1. Introduction to Existentialism

2. Existentialism
As the name suggests, its subject matter is the existing individual Therefore, as far as it is possible we want to focus on lived experience, connections to our world, as opposed to using theories to speculate about detached objects Involves making decisions and being responsible for them Not just discovering facts, but how we relate to them

3. Tradition vs. Existentialism
Traditional Philosophy
Existentialism
What is real? What is knowledge? (What can be known?) Is there a God? What is right? What is wrong?
How do I relate to what I believe to be real? How does reality matter to me? How do I use what I know? What should I do in the face of uncertainty? What is my relationship with God? What should I do?

4. Traditional Philosophers Critiqued by Existentialists
Rene Descartes ( ) Immanuel Kant ( ) G.W. F. Hegel ( )

5. Existentialists
Soren Kierkegaard ( ) Friedrich Nietzsche ( ) Martin Heidegger ( ) Jean-Paul Sartre ( ) Simone de Beauvoir ( ) Albert Camus ( )

6. Traditional Views: Descartes
Cogito ergo sum—I think therefore I am Dualist—immaterial soul, material body Subject—The mind’s “I” Object—material makes up individual discrete outside objects

7. Critique of Descartes
Subject/object distinction is “false” insofar as it does not reflect my lived experience Rationalist approach suggesting there is one truth based on “clear and distinct” ideas is unrealistic Real experience of the world is in it as a part of it, and is pre-theoretical Heidegger—Dasein (being there); Sartre– non-positional consciousness (for- itself)

8. Traditional Views: Kant
Admits limits of human reason to matters of a priori and physical surroundings (not God, for instance) In showing that experience is confined to categories of human thinking, combines rationalism and empiricism Argues that ethics is based in the laws of reason

9. Critique of Kant
Kierkegaard: sometimes “necessary” actions go beyond the laws of the reason Faith demands believing in a paradox Sartre: any “transcendental unity of apperception” is after the fact

10. Hegel
World is a rational system, or dialectic “The actual is rational, the rational is actual.” Closed system that ends in absolute knowing (God is absolute knowing knowing itself) Whole of relationship of human to world is through objective reflection

11. Hegel’s Dialectic

12. Hegel’s System

13. Critique of Hegel
Kierke: Existential system is impossible because it is always on-going and incomplete Objective reflection leads me away from deciding what to do in my life Contrast to Socrates risking whole life on argument of immortality of soul (faith; paradox)

14. Kierkegaard: three movements of faith
Embracing Paradox
Kierkegaard: three movements of faith
Wish
Infinite resignation
Believes against all odds in impossible
Nietzsche: eternal recurrence
Heidegger: hermeneutic circle
Sartre: consciousness as absolute and free
Camus: the absurd
De Beauvoir: Ambiguity

15. Against Fatalism and Determinism
Fatalism– the belief that logic can prove that no person has free will
Law of excluded middle—every statement must be true or false
Therefore even statements about future (“I will go to the grocery store”) are true or false
Determinism—the belief that physical or psychological forces determine our behavior
Cf. with Sartre’s account of action