DE Weekly: Identity, Plutarch, & the Ship of Theseus
Last week, I wrote about how certain stories and writings permeate the boundaries of their genres and allow us to apply an existentialist critique of them. Another such story we’ll discuss today is the “Ship of Theseus”.
Like the Allegory of the Cave from last week, you might have heard of this popular thought experiment before. Often viewed as a paradox, this story was popularized by Plutarch, a Greek philosopher in the Roman Empire who is most famous for his biographies.
DE Weekly: Socrates, the Good, & the Allegory of the Cave
There are ideas and writings which are not explicitly existentialist in their nature, but to which, nevertheless, we can apply an existentialist critique. One such work is Plato’s The Republic.
The Republic is Plato’s most famous work. Written around 375 BC, it’s a Socratic dialogue in which Socrates is the main character, and discusses with his contemporaries such topics as justice, the order of city-states, and what constitutes a just man.
DE Weekly: Art, Death, & Impermanence
“We are thrust into the world without consultation”, writes Brian Greene, and “Once here, we are granted leave to embrace life for merely a moment.”
Why do we feel the need to create? Art, music, literature, something, anything at all?
DE Weekly: The Look, the Self, & the Other
In existentialism, consciousness is the key to understanding human existence. When discussing conscious beings––namely, humans––it helps to distinguish between two types of conscious beings: the Self and the Other.
In last week’s newsletter, I wrote about Jean-Paul Sartre’s concept of “Being-for-others”, and how this can open us up to accept that we need to include others in our search for meaning. In short, a meaningful life must consider and include other people. It can’t be egocentric.
DE Weekly: Ego, Busyness, & Being-For-Others
One point we encounter again and again when reading many of the existentialists is that we are solely responsible for finding and creating meaning in our own lives. The reason we are tasked with this is because, according to the existentialists, there is no central, universal meaning out there.
This is a daunting task. How do we find and create meaning where there is none? The answer for me is probably different than the answer for you.
DE Weekly: Mind, Matter, & Eliminativism
One of the great contentions posited in existentialism is that, in a world devoid of inherent meaning, we are responsible for making meaning in our own lives. Through acceptance of the absurdity of life and radical ownership of our own choices, this is possible.
Another contention of existentialism––and this one is more important, in my opinion––is that this reality is not a bad thing. This is of ultimate importance to recognize, because it’s what distinguishes the philosophy from nihilism.
DE Weekly: Frost, Jaspers, & The Road Not Taken
“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both”, wrote Robert Frost in his 1915 poem, “The Road Not Taken”.
These lines begin the first stanza of one of Frost’s most famous poems, one you’ve likely heard before.
DE Weekly: Vervaeke, Van Gogh, & The Meaning Crisis
Of all the ways I’ve seen existentialism explained, one of my favorites remains the following: existentialism is a profound symptom of the human condition.
Here’s how I interpret this: while existentialism is a bona fide philosophy in its own right, it’s also something innate to human beings, as innate as our consciousness and sense of self, perhaps born of the two.
DE Weekly: Schrödinger’s Cat, Nausea, & Reality
Across philosophy and other mediums such as science, people have invented and relied on thought experiments to explain certain concepts and demonstrate different layers to a problem.
In quantum mechanics, one such thought experiment is “Schrödinger’s cat”.
DE Weekly: Ozymandias, Breaking Bad, & Illusion
The great existential question has always been “What is the meaning of life?” The consensus vote of the existentialists was, more or less, “Life has no inherent meaning.” If that’s the case, then it’s up to us to create our own meaning.
That’s all well and good. But we’re still left without a solution. So, we have to ask ourselves, What do I do if life has no meaning? Furthermore, how do I find my purpose?