What Is Existentialism?

Author(s):  
Jonathan Webber

Articles and books on existentialism generally eschew precise philosophical definition of their subject matter and disagree with one another over which ideas, issues, and thinkers should be classified as existentialist. This loose categorization distorts readings of the texts that are claimed to fall under it. This book argues for a precise conceptualization of existentialism grounded in the definition it was given by Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre when the term was first popularized. Existentialism is therefore defined as the ethical theory that we ought to treat the freedom at the core of human existence as intrinsically valuable and the foundation of all other values. This chapter argues for the need for a clear definition and presents an overview of how the book develops its analysis.

Author(s):  
Jonathan Webber

Rethinking Existentialism argues that the core of existentialism is the theory that Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre described when they popularized the term in 1945: the ethical theory that we ought to treat human freedom as intrinsically valuable and the foundation of all other value. The book argues that Beauvoir and Sartre disagreed over the structure of this freedom in 1943 but that Sartre came to accept Beauvoir’s view by 1952, that Frantz Fanon’s first book should also be classified as a canonical work of existentialism, and that Beauvoir’s argument for a moral imperative of authenticity is a firmer ground for existentialism’s ethical claim than any of the eudaimonist arguments offered by Fanon and Sartre. It develops its arguments through critical contrasts with Albert Camus, Sigmund Freud, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. The book concludes by sketching contributions that this analysis of existentialism can make to contemporary philosophy, psychology, and psychotherapy.


2012 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 39
Author(s):  
Mr Muzairi

It is important to understand Jean Paul Sartre’s mode of dualism in order to comprehend Sartre’s notion on humanbeings, freedom and conflict. As a man of ontological basis, Sartre put himself as a radical dualist in that it develops a number of ideas such as the meaning of objective and subjective reality, human existence and life. Those thoughts truly reveal the dark side of being in that it exemplifies the conflict in inter-human relationship context. Sartre discusses the objective meaning (en-soi) or “being-in-self”. For Sartre, en-soi is subject matter or the object of understanding that goes beyond human mind or the being of unconscious self. Unlike pour-soi(foritself) that only awares of itself, it denotes the dual characteristics of human that both awares of subject and the inner self. Human serves both as subject and object. Sartre argues that ‘Pour-soi’ underlining the notion of ‘the nihilation” of Being-in-itself’. In a concise word, “man presents himself…as a being that causes of ‘the nihilation’ of ‘Being in-itself” triggered freedom and conflict.


Author(s):  
Mbosowo Bassey Udok

Human existence as a whole is attached to a culture. Every human is a member of a group that acts within the framework of patterns of behavior that is unique or peculiar to the group. Each group determines the component of her culture, and culture builds an identity for the group. This chapter is poised to examine definitions of culture across cultural backgrounds to show similarities and differences in articulating the subject matter. It explicates the components of culture which include the product and technical knowledge of human beings in a given environment. The work plunges into the characteristics of culture as socially based. Here, culture is seen as a creation of society and shared among members of the same society and learned through associations with others in the group. The work concludes that though there is no universally acceptable definition of culture, the impact of culture cannot be undermined as its influence is felt across disciplines and communities.


2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (04) ◽  
pp. C06
Author(s):  
Antonio Gomes da Costa

The profession of explainer is still pretty much undefined and underrated and the training of explainers is many times deemed to be a luxury. In the following pages we make the argument that three main factors contribute to this state of affairs and, at the same time, we try to show why the training of explainers should really be at the core of any science communication institution. These factors are: an erroneous perception of what a proper scientific training means for explainers; a lack of clear definition of the aptitudes and role of explainers required by institutions that are evolving and diversifying their missions; and an organizational model based on top-down practices of management and activity development which underappreciates the potential of the personnel working directly with the public.


2018 ◽  
pp. 489-501
Author(s):  
Marta Agata Chojnacka

The main task of this work is to track down the absurdities of human existence which are described in the Jean-Paul Sartre’s texts. By analyzing the content of a novel Nausea author present the founding of Sartre’s theory of the existentialism that was later developed in the most famous philosophical work of the French philosopher, namely Being and nothingness. The thesis of this work is as follows: Sartre’s philosophical texts contain overall interpretation of existentialism. His literary texts give specific examples of human behavior, relationships, and activities immersed in absurd and illustrate the thesis from Sartre’s philosophical works. This article combines information contained in the philosophical and literary writings. In the first part author presents Sartre’s biography, emphasizing his literary and philosophical interests. Author tries to demonstrate absurdities of notion of existence in Nausea and Being and Nothingness to give an existential definition of the human being.


Neofilolog ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 11-28
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Karpińska-Szaj ◽  
Bernadeta Wojciechowska

The subject of this article is the use of reformulation, the instrument of language acquisition research, in studies on language teaching and learning. Incorporating reformulation into the methodological repertoire of language education research requires a clear definition of differences in the subject-matter and in objectives of research between the two disciplines, in order to clearly capture the potential and limitations of this tool. This article will consider the innovative potential of reformulation at both the research level and the didactic level, at various stages of development of communicative competencies in a foreign language.


2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-256
Author(s):  
Alessandra Consolaro

This article aims to explore embodiment as articulated in Prabha Khaitan’s autobiography Anyā se ananyā, inscribing it in a philosophical journey that refuses the dichotomy between Western and Indian thought. Best known as the writer who introduced French feminist existentialism to Hindi-speaking readers through her translation of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, Prabha Khaitan is positioned as a Marwari woman, intellectual, successful businesswoman, poet, novelist, and feminist, which makes her a cosmopolitan figure. In this article I use three analytical tools: the existentialist concepts of ‘immanence’ and ‘transcendence’—as differently proposed by Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir; Julia Kristeva’s definition of ‘abjection’—what does not ‘respect borders, positions, rules’ and ‘disturbs identity, system, order;’ and the satī/śakti notion—both as a venerated (tantric) ritual which gains its sanction from the scriptures, and as a practice written into the history of the Rajputs, crucial to the cultural politics of Calcutta Marwaris, who have been among the most vehement defenders of the satī worship in recent decades.


Author(s):  
Jonathan Webber

This chapter elucidates the existentialist problem of absurdity and analyses the eudaimonist responses offered by Fanon and Sartre. The core claim of existentialism that the reasons we encounter reflect our values, which we can choose to revise or replace, seems to entail that there can be no ultimate reason to prefer one set of values over another. Yet existentialism is the ethical theory that we ought to treat the freedom at the core of human existence as intrinsically valuable and the foundation of all other value. Eudaimonist arguments for authenticity hold it to be essential for avoiding anxiety, despair, and interpersonal conflict. But they can establish at best that we should recognize human freedom, not that we should respect or promote it. And they cannot provide overriding reasons for this recognition, only reasons that might be outweighed by other reasons grounded in the agent’s values.


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