1. (a). What is the most important philosophical question one could ask? (Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus, p. 3-4)
(b). Discuss Camus' answer. Do you agree or disagree?
2. (a) What does suicide entail? What consequences does it imply?
(b) Read Camus, p. 5.
(c) Discuss Camus's answer.
3. (a) Interpret the following passage from Kierkegaard. How is it relevant to Camus concern?:
4. (a) For Camus, how do existential thoughts begin? (p. 12)
(b) Camus says "we live on the future". What does he mean? (p. 12)
5. Suppose Camus and Kierkegaard are right. Life is fundamentally absurd, unjust, and without intrinsic meaning. What follows from this?
Sartre Part 1 PDF V.1 PDF v. 2 (full)
1. Four Charges against Existentialism
A. Desperate quietism. Existentialism offers no concrete answers regarding how to face the world and structure you life. It says that there are no True answers. And so, instead of acting, we merely contemplate--which is a luxury. Thus, existentialism can't be a philosophy for the common person.
B. Dwells on human degradation. Existentialism dwells on all that is wrong with the human condition and ignores the beautiful and positive.
C. Incapable of human solidarity. Because existentialism because from the inescapable subjective point of view of the cogito, it is solopsistic. We cannot know the existence of other points of view and therefore are confined to our own internal world of concerns.
D. Ignores divine commands and man's place in the universe. If God and objective values don't exist then anything goes. There will be no standards according to which we can judge behavior--both our own and that of others.
2. Definition of Existentialism: Student explanation
Religious interpretation: http://www.cracked.com/blog/isis-wants-us-to-invade-7-facts-revealed-by-their-magazine/
What in Sartre would prevent this from being someone's project?
1. (a) Explain what "existence precedes essence" means (p. 2).
(b) Give 2 examples of essence preceding existence.
(c) Why does Sartre think there is no human nature (p. 2-3)?
(c) Discuss Camus's answer.
3. (a) Interpret the following passage from Kierkegaard. How is it relevant to Camus concern?:
An old proverb fetched from the outward and visible world says: "Only the man the works gets the bread." Strangely enough this proverb does not aptly apply in the world to which it expressly belongs. For the outward world is subjected to the law of imperfection, and again and again the experience is repeated that he too who does not work gets the bread, and the he who sleeps gets it more abundantly than the man who works. In the outward world everything is made payable to the bearer, this world is in bondage to the law of indifference, and to him who has the ring, the spirit of the ring is obedient, whether he be Noureddin or Aladdin, and he who has the world's treasure, has it, however he got it. (Philistines, Knights of Infinite Resignation and Knights of Faith)(b) Come up with at least two examples from your own life that illustrate the law of indifference.
4. (a) For Camus, how do existential thoughts begin? (p. 12)
(b) Camus says "we live on the future". What does he mean? (p. 12)
5. Suppose Camus and Kierkegaard are right. Life is fundamentally absurd, unjust, and without intrinsic meaning. What follows from this?
Sartre Part 1 PDF V.1 PDF v. 2 (full)
1. Four Charges against Existentialism
A. Desperate quietism. Existentialism offers no concrete answers regarding how to face the world and structure you life. It says that there are no True answers. And so, instead of acting, we merely contemplate--which is a luxury. Thus, existentialism can't be a philosophy for the common person.
B. Dwells on human degradation. Existentialism dwells on all that is wrong with the human condition and ignores the beautiful and positive.
C. Incapable of human solidarity. Because existentialism because from the inescapable subjective point of view of the cogito, it is solopsistic. We cannot know the existence of other points of view and therefore are confined to our own internal world of concerns.
D. Ignores divine commands and man's place in the universe. If God and objective values don't exist then anything goes. There will be no standards according to which we can judge behavior--both our own and that of others.
2. Definition of Existentialism: Student explanation
Religious interpretation: http://www.cracked.com/blog/isis-wants-us-to-invade-7-facts-revealed-by-their-magazine/
What in Sartre would prevent this from being someone's project?
1. (a) Explain what "existence precedes essence" means (p. 2).
(b) Give 2 examples of essence preceding existence.
(c) Why does Sartre think there is no human nature (p. 2-3)?
2. (a) Explain: "Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself."
(b) In terms of answering the question of the meaning of life, what does existence precedes essence imply?
(c) Is this a good thing or a bad thing or both? Why/Why not?
(b) In terms of answering the question of the meaning of life, what does existence precedes essence imply?
(c) Is this a good thing or a bad thing or both? Why/Why not?
(d) What is the relationship of existentialism to human dignity?
3. Sartre says "man will be what he will have planned to be, not what he wants to be."
(a) What does this mean? What is the difference between wanting and planning?
(b) Apply this advice to your own life. Think about some of the things you want to be. What would it mean to plan to be these things? How would you go about doing it?
4. Sartre says "man is responsible for what he is" (p. 16, Citatel) or (other translation) "Not that he is simply what he conceives himself to be, but he is what he wills, and as he conceives himself after already existing – as he wills to be after that leap towards existence. Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself" (p. 3 online).
(a) What does this mean?
(b) Why does he believe this?
(c) Do you agree or disagree with his position? Support your argument.
(d) Are you responsible for what you are?
5. Sartre says that by "man is responsible for what he is" that this doesn't only apply to the individual person but also to all of humanity (Citadel p. 16-17) (p. 4 online) and "To choose to be this or that is to affirm at the same time the value of what we choose, because we can never choose evil." Or (online translation p. 4) Who, then, can prove that I am the proper person to impose, by my own choice, my conception of man upon mankind? I shall never find any proof whatever; there will be no sign to convince me of it. If a voice speaks to me, it is still I myself who must decide whether the voice is or is not that of an angel. If I regard a certain course of action as good, it is only I who choose to say that it is good and not bad."
(a) What does he mean?
(b) Do you agree? Support your position.
3. Sartre says "man will be what he will have planned to be, not what he wants to be."
(a) What does this mean? What is the difference between wanting and planning?
(b) Apply this advice to your own life. Think about some of the things you want to be. What would it mean to plan to be these things? How would you go about doing it?
4. Sartre says "man is responsible for what he is" (p. 16, Citatel) or (other translation) "Not that he is simply what he conceives himself to be, but he is what he wills, and as he conceives himself after already existing – as he wills to be after that leap towards existence. Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself" (p. 3 online).
(a) What does this mean?
(b) Why does he believe this?
(c) Do you agree or disagree with his position? Support your argument.
(d) Are you responsible for what you are?
5. Sartre says that by "man is responsible for what he is" that this doesn't only apply to the individual person but also to all of humanity (Citadel p. 16-17) (p. 4 online) and "To choose to be this or that is to affirm at the same time the value of what we choose, because we can never choose evil." Or (online translation p. 4) Who, then, can prove that I am the proper person to impose, by my own choice, my conception of man upon mankind? I shall never find any proof whatever; there will be no sign to convince me of it. If a voice speaks to me, it is still I myself who must decide whether the voice is or is not that of an angel. If I regard a certain course of action as good, it is only I who choose to say that it is good and not bad."
(a) What does he mean?
(b) Do you agree? Support your position.
6. "Man is anguish" (Citadel p. 18, Online v. 2 p. 25)
(a) What does he mean?
(b) Have you experienced anguish in the sense he describes?
(c) Is he right that man is anguish?
7. One charge against existentialism is that because of its subjectivism 'anything goes'. He partially addresses the charge when implicitly references the Kantian standard and refers to bad faith.
(a) What does he mean by bad faith?
(b) How successful is this response?
(c) Defend your position.
8. Sartre discusses Kierkegaard and the story of Abraham (p. 26 v. 2).
(a) How does this story relate to "man is anguish"?
(b) How does this story relate to subjectivism and Descartes first meditation?
8. Sartre discusses Kierkegaard and the story of Abraham (p. 26 v. 2).
(a) How does this story relate to "man is anguish"?
(b) How does this story relate to subjectivism and Descartes first meditation?
(c) Consider the next paragraph on angels and the voice of God. What is Sartre's point here? What is the relationship between possibility, interpretation, subjectivity, and anguish?
9. In the last section on anguish, Sartre speaks about the relationship between anguish, quietism, possibility, and value. (p. 27 v. 2)
9. In the last section on anguish, Sartre speaks about the relationship between anguish, quietism, possibility, and value. (p. 27 v. 2)
(a) Explain the relationship between them.
(b) Why does he not think existential anguish necessarily implies quietism?
(c) What do you think about what he says in this passage?
10. If Sartre is right about the themes in question 8, how do we make our first 'movement'.
(a) How do we decide which of the infinite directions we can take our lives, the millions of possible ways to 'be'? If I'm a student, doctor, engineer, mother, etc... I have a framework from within which to make my choices (Sartre calls this an 'ethic'). However, how do I choose my ethic?
10. If Sartre is right about the themes in question 8, how do we make our first 'movement'.
(a) How do we decide which of the infinite directions we can take our lives, the millions of possible ways to 'be'? If I'm a student, doctor, engineer, mother, etc... I have a framework from within which to make my choices (Sartre calls this an 'ethic'). However, how do I choose my ethic?
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