EXISTENTIALISM
What is the meaning of life?
EXISTENTIALISM DEFINED
• Focuses on the condition of human existence, and an
individual's emotions, actions, responsibilities, and
thoughts, in creating meaning and purpose in a
meaningless life.
• Existential philosophers often focused more on
what they believed was subjective, such as beliefs
and religion, or human states, feelings, and emotions,
such as freedom, pain, guilt, and regret, as opposed
to analyzing objective knowledge, language, or
science.
DISTINCTIONS
• The notion of the Absurd contains the idea that there is no meaning to be
found in the world beyond what meaning we give to it. Anything can
happen to anyone for any reason, which promotes existential angst.
• Existentialism asserts that people actually make decisions based on the
meaning to them rather than rational thought.
• Despair in existentialism is the reaction to a breakdown in the defining
qualities of one's self. For example, an athlete who loses his legs in an
accident may despair if he has nothing else to fall back on, nothing on
which to rely for his identity. He finds himself unable to be that which
defined his being.
• The existentialist concept of freedom is often misunderstood where
almost anything is possible and where values are inconsequential to choice
and action. But one is responsible for one’s values and actions.
KIERKEGAARD
The early 19th century
philosopher Søren Kierkegaard
is regarded as the father of
existentialism. He maintained
that the individual is solely
responsible for giving his or
her own life meaning and for
living that life passionately and
sincerely, in spite of many
existential obstacles and
distractions including despair,
angst, absurdity, alienation, and
boredom.
What I really lack is to be clear in my mind what I
am to do, not what I am to know, except in so
far as a certain knowledge must precede every action.
The thing is to understand myself, to see what God
really wishes me to do: the thing is to find a
truth which is true for me, to find the idea
for which I can live and die. ... I certainly do
not deny that I still recognize an imperative of
knowledge and that through it one can work upon men,
but it must be taken up into my life, and that is what I
now recognize as the most important thing.
—Søren Kierkegaard, Letter to Peter Wilhelm
Lund dated August 31, 1835
MODERN DAY
Today, existentialists explore the potential
consequences of the existence or non-existence
of God. Some existentialists considered the
meaning of life to be based in faith, while others
noted self-determined goals. Existentialism
became fashionable after World War II, as a way
to reassert the importance of human individuality
and freedom.
VICTOR FRANKL
…was
an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist as well as
a Holocaust survivor. Frankl was the founder of
logotherapy, which is a form of Existential Analysis. His
best-selling book, Man's Search for Meaning (published in
1959): chronicles his experiences as a concentration
camp inmate and describes his psychotherapeutic
method of finding meaning in all forms of existence,
even the most sordid ones, and thus a reason to
continue living.
APPLY TO CHRIS MCCANDLESS
• How does Chris McCandless approach the
existential question of the meaning of life?
• How does Jon Krakauer approach the
existential question of the meaning of life?
• What aspects of existentialism are relevant to
this story?