scholarly journals Existentialism- The Struggle Remains in Mulk Raj Anand’s Major Novels

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (11) ◽  
pp. 11
Author(s):  
Pillai Rajammal Swaminathan ◽  
Dr. K. Thiyagarajan
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Personal Responsibility ◽  
First Principle ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Love ◽  
Jean Paul ◽  
Authentic Existence ◽  
The World ◽  
Realistic Representation ◽  
Individual Existence

Existentialism is a philosophy that emphasizes individual existence, freedom and choice. It is centered upon the analysis of existence and of the way humans find themselves existing in the world. The perception is that, humans exist first and then each individual spends a lifetime changing their essence or nature. Existentialism is a philosophy concerned with finding self and the meaning of life through free will, choice, and personal responsibility. Existentialism is a quest for authentic existence. Jean-Paul Sartre says, ‘Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself. Such is the first principle of existentialism.’ Man’s sufferings and humiliations comes under the aspect of existentialism, which is found in the novels of Anand.  Anand is a humanist and his humanism manifests itself in a realistic representation of the inhumanity of the situation of the oppressed masses, suffering, various types of disability, discrimination and alienation. Existentialism is an aspect of humanism and Anand has portrayed it through human beings pathetic sufferings and miseries. Anand’s humanism dwells into the survival of human love through existentialism. The humanism of Anand showcases the concerns of existentialism, exposing the reality of life and its tragic condition of suffering and misery. The pathetic condition of suffering and misery is existential since it has the elements of chance, absurdity and nothingness in them. Their alienated conditions are shaped by fear and loneliness. Though Anand denies of being an existentialist, his most of the works reveal existential ideologies of Sartre and Heidegger.

Why is there so much evil?

2014 ◽  
Vol 111 (3) ◽  
pp. 238-243
Author(s):  
William Hasker
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Problem Of Evil ◽  
Natural Order ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The World ◽  
The Problem Of Evil ◽  
Good And Evil

The problem of evil is one that perplexes both believers and non-believers. The best approach to the problem is to see evil and suffering as the outcome of general policies God has adopted in creating and governing the world—policies which on the whole are good and beneficial, but which in specific cases lead to suffering for humans and other sentient creatures. Chief among these policies are the policy of allowing human beings to exercise free will in choosing between good and evil, and the policy of creating and sustaining a world of nature that operates according to its inherent laws, with divine interventions into the natural order comparatively infrequent. This approach benefits persons suffering from various evils by releasing them from an often fruitless search for “God’s reasons” for the evil in question, and enabling them to focus on the grace and strength given by Christ to live courageously in spite of their suffering.

scholarly journals MELACAK PEMIKIRAN POSKOLONIALISME SARTRE: Pengantar Sartre untuk The Wretched of the Earth Karya Fanon

2011 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 213
Author(s):  
Toto Suharto
Keyword(s):  
Third World ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The West ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Jean Paul ◽  
The World ◽  
Post Colonialism

The article seeks to discuss Jean-Paul Sartre’s idea on Post-colonialism. The focus is on Sartre’s notion listed in Preface for Franz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth. Sartre stated that colonialism opposed humanism, since human beings came into the world in a free stance. Colonialism should be challenged with decolonization, aimed at revitalizing awareness of humanism obstructed by European monsters. Europe as the West, should not conduct violence and cruelty to Third world—the East. The West and the East, indeed, should not be confronted. This serves as a historical framework led to the emergence of first phase of Postcolonialism idea.

Man and Wife

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helena Ifill
Keyword(s):  
Moral Development ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Personal Responsibility ◽  
Mental Condition ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Sensation Fiction ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Secondary Purpose ◽  
Marriage Laws

This chapter returns to the topic of monomania. Hester Dethridge develops homicidal urges after murdering her abusive husband. Collins emphatically draws attention to the circumstances which lead to Hester’s mental condition in order to fulfil the main purpose of the novel, highlighting the dangers of the British marriage laws which disadvantage women. The novel’s secondary purpose is the disparagement of what Collins perceived as a harmful national obsession with physical prowess. The upper-class villain, Geoffrey Delamayn, has been raised to prize his physicality over intellectual and moral development, and as a result he is little more than a bestial thug. The final part of the chapter shows how Collins makes use of the strange and improbable coincidences that are a staple of sensation fiction. Rather than playing down such moments, Collins emphasises ‘the capricious mercy of Chance’ and uses it as a way of revealing the influence of unforeseen circumstances on his characters and their development. Overall this chapter shows that Collins depicts human beings with little capacity for agency, personal responsibility or self-determinism; seeming acts of free will are really the result of external influences (social, legal, educational and circumstantial), and can only ever be short-sighted.

Hermeneutical Constraints

2019 ◽  
pp. 219-269
Author(s):  
Edward Slingerland
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Good Evidence ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Genetic Inheritance ◽  
Cognitive Sciences ◽  
The World ◽  
Physical Objects ◽  
Supernatural Agency

The topic of this chapter is a body of work from various branches of the cognitive sciences suggesting that the tendency to distinguish qualitatively between bodies and minds—between physical objects subject to mechanical causality and agents capable of free will, planning, and intentionality—is a human cognitive universal. It develops reliably and early in human beings, a genetic inheritance shaped by the powerful adaptive pressures of social living. In addition, there is good evidence that this distinction between objects and agents reliability kicks off mind-body dualism, afterlife and soul beliefs, a perception of “meaning” in the world, and concepts of supernatural agency that share broad features across cultures and throughout history. These universals create suspicion of any claim that the early Chinese were strong mind-body holists. Relevant cognitive universals include Theory of Mind, concepts of psychological interiority, and basic supernatural, afterlife and soul beliefs.

In Defence of C.S. Lewis' Soul-Making Theodicy: A Reply to Wolterstorff

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 192-199
Author(s):  
Erik J. Wielenberg
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Natural Disasters ◽  
Moral Character ◽  
John Hick ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The World

In The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis offers a multi-pronged Christian explanation for the suffering in the world. Lewis first develops a free will theodicy, according to which much of the suffering in our world is a by-product of human free will. To account for the remaining suffering (caused by, for instance, disease and natural disasters), Lewis develops a version of the soul-making theodicy, according to which some of the suffering in the world is permitted by God as part of a divine project of improving the moral character of human beings. Nicholas Wolterstorff has recently raised some interesting challenges for Lewis's soul-making theodicy. In this essay I respond to Wolterstorff's critique by drawing not only on Lewis's broader corpus beyond The Problem of Pain but also, to a lesser extent, on the thought of two other contemporary proponents of the soul-making theodicy, John Hick and Trent Dougherty. My main goal is to make the case that Lewis's version of the soul-making theodicy has more depth and resilience than Wolterstorff's critique suggests.

Leibniz: Discourse on Metaphysics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The World

The Discourse on Metaphysics, written around January 1686, is one of Leibniz’s fundamental works, since it is the most accomplished systematic expression of Leibniz’s philosophy in the 1680s, the time when Leibniz’s philosophy reached maturity. The point of the Discourse is to give a metaphysics for Christianity. That is, Leibniz’s goal is to give the answers that he believes Christians should give to the basic metaphysical questions, questions about why the world exists, what is the world like, what kinds of things exist, and what is the place of human beings in the world. To this purpose Leibniz discusses some of the most traditional topics of metaphysics, like the nature of God, the purpose of God in creating the world, the nature of substance, the possibility of miracles, the nature of our knowledge, free will, and the justice behind salvation and damnation. This book is a new translation of the Discourse and a philosophical commentary of it.

scholarly journals Metamorfozy Platońskiej „metafory słońca” (Respublica 509b) w hetero- i ortodoksyjnej teologii (I-III w.): gnostycyzm, Klemens z Aleksandrii i Orygenes

Vox Patrum ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 68 ◽  
pp. 21-58
Author(s):  
Damian Mrugalski
Keyword(s):  
First Principle ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Knowledge Of God ◽  
Spiritual World ◽  
Clement Of Alexandria ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Complete Knowledge ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject

The metaphor of the sun, in which Plato (Republic 509b) compares the idea of the Good to the sun that dwells above the earth yet affects the phenomena occurring on it, was an inspiration for both heretical and orthodox theology in the first Christian centuries. The Gnostics, Clement of Alexandria and Origen all believed that God, like the Platonic idea of the Good, is radically transcendent in relation to the world, but at the same time is the cause of everything that exists in it. Unlike Plato, who believed that the idea of the Good is knowable and can be the subject of science, the Christian theologians of the first centuries believed that God was like a blinding light. This means that God, according to them, though intelligible, is unknowable in His essence. Therefore, God cannot be the subject of science. Another modification of the Platonic metaphor was the introduction of the element of sunlight, to which the philosopher from Athens did not refer. For the Gnostics, the rays of the sun were “eons” – spiritual beings that existed in the space between the first principle of all things and the material world. For Clement and Origen, the light that comes from the sun was the Son – the power and wisdom of God. In contrast to the Gnostics, who believed in the progressive degradation of the spiritual world through successive emanations, the Alexandrian Fathers believed that the Son possessed all the knowledge of God and therefore revealed to man the true God. Yet the revelation of God by the Son, and even the grace that assists human beings in the process of learning about God, do not give man complete knowledge of the essence of God. Thus the Gnostics, Clement and Origen, despite some doctrinal differences, all accepted the concept of the radical transcendence of God on the ontological and epistemological levels.

scholarly journals Understanding the Human Condition through the Depiction of Protagonists in Crime and Mystery Novels

MANUSYA ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-105
Author(s):  
Kevalin Kaewruean
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Essential Element ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
The Other ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Jean Paul ◽  
Authentic Existence ◽  
Mystery Novels ◽  
Freedom And Responsibility ◽  
The Human Condition

Abstract Extant criticism of crime and mystery fiction has indicated how protagonists have freedom of choice in dealing with difficult situations in different forms of risky or challenging settings. In this article, previous criticism is evaluated in terms of its reflection of an essential element of the human condition: the Self’s free will to construct the existential and spatial meanings of its phenomenological existence in relation to the Other. The article further indicates that protagonists tend to disregard their freedom and responsibility for their actions, especially when they make existential choices in traumatic or critical situations. Additionally, the dominance of others and variously suppressive spatial contexts can inhibit the protagonists from acknowledging their free will to act responsibly in order to reach their authentic existence. This article integrates Jean Paul Sartre’s concept of the human condition and the corresponding interpretative framework of spatial concepts from different thinkers, such as Edward Relph, Arnold van Gennep, Victor W. Turner and Mikhail M. Bakhtin, who emphasize the significance of places in the meaning-construction of the Self’s identity and its existence in relation to the Other. Through the integration of these theoretical frameworks, the portrayal of protagonists in contemporary crime and mystery novels is examined in order to illustrate individuals’ senses of freedom and responsibility for their own actions in existential and spatial contexts.

scholarly journals THE ANALYSIS OF SARTRE’S ‘ESENSE’ AND ‘SUBJECTIVITY’ IN DISNEY PIXAR’S SOUL ANIMATION

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Putri Rindu Kinasih
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Free Choice ◽  
Existential Philosophy ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Jean Paul ◽  
Philosophical Movement ◽  
Cinematic Narratives ◽  
Individual Existence ◽  
Narrative Forms ◽  
Opening Up

<p>From the start, the philosophical movement that came to be known as existentialism was associated with literature. This possibility happens because there is a natural affinity between existential philosophy and narrative forms of art. On one hand, existentialist concur on the primacy of individual existence, of the lived experience of concrete human beings. On the other hand, cinematic narratives tell stories of beings such as ourselves, helping us to make sense of our existence and opening up probabilities that we might never have pondered otherwise (Shaw, 2017). Interestingly, Time.com stated that Pixar films are the philosophical of the animation world. Here lies the reason why the writer decided to analyze the portrayal of Jean-Paul Sartre’s famous phrase ‘Existence Precedes Essence’ in the latest Disney Pixar animation, Soul. Sartre argued that for human beings, our existence precedes our essence. In addition, Sartre’s notion of ‘existence’ characterized in terms of consciousness, free choice and ‘subjectivity’. For Sartre, the first act of consciousness is to choose. This study shows that Disney Pixar’sSoul does portray Sartre’s ‘existence precedes essence’ through Joe’s life – human beings have no fixed preordained essence or definition. Moreover, Sartre’s idea of consciousness or subjectivity can be seen from 22’s decision to be dared to live.</p>

“Utopia First!” A Machiavellian Conception of Solidarity in More's Utopia

Moreana ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 55 (Number 209) (1) ◽  
pp. 79-93
Author(s):  
Marie-Claire Phélippeau
Keyword(s):  
At Risk ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Farm Work ◽  
The World ◽  
Social Difficulties ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Democratic Elections ◽  
Communal Organization

This paper shows how solidarity is one of the founding principles in Thomas More's Utopia (1516). In the fictional republic of Utopia described in Book II, solidarity has a political and a moral function. The principle is at the center of the communal organization of Utopian society, exemplified in a number of practices such as the sharing of farm work, the management of surplus crops, or the democratic elections of the governor and the priests. Not only does solidarity benefit the individual Utopian, but it is a prerequisite to ensure the prosperity of the island of Utopia and its moral preeminence over its neighboring countries. However, a limit to this principle is drawn when the republic of Utopia faces specific social difficulties, and also deals with the rest of the world. In order for the principle of solidarity to function perfectly, it is necessary to apply it exclusively within the island or the republic would be at risk. War is not out of the question then, and compassion does not apply to all human beings. This conception of solidarity, summed up as “Utopia first!,” could be dubbed a Machiavellian strategy, devised to ensure the durability of the republic. We will show how some of the recommendations of Realpolitik made by Machiavelli in The Prince (1532) correspond to the Utopian policy enforced to protect their commonwealth.

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