DE Weekly: Kant, Kantianism, & Transcendental Idealism
Existentialism came into its own as a bona fide philosophical discipline in the twentieth century but, as I’ve written in the past, it traces its roots to centuries before it was coined. I believe one such “root” is German philosopher Immanuel Kant, an eighteenth-century Aufklärung (Enlightenment) thinker whose moral ethics have had a major impact on Western philosophy.
Kant’s ethical framework has had such a major impact, in fact, that it’s often referred to as Kantianism.
DE Weekly: Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology, & Being-in-the-World
One could raise a valid critique that the most glaring weakness of existentialism is that it is too abstract; it could be said that it deals too much in theory, is too complicated, and not grounded enough to be useful in everyday life. However, not every existentialist thought the same way. Some even challenged that same abstractness, including one Maurice Merleau-Ponty.
Merleau-Ponty was a twentieth-century French philosopher who is often grouped with his contemporaries––especially Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, whom he studied alongside at the École Normale Supérieure––as an existentialist. Being strongly influenced by Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger helps bolster this notion.
DE Weekly: Spinoza, Rationalism, & Determinism
“There can be no hope without fear, and no fear without hope.” These words belong to Baruch Spinoza, a philosopher of the Dutch Golden Age in the seventeenth century. What Spinoza meant by this is that, as we project our future, our hope for something carries with it inherently the risk of losing it. Such is the fundamental nature of our will. But why is our will like this?
Today, we’ll discuss Spinoza’s unique brand of rationalism and determinism, as well as his personal spirituality which informed his philosophy.
DE Weekly: Time, Urgency, & the New Year
I sat down to think about what I wanted to write to kick off a new year, and it hit me: what a perfect opportunity to write about the new year itself. New years, new beginnings, new starts, new anythings all represent the core tenets of existentialism well.
When the new year approaches and the calendar finally turns, we tend to mull over the year that was and the year that will be. We ask ourselves, “How do I turn my ideas into actions, my freedom into good choices into meaning?”
DE Weekly: A Christmas Carol, Humanity, & Transformation
In existentialism, there is a great emphasis placed on personal responsibility; it is important you make the right choices so you can create a life of meaning and value. At what point after a life lived in precisely the wrong way does it become too late to change the way things are?
Every Christmas, I like to watch a few of my favorite Christmas movies, most of which are closer to 100 years old than they are to today. One of those movies is A Christmas Carol (the 1938 version).
DE Weekly: Barron, Modern Thought, & the Influence of Ideas
Last week, I wrote about Jean Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation, a book explaining how perception of the modern world is dominated by “simulacra,” or “copies without originals.” Baudrillard argues we endure a “hyperreality,” wherein signs replace reality and our perception is defined by said signs.
If you haven’t read last week’s newsletter yet, I highly recommend doing so to get caught up on what I’ll be discussing this week.
DE Weekly: Perception, Baudrillard, & Simulacra
In existentialism, the role perception plays in our lives is as important to understanding the philosophy as anything else. This is because in existentialism, perception is much more than “seeing” the world with your senses; perception is about our being-in-the-world.
How do we experience the world? How do we experience our own existence? How do we know the things we perceive are true reality, that we can believe our perception?
DE Weekly: Heidegger, Temporality, & Retracing the Past
Martin Heidegger, the German phenomenologist who had a huge influence on existentialism, wrote about time and temporality, what he saw as the structure of his Dasein––human existence.
Heidegger lifted the term Dasein from the German word for “existence” and molded it into a concept explaining the human condition; namely, our “Being-in-the-world.”
DE Weekly: Simone de Beauvoir, Sedimentation, & Blank Slate Theory
One of the themes you will see repeated in existentialist texts is that we are born into this world with a radical freedom, “thrown” totally free into life to make whatever we like of it. If there is no inherent meaning to life, the existentialists argue, that means we are free to find and create our own meaning.
How simple is it, though, to create meaning in our lives? Is there anything blocking our path, standing in our way? It turns out, there is.
DE Weekly: Free Will, Good Faith, & Bruce Almighty
Free Will is at the center of existential philosophy. The existentialists agreed: as humans, we possess a radical freedom which allows us the opportunity to create meaning in our lives through our own choices. This opportunity is not to be taken lightly, however; with this level of freedom comes real responsibility.
Why did Jean-Paul Sartre say we are “condemned” to be free? It is for this very reason. Being as it is that we are responsible for our choices, it implies that we are responsible also for how our choices affect other people.