The document provides an overview of existentialism through notes from a philosophy class. It defines existentialism and outlines its key themes, including the view that existence precedes essence, the absurdity of life, alienation, nothingness and death, anxiety, and human freedom. The document also profiles influential existentialist philosophers like Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Camus, and Sartre. Kierkegaard believed individuals must live authentically through personal choice and commitment rather than conforming to social norms. Nietzsche saw life as meaningless and advocated becoming an "overman" who can overcome desires to live independently and reinvent oneself.

1. Good Morning!
 Bell Ringer…  Review your God paper
with your neighbor.
 Agenda and Objectives:
Through notes and
discussion students will
define existentialism and
identify the major themes
of existentialism

2. Existentialism
Ms. Krall

3. What does it mean to exist?
 To have reason
 Physical and mental awareness of your
surroundings and choices
 Participation in life through interaction with
others
 Understanding your personal nature

4. Themes in Art…

5. Mark Rothko (untitled 1968)

6. Edward Hopper (New York
Movie 1939)

7. Edvard Munch (night in
saint cloud 1890)

8. Edward Degas
(L’absinthe 1876)

9. Pablo Picasso (Guernica 1937)

10. “I think therefore I am”
 Existentialism is the title of the set of
philosophical ideals that emphasize the
existence of the human being, the lack of
meaning and purpose in life, and the
solitude of human existence…
 Its roots come from the 19th century but
does not become a movement until WW II

11. Review of Existentialism…definition
and themes.
 What is life?
 What is my place in it?
 What choices does
this obligate me to
make?
 Significance of the
individual
 Importance of passion
 Irrational aspects of
life
 Importance of human
freedom.

12. In defining who you are as a human being,
which is more important-to be able to
define your existence or to be be able to
define your essence?

13. What does it mean to have essence?
 Principle purpose and purity of everything
and anything
 Having awareness of your self and things
around you
 The reality of something
 Things you might be remembered by

14. Essence vs. Existence
 Essence can be defined as “the basic nature of
something that determines its shape, its activity, its
defining characteristics, and possibilities of its everyday
life.”
 It therefore sets the ground rules for the actions and/or
purpose that an object can or can’t do.
 Most Philosophers believe that essence precedes
existence- except many Existentialists!

15. Good morning!..
 Bell Ringer..
 Agenda and
Objective…through
notes and discussion
students will identify
the themes of
existentialism.
 Define Existentialism
and give one
characteristic of
existentialism

16. Thought for the Day…
 “To be nobody but yourself in a world which
is doing its best day and night to make you
everybody else means to fight the hardest
battle which any human being can fight,
and never stop fighting.” ~e.e cummings

17. Common Themes in Existentialism
 Existence Precedes
Essence
 The belief that nothing can
explain or rationalize our
existence.
 There is no answer to
“Why am I?”
 Humans exist in a
meaningless, irrational
universe and any search
for order will bring them
into direct conflict with this
universe.

18. Back to Existence Precedes
Essence
 Existentialism is defined by the slogan Existence
precedes Essence. This means:
 1. We have no predetermined nature or essence that
controls what we are, what we do, or what is valuable
for us.
 2. We are radically free to act independently of
determination by outside influences.
 3. We create our own human nature through these free
choices.
 4. We also create our values through these choices.

19. The Traditional View

20. The Existentialist view
 “We create our own
nature” : We are
thrown into existence
first without a
predetermined nature
and only later do we
construct our nature
or essence through
our actions.

21. Second Theme
 Absurdity: life is
absurd and reason is
useless in dealing with
the depths of human
life
 Man seen in this light
is full of contradictions.
 Man creates himself
through the choices he
makes and thus takes
responsibility.

22. Third Theme…Alienation
 The development of science has “separated man
from concrete earthy existence, and forced him to
live at a high level of abstraction. We have
collectivized individual man out of existence,
driven God from the heavens or from the hearts of
men. Man lives in alienation from God, from
nature, from other men, from his own true self.”

23. Continued…
 Existentialists are concerned how
technology shuts man out of nature and
from each other
 Crowding of people into cities
 Subdivision of labor
 Government control
 Growth of advertising, propaganda and the mass media
of entertainment and communication

24. Fourth…Fear, Dread and Anxiety
 Anxiety stems from our understanding and
recognition of the total freedom of choice that
confronts us every moment, and the individual’s
confrontation with nothingness.
 Dread is a feeling of general apprehension to
make a commitment to a personally valid way of
life.

25. Fifth… Encounter with Nothingness
and Death.
 If man is alienated from nature, God,
neighbors, and self, what is left?
 Death hangs over all of us. Our awareness
of it can bring freedom or anguish.

26. Sixth…Freedom
 Existentialists write about
the loss of freedom or the
threat to it, or the
enlargement of the range
of human freedoms.
 Freedom is the
acceptance of
responsibility for choice
and a commitment to
one’s choice.
 Believers-stress the man
of faith rather than the
man of will. Man’s
essential nature is God-
like – and humans should
not alienate ourselves
from it.
 Non believers- Because
there is no God, we must
accept individual
responsibility for our own
becoming.

27. The Existentialist- Absolute Individuality and Absolute
Freedom
 The Existentialist conceptions of freedom
and value arise from their view of the
individual. Since we are all ultimately alone,
isolated islands of subjectivity in an
objective world, we have absolute freedom
over our internal nature, and the source of
our value can only be internal.

28. Bell Ringer Review!
 What is the definition
of existentialism?
 What are the six
themes of
existentialism?
 Existence precedes
essence
 Life is absurd
 Alienation
 Nothingness and
Death
 Fear, Dread, Anxiety
 Freedom

29. For review…
 Existentialism attempts to describe our desire to
make rational decisions despite existing in an
irrational universe.
 Two views- life might be without inherent
meaning (existential atheists) or it might be
without a meaning we can understand
(existential theists).
 We are forced to define our own meanings,
knowing they might be temporary. Everything is
left up to Man.

30. Noted Existentialists
 Soren Kierkegaard
 Friedrich Nietzsche
 Albert Camus
 Jean Paul Sartre
 Victor Frankl*
 Please read n their
biographies from your
textbook.

31. Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
 It is a person’s
responsibility to live a
totally committed (valid)
life and should be
prepared to defy the
norms of society for the
sake of that commitment.
 Anti-conformist!
 Father of existentialism
 Rejected Plato and
Aristotle (the idea that the
essence of something
determines what it is…
“essence before
existence.”)
 Believed that individual
choice determines essence
(existence precedes
essence!)

32.  "...the thing is to find a truth which is true
for me, to find the idea for which I can live
and die" - Journals 1835
 suggests that people might effectively
choose to live within either of two
"existence spheres". He called these
"spheres" the aesthetic and the ethical.

33. The aesthetic
 Aesthetical lives were lives lived in search
of such things pleasure, novelty, and
romantic individualism.
 thought that such "pleasure", such
"novelty", and such "romantic individualism"
would eventually tend to decay or become
meaningless and this would inevitably lead
to much boredom and dire frustration.

34. Ethical
 Ethical lives, meanwhile, as being lived with a sense of
duty to observe societal obligations.
 Such a life would be easy, in some ways, to live, yet
would also involve much compromise.
 Such compromise would inevitably mean that Human
integrity would tend to be eroded even though lives
seemed to be progressing (19th century)
 Neither were satisfactory- so enter the 3rd- “religious”
 they could "live in the truth," that they were "individual
before the Eternal"

35. Welcome back!
 Bell Ringer…what are
Kierkegaard's three
stages of living?
 Agenda and
Objective: through
notes and readings
students will evaluate
Nietzsche's view on
existentialism

36. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
 Most controversial and
most important
 Looks at life critically
 Reflects upon the concept
of Nihilism (life is
senseless and useless),
Saw society heading down
a trivial, meaningless path
of existence.
 Frustrated with the
practice of Christianity
during his life time… “God
is dead.”
 There is not one way of
looking at human
behavior.
“Perspectivalism:”
observing life based on
your own personal
perspective.

37. Think about it…ideas of Nietzsche
 Take a few minutes and evaluate Nietzsche's
concepts…

38. Think about it
 Doctrine of eternal recurrence- everything
happens an infinite number of times with an
infinite number of variations

39. Thus Spoke Zarathustra…what is
the main point?
 Metaphorical prose
 Zarathustra- spent 10
years meditating on a
mountain, comes
down with an eagle
and snake to teach
men wisdom he has
acquired.
 Sees man is empty
and prescribes a
better future.

40. Bell Ringer…
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
 Read the Prologue  What is Zarathustra’s
attitude toward man?
 What advice is
Zarathustra giving
man?

41. Nietzsche’s advice to face the modern
world…#1 Ubermensch
 “Overman” the ideal and
not reality.
 Confronts all possible
terrors and misery and is
able to rise up and
overcome personal
desires (desires that make
him part of the herd.)
 Power = the capacity to
live well.
 The feeling of being in
command of oneself and
one’s future.
 Is independent, confident
and has disdain for the
weak.
 Ready to reinvent at a
moment’s notice.
 Attention is on this world
and not the afterlife.

42. Review of the Ubermensch
 Practice ethical relativism by judging
actions as “good” or “bad”
 Lives in current moment and not worried
about afterlife
 Has control of one’s desires
 Looks for ways to improve him or herself
through knowledge and willingness to
change.

43. 21st century Teenage Ubermensch
 Practices ethical relativism
 Lives in current moment
 Demonstrates the “will to
power” through imagination
and creativity
 Looks for ways to improve
oneself through knowledge
and change.
 What are some examples of
ways the media attempts to
influence teenagers?
 For example…
 Media control/manipulation
 Name Brand attraction
 Technology
 Sexuality
 Drug use/abuse
 How would the ideal of the
Ubermensch deal with media
expectations for teenagers?

44. “Every belief, every considering something-true is necessarily
false because there is simply no true world. Nihilism is…not only
the belief that everything deserves to perish; but one actually
puts one’s shoulder to the plow; one destroys. For some time
now our whole European culture has been moving as toward a
catastrophe, with a tortured tension that is growing from decade
to decade: restlessly, violently, headlong, like a river that wants
to reach the end… ” (Will to Power)
Nietzsche and Nihilism
(something to think about)

45.  Read the following quote…
 What is Nietzsche trying to say???

46. The Full quote…(to think about)
 “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed
him. How shall we, murderers of all murderers, console
ourselves? That which was the holiest and mightiest of
all that the world has yet possessed has bled to death
under our knives. Who will wipe this blood off us? With
what water could we purify ourselves? What festivals of
atonement, what sacred games shall we need to invent?
Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must
we not ourselves become gods simply to be worthy of
it?”

47. #2 The Will to Power
 It is the only law and the only
“morality”.
 It applies to all living things. The
pressure for survival or adaptation is
less important than the desire to
expand one’s power.
 Living in itself appears as a subsidiary
aim, something necessary to promote
one’s power.
 The notion of the will to power is
contrasted by Nietzsche with that of
utilitarianism, which claims all people
want fundamentally to be happy.
 Humans are divided into a natural
aristocratic group and a naturally
dependent and inferior one, which are
always opposed. Exploitation is a natural
consequence of the will to power.
 Superior people express the will to power,
taking advantage of their natural gifts to
achieve their full potential and dominance
over others.
 Inferior people use different ideologies, or
“slave moralities”, to try to deny the will to
power.
 Self expressing the will to power – truly
living – can’t be “wrong”.

48. Good Morning…
 Bell Ringer: What is
Nietzsche’s “Will to
Power?”
 Agenda and
Objective: Finish
Nietzsche and by
analyzing readings,
students will identify
Camus’ thoughts on
Existentialism

49. For Monday…
 Bring The Stranger to class…you will be
reading/working on your paper.
 If finished, you will start the
Metamorphosis.

50. The Will to Power-universal desire to control
others and impose our values on them.
 Slave morality is a social
illness. It is essentially a
morality of utility.
 This is the morality of the
INFERIOR PEOPLE.
 Most slaves choose to be victims.
This morality favors a limited
existence. It “makes the best of a
bad situation”.
 It promotes virtues such as pity,
and obliging hand, warm heart,
patience, humility and
friendliness, which serve to ease
existence for those who suffer.
 Good is related to charity, pity,
restraint, and subservience. It
means “tending to ease suffering”.
 Evil is seen in the cruel, selfish,
wealthy, indulgent and
aggressive. It means “tending to
inspire fear”.

51. Nietzsche’s moral viewpoint
The “death” of God would lead to the loss of any
universal perspective of things and any coherent
sense of objective truth.
There is a God in each of us, waiting to be born.

52.  These solutions
(ubermensch, the will
to Power) were
created to rail against
the suppressive
structure of society,
which created
mediocrity and lives
based on self-
delusion.

53. Reading…The Myth of Sisyphus
 What is
Sisyphus’ fate?
 Is he truly
happy?

54. The Point of Sisyphus?
 Man is in a paradox.
 One the one hand, evidence shows that the world is
unpredictable and chaotic. Life comes into existence
and then passes. Ideas are proven to be true and then
determined to be false
 On the other, man tries to make sense of this world.
 This human condition- the constant attempt to derive
meaning from the meaninglessness. And thus it is
absurd.

55. Good Morning!
 Bell
Ringer…Compare
your Camus answers
with your neighbor
 Agenda and
Objective: Through a
reading students will
identify Kafka’s views
on Existentialism
 What does the term
Metamorphosis
mean?

56. Noted Existentialists
 We strive for clarity,
meaning and explanation
in a life that in turn cannot
offer these answers.
 However, man still
chooses to strive above
his meaningless and
anguished existence. Life
is absurd!
Albert
Camus
1913-1956

57. How to deal with the absurd?
 To “live in revolt”
 To accept the tension and struggle of the
search for meaning in a chaotic world.

58. Jean Paul Sartre
 What is free will?
 What is determinism?
 How is existentialism
the complete
opposite of
determinism?

59. Good Morning!
 Bell
Ringer…Complete
Metamorphosis
questions (10
minutes)
 Agenda and
Objective: Through a
reading students will
identify Kafka’s views
on Existentialism

60. Good Morning…
 Bell Ringer…Pick up
Papers, read Sartre’s
biography.
 What is his belief on
existence?
 On freedom?
 How does he define
“self?”

61. Essence and J. P. Sartre
 existence precedes
essence.
 What we choose to do
determines our nature
 The decision making
process creates our
personality and reality.

62. Activity…Living an Authentic Life
 With partner…answer
the questions
provided…
 What is free will?
 What is determinism?
 How is existentialism
the complete
opposite of
determinism

63. Good morning…Bell Ringer..
 Pair up and share
Sartre questions.
 Tuesday: Note quiz!
 Agenda and
Objective: By
analyzing a reading
excerpt students will
review Sartre’s view
of existentialism.
 Tomorrow:
Metamorphosis!

64. Activity…Freedom questions
 Free will!
 All existence is
meaningless in itself!
 It is the person decides
(creates) individual fate
and therefore accepts
responsibilities for their
actions.
 Gives you total freedom
and responsibility to
choose your meaning of
existence.
 Is freedom a good
thing???
 To be free is to be caught
in a paradox.

65. Sartre’s view point
 How would you
interpret these
quotes?
 “Hell is other people”
 “Man is condemned
to be free.”
 “Man is nothing else
but what he makes
himself.”

66. Good Morning!
 Bell Ringer: Please
review Frankl’s view
of existentialism by
filling out review
sheet.
 Quiz on Tuesday!
 Agenda and
Objective: Through
review and
discussion, students
will understand
Frankl’s and Kafka’s
contribution to
existentialism.

67. Viktor Frankl
 Developed an
existential approach to
psychotherapy.
 Humanity's primary
motivational force is
the search for
meaning.
 Not an
atheist/agnostic like
Nietzsche
 Not a pessimist like
Sartre
 Is hopeful in
mankind’s ability to
overcome evil and
suffering.

68. Noted Existentialists
 Franz Kafka (1883-
1924)
 Writer who focused on
alienation. Wrote
about dehumanization,
oppressive
governments,
ineffective
bureaucracies.
 Wrote The
Metamorphosis

69. Good Morning!
 Bell Ringer…Review
for Tomorrow’s quiz
 Agenda and
Objective: Through a
film analysis,
students will identify
major themes of
existentialism
 6 themes of
existentialism
 Kierkegaard,
Nietzsche, Camus,
Kafka, Sartre
 “Will to Power,”
“Ubermensch,”
Nihilism

70. William Faulkner…
 “Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical
fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it.
There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only
one question: When will I be blown up?”