Big Ideas of Existentialism: Absurdity, Choice, and Responsibility

1. EXISTENTIALISM A complex philosophy emphasizing the absurdity of reality and the human responsibility to make choices and accept consequences! ANDREW WYETH Christina’s World (1948)

2. Big Ideas of Existentialism Despite encompassing a huge range of philosophical, religious, and political ideologies, the underlying concepts of existentialism are simple… MARK ROTHKO Untitled (1968)

3. Common Beliefs: Cogito ergo sum. Existence Precedes Essence Existentialism is the title of the set of philosophical ideals that emphasize the existence of the human being, the lack of meaning and purpose in life, and the solitude of human existence… “Existence precedes essence” implies that the human being has no essence (no essential self).

4. Common Beliefs: Absurdism • The belief that nothing can explain or rationalize human existence. • There is no answer to “Why am I?” • Humans exist in a meaningless, irrational universe and any search for order will bring them into direct conflict with this universe.

5. Origins: It was during the Second World War, when Europe found itself in a crisis faced with death and destruction, that the existential movement began to flourish, popularized in France in the 1940s. GEORGIO DE CHIRICO Love Song

6. Living existentialism: Choice and Commitment • Humans have freedom to choose. • Each individual makes choices that create his or her own nature. • Because we choose, we must accept risk and responsibility for wherever our commitments take us. • “A human being is absolutely free and absolutely responsible. Anguish is the result.” –Jean-Paul Sartre

7. Religious existentialists: Religious Existentialism: • Individuals gain spirituality through their own efforts, not divine revelation • As humans, we cannot fully comprehend God’s purposes, but through a leap of faith, we can acknowledge that purpose exists and try to live in accordance with our understandings • Each person must seek God within, rather than the dogma of organized religion • When making life choices, we should question whether we are driven by our personal relationship with God or by negative influences.

8. Dread and Anxiety MAN RAY Les Larmes (Tears)

9. Dread and Anxiety • Dread is a feeling of general apprehension. Kierkegaard interpreted it as God’s way of calling each individual to make a commitment to a personally valid way of life. • Anxiety stems from our understanding and recognition of the total freedom of choice that confronts us every moment, and the individual’s confrontation with nothingness.

10. Nothingness and Death EDVARD MUNCH Night in Saint Cloud (1890)

11. Common Beliefs: Nothingness and Death • Death hangs over all of us. Our awareness of it can bring freedom or anguish. • I am my own existence. Nothing structures my world. • “Nothingness is our inherent lack of self. We are in constant pursuit of a self. Nothingness is the creative well-spring from which all human possibilities can be realized.” –Jean-Paul Sartre

12. Alienation or Estrangement • From all other humans • From human institutions • From the past • From the future • We only exist right now, right here. Common Beliefs: EDGAR DEGAS “L’absinthe” (1876)

13. Famous existentialists and famous philosophers: Some Famous Existentialists • Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) • Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) • Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) • Albert Camus (1913-1960)

14. Edward Hopper “New York Movie” (1939)

15. Human Subjectivity “I will be what I choose to be.” It is impossible to transcend human subjectivity. “There are no true connections between people.” My emotions are yet another choice I make. I am responsible for them. Edward Hopper “New York Movie” (1939)

16. All existentialists are concerned with the study of being or ontology. TO REVIEW: An existentialist believes that a person’s life is nothing but the sum of the life he has shaped for himself. At every moment it is always his own free will choosing how to act. He is responsible for his actions, which limit future actions. Thus, he must create a morality in the absence of any known predetermined absolute values. God does not figure into the equation, because even if God does exist, He does not reveal to men the meaning of their lives. Honesty with oneself is the most important value. Every decision must be weighed in light of all the consequences of that action. Life is absurd, but we engage it!

17. Human existence cannot be captured by reason or objectivity ––it must include passion, emotion and the subjective. Each of us is responsible for everything and to every human being. –Simone de Beauvoir GEORGIA O’KEEFFE Sky Above White Clouds I (1962)

18. Macbeth Nietzsche and Nihilism “Every belief, every considering something-true is necessarily false because there is simply no true world. Nihilism is…not only the belief that everything deserves to perish; but one actually puts one’s shoulder to the plow; one destroys. For some time now our whole European culture has been moving as toward a catastrophe, with a tortured tension that is growing from decade to decade: restlessly, violently, headlong, like a river that wants to reach the end… .” (Will to Power) Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more; it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

19. Albert Camus dissociated himself from the existentialists but acknowledged man’s lonely condition in the universe. His “man of the absurd” (or absurd hero) rejects despair and commits himself to the anguish and responsibility of living as best he can. Basically, man creates himself through the choices he makes. There are no guides for these choices, but he has to make them anyway, which renders life absurd.

20. “You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.” “It was previously a question of finding out whether or not life had to have a meaning to be lived. It now becomes clear, on the contrary, that it will be lived all the better if it has no meaning.”