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Franz Kafka (1883-1924) "I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us...We need the books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us."
Kafka’s Life • A German Jew in Prague • A frustrated writer whose father forced him into a career as a bank clerk • Published very little in his lifetime J.D. Salinger? • Left orders for all of his manuscripts to be destroyed when he died • His executor, disobeyed his orders and Kafka became famous after his death. • *Story of Wedding Photographer-Recording Engineer. “I erase all recordings”
“Kafkaesque” A situation in which someone is at the mercy of a collective logic that he or she does not understand and perceives to be comically absurd. • Metamorphosis: A traveling salesman is turned into a bug in the first sentence • The Trial: A man named Joseph K. is accused of a crime and forced to mount a defense, but he is never told what his supposed crime is. • In the Penal Colony: A traveler is introduced to a system that is illogical and an officer that has been brainwashed by it to the point of madness.
Kafka: Three Movements • Expressionism • Surrealism • Existentialism and Nihilism
Expressionism An artistic movement that held that art should represent the internal reality (usually painful) rather than attempting to recreate or reproduce external reality—which art might not do well. THE SCREAM Edvard Munch
Surrealism An artistic movement that focused on impossibilities and contradictions that suggested the subconscious reality of the dream world rather than the tangible reality of the physical world.
Existentialism The most significant philosophical movement of the 20th century, EXISTENTIALISM is the belief that reality, in any meaningful sense, must be created through individual actions and choices. Existentialism is the opposite of “ESSENTIALISM,” or the belief that reality, meaning, and significance precede individual actions and choices. “Man is nothing else, but what he makes of himself” Sartre
Introductory Question: • What do you know with absolute certainty? (Perhaps the key question with which to begin any philosophical investigation)
“I am….” Existentialism starts at the same point as Descartes’ philosophy – with your existence as the original certainty. You might not know anything else, but you at least know you exist (in some way) because you are thinking. As Descartes stated it: “I think, therefore, I am.”
Existentialism is the philosophy that holds your existence as your pre-eminent truth and reality.
Truth is Subjective This means that what is true for one person might not be true for another.
Then what? Okay, thanks to Descartes, we know we exist. To understand what Existentialism says about existence, think of the types of things a person might believe influences or controls their existence….
Such as…. • An Interactive God • Fate • Astrology • Laws • Human nature • Pre-destination • Freud’s sub-conscious mind
Then, imagine the universe without any of these! That’s the Existential view of reality! Existentialism says there is nothing that explains, guides or gives purpose to our existence. In short – you EXIST (have “BEING”) in total FREEDOM surrounded by NOTHINGNESS.
Frederick Nietzsche (1844-1900) Existential Thinkers
NIETZSCHE Throughout history, Western thought was centered around philosophy and religion, from whose tenants meaning, morality and purpose for life was given.
NIETZSCHE Nietzsche predicted that gradually, belief in religion and philosophy would diminish, moving civilization towards a day where people would have no “belief” in anything. Nietzsche called this “belief in nothing” NIHILISM
NIETZSCHE Nietzsche predicted that the emergence of science would in large part drive humanity’s march toward nihilism. (The Scientific Revolution had already began about one hundred years prior to Nietzsche.)
NIETZSCHE Nietzsche proclaimed the dawning of this era of nihilism and atheism with his famous statement: “God is Dead.”
NIETZSCHE Man is Free (without God – really free) This will further unleash the individual’s WILL TO POWER that drives the ascent of civilization. This would free the strong-willed to lord over the weak-minded.
NIETZSCHE In this environment, there would be those with a MASTER MENTALITY and those with a SLAVE MENTALITY.
NIETZSCHE “God is Dead” In the nihilism that would dominate the thought of the next century (the 1900s), he prophesized grand scale war, totalitarianism, genocide, and….
NIETZSCHE The rise of the SUPERMAN, the free and emboldened leader who acts “beyond (without regard to the concept of) good and evil.” The Ordinary Man vs. The Extraordinary Man Theory found in Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment
NIETZSCHE’S VIEW OF MAN For Nietzsche, “Man is the rope between the ape and the Superman.”
Friedrich Nietszche1844 - 1900 • Saxony • Son of Lutheran Pastor • University of Basel • 1870 Franco Prussian War • Medical orderly • Retires in ill health • Ill health plagues Nietszche for rest of life • Insane 1888 - 1900
Essentialism: “To be is to do.” • Existentialism: “To do is to be.” • Sinatraism: “Do be do be do.”
Existentialism An attempt to address a life with little meaning.
How Existentialism addresses nihilism • If life has no meaning, man must create some meaning for his life. • People must make themselves who they want to be • Man defines his own existence through human action • There is no God • There is no single objective truth or reality • Human beings have no fixed nature
Existentialism defined: “Existence (human action) precedes essence (being).” Jean Paul Sartre -French Existential Philosopher
