Notes on Existentialism

2. • Relativism, the concept that points of view
have no absolute truth or validity, having only
relative, subjective value according to
differences in perception and consideration, or
relatively, as in the relative value of an object to
a person
• the doctrine that knowledge, truth, and
morality exist in relation to culture, society, or
historical context, and are not absolute.

3.  (1) They all assert that one thing (e.g. moral
values, beauty, knowledge, taste, or meaning)
is relative to some particular framework or
standpoint (e.g. the individual subject, a
culture, an era, a language, or a conceptual
scheme).
 (2) They all deny that any standpoint is
uniquely privileged over all others.

4. • There are two distinct forms of moral relativism.
• The first is individual relativism, which holds that
individual people create their own moral standards.
Friedrich Nietzsche, for example, argued that the
superhuman creates his or her morality distinct
from and in reaction to the slave-like value system
of the masses.
• The second is cultural relativism which maintains
that morality is grounded in the approval of one's
society - and not simply in the preferences of
individual people.

5. The first clear statement of relativism comes with the Sophist Protagoras, as quoted by
Plato, "The way things appear to me, in that way they exist for me; and the way things
appears to you, in that way they exist for you" (Theaetetus 152a). Thus, however I see
things, that is actually true -- for me. If you see things differently, then that is true -- for
you. There is no separate or objective truth apart from how each individual happens to
see things.

6.  share a single unifying theme: that absolute
morals do not exist, and what is “right” or
“wrong” is entirely a product of human
preference.

8. THE GOOD
1. You are free to create your
own meaning of life and be
an individual
2. You create your life/your
future
3. You decide what is important
4. The small stuff does not
matter
5. You are going to die so just
live
6. You make your life
special/matter

9. THE GOOD THE TRUTH
1. You are free to create your
own meaning of life and be
an individual
2. You create your life/your
future
3. You decide what is important
4. The small stuff does not
matter
5. You are going to die so just
live
6. You make your life
special/matter
1. You life really has no meaning
2. Your future does not matter
because you do not matter,
never did – never will
3. Your decisions have no point,
they don’t matter and nothing
is important
4. Nothing matters
5. You are going to die, you are
already dead.
6. You are not special and your life
never mattered

11.  You choose
 You are who you want to be

12.  I. Existence precedes essence reality is only what
one creates and experiences
 II. Absurdity to exist is absurd
 III. Nothingness is one's own existence, but since
one lives without anything to structure this
existence, it is
nothingness. If nothing is something, then
something is nothing and nothing is nothing.
IV. Moral Individualism one must choose one's
own way. the individual must decide which
situations are to count as moral situations.

13.  V. Choice and commitment is thefreedom to
choose and to accept the risk
 VI. Dread and anxiety is the the confrontation
with nothingness
 VII. Subjectivity is personal experience and
acting on one's own convictions are essential in
arriving at the truth.

15.  i. bleak world-rational understandings of events
don't work; religion doesn't
 offer any answers: no inherent meaning
 ii. rather than give in to despair we create our own
meaning
 iii. no set guidelines except to act in good faith, by
which Sartre meant that we need to acton our own,
not just following the crowd or deciding something
based on guidancehanded down from an institution
 iv. what happens when we act on our own; create
our own meaning through our action

16.  a. individuals create the meaning and essence
of their lives not gods
 b. no god means we are free
 c. there is no purpose at the core of existence
 d. we define our own meaning
 e. people make decisions based on what has
meaning to them rather than what is rational

17.  i. the good life is one of wealth, pleasure, of
honor
 ii. social approval and social structure trump
the individual
 iii. accept what is and that is enough in life
 iv. science can and will make verything better
 v. people are good by nature, ruined by society
or external forces

18.  If something worth living for is worth dying
for, what about something not worth dying
 for?
 Did man create God to have a reason to live?
 Does society make women and men different
or do we choose our roles?
 Would living forever add meaning to life?
 How do you really act in private?
 Without love, without people, what is a
person?

19. • -the word absurd in this context does not mean
"logically impossible," but rather "humanly
impossible"
• -human beings as subjects in an indifferent,
objective, often ambiguous and absurd universe,
in which meaning is not provided by the natural
order, but rather can be created, however
provisionally and unstably, by human beings
actions and interpretations

20. . . .the absurd is born out of the confrontation between
human need and want for logic and order and the
reality of an illogical and random world
. . .by describing the absurd condition: much of our life
is built on the hope for tomorrow yet tomorrow
brings us closer to death; once stripped of its common
romanticisms, the world is a foreign, strange and
inhuman place; true knowledge is impossible and
rationality and science cannot explain the world; their
stories ultimately end in meaningless abstractions
from the moment absurdity is recognized, it becomes
a passion, the most harrowing of all.

21. • -Sisyphus is the absurd hero. This man, sentenced to ceaselessly
rolling a rock to the top of a mountain and then watching its
descent, is the epitome of the absurd hero according to
• Camus. In retelling the Myth of Sisyphus, Camus is able to create
an emotional sense the body of the intellectual discussion which
proceeds it in the book. We are told that Sisyphus is the absurd
hero "as much through his passions as through his torture. His
scorn of the gods, his hatred of death, and his passion for life won
him that unspeakable penalty in which the whole being is exerted
toward accomplishing nothing. Sisyphus is conscious of his
plight, and therein lies the tragedy. For if, during the moments of
descent, he nourished the hope that he would yet succeed, then
his labor would lose its torment. But Sisyphus is clearly conscious
of the extent of his own misery. it is this lucid recognition of his
destiny that transforms his torment into his victory.

22. • -his is the ultimate absurd, for there is not
death at the end of his struggle. All is not
choas; the experience of the absurd is the proof
of man's uniqueness and the foundation of his
dignity and freedom
• -the absurd hero gains victory by focusing on
his freedom, his refusal to hope, and his
knowledge of the absurdity of his situation.

24.  Blaise Pascal- first to anticipate the major concerns of
existentialism
 Soren Kierkegaard-founder of modern existentialism-stressed the
ambiguityand absuridity of the human situation.
 Friedrich Nietzshe-proclaimed the death of God
 Martin Heidegger-argued that humanity finds itself in an
incomprehensible and indifferent world. Human beings can never
hope to understand why they are here; instead , each individual
must choose a goal and follow it with passionate conviction,
aware of the certainty of death and the ultimate meaningless of
one's life.
 Jean-Paul Sartre-first gave the term existentialism; he declared
that human beings require a rational basis for their lives but are
unable to achieve one,and this human life is a futile passion.