Major Philosophical Key concept.

1. Prepared by : Avani Jani
M.A Sem:1
Paper : 7- 20th Century Literature -2
Roll no: 3
Enrollment no: 4069206420220014
Submitted to: Department of English, MKBU

2. Road Map of the Presentation :
1] Existentialism
2] Major Existentialists
4] Friedrich Nietzsche
5]5] The Gay Science
6] God is Dead
7] “God is Dead” in context of ‘Waiting for Godot’
8] Citations

3. Existentialism
● Existentialism is a form of philosophical inquiry that
explores the issue of human existence.(Macquarrie #)
● Existentialist philosophers explore questions related to the
meaning, purpose, and value of human existence. Common
concepts in existentialist thought include existential crisis,
dread, and anxiety in the face of an absurd world, as well as
authenticity, courage, and virtue. (Solomon #)

4. Søren Kierkegaard
● Man is spirit. But what is spirit? Spirit is the self. But what is the self? The self is a
relation which relates itself to its own self, or it is that in the relation [which
accounts for it] that the relation relates itself to its own self; the self is not the
relation but [consists in the fact] that the relation relates itself to its own self. Man is
a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom
and necessity, in short it is a synthesis. A synthesis is a relation between two
factors. So regarded, man is not yet a self. (Kierkegaard #)
● According to Kierkegaard, We become our true, authentic selves only by
acknowledging and accepting a relation to God. Failing to do so, our existence
enters the realm of despair and anxiety, in their multiple forms, according to our
level of self-consciousness

5. Dostoevsky
● Human freedom is intimately and personally involved in the
concrete individual's life in the dynamic process of reaching and
maintaining a meaningful and fully unified existence. (Dostoyevsky
#)
● The purpose of life is to act properly by being authentic to yourself.
(Kaufmann #)

6. ● He discovers forthwith, that he is without excuse. For if indeed
existence precedes essence, one will never be able to explain one’s
action by reference to a given and specific human nature; in other
words, there is no determinism — man is free, man is freedom. Nor, on
the other hand, if God does not exist, are we provided with any values
or commands that could legitimise our behaviour. Thus we have neither
behind us, nor before us in a luminous realm of values, any means of
justification or excuse. — We are left alone, without excuse. That is
what I mean when I say that man is condemned to be free. (Sartre #)
● “Temporality is obviously an organised structure, and these three
so-called elements of time: past, present, future, must not be
envisaged as a collection of 'data' to be added together...but as the
structured moments of an original synthesis. Otherwise we shall
immediately meet with this paradox: the past is no longer, the future
is not yet, as for the instantaneous present, everyone knows that it is
not at all: it is the limit of infinite division, like the dimensionless
point.” (Being and nothingness : a phenomenological essay on ontology )
Jean-Paul Sartre

7. Friedrich Nietzsche
● Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) was a German philosopher and cultural
critic who published intensively in the 1870s and 1880s. He is famous for
uncompromising criticisms of traditional European morality and religion,
as well as of conventional philosophical ideas and social and political
pieties associated with modernity. Many of these criticisms rely on
psychological diagnoses that expose false consciousness infecting people’s
received ideas; for that reason, he is often associated with a group of late
modern thinkers (including Marx and Freud) who advanced a
“hermeneutics of suspicion” against traditional values Nietzsche also used
his psychological analyses to support original theories about the nature of
the self and provocative proposals suggesting new values that he thought
would promote cultural renewal and improve social and psychological life
by comparison to life under the traditional values he criticized. (Anderson)

8. The Gay Science
● The Gay Science ('La gaia scienza') - The tide is a translation into German of the Provençal subtitle.
● Gaya scienza ('joyful, cheerful, or gay science') was a term used by the troubadours in the twelfth to fourteenth
centuries to refer to the art of poetry.
● In Ecce Homo Nietzsche writes that he has used the term gaya scienza here to designate the specific unity of 'singer,
knight, and free spirit' which was characteristic of early Provençal culture. (Nietzsche #)
● ‘The Gay Science’ is a remarkable book, both in itself and as offering a way into same of Nietzsche's most important
ideas.
● This entire book is really nothing but an amusement after long privation and powerlessness, the jubilation of
returning strength, of a reawakened faith in a tomorrow and a day after tomorrow, of a sudden sense and anticipation
of a future, of impending adventures, of reopened seas, of goals that are permitted and believed in again. (Nietzsche )
● The book contains a collection of aphorisms and essays on various topics, including the death of God, the nature of truth and knowledge,
the meaning of existence, and the role of art in society. It also includes Nietzsche's famous proclamation of the "eternal recurrence,"
which suggests that every moment of our lives is repeated infinitely.
● "The Gay Science" is considered one of Nietzsche's most accessible and engaging works, and it continues to be widely studied today.

9. “God Is Dead”
Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern
in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place,
and cried incessantly, "I seek God! I seek God!”…
“Whither is God?" he cried. "I shall tell you. We have
killed him - you and I. All of us are his murderers.”.. “
God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed
him.” .
● In saying this Nietzsche meant that society no longer had a use for God.
● The absence or presence of faith makes no difference to humanity and
thus belief in God is redundant.
● Nietzsche recognised the stark implications of this position; without God
we’re literally on our own.
● The death of the Christian God includes the death of Christian ethics that
have underpinned western culture since Constantine converted to
Christianity through centuries.

10. ● Nietzsche said that society was decadent, falling into decay. He thought that at best people were
unaware of this fact; at worst they were aware but refused to face up to the reality of the situation
and instead took refuge in self-deception.
● He recognised that people were not ready to face either the finitude of their own existence or the
reality and implications of a God-less existence.
● he calls this the will to truth, that ‘sets us free’ has actually set humanity free from the need of
Christianity itself.
● When he said “God is Dead” it meant that ‘Truth’ is dead.
● Nietzsche believed that Jesus’ mission has been misunderstood and his teaching used for ends
other than those intended by Jesus.
● It is not a faith that distinguishes the Christian: The Christian acts, he is distinguished by acting
differently…The life of the redeemer was nothing less than this practice- nor was his death anything
else.. he knows that it is only in the practice of life that one feels divine.. only the evangelical
practice leads to God. Indeed it is God! …The bringer of glad tidings died as he had lived, as he had
taught- not to redeem men but to show how one must live. This is his legacy to mankind. (Nietzsche )
● I shall now relate the real history of Christianity.- The word 'Christianity' is already a
misunderstanding - in reality there has only been one Christian, and he died on the cross. The
'Evangel' died on the Cross… from that moment all is lies. (Nietzsche )

11. ● Unlike those around him who had failed to recognise that God is dead
or those who knew but chose to pretend otherwise Nietzsche embraced
the challenge of a godless world.
● He believed that this truth had set humanity free but that freedom was
terrifying since the buck now stopped with humanity and not God.
● At the same time he thought that this new freedom was humanity’s
greatest opportunity to seize power and control its destiny.
● We philosophers and free spirits in fact feel at the news that the 'old
God is dead' as if illumined by a new dawn; our heart overflows with
gratitude, astonishment, presentiment, expectation - at last the horizon
seems to us again free, even if it is not bright, at last our ships can put
out again, no matter the danger, every daring venture of knowledge is
again permitted, the sea, our sea again lies there open before us,
perhaps there has never yet been such an 'open sea.' (Nietzsche )
● ‘

12. God is Dead in context of ‘Waiting for Godot’ :
● In the context of "Waiting for Godot," the play can be read as a commentary on the idea of God's
absence or non-existence.
● The characters' waiting for Godot can be seen as a metaphor for the human search for meaning and
purpose in a world where traditional religious beliefs are no longer sufficient.

13. Works Cited
Anderson, R. Lanier, "Friedrich Nietzsche", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
(Summer 2022 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL =
<https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2022/entries/nietzsche/>.
Being and nothingness : a phenomenological essay on ontology. 1992. Accessed 11
March 2023.
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. Crime and Punishment. Translated by Constance Garnett,
Canterbury Classics, 2018. Accessed 9 March 2023.
Kaufmann, Walter. Existentialism From Dostoevsky To Sartre. Hauraki Publishing,
2016. Accessed 9 March 2023.

14. Kierkegaard, Soren. The Sickness Unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition of Edification and Awakening by Anti-
Climacus. Edited by Soren Kierkegaard, translated by Alastair Hannay, Penguin Books Limited, 2004. Accessed 8
March 2023.
Macquarrie, John. Existentialism. Penguin, 1973. Accessed 7 March 2023.
Nietzsche, Frederick. The Antichrist. Blurb, Incorporated, 2019. Accessed 12 March 2023.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. The gay science. Edited by Josefine Nauckhoff, et al., translated by Adrian Del Caro and Josefine
Nauckhoff, Cambridge University Press, 2001. Accessed 11 March 2023.
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. Ecce Homo. LEGARE STREET Press, 2022. Accessed 12 March 2023.
Sartre, Jean-Paul. Existentialism is a Humanism. Edited by John Kulka, translated by Carol Macomber, Yale University
Press, 2007. Accessed 11 March 2023.
Solomon, Robert C. Existentialism. Edited by Robert C. Solomon, Oxford University Press, 2005. Accessed 8 March 2023.

15. Thank You