Questions tagged [existentialism]
A loose title covering : the individual, the experience of choice, and the absence of rational understanding of the universe with a consequent dread or sense of absurdity in human life.
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Who are some philosophers who explore the possibility/impossibility of the intimacy of understanding others?
Can one ever be understood? When people say “yeah, I feel you” do they really? Is language enough of an outlet to transmit feelings with enough exactitude?
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What is the anti-thesis of Existentialism?
Existentialism represents a turning away from systematic philosophy (with its emphasis on metaphysical absolutes and principles of rational certainty) and toward an emphasis on the concrete existence ...
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Are there secular philosophers who argue for predetermined and given meaning/value in life and essentialism?
In continental philosophy particularly existentialism, thinkers reject the idea that there are any predetermined or given meanings/values in life, and stresses that we must take up our freedom and ...
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Why care for anything in life? [closed]
Great philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche in his Thus spoke Zarathustra told us a man should become an ‘ overman ‘ or ‘ ubermensch ‘i.e. someone who believes in the nihilism of the universe (Believing ...
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Do humans need some agency over the world around them for their lives to have some sense or purpose?
This is a follow up to this question I was told to revise: If all work is automated, what will humans be able to do? After consideration I think that the only way to salvage that question is to break ...
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What is the point of Human Existence?
I have no experience in formal philosophy, so I apologise for the crudeness and generalism of everything I say here.
The Issue-:
Every time I try to motivate myself by logically connecting the ...
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Should one abstain from a behaviour because they know why they engage in it?
I'm 16, I don't study psychology in college, only biology, chemistry, physics and maths, but I find evolutionary psychology incredibly interesting, because it's the only psychological theory that ...
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How should I contextualize this quote and understand its meaning? [closed]
Jean- Paul Sartre once said about Camus: "I would call his pessimism 'solar' if you remember how much black there is in the sun."
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Is there any way existentialism can be compatible with the idea of free will being an illusion?
I just read another question from this website about free will, decided to ask my own rather than comment on another. I have no formal education in philosophy. I almost want to ask this question from ...
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Is conscious thought ever necessary?
I have noticed that every time I end up "sitting down" and "thinking" about something as if it's some sort of exercise to plan out, I end up just repeating thoughts in my head or ...
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Why is being yourself so highly valued among existentialist philosophers? [closed]
From the Disney movie Wreck-it-Ralph:
I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.
Is this sentiment wise? Is it truly good to be whoever ...
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Question about Sartre's distinction between "self-consciousness", "subject", and "ego"
I am reading the Routledge Critical Thinkers series on Jacques Lacan, and I have come across this passage about Jean-Paul Sartre:
In an early work entitled Transcendence of the Ego (1934) Sartre
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Where exactly does the value of an individual human lie?
I mean to ask where the value of a human lies, not within the context of the universe but within the room of humanity. What exactly makes a human important? And, is it always something she puts out ...
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What is the meaning of nothingness in Sartre's ⟪Being and Nothingness⟫?
A head-up: I am from an analytic background, and I have only read continental philosophy via second sources.
I am confused about what 'nothingness' mean in Sartre's ⟪Being and Nothingness⟫. Some ...
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Giving up or Moving on. What's the Difference?
I was struggling to decide whether to put this here or under Psychology, but here we are.
Usually when people face circumstances that are hard enough to be handled at a given moment of time. From ...
