DE Weekly: Kierkegaard, Paradox, & Theistic Existentialism
Anthony Bourdain once said something like, “To say you’ve had Mexican food is to say nothing at all.” What he meant was, if one was to explore the different regions of Mexico, the local cuisine varies so much, so drastically that you would almost think you’re eating a totally different type of food.
In the same way, to say you could define existentialism in one sentence is to say nothing at all. You can’t.
DE Weekly: Existentialism, Humanism, & Life as a Project
Existentialism sometimes has a rap for being a rather convoluted philosophy. We can assign blame to its most famous authors, I think, for that perception; Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jean-Paul Sartre, and the like wrote in such a way that many of the philosophy’s takeaways seem abstruse to the average reader.
This being the case, if we were to pose the question, “What is Existentialism?”, where would we begin? It’s unhelpful when those like Albert Camus and even Sartre himself rejected the term “existentialist.”
DE Weekly: Meaning, Ex Nihilo, & the Chasm of Existence
For those not entirely familiar with existentialism, a pervasive mistake that can be made is to conflate the philosophy with nihilism, and to associate the beliefs of one with the other. In fact, even if you do have a solid understanding of existential philosophy, the two can sometimes bleed into one another.
The reason I like to differentiate between the two and really hammer home the fact that existentialism is not nihilist in its underlying beliefs is that I really do not have patience for nihilists and nihilism in general.
DE Weekly: Camus, Animals, & Human Nature
Albert Camus wrote in The Rebel, “Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.” This quote has stuck in my mind recently, and I’ve thought quite a bit about its meaning and everything it entails.
Camus believed humans are unique among all the creatures of the Earth, not in the least for our self-awareness of our own existence. He argued that this self-awareness, however, leads us to reject our fundamental nature.
DE Weekly: Epictetus, Amor Fati, & Memento Mori
“There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.” This quote comes to us from Epictetus, the Greek Stoic philosopher who lived in first century Rome.
Epictetus was a teacher of philosophy who, under the Emperor Domitian, was banished for teaching philosophy. He later founded a school of philosophy in Nicopolis.
DE Weekly: Icarus, Folly, & Radical Freedom
“Man is condemned to be free;” wrote Jean-Paul Sartre, “because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does. It is up to you to give [life] a meaning.” In an existence where we are “thrown,” left to our own devices to make use of our radical freedom, where do we go? What do we do? When do we stop?
The existentialists celebrated the radical freedom we are born into, hyper fixating on the fact that we may create a life of meaning through the choices we make.
DE Weekly: Frankl, Logotherapy, & Tragic Optimism
Last week, I wrote about Viktor E. Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning, which he published in 1946. It details his experiences in a concentration camp during World War II and shares his psychological analysis of not only himself, but of other prisoners and of human beings faced with adversity in general.
This week, I want to expand on what I wrote previously by focusing specifically on the two sections of the book which follow the main narrative: “Logotherapy in a Nutshell” and Frankl’s 1984 postscript “The Case for a Tragic Optimism.”
DE Weekly: Frankl, Suffering, & Man’s Search for Meaning
“He who has a Why to live for can bear almost any How.” I recently read Viktor E. Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning, and he cited this quote from Friedrich Nietzsche a few times throughout the narrative, reminding himself and the reader just how important a sense of meaning can be.
Frankl wrote Man’s Search for Meaning in 1946 as more of a therapeutic outlet than anything else. The book details his experiences in a concentration camp during the Second World War; above all, the book tries to answer the question: “How was everyday life in a concentration camp reflected in the mind of the average prisoner?”
DE Weekly: Kierkegaard, Surrender, & the Leap of Faith
“Who am I, and what is my fate?” In last week’s newsletter, I wrote about how existentialism sought to answer this question through examining all facets of existence. I introduced the French philosopher and Catholic theologian Blaise Pascal, and his philosophical argument commonly referred to as “Pascal’s wager.”
To refresh your mind (or to catch you up to speed), Pascal’s wager is an argument that posits we, as humans, engage in a gamble regarding the existence of and our belief in God, a belief which ultimately defines our fate.
DE Weekly: Pensées, Reason, & Pascal’s Wager
Existentialism has arrested the thoughts of readers because the questions it poses are fundamental to our existence. Joining all questions into one, readers are forced to ask themselves, “Who am I, and what is my fate?”
Centuries before the existentialist authors we normally think of came around, a French philosopher and Catholic theologian named Blaise Pascal lived and wrote on the same existential questions.