Review Introduction to
Existentialism
• Existence over essence
– Rebellion against Plato and Rationalism
– Human value as rational, knowing creatures
• Combination with Christianity
– Rational universe—will of God
– Science as offspring begins to rebel
• Reality meaningless, dead, irrational
– Huge universe and human knowers peripheral
Humans as Peripheral
• Man in image of God
– Capable of knowing rational law
• Moral and scientific
• God is dead = Rationalism failed
– Can not give meaning to our lives
• Awareness of a succession of myths
• Seek solace in reason/God
– Nietzsche tartets Descartes “new” rationalism
• Seeking to restore human guarantee of knowledge
• Even allowing “brain in vat” evil demon fantasy
Questions
Explain the Nietzsche’s contrast of
a “master” and “slave” morality.
Why does he say Christianity is a
slave morality?
Cartesian "Radical" Skepticism
• Doubt everything—not from specific
arguments, but general ones
– Main target: objects and other minds
• Strategy: prove something immune
to evil demon doubt
• I think, therefore I exist
• Even if I doubt, can't doubt that I'm
thinking
Is Cogito Valid?
• Back to Parmenides
– If a sentence is true then its subject term
must denote something
• Any true sentence of the form "X Q's" entails "X
exists"
• So, if the premise (I think) is true then it follows
as a matter of form that I exist
– "Santa Claus thinks" is false
– Thought doesn't matter here
 "Santa clause walks" is also false
Is Cogito Sound?
• Is the premise true?
• Certainly! Whenever I think it
• Can we know it is true? Yes
– It is true
– We believe it is true
• (When we think, we think we are thinking)
– We have good reason to believe it
• We are good judges of our own conscious
states
Not enough! Paradox Analysis
• Must be immune from Demon Doubt!
• To think you do not think is a paradox
– Different from semantic (liar) or
prescriptive (Shendao) paradoxes
• The meaning inconsistent with truth
• Conforming inconsistent with meaning
Pragmatic (action) paradox
• What you say is inconsistent with the act
of your saying it
• "I cannot speak one word of English"
• The speech act of asserting is
inconsistent with its truth
– The thought act is inconsistent with the 我不會
用中文
content of the thought
想。
Thinking Thoughts and Thinker
• Next step cannot reach outside
thought
– A way to get all rational truths back—
prove God exists
• So ontological argument for God
– Unique in following from definition alone
Ontological Argument
• St. Anselm model—easier and more
famous
• Start with thought of god—a concept
– Can be thought of by a non-believer
• The non-believer contradicts himself
• Not derived just from thinking
• From the content (meaning/definition) of the
thought
• Definition of the ‘god' concept: the
perfect being
Existence
• Perfect=df has all positive qualities
completely
•
•
•
•
Qualities = predicates
'Exists' is a predicate
'Exists' is positive
Not to predicate 'exists' of the being that
has all positive qualities completely is a
contradiction
So I am not deceived when I think clearly and distinctly
Analysis: Summary
• Argument really about two kinds of
existence
– In mind and reality
• But logic the same
– Existence is a positive valued predicate
• Quality or attribute of a substance
– Nutshell: not it’s not—issue isn’t positive
• Not a predicate—Hume and Kant (detail later)
• Taken for granted by Nietzsche
Existential Angst
• Suspended over nothingness, nausea,
and alienation
– Strength to face a bottomless abyss
– Cf. Zhuangzi's view of a similar
realization
• Existentialist realism
– No way to get ethics without blind
assertion
Philosophical Revolution
• Reject metaphysical grounds for
moral ones
• A genealogy of morals
– Slave morality:
• Reaction against the hated--define as
"evil," "sin"
• Resentment morality--what it is
against
Master Morality
• Affirmation of things promoting life
• Define good, not evil
– Then just failure to fulfill
• Beyond "good and evil" to "good and bad"
• Control, choose your own meaning in life
• Life promoting, affirming, active, vs.
Reaction, nihilist resentment
Reality and Power
• Everything is interpretation—no original
– My Zhuangzi
– Interpretations are not getting closer to reality
• Only power conferring stories
• Science as another myth
The Real World Is a Myth
• Plato (the sun) attainable to the wise
• Christianity (A woman! A promise)
• Kant (a skeptical possibility) source of
obligation
• Positivism (value unknowable, so
meaningless)
• Nietzsche (abandon real/apparent
distinction)
Christianity and Buddhism
• A paradigm of slave morality
– Not refuted, but sick! Self-hating negative
resentment
• All don'ts, evil, sin, sinners
• This world, natural man as contrast with God
– A form of self-hate
– Stems from Socrates’ mind/body values
• Double-bind: original sin
– Protestant "grace" and predestination
– Hate yourself and ideology of
powerlessness
Lying
• Heaven a contradiction
– No – a form of hatred of life
• Desire for "the other life" = desire for death
– Create a myth in our own image
• Attribute all power to him—powerlessness to
ourselves
• Sin a deceptive form of self-hate
– Doctrine of original sin
– Moralizes enslavement – we deserve our
suffering
• So don't do anything about it
Christ and Christianity
• Culprit is St. Paul
– Actually a Roman—inheritors of the idols of
Socrates
– Body over mind
• Hatred of body and instincts
• Celibacy of priests, sex as evil
• Christ himself a divine mystic
– Declared himself God
– Re-evaluated values
– Spontaneous self-assertion—we should all be like
that
• Christ was the last Christian
Buddhism a Kindred
•Religion
Same mind/body structure
– Skepticism of existence
– ‘Truth’ ‘reason’, ‘ideas’ transcendent reality
• Nihilistic, decadent power denying
– Renunciation religion: Nirvana and life (samsara)
– Samsara is suffering. Get rid of desire
• But doesn't want to malign it with Christianity
– Honest – I seek to die and stay dead
• Reincarnation framework
– Positivist – no value judgment
• “Life is suffering” v “We are all sinners”
Not Powerless
• We can achieve the religious goal by
our own efforts
– We can die and stay dead
• No promises and keeps them!
– No supernatural intervention—no
supernatural role at all
• Buddha just a model who found the path
• Hygiene, diet, cheerfulness
– Attributed to climate and age of culture