:
Well, it is a classical backwards walk, baby steps to glory! But, yes, I suppose any path can meander around and find its way finally to the end of the maze. Hand to left wall and go.
So, what I mean is when YOU say understanding, I get the impression you actually mean awareness only, which is not all of understanding. That was what the comment wisdom >> intelligence also infers. To me the term understanding implies wisdom as a consequence whereas observation and analysis only imply intelligence as a consequence. If that is a reset of sorts for us in the conversation, so be it.
Quoting Ludwig V
Regardless of what he meant, I would say that any such assertion is LAUGHABLE in its obvious wrongness. The implication being, again, that Not(wisdom >> intelligence){my point}. That is to say, the idea realm is the ostensible correct aim, the destination. And this (fool) very educated man deigns to suggest that it's enacting is easy?
So, I do UNDERSTAND that confusion. He MEANS to say that exemplars of the ideal path, idealists, often tend to not do the work, to not be aware of the impediments that are part of the path they want. Yes, that is true. It is fundamental to the very nature of the two chosen and juxtaposed paths of fear and desire. Fear is all order, all thought, all analysis, all logic, all structure. I am not saying it represents those things. It literally IS those things. Likewise, desire is all freedom, chaos, becoming, etc. These are the two most easily acknowledged forces in the universe. It is the reason for the false duality of existence, polarization, right and left wings, etc. But all of that is only one axis, order versus chaos.
I would then offer that Wittgenstein is clearly in the order camp. The fear path is analysis paralysis. It is static and dead but reliable in most ways. But it's only one third of wisdom in terms of understanding the right path to the GOOD. You seem to concur and nominally prefer that path.
Granted, generic idealism is only another one third approach. That is the wild open free desire and Utopian vision, including then your criticism, the criticism of the order camp, that so much is being blithely stepped aside or wished away in that approach. I agree. That too is not the path of wisdom. But in saying this there is a backhanded win for order only. The order path is also NOT THE WAY.
The axis of good and evil is unlike the other one. With order and chaos, balance is the right way. That is ... understanding, wisdom. But there is no BALANCE in the axis of GOOD and evil. It is actually only rising amounts of GOOD, so evil is nothing special, only less GOOD.
This setup gives rise, my model, to the more apt trinary nature of reality. The only way to get here is to add in a third force, the emotion of anger. Anger demands that fears and desires recede, that confidence amid being is sufficient. From that balance, which is just an infringement on order and chaos, if you will, a bending into another dimension, wisdom is finally something we can work with. From that balance, any path, any imbalance, any choice, may be briefly explored and a return to balance, real balance is not that hard or costly. No other path can say this. That is wisdom.
So wisdom ... SHOULD ... if it is worthy of the name, refute the SOLE or lopsided dedication to the orderly (pragmatic) path. Wisdom ... SHOULD ... if it is worthy of the name, refute the SOLE or lopsided dedication to the chaotic (ideal) path. Wisdom ... SHOULD ... instead promote with great force (belief) the erroneous parts of each of those paths and remain resolute on the perfect union of the two, the properly bent intent of wise choice.
It is fairly hard for me to say that any BETTER. Alas, I still have room to grow in understanding.
Quoting Ludwig V
Au contraire. How is it that life comes from not life? Science thinks it knows. But I say instead that life comes because it can do nothing else. It is not predestined so much as it is intrinsic. For something to be predestined it would have to be missing at some point. It never was missing.
Animism was always more correct than religion. Anthropomorphization of the universe is a CORRECT tendency. If we erased what we THINK we know, and we cannot know really so even that is crazy to have to say, we would say of something planted that later grew that it was always alive. Behold, the universe. You can claim no confusion or derision. Are the details needed? Not in this case. If we do not allow for an external scope, the reasoning is sound. Any example you offer to the contrary will have a familiar external scope. That is your only way to 'cheat'. Clearly things grow here, in this universe. I believe Ian Malcom said it quite well in Jurassic Park, 'Life will find a way'. He could have said 'Love will find a way'. He could have just said, 'There is a way.'
Quoting Ludwig V
Oh yes it does! It tells us that science is NOT THE ONLY WAY. It hints that science is insufficient in much of our efforts to help us be wise, to even answer its little corner (one third) of the universe, awareness. Wisdom is so much more. Understanding is so much more. We need that ... more ... to function RIGHTLY in every now. And overt and improper dedication to the single path of order amid fear is cowardly. That is the primal all encompassing sin of fear.
Lest you think me simply argumentative and without a salient point, the single path of desire is EQUAL and opposed, its sin, self-indulgence. And even anger, the third force, has a sin, and this completes our set of only three sins at the highest level in existence, laziness. The unwillingness or inability to balance these truths is lack of effort. I am NOT denigrating fear and awareness. I am only seeking that it maintain a proper posture towards wisdom.
And this modelling is SUPPOSED to be an appeal to the order types to understand. That IS it's purpose.
Quoting Ludwig V
Certainty is an absurd goal. Anger demands you stand to the mystery. Desire pulls you towards perfection and only a living universe can respond, so it is alive, and it does. Evolution towards greater moral agency is a law of the universe.
If the experience of it does not lead to it again, is that accurate? Idempotency must be ... the thing. Meaning proceeds endlessly from meaning. Which was the cause and which the effect? The balance is that each is both. That is the only thing that could be a balance.
Maybe we agree in an odd way. I am down for that. Strange unity! But the thing is, from balance, which is the elusive goal of perfection, or at least perfection-aiming, ANY other tilt is easy, and if taken in smaller doses, easy to return to balance.
The point being only perfectly free will ensures the 'right' burden of choice. That does not mean the burden of choice does not exist. The TRAP of fear and order would see this deterministically. The silliness of desire and chaos would refuse that and explode, particles flying in every direction. But 'right' balance shows the ... Truth. So, determinism is wrong. Free will is the only possible final perfection. So, it is what is, and it stands alone, perfect. It is all of us and we delude ourselves otherwise, more is the pity.
If you are the E-Noah, you must part this Red Sea with me!
Quoting ENOAH
You confuse inertia with truth. Really? Why so drawn?
Imbalance is convincing. Watch out! It takes great effort to overcome investment.
Quoting ENOAH
And yet nature is the entity anthropomorphized that we most ascribe to as having balance. I love it that you went there. It seems you wish to be convinced! On-on!
As the 'highest' beings, those imbued with the most facile of moral agency, apart from those damn pan-dimensional mice and dolphins, we pretend to understand. We DO understand BETTER than they do, in most cases, at least our exemplars. Agency is an absolute value, so humans can deliver the least in understanding right along with the best. You know like thinking everything is predestined so we can blame our bad choices on the universe. Hilarious!
Speed racer will see it through, even if the odds are stacked against him and that is for sure dangerous work!
Triggered is never a good thing. Balance! Wisdom, ... stands, to all comers.
Quoting ENOAH
And the heart has no say? Does the heart ALLOW the mind free reign? What of the body? Does it offer no constraint upon this mind? Or on the heart? These three are compelling are they not? Why is it these three in humanity the greatest moral exemplar we know of? Is Homo Sapiens Sapiens deserving of that moniker? You counsel from the path of mind alone (as do many an most academics and their groupies). But Noah had to prepare humanity for a RIDICULOUS tragedy that no one else foresaw. What is/was the predetermined source of that? And if not Noah then let's ignore your happenstance name and use someone like the Wright Brothers.
There were PHDs in physics busily writing paper on why it was determined as nonsense that man should want to fly, when powered flight happened. The path of fear and determination is Voltaire's and my nightmare (certainty). The need for certainty is only fear. Cowardice is no way to face the world's mystery. If you wish to say largely predetermined mystery then you neglect the evolved agency of humanity all around you. Rocks and winds you might predict. Good luck with an evolved human. Such agency is at least asymptotic to tipping those scales. I mean ... that's the whole purpose of being alive, being in general.
Quoting ENOAH
What dread demand requires an atom hold itself to an identity? Just physics right? Not at all. The atom is a moral agent. It 'knows' what it is, and let there be no doubt, it is wrong. It can be other. This demand, this consistency, is order. Order is meaning (chaos and balance are meaning also. Order IS NOT alone as meaning). What will it want? If it's a noble thing, maybe not much. But the most of us, of them, get all 'busy' interacting by choice. Notice I did not put choice in quotes.
Why is this chaotic thing here in the world? This random interaction of atoms? They present a certain type of chaos. Their energetic side is balanced with their stable side. It is a realm from which choice is eventually more possible. Some stability is had. But some chaos and interaction, becoming, is still there. The outer shells, the electrons as a whole, are the chaos part. And their position is not known entirely because they are literally exploring divergent futures. Desire is only the pull into the future. You see another atom coming and its got the right attitude and vector to collide with us, this atom, the right way, and you call their combination pre-determined.
What you do not see is the percentage that defied that choice. Every experiment is slightly off. Why? If it is not you do not measure with enough granularity. Life is the negentropy in growth mode. Life must excel to the position of balance with entropy. I suppose just prior to that exultant universal orgasm, you might convert and believe. Until then, my friend! Two by two, hands of blue!
But for now:
Quoting Chet Hawkins
Is it possible that this interconnectedness of all things "idea" which inspires my submission that, to keep it simple, there is nowhere a real burden of choice, but only the illusion that a deliberate being is deliberately choosing (and the suffering which is concomitant with that illusion)...is it not possible that that is not determinism, but only seen as determinism from a perspective which also sees free will and the burden of choice.
Again, to keep it simple. When x triggers y triggers z triggers suicide, the suicide was not predetermined. X could have triggered b instead, and y could have triggered quitting one's job. "Choice" is built into that process, but it is an illusion, in that the "choice" was triggered.
Sure call that chaos, call it meaningless. But is it not possible that from the perspective of the "order" we have constructed; a thing necessarily working with/making meaning, things like meaning, order, balance, and perfection matter. While really, Nature is before/beyond that "order" and (only because we have to assess its function do I say this:) it "functions" as a whole--not with design or predetermination--where each part has an effect upon the other(s) including, ultimately, that whole.
Being before/beyond the order (human Mind) of course we will impose order upon it as part of our dominion over Nature. That is, as part of human Mind displacing Reality.
Anyway, I fear tge complexity of my thoughts about this far exceed my capacity to express it briefly in this forum. I find, the best I can do is offer morsels with the hope, not just that someone bites, like you; but that someone is able to digest it, that's my biggest challenge. Do not, from that, feel obligated to continue biting. I do appreciate your input already.
Actually, I submit Body alone. Mind, though it exists, is a system of empty signifiers displacing the Body with its empty Fiction. Quoting Chet Hawkins
Quoting Chet Hawkins
It happily amuses me that you think my name has any relation to the Ark builder. That's part of what i meant by your writing having an inspirational tone. I am tempted not to correct you. But alas, no.
Quoting Chet Hawkins
Perhaps, now you see I am not purporting a predetermined reality; but an interconnected one where even our "choices" have been triggered, even by structures of Reasoning and logic autonomously arising to the task, having been input into our minds at some point(s) in our local and universal history.
In fact, my intuition is that those who push free will do so out of fear and wishful thinking; a conceited desire for our constructions to be real etc.
Quoting Chet Hawkins
This is nice. Like you, I like to think about the possibilities of morality or nobility of an atom. But.
You mention "desire" a few times but I'm unsure of its role. For me, there are drives, and feelings, but desire is like meaning, order, and choice: constructs of the Mind which superimposes itself on Nature and displaces it with Narratives. Desire evolved in the system of Mind (not by design or predeterminedly, but by chance) to keep the Signifiers growing and constructing.
Ah, here I am again. Far too much to say, to little room to elaborate.
I am interested in how desire fits in for you as used in your reply above.
I think I understand the rest of what you say. But this suggests to me that applying any entity having the characteristics of Dasein will cause that entity to exist. ???
Quoting Arne
.. and H. acknowledges only three modes of being, one of which is true of everything that is. (Is that the right word to use here?
That's makes it all clear enough. Take it or leave it.
Assuming we allow every other philosopher the same license, it seems that each philosophy exists in its own silo. How does an outsider choose between them? On grounds of internal consistency? Is that enough?
I can see that.
It seems to me that the difference between nihilism is that the nihilist is committed to not being committed and the existentialist is not yet committed, but will be. Would that be right?
There seems to be a difference between Kierkegaard and Sartre/Camus. Kierkegaard bewails his inability to make the leap of faith, which suggests that when the leap is made, it is a voluntary action. But whether one can make that leap does not solely depend on whether one wants to or not. Sartre and Camus don't seem to recognize that ambivalence - their heroes don't bewail their uncommitted status, and Mathieu's final commitment seems to happen to him without his co-operation or resistance. Would that be correct?
Existence is constitutive of Dasein much as roundness is constitutive of a circle. You cannot add existence to Dasein any more than you can add roundness to a circle. Existence belongs to Dasein much as roundness belongs to a circle. Dasein is a unitary phenomenon rather than a collection of parts. Any entity to which you could apply the characteristics of Dasein is already a Dasein and any entity that is already a Dasein is already existing or it would not already be a Dasein. There is no wiggle room.
Quoting Ludwig V
I am not really certain of what you mean by that. Unlike Descartes, Heidegger is not describing a substance ontology. Heidegger is making no claim to the self-sufficiency of any of the three modes of being. Instead, he is describing the manner (the modes) in which being comes at us, the manner (the modes) in which we experience entities. We experience (encounter?) our own existence, we experience (encounter?) entities that are ready to hand, and we experience (encounter?) entities that are present to hand.
I am confident Heidegger intended the three modes to be inclusive of every manner in which we encounter entities, including our own existence. But he was relatively young when he wrote Being and Time and the later Heidegger made no claims to having gotten it all right.
Quoting Ludwig V
Interesting question. Every philosopher already has the same license and the greatest of them have made good use of it. And the question itself neither begins nor ends with Heidegger. But Heidegger did choose the phenomenological method because it is descriptive. You can decide whether you agree with Heidegger by looking at the description he gives to the phenomena he describes. For example, it you examine his description of Dasein and recognize yourself in it, then why in the world would you not keep going?
Nobody has to choose between philosophers. And being internally consistent does not make a philosopher any more or less correct than any other philosopher. But it does make it easier to understand what they are saying.
And besides, it is more important to understand what Heidegger has to say than it is to agree or disagree with him. And as difficult as it may be, it is worth understanding what Heidegger has to say.
Thank you! And that is awesome to hear and ... things get interesting. I am trying to make my tack a polished thing and that is not easy when one is trying to make a case, present for propriety amid truth. And then make sure that this presentation is in no way a deception, apart from pointing at it and saying, 'yes this is a stretch here, but it seems like the BEST stretch I can think of right now.'
Quoting ENOAH
I admit quite easily to this possibility, and you are direct and fair-minded to present it.
Now I get to do that famous 'but' part. Amid all motivation, the seed of that truth, free will, we see clearly people who choose to suffer more for the wrong reasons and the right reasons, assuming of course a base scope of 'wrong' and 'right'. And we see people who opt instead for less suffering for the same wrong and right reasons. What of it? Well, the triggers DO NOT MATTER. The spread is determined, to use that poisonous word, by that same law of nature. Does this REALLY imply that choice is meaningless? I think not.
Further argument in favor of choice vs determinism is that it's clear we are on a kind of cresting of some wave of emotive actuation. That means that there must be and are then discrete points of greater moment or contest in the overall 'combat' or 'war' of ... well ... GOOD vs evil, if you will. There are critical points where failure is more likely but success is as well, if and only if enough choosers opt to aim high. Raw determinism, and even your modification to it which I find more plausible, as stated, would see no difference in these moments. Ultimately, that is satisfying to an orderly perspective only. The raw truth of emotive balance though does not agree, and that would include then the POV of both desire and anger, fully 2/3s of the soup. Now it is not that clear. There are splitters to the 'People's Popular Front' even among the crack suicide squad. But those tend to equal out on all sides.
It's the power of the structure and ramification of the discrete moment, the addressing of the problem at hand, that really swings the balance one way or the other. This may indeed be an argument for your suggestion and why I easily agreed to it in part. But it reckons without the effect of the structure and inertia of that situation itself. And then to permutate backwards it reckons without how we got there, by choice.
One seeming vague example is the bizarre situation amid humanity that we have so far resisted the hive mind effect in large part. A significant number of people resist enough elements of indoctrination so as to defy their being easily categorized or grouped. The state complexity of the choice scope is too profound. As chaos increases, this scope increases and or the experience of living within 'the world', 'the universe' steps up in awareness and freedom and the orderly structures cannot cope for a while and strive to understand how to control it. This is shown by things like cannon and the internet, and even Christianity (as opposed to just Monotheism). Sadly, I might say that gummies and porn are the new REAL wave I see that is bizarre. They are both order and chaos oriented. That should give anyone pause.
So the truth that WAS coming to light in the world was self interest, chaos, and a break with the traditions of all nations. It was a bid for a more world oriented way, unity. It is still quite strong based mostly on the inertia of the loosely defined 'freedom' to pursue self interest. Desire is quite strong. This is why we have Indian leaders asking for the freedom of political prisoners opposed to Modi, saying 'Nothing can stop this ...' as they are appealing to the raw force of desire (chaos).
But the human animal is more complex than just the silliness of raw desire can reveal. The wild thing about desire is that as this 'it can be that way' feeling overwhelms a populace, even the orderly types get with it because each sub order sees the chaos as an opportunity, and the most powerful fallout groups of order are the ones that build a great consensus within the chaotic mass. This is effectively a kind of self correcting problem in evolution. The ONLY guiding light is literally that. It is the genuine happiness that is coming only from greater alignment with objective moral truth. That force slowly ekes out its aims. If you follow, the worst thing is concentrations of power that threaten an ability to control the mass from the top without letting the 'wisdom of the masses' unfold on its own. Order is a prison. And the final order of the metaverse, truth, is the greatest prison of all. But, in theory, that prison is perfect, correct; so the final statement is we need not fear it, and yet, of course we do.
Hopefully, all that was not just blather. I'm suffering a fair headache this afternoon.
Quoting ENOAH
And an examination of each chooser would reveal more to this equation. The various motivations impact each other in a complex pattern. With some choosers that tend to have no power, what they had for breakfast can be the deciding factor. With others that tend to have power, their life thrust and belief set is perhaps an almost tyrannical deciding factor. That is chaos and order respectively. But then we have to consider the state, the times, etc. The interweave cannot easily predict which specific motivation will rise to the top in any state. It can be surprising.
I suggest then that order is reactive, not active. It is a known thing. As the Dothraki women say, 'It is known'. Chaos chooses more often and readily by its very nature, desire. The greater energy it has as well is India's 'unstoppable force'. Perfection calls to us. Desire is its consequence.
Reactive order can respond to all the triggers it fears. But the system itself, the nature of reality, is balanced. That means that order that is wrong, that is immoral, is LATE and chaos scores a hit. This will continue. It may take Eons. Vast and well constructed order will possibly survive for a long long time. But the conflict with chaos will wear even that down. Until the order is made perfect by choice, many choices, which may seem like determinism, the system cannot arrive at perfection and thus the non-perfect states will explode or implode by turns, by definition.
If you want to say, 'I prefer to depend on order and I like the idea of determinism', will you be on the right side of this effort all along? Or, must you say 'I prefer to depend on balance, and I like the idea of free will'; which is NOT to say, 'I prefer to depend on chaos and I like the idea of self-indulgence (oh and sure that makes me say yay free will to)' I think that result set is ... well ... rather obvious. Wisdom embraces the risk of free will. Fear chooses determinism. And Desire alone chooses just chaos, but still free will.
Indeed there are a few percentage points that willfully choose chaos in the purist sense. But suicide is not actually painless.
Quoting ENOAH
And here we disagree entirely. No, it is NOT possible. Were fundamental balance not the truth, the universe would self destruct instantly. It would take an amount of time that is the smallest possible unit of time. That fundamental imbalance would be the most catastrophic truth in existence. Instead the 'bargain' made is that imbalances can exist temporarily. THAT IS CHOICE.
Quoting ENOAH
This is ... not nearly so well crafted as it must be to be meaningful. Order is present already. In fact I define fear and thus order ENTIRELY as an excitable state that arises as a result of matching a pattern from one's past. On any level within reality, order is only tied to the past. It seems compelling. All awareness is order, clearly. All readiness is order. Joy as a decision, is orderly. And joy and happiness are NOT the same things.
Nature's order is already baseline superior to ours. We are higher level moral agents and so we can be wrong in a stronger way than nature can overwhelm in some senses. Until a comet comes that's big enough and fast enough. Was it all for nothing? No! Every choice for the GOOD affects the whole universe, instantly. And the law of nature that is evolution and the GOOD will rise again on countless worlds and in countless ways. Fear is delusional. (So is desire). Balance is delusional when affected too heavily by fear, or desire; and also the sin of anger, laziness.
Quoting ENOAH
Et tu Brute? I agree entirely. I feel so embarrassed to have expressed myself so poorly here. These issues of philosophy require a virtuoso. I am not equal to that task. But I am called to it. So, on-on!
Ouch! The false humility of mind is easily seen here. And I am not just attacking you there. That is a real thing in the world. The restraint of order is a first order humility, cowardice. From that destroyed ego the fearful observe and plan and experience joy with humility. It is wise in a grand way, perhaps the best way to face uncertainty and such, hard times.
But the word empty is tragic and wrong. There is nothing empty in any pattern. There is beauty and that means mystery meets order. "I dig that, man!'
Quoting ENOAH
I mean, clearly I know that. But it's fun to point out circumstance and make overmuch of it. It can weave a web of connection where it might seem that none is present. And that is the point.
Quoting ENOAH
I mean you and I can mostly agree here, as mentioned. But the final mover, the truth, remains balanced and supportive of the only real law, free will.
The attitude you espouse comes from the happenstance that order is not yet powerful enough to contain chaos. Amid this humility, like a Nihilist, the order defends its weak ego, its weak stance, with quibbling on fine points. And being detail oriented order can make many convincing arguments. And being possessed of many accolades in order obtained, order can betray the universe and specify or choose a lesser wrong order than the GOOD. Gaius Baltar will squirm and protest. He will betray humanity. Even a cylon might suggest a higher order to the universe than he acknowledges. And if she looks like 6 we are tempted to let that suggestion wash over us with all its glory.
So the point is order is always struggling to answer the question and get the pattern right, but, it tends to crave certainty and comfort and DECLARE that it knows now. That is its sin, cowardice, eg, not facing up to the balanced truth.
Quoting ENOAH
No instead, this is a lack of faith from order towards the precarious requirements of balance. Rather than face the truth of the difficulty, the orderly type, seeing this ahead of the chaos types, despairs of ever being able to do it. That fear sends them demanding down branches of false order, like determinism. It's predictable. It's sufferable.
Quoting ENOAH
No, desire is no illusion. It is a primal force. Fear and anger are the only other two equal forces. Everything permutates from the interaction of those three.
Its role? It could be said to be the standing truth of perfection's existence in the universe. Plato's realm of forms is it in some ways. This sensed perfection is not instantiated. We must 'get back' to it or 'move forward' to it. This causes the delusion of time. We self assess and we are not perfect. Any doubt at all proves this. But does it?
My model suggests that there is a maximal fear, a maximal anger, and a maximal desire; all three. And wisdom and the GOOD exist at the end of these forces, their maximal point is perfection. The concept is embedded in each of us. We DO sense it. Our sense of imperfection is based on desire. In other words we want only because we are not perfect. This reflects worthlessness upon us and thus we strive towards perfection inevitably. If you wish to call this determinism, I think you rob the beauty of truth. The beauty is that it can ONLY be chosen. In no other way is progress made.
And morality gets harder and harder from more and more moral states. It's so worthy though that 'No force in the world can stand against it.' False imperfect order and lazy balances will fail. Desire will break them. On-on!
Quoting ENOAH
I explained it. Hopefully that can at least be informative of my stance.
I perceive the existential as the very product of the Fiction, which fiction is the interconnectedness of all things constructed and moving autonomously within human consciousness. I.e., hence there is ultimately no burden of choice. The burden can be negated by the realization that it is not, predetermined but, an autonomous system of triggers.
Quoting Chet Hawkins
Choice is meaningful. That is my submission. But meaningful and choice are constructions. They too
follow an autonomous chain of triggers. It is only with Mind that choice and meaning have "meaning" (or not; I.e., whether anything has meaning or not). In Reality, for the unaffected Body, there is no meaning; not life is meaningless! Meaning is meaningless. Let the meaning in Mind flourish, but accept that you are constructing it. Or rather, It is. The you in It's case not being the Body, but rather, the construction "you."
Quoting Chet Hawkins
Each of your captivating words which followed, mean one thing (if they support your position that life or at least we have the burden of choice), and another (if they support my claim that when we try to apply them to Ultimate Reality, that's where words fall apart and their empty fleeting Nature is revealed, and so too for all that they purport to represent that is, that they are art and their artful persuasion is no coincidence).
I take the latter position. I say you are compellingly using fiction, describing the way existence is for that one species infected with Mind. Courage, right, wrong, freedom and choice. And burden.
I know I, as a human being post-pre-history engage in a process whereby I arrive at a resolution followed usually by a feeling or action which we conventionally refer to as choice. But I also am relieved of the burden because I know it is a process. This is not fear talking, just an insight reflected in the works of many orthodox philosophers, from Socrates to Heidegger and Sartre. Beyond, but since we speak of existential.
Also if you concentrate any any choice, even to get a glass of water, you can see the chain of triggers. But focus in. And don't skip any steps.
I tire for now but with no expectations, I'll read through the rest of your response, because they are edifying, and take the liberty if I have more to say.
My friend. We are the hive mentality. History moves as one. It always has and always will. Never-ending the minor variations. Mind Universal is History. But even if I'm wrong, 1. You admit not only the possibility, but probability of the hive; and, 2. Resisting endocrination is a choice, by its conventional use. But wat is choice? A settlement in mund, leading to feeling/action in Body, following a chain of necessarily structured signifiers leading to the choice; sometimes but not necessarily initiated by a natural drive in Body.
Quoting Chet Hawkins
Chance to clarify. I'm not saying desire doesn't exist, but it is a mechanism in the Narrative process of Mind. Nature or Reality has no relationship with desire. Drives evolved and continue to evolve for survival. Desire evolved in Language to promote the latter's prosperity too. But both desire, and the latter, are an emergence of empty Signifiers, lacking both matter, and any essence. I daresay, the very Dasein itself, is a creative construction of human Mind using the resources of human Mind. In the end, fleeting fiction. Functional, yes! Beautiful, of course. Meaningful? That's exactly what it's business is, and it is accomplished. But it, Dasein, is not a discovery by MH of Reality. It is a construction by History of more History.
You are unwittingly (sorry, I realize how that might be taken. But let me assure you, we all unwittingly) describing the dynamics by which the Fictional constructions of History proceed. Dialectically, a back and forth of Signifiers, driven by desire to be heard, binding with other Signifiers, surfacing in the Narrative form, as human experience. Yes, self correcting, autonomously moving to manifest in the fittest form. That is choice. Choice is the final Signifier, the one triggering the Reality, Body into feeling or action
It can be. In Mind, that is the surfacing form triggering a feeling which Signifies, the Signifier "surprise." But I wont dare elaborate. What really merits saying is that it is actually all "surprising" to the Body which has since the dawn of history gradually ignored its drives and sensations entirely, displacing them with Minds desires and perceptions, constructions in the Narrative form, constructions which include the illusion of choice, at the instant before the Body reacts to the final trigger.
Quoting Chet Hawkins
I appreciate the beauty of this. It moves me. But, as much as I wish otherwise, it is because the words triggered feelings which they evolved over time, my locus, and human history, to trigger.
Quoting Chet Hawkins
How can I not agree?
Quoting Chet Hawkins
Do you mean not empty in the, say, sense of it has essence, substance and is ultimately Real? Not rhetorical question.
Quoting Chet Hawkins
Again, not rhetorical. When you--or Hegel, Heidegger especially, and so on--speak like that, I.e., "Order wants to get it right, etc." are you being metaphorical? Or are you meaning Order is a being which acts with an aim etc. Like when a plant wants to move to ghe light and we can accept that we are describinga real being? Or is it in between, like when we say positive wants to bind with negative?
Quoting Arne
My summary was badly expressed, so my meaning was entirely obscured. There are the modes of being, so we need to understand, not only the three modes, but what they are modes of. We have existence, ready-to-hand, present-at-hand and being. The last of these is common to the other three, perhaps in the way that colour applies to all the colours, and yet every colour is a specific colour, or perhaps in the way that wood is common to everything that is made of wood, and yet every wooden object is a specific object or something else?
Quoting Arne
"Constitutive" is an interesting idea here. Aristotle draws a distinction (I don't have a reference ready to hand) between components of something that have an independent existence and can actually be separated out - laid on a bench beside each other, for example - and components that cannot be separated out, except "in thought". So, we can think of a single shape as both convex or concave, and we cannot think of a concave shape, without also thinking of a convex shape. I can see the relationship between existence and Dasein in the latter way rather than the former. Does that capture what you are saying?
Quoting Arne
Because Dasein seems more like a point of view than a subjective view. A point of view is impersonal and objective. Yet it can be occupied or adopted by an individual, but in now way recognizes individuals as such. Recognizing myself just means recognizing the possibility of adopting that point of view. I can, as it happens, recognize Dasein as a possible point of view, but not myself in it.
What I find much more helpful is his conceptions of Ready-to-hand and Present-at-hand and some of his remarks about rivers, bridges, temples in a landscape. Yet even there, I have difficulty. I don't quite see why everything that exists must be one or the other.
Quoting Arne
Many philosophers would complain that because he does not indulge in argument as such, he is dictatorial, or rather oracular (echoes of Popper's Open Society. But I don't dismiss him on those grounds. Wittgenstein is not dissimilar, in that he presents examples and comments, leaving it up to his reader to think through what they mean. (It is an idea that is found in a few other philosophers at the time, such as Anscombe)
Nonetheless, if you describe what Heidegger presents as a description, you allow the question of truth or falsity to arise. I suggest it would be more helpful to describe him as presenting an interpretation, which avoids the question of truth, since variant interpretations may be valid or appropriate at the same time. Of course, it demands a wider tolerance of variant views than philosophers are comfortable with. But it may be more realistic for our actual situation.
Quoting Arne
In one way, you are right. But in another way, we all make choices in everything we do. No-one can read everything, and so we must decide what we pay attention to. That decision is much more difficult than it seems, because it must be made without knowing what we will find when we pay attention to something. Our choices are dictated by the environment we find ourselves in and how we respond to that we find there.
Quoting Arne
I agree with that. Not that there is ever a point at which I can sit back and say that I have now understood Heidegger or Wittgenstein or .... Perhaps it is enough, given that we cannot find the end of philosophy, to understand the answers that have been found worth taking seriously.
But I can't resist answering your question:-
Quoting Chet Hawkins
No, he certainly did not. He found it all very difficult indeed, and didn't make things particularly easy for his readers. His early work certainly emphasized analysis, logic and structure. But he changed his mind! (Shock! Horror!) His later work moved away from all of that.
Three quotations seem to set out your map:-
Quoting Chet Hawkins
Quoting Chet Hawkins
Quoting Chet Hawkins
All very neat and tidy. But it looks to me like a large-scale sketch - too large scale and too sketchy to be much help. Possibly you have more to say, but you seem to be in a great hurry to get everything settled.
I'm saying that concepts here are much more complicated and ambivalent than you recognize.
Fear can underlie the search for order and certainty. But it can also produce panic and chaos. What it means to say that "anger demands you stand to the mystery" is not clear to me. Desire certainly can pull you towards perfection, but it can also pull you in the opposite direction - even against your better judgement. Order can be oppression and restriction, but it can also be opportunity and freedom. I can understand evil as the absence or opposite of good, but what is good or evil depends on the context; the same is true of perfection. (And perfection can oppress and imprison just as surely as it can liberate). From where I sit, the universe is completely indifferent (not hostile, I grant you) to my desires and emotions. I'm not at all sure that wisdom, understanding and intelligence, though admittedly related, are clearly enough defined to be of use in whatever you are trying to say about them.
You remind me of Plato's journey of the soul. But he gave huge importance to love, which seems to be missing from your sketch. I miss it.
Quoting Ludwig V
I think the criteria of successful construing of the universe is the inverse of the direct realist slogan that the facts don't care about our feelings'. The arbiter of validation is not the raw, independently existing facts of the world, but affectivity, in the sense that empirical truth and falsity is a function of whether and to what extent events are construed as consistent with our anticipations, which defines our purposes and values, and our knowing of this relative success or failure is synonymous with feelings such as anxiety, confusion and satisfaction. Validational evidence is just another way of describing the affectively felt assimilative coherence of the construed flow of events and therefore it is synonymous with feeling valence. Validated construing is neither a matter of forcing events into pre-determined cognitive slots, nor a matter of shaping our models of the world in conformity with the presumed independent facts of that world via the method of falsification. Rather, it is a matter of making and remaking a world; building, inhabiting, and being changed by our interactive relations with our constructed environment. It is our feelings which tell us whether we get it right or wrong, and by what criteria.
That helps a lot. The point about commitment is that it is authentic and so part of my essence. (Am I free to abandon my commitments? If so, how are they authentic and essential? If not, how am I free?
I'm not even clear what is wrong with being inauthentic, if that's what I choose to be sometimes. The idea of bad faith suggests a reason, but a moral one, which means it can be a choice. On the other hand, it seems that what is authentic is to be discovered, so not chosen, so a restriction on freedom.
I'm sure I'm just muddled and would appreciate being set straight.
IIRC, an existentialist would say you're not committed if you remain able to "abandon" them afterwards.
They are not commitments in the existential (e.g. "leap-of-faith") sense.
You are free to "leap" but not free of the consequences (i.e. falling).
This is called "passive nihilism" or "bad faith".
IIRC, one cannot "choose" bad faith since bad faith consists in the denial of free choice (i.e. commitment) such as "What can I do? Shit happens. I can't do anything about this" etc ... Bad faith means conformity, or banality, and passivity over agency not a "reason" or "choice" but rationalization instead.
Yes.
1. Existence is the mode of being of Dasein. It is my mode of being. It is your mode of being.
2. Ready-to-Hand is the mode of being of such entities as lamps, stereos, keyboards. If I look around my office, most of the entities I see are entities that I use in my regular and ongoing involvements such as turning on the lamp so I can turn on the stereo and then grab my keyboard in order to respond to Ludwig V on thePhilosophy Forum.
3. Present-to-hand is the mode of being of entities that are generally not used in a Daseins regular and ongoing involvements in the world. If I sit on my front porch and look around I see trees, rocks, grass and other entities that are just sort of present.
Quoting Ludwig V
Not really. Had Kant said being (instead of existence) is not a real predicate, Heidegger may have agreed. Additionally, just as it would be odd for a Cartesian to assert there is thinking substance, extended substance, and being, so too would it be odd for a Heideggerian to assert there is existence, ready-to-hand, present-to-hand, and being. You need not think of the modes of being and being any more than you need think of Dasein and being or being-in-the-world and being. and being adds little, if anything, to the understanding of Heidegger's modes of being.
Quoting Ludwig V
Yes. Heidegger is big on Aristotle.
Quoting Ludwig V
Heideggers modes of being are not intended for organizing the universe. Instead, they are intended to capture the manner by which entities come at us. If I am on my morning walk and I look down and happen to see a stone, then the stone is coming at me as a present-to-hand entity. On the other hand, if a skunk is coming my way and I see that same stone, it might come at me as a ready-to-hand entity that I can throw toward the skunk in the hope he scurries off.
Quoting Ludwig V
Even if true, that is as it should be. . . However, I disagree. The appropriate standard for a phenomenological description is accuracy. And Heidegger is not asking anyone to take his word for the accuracy of his descriptions. Instead, all you need do is look at the phenomena described. And when I look at the phenomena, I find Heidegger's descriptions to be generally accurate.
Quoting Arne
Its true that for Heidegger, Being (as opposed to ontic beings) is not a predicate. And yet, there is no existence, no present to hand or ready to hand without Being.
No doubt. All of Being and Time is articulated within the context of the being of being.
This morning I went for a walk with my dog and being. Neither my dog nor I could have went for a walk without it. :smile:
Heidegger would have no issue with that. Heidegger is big on hermeneutics. But then interpretations, like descriptions, are judged by accuracy rather than truth. And just as with descriptions, the accuracy of interpretation is checked against the phenomenon. Heidegger is asking no one to accept as truth either his descriptions or interpretations.
But I think "interpretation" carries more terminological baggage than "description."
I think of Being and Time as describing how Dasein interprets being-in-the-world.
Assuming MH takes the position above, including the example about stone, lets make it his own, why is it we must view MH as describing the Reality (of) such entities; I.e. a stone coming at me as present to hand or ready to hand, as if these are the Real natures of the stone?
Why is it not obvious, wittingly or unwittingly, MH was describe the Signifier stone and how it functions in human Mind to trigger a response. Stone alone, the most fitting Signifier Structure/effect, one thing; stone simultaneously with that other Signifier, skunk, the most fitting Signifier Structure/effect, another thing.
All of his descriptions are not disclosing Truth, but like Aristotle, Hegel, Kant before him, organizing experience in ways convenient to discourse. Why? Because that is how History moves. Through the most functional dialectic and the most fitting settlements upon belief.
Until the next one comes along
Heidegger is not describing the "nature" of the stone. Instead, Heidegger is describing how the stone shows up for Dasein as ready-to-hand or present-to-hand. Had Dasein not already had an understanding of the "nature" of the stone as hard and as dense and as weighty enough to be tossed the appropriate distance, then the stone would not show up as ready-to-hand for the purpose of tossing toward the skunk in order to divert the skunk from its apparent path.
Had the stone been a feather, then the feather would not have shown up for Dasein as ready-to-hand. Indeed, it is possible the feather would not have "shown up" at all.
Heidegger is happy to leave your idea of the "nature" of the stone to science.
Thank you.
And this next question is not argumentative, just as my first question wasn't. So I appreciate you taking the time etc. And forgive me for my plain English, I try to stick to the latter when i lack confidence in the terminology.
Is Dasein a pre-human "thing" ("thing" in the most respectful ontological terms necessary) which is inherent in, pervades, constitute the True Being, substance etc. of the Universe, Reality, etc? Or is Dasein particular to the human experience? I have no planned follow up, so if you would explain that, I'll leave it, knowing I might be side tracking.
Anger is indeed impatient, and that is my born-in failing, I'm afraid. Challenge and impatience. Socrates, my brother from another mother, would relate I think. 'Men of Athens ...'
Quoting Ludwig V
No, indeed, quite the opposite. I am the one saying they are in fact so multivalent that fear and logic alone, our chosen religion of the day, IS NOT, and never really was, the key way. I in fact underscore the three paths that together must be balanced to yield the fourth way, wisdom. And as this is a philosophy site, where lovers of wisdom ostensibly congregate, I am hoping to find resonance.
It just turns out that many and most practitioners of philosophy find their only home in academia, a citadel in service to fear alone. That is decidedly unwise and will remain so for all time. I appeal to you all in this nonsense, be about the business of real wisdom and admit to the other two paths and then the final fourth way, the real goal. If that's too complicated to understand then I sympathize.
Faith is not easy. And faith is part of it, and I do not mean religion. Faith is required because we cannot know and the dread certainty required by most fear types is ... well ... not to put too fine a point on it, quite absurd. Faith is a consequence of courage, the path of anger melded with the desire towards perfection that understands the pettiness of fear and order as the 'faith of the day', the anti-faith. Atheists everywhere make fools of themselves making fun of faith and they foolishly consider themselves wise in this endeavor. I am one such in many ways, an atheist. God is an unnecessary delusion after all. But objective moral truth, the GOOD, is not a delusion at all.
Quoting Ludwig V
Well, yes, meaning proceeds endlessly from meaning. Circular logic is all that there really is, after all. The beauty of that truth escapes the fear oriented though in many cases. That whole asymptotic thing leaves them scrambling for the nearest exit, a short-cut. Surely we are smart enough to beat objective truth, or at least those wise sages that counsel working with confidence and not the Crimson Permanent Assurance! What was that about hats again?
Quoting Ludwig V
Only a non anger type would ever deign to say such a thing as you just said.
It takes courage to stand up each morning. Default courage is essence, mass, the body. It takes the blow. It's designed with fear patterns instantiated over time as those that from the past made sense to imbue. But mistakes were made and will be made and on we go.
Mystery is the future, yes? The Unknown yawns before us in the days ahead. Anger stands up to face it and does not cower always plotting to be safer and more secure BEFORE life is lived. Cowardice in over expression is tedious, unseemly, weak. Stand up and face the future!
Quoting Ludwig V
If you mean to say, well my dear fellow, precisely what I am saying in a less cool way (ha ha), you are there. That is to say DUH we need to use fear and anger to balance those pesky immoral desires. Self-indulgence is no way to go through life. Greed, more more more; money, power, and children! MOAR!
There is a point to more but more GOOD is the only real point of more.
I am warning this forum's population (in general) of fear types that fear is their prison, their trouble, their strength, and their failure. We need more anger at least up in here. I shudder to say more desire, for the external community this one should serve is already chock full of over expressed desire. But more desire here will serve them there better as well.
Quoting Ludwig V
No it cannot. Order is NEVER freedom. It is quintessentially NOT freedom, so you are wrong there. Order is by definition a restriction, a law. If you mean to say that GOOD order ENABLES freedom, ok, then please start saying what you really mean. These halfway truths are the FAILED wisdom of the past. Better speech and writing on this THE MOST IMPORTANT issue of any day, is ... well ... a GOOD idea. Don't you agree?
Quoting Ludwig V
No, again, this is precisely incorrect. Moral truth, the GOOD, is objective. Thankfully that is the case. If it were not the universe would self-destruct in the smallest fraction of time it allows for. But, if you are right, and morality is subjective, then that is my 'Brevity model'. That model states that within that smallest possible time, is where we are. But even in THAT case, the only reason you and I can speak this way now is because right now, and since the dawn of time, morality has been objective. So, really, the no leg to stand on idea permutates all the way back to objective morality. On we go taking rank advantage of the relative stability of this universe and immorally pretending to subjective morality. Sigh ...
No! The context, of course, does not matter at all, not one whit. What is GOOD was objectively so since the dawn of time and will remain so at least until the end of this brevity bubble we are clearly in right now. If you can survive long enough to wait out the end of the universe, perhaps you will be right at that time.
Quoting Ludwig V
Oh, I like that one! It's tricky! Look at you!
Yes, perfection imprisons. But, it is guaranteed by being objective to be a GOOD prison (the only one). As such, it provides for the burden of choice (as mentioned in ... well ... probably every post I ever posted within reason). We are free to choose not GOOD within perfection (the system). And in doing so this tyrannical truth thing, this oppressive prison of perfection, allows us all to choose not GOOD. Perhaps you advise to the contrary? The prison should be more thorough then? But that would not be GOOD, do you understand?!? Instead, the oppressor IS NOT the GOOD. Amid natural law there IS a GOOD, objective and properly ... GOOD. But there is only one fool that choose not GOOD, and it is all of us, that fool. It is those that oppress us all with their failure of effort and thought and desire for that which is objectively GOOD, the hardest choice of all in the universe to make.
But in the worldly sense, no, the burden of choice is infinite choice, not infinite imprisonment. You can muddle the two in a sense I suppose. But that comes of lack of proper faith, not the GOOD.
This is why fear is so weak. It does not understand that death is preferable to immorality. And you call that a prison? The prison of the MERE need to survive.
Quoting Ludwig V
How foolish a statement is this nonsense!? Please, you're well past the point of embarrassment!
Of course it is all hostile! Anger demands that you stand against the entire universe. All aspects of it partake of immorality, imperfection. The finish line is objective. War is the central truth of reality. Peace is a delusion of and for fools. Peace is the sin of anger, laziness. I declare war on everything but the GOOD. And there will never be a truce. I guarantee it. It is a law of nature. Delude yourself to the contrary to assuage your fears and desires but anger knows at least that.
Quoting Ludwig V
Me either! Seems like it takes a little something past certainty to live right here.
That something is anger and a willingness, the SPINE, to try to aim at the GOOD and fight hard against all imperfection, all immorality, for the latter two are the SAME THINGS.
Quoting Ludwig V
Love is nothing more than the system including all of this.
Perfection is love is God is ALL. Choose your illusion. Amid love, amid perfection, there is nothing but the emotions, fear, anger, and desire; combined into various formations and roiling with the need to arrive again at that blissful and eternally distant perfection yet again.
:up: I find this frame particularly rich and interesting.
I mean, as long as there is a vomitorium nearby and I can hurl up the remains of any brief attempt at digesting that word salad, and then teams of well weaned soothsayers sift and arrange the remains of that effort into a new faith that we then ignore, ... I agree.
I do actually agree, although the word 'valence' is used in no way that I can comply with.
Effectively he is explaining that feelings don't care about facts. And why indeed would they? Facts are only beliefs and all beliefs are partially wrong. But saying things clearly and plainly is not apparently a part of his aims. Exit stage left to the vomitorium.
Intuition and passion are every bit as useful as guides to truth as reason is. Anger, desire, and fear; all equals. Say it simply!
Quoting Joshs
This is something I'll mull over. Notice that in this account the truth isn't just about what's objectively real. It's also about how we feel about and intuit events. If something matches our expectations and values, we accept it as true. And our feelings, such as apprehension or satisfaction, signify whether things are in line with what we believe. I think this circle of interpretation is helpful to consider in the ceaseless debates about gods or politics.
What it says about existentialism I can't tell you as I find Sartre unreadable.
OMG you call Sartre unreadable and you ... repeated the vomitous word salad of Joshs? What?
The thing to realize is IT IS JUST about what is objectively real. If you want to 'credit' inaccurate feelings that is hopefully not what anyone is talking about. That is JUST the licentiousness of over expressed desire. We do seem to live in a culture in the West these days more than ever before where every ridiculous desire is given credence. No! That's a horrible idea and again, hopefully not what even someone so pointlessly verbose and affected as Joshs is means.
He is saying instead and I hope (properly) that objective truth in fact DOES inform our feelings ... equally to our mere logic and the resulting facts that logic can and usually does draw. These 'facts' are taken then as conclusions and they are anything but.
There is only one conclusion in the metaverse and that is love, the whole system, perfection, etc. No matter the path you take to it, its perfection is finally the only thing that INFORMS choice. Choices, Choice, can foolishly partake of only one of these paths or some of each path but to the wrong degree. Such imbalances strike the missing emotions as wrong. That results in such things as he mentions, anxiety, confusion and satisfaction, all states or consequences of immoral actions and beliefs.
I do very much understand what he is saying. It seems to be a trend these days that if people do understand and disagree then others claim they just don't understand. I get that such a position would be tempting.
But, I responded in a way that showed that I do understand. Not everyone does that.
His quote says that 'the truth isnt about what is objectively real.' Then he goes on to explain that feelings (other than facts) are not informed or perhaps not just informed by objective reality.
And your statement is incomprehensible as well. If we are not motivated by perfection, by truth; ideas which are synonymous, then what is the source of these motivations? It cannot JUST be internal. There has to be resonance with the external. I would likewise say it cannot just be external.
But Joshs seems to insist that objective reality, that which truly is, should be destressed. That is precisely backwards and nonsensical. It gives credence to choices that are NOT based in truth. In other words he is advocating for immorality, for error. It's actually quite clear. Does he mean that? I doubt it. But it IS what he finally said. And again I would ask him or you, since you seem enamored of his idea enough to quote the SAME quote, or parts of it, twice in a row, what the heck are these feelings based on?
For me the answer is that they are ONLY based on objective truth, perfection, and, DESPITE that, moral agents like people are free to choose amid the guarantee of free will and they so often choose wrongly and thus immorally not to source their feelings OR FACTS in objective truth, but instead on their cowardice, self-indulgence, and laziness.
At this point I am just trying to clarify.
I have long suspected that we embrace ideas which appeal to us aesthetically and emotionally but we take them as facts. Sounds like you relish notions of perfection and objectivity, two ideas I don't find convincing. I recognize that humans love their absolutes and their god surrogates. No point arguing further since there's no common ground. :wink:
In a way, I agree. But the way I agree is expressed well enough by Milton for me to allow him to make my argument here for or with me:
"Let truth and falsehood grapple. Truth is strong!" - Milton
In fact, I will add that truth is PERFECTLY strong.
It does. Does making a claim in the blind with no specific reference bother you?
And missing the point is what you did there, JUST an observation, right?
If you have specific performative contradictions you want to discuss, have the SPINE to mention them, and I will explain for your benefit.
Are these merely your beliefs or do you have some knowledge to support them? If they are merely your personal beliefs, they may or may not be interesting, but the fact alone that you believe them does not constitute a reason why anyone else should share your belief as far as I can see.
Knowledge is only belief.
So you say. Is that something you know or something you merely believe? If the latter is the case, do you have a reasoned argument for your belief that knowledge is only belief?
But the quislings out there will want to retreat behind 'facts' and 'knowledge' delusions. So, it's best I turn my hat around and address the concepts more thoroughly.
But let's take this outside.
This is a thread on Existentialism and there is enough pseudo derail here already, and indeed, I am as much to blame as anyone. So, if you start a new thread, I'll jump in and we can go go go!
Done (Click on 'Done').
I have to go outside to do some work before the rain comes, but by all means get started on presenting your argument.