Existentialism

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 6

Name at least 2 books or films in which the characters don't know what to do with their lives.

Existentialism

Simone de Beauvoir:“In the end, we took the epithet that everyone used for us and used it for our own purposes”. But what precisely is existentialism?

Existence comes before essence

Existentialism is a philosophical and literary movement which states that human beings have no pre-established purpose: There is no principle to which we can turn to decide what is good and what is bad. Nothing that we have to be or ought to be.

Authenticity

Existentialists also used words like 'authenticity' and 'freedom.' Authenticity describes the attribute of taking responsibility for one's own experience, instead of viewing your experience as defined by outside forces, such as God, the greater society or the universe.

Authentic existence

Religion, morality, tradition, not even philosophy can provide norms for existing. Everything has collapsed.

Inauthentic

Is when we strain to conform we find ourselves in a state of self-deception. We become alienated from who we are.

Anguish and forlornness

Sartre uses the term anguish to describe how we feel responsible for ourselves and for how our actions affect others. Forlornness means that you are alone in your decisions.

Man is condemned to be free

Condemned, because he did not create himself, yet, [he] is free; because, once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does. Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism Freedom is not a reward or a decoration that is celebrated with champagne. Nor yet a gift, a box of dainties designed to make you lick your chops. Oh, no! It’s a chore, on the contrary, and a long-distance race, quite solitary and very exhausting. Albert Camus, The Fall”

What are the three worst punishments (other than death or physical torture) that you can imagine? Rank them in order from worst, worse, bad. (1, 2, 3).

If, as a result of an unlikely chain of events, you found yourself in any of the above circumstances, do you think you could survive? How? What would you do?

Absurdity

Absurdity According to existentialists, human beings spend their lives in a void plagued by angst and despair in a world defined by alienation and absurdity. Absurdity refers to the persistence of human beings in living out their lives, despite little evidence that what we do matters in the greater universe. We create meaning in our lives even when there is little or no evidence of a natural force or omnipotent being protecting or guiding us. We simply continue to exist aimlessly.

Absurd hero

Reading guide

You can use this document to read the sisyphus myth http://edsitement.neh.gov/camus-myth-sisyphus-close-reading-absurd

How is existentialist philosophy a part of the story in "The Music of Chance?"