Philosophy midterm
anguish
Anguish is experienced by all those who have borne responsibilities. Every choice we make has impacts on our life as well as the lives around us. Even choosing to not choose is a choice and if we accept that every choice no matter how small could have an impact on the world around us then the weight of the responsibility we bear to make these choices can cause us anguish
"There was Stalingrad and there was Buchenwald and neither of the two wipes out the other
50,000 died in Stalingrad and 850,000 died in Buchenwald but one does not cancel out the other. Choices that we make not only by ourselves but with others have deep meaning and by deep meaning Arendt means the project for this battle and Stalingrad
concept
A concept is a single word that cant really be fully explained and it takes a whole bunch of ideas, groups them together and creates a frozen thought. Things like love, piety and justice are examples of concepts and a lot of times we do not fully understand the original meanings of these words. We can unfreeze these concepts through thinking and dwelling on them and eventually embody these unfrozen concepts in their original meaning
resignation
According to Beauvoir, resignation is a virtue, a sad one but a virtue all the same. When we are able to resign and let go of what is not working for us we are freed up to get to another project. Our initial reaction to resignation is to reject it all and give up but Beauvoir wants us to focus on the fact that it's not a complete failure and through resignation we experience freedom
universality
Any project we encounter someone else doing is understandable because we all live by a universal set of rules: we are born, we have to do stuff while were here, there will be other people in the world and we will die. Everyone is the world is either working for or against those guidelines and therefore we can have a mutual respect for them because there is universality in every project
banality of evil
Banality of evil is exhibited when one does evil deeds without having evil motives. This type of evil is different than your standard super villain and can occur when we don't reflect on our actions. Banality of evil is the phenomenon of evil deeds, committed on a gigantic scale which would not be traced to any particularity of wickedness, pathology or ideological conviction in the doer, whose personal distinction was perhaps and extraordinary shallowness
Intersubjectivity - Beauvoir
Beauvoir acknowledges that we are always in contact with other people but unlike Sartre, Beauvoir says that projects aren't done by ourselves and that we require other people and we are a group of people working together towards a project and that our individual subjectivities are working together
"As long as there have been men and they have lived, they have all felt this tragic ambiguity of their condition, but as long as there have been philosophers and they have thought, most of them have tried to mask it." (7
Because of the human condition and the fact that it is perpetual construction we are an ambiguous creature. No single definition can pin us down which is what philosophers have tried to do. Only be embracing this ambiguity can we come up with a system of ethics that will actually work and that code of ethics is constantly in construction because we need it right now
ethics
Because we are ambiguous creatures this means that we need a code of ethics to follow as a set of guidelines. We are constantly in construction and need this code of ethics right now
despair
Despair is not knowing which choices you have to make and are responsible for. The fact that we have to make a decision can be too overwhelming and we can get too caught up in every single detail because we don't know which choices are important and which are not and this can end in despair. The solution to this is to limit responsibility to the things that we can control and let go of what we cannot
pessimistic
Critics of Sartre accuse existentialism of being pessimistic because they think you are almost just trapped but the amount of freedom is terrifying and the idea that you are not free and that things will just work out is more comforting
"... it is on the basis of a certain individual act of rooting itself in the historical and economic world that this will thrusts itself toward the future and then chooses a perspective where such words as goal, progress, efficacy, success, failure, action, adversaries, instruments, and obstacles, have a meaning. Then certain acts can be regarded as good and others as bad." (19
Each one of us moves through different situations which can be historical, economic or social. Different situations tell us how to act differently, how to dress and how to talk. Everyone has a different definition of success or failure and this can in part be due to the fact that there are divisions historically, economically and socially. Our perspective which is constantly changing shapes these concepts
optimistic
Existentialism is optimistic in Sartre's eyes because it gives us absolute freedom. We are free to pursue any project that we wish to at any time in order to define ourselves and Sartre sees this world of possibilities
What is the work of choosing that Wallace wants us to do? When must we do it
He wants us to try to interpret situations from other people's perspectives other than our own. He believes we should do this every day especially in stressful situations
ambiguity
Humans are ambiguous creates and there is not one definition of us that can pin us down. We are both animal and rational and we are individuals existing part of a whole. We are constantly changing and evolving and this ambiguity creates the need for a set of ethics right now
Intersubjecitivity - Sartre
Intersubjectivity is the belief that we only have an identity as part of a larger social whole which is constantly changing due to the shifting actions of every individual within. As choices are made new options are opened and things change and this means that every choice that we subjectively make impacts the entire whole and vice versa. We are all able to understand others projects because we all live by four universal set of rules: we are born, we have to do stuff while were here, there will be people in the world and we will all die
Man finds himself in a complex social situation in which he himself is committed, and by his choices commits all mankind, and he cannot avoid choosing. He will choose to abstain from sex, or marry without having children, or marry and have children. Whatever he does, he cannot avoid bearing full responsibility for his situation. He must choose without reference to any preestablished values, but it would be unfair to tax him with capriciousness. Rather, let us say that moral choice is like constructing a work of art." (45)
Man must choose and is responsible for his choices. When we choose to do something we are claiming that this is the best decision. Like an artist is not told what to paint, we are not told which choices to make and it is our responsibility to build our morality and self off of that. We have a responsibility to create ourselves and any choice I make I must be okay with the rest of mankind making
"From the beginning, existentialism has defined itself as a philosophy of ambiguity." (9
Our actions have no meaning until we give them meaning and because of all these contradictory things we need ethics. We are constantly forming who we are and at any moment we can change that. We can see where life is going to we need some kind of guidance of how to act and we need ethics for that path to show us where to go
"For this ego, the I-am-I, experiences difference in identity precisely when it is not related to the things that appear but only to itself. Without this original split, which Plato later used in his definition of thinking as the soundless dialogue between me and myself, the two-in-one, which Socrates presupposes in his statement about harmony with myself, would not be possible. Consciousness is not the same as thinking; but without it thinking would be impossible. What thinking actualizes in its process is the difference given in consciousness." (441
Our conscience pops up after we have done something wrong and we go through this two in one thinking of having a disagreement with ourselves. Our conscience is the part of us that is a witness to what we have done and it aims to keep up accountable. We get that feeling when we know we have done something wrong but we can avoid that feeling through distraction whether it be with technology, media, consumerism or mass culture
conscience
Our conscience pops up after we have done something wrong and we have that feeling in the pit of our stomach that we cant be happy with our choice. We can either choose to react to this voice through fixing whatever we did wrong or we can ignore it through distracting ourselves. When we listen to our conscience and we take a second a reflect on our actions we can be protected against the banality of evil
Project
Our project is what we have set out to accomplish. It is what defines us and if we don't complete it then it's like it never happened. Sartre says that we are nothing more than our own project. We must identify our projects and then go after them and it only counts as a project if we are active and do things towards them. Our projects govern the situations that we put ourselves in such as getting a college degree and the value of any project exists in the fact that you chose to pursue it
"There is hardly a sadder virtue than resignation
Resignation is a virtue but a sad one all the same. If we are pursuing a project and find that all other circumstances have turned against us being able to admit you were wrong and let go not only frees you up to get to other projects but takes courage. When we admit failure it is hard but we let go of something that was really holding back freedom so therefore it is not a complete failure
"We may also judge a man when we assert that he is acting in bad faith. If we define man's situation as one of free choice, in which he has no recourse to excuses or outside aid, then any man who takes refuge behind his passions, any man who fabricates some determinist theory, is operating in bad faith." (47)
Sartre thinks that being in bad faith is being in rejection of what you are actually such as rejecting freedom and choices and means life doesn't have meaning. He believes that bad faith is denial such as saying im just not wired that way or I did it because my parents wanted me to. We are in bad faith when make up excuses and are hiding behind others to avoid taking responsibility for our actions
"... it makes me wonder if what they [opponents to existentialism] are really annoyed about is not its pessimism, but rather it's optimism. For when all is said and done, could it be that what frightens them about the doctrine that I shall try to present to you here is that is offers man the possibility of individual choice?" (18-19)
Sartre thinks that instead of existentialism being viewed as pessimistic, it should be viewed as optimistic because of the freedom it offers. Anything that you ever wanted to do you can do under existentialism. This is important because it highlights the fact that man is his own project and that man decides how to define himself. The sternness of this optimism that Sartre has is what disturbs people the most
subjectivity
Subjectivity deals with knowledge gained from personal experience, emotional feedback, and personal opinions. For Sartre, all important decisions and resulting actions are ultimately made from this perspective of personal subjective consciousness. Ultimately our final choices will be made from a subjective stance. You are allowed to do anything you want to do and you are but every time you make a choice and you choose an action you are telling the whole world that that's the best way to live and this is something that we should be aware of when we are making decisions
What is the "real value" of a liberal arts education? What does it give us? What do we miss out on if we don't have it
The ability to see the obvious. It gives us the ability to see things that other people simply cannot. We do not see the simple, plainly obvious things in life. This education teaches us how to think and what to think about. Being educated means that we are thinking about things in a different perspective
"The phenomenon of evil deeds, committed on a gigantic scale, which would not be traced to any particularity of wickedness, pathology, or ideological conviction in the doer, whose only personal distinction was perhaps an extraordinary shallowness." (Arendt 417
The banality of evil which is the possibility that one can do evil deeds without having evil motives is a different type of evil than standard super villain. This type of evil comes about because we don't reflect on our actions and results in this evil committed by people who never decided if they were going to be good or bad. An example of this is Adolf Eichmann
"As a word, house is shorthand for all these things, the kind of shorthand without which thinking and its characteristic swiftness... would not be possible at all. The word house is something like a frozen thought which thinking must unfreeze, defrost as it were, whenever it wants to find out its original meaning." (431
There are many ideas in one concept. For example what makes a house a house, we all have different perceptions of that and so there are many different ideas incorporated into that one word. All of these ideas are frozen together and we don't really think about its meaning when we refer to them but we can unfreeze these concepts when we think and dwell on them. When we defrost them we are able to discover their real meaning.
"And, as diverse as man's projects may be, at least none of them seem wholly foreign to me, since each presents itself as an attempt to surpass these limitations, to postpone, deny, or to come to terms with them. Consequently, every project, however individual, has a universal value. [...] There is universality in every project, inasmuch as any man is capable of understanding any human project. This should not be taken to mean that a certain project defines man forever, but that it can be reinvented again and again." (42-43)
This quote relates back to how universality is in perpetual construction. As the human condition is continually evolving so are man's projects as they surpass each other. We are always pushing the limits to try to expand the 4 things that make up the universal set of rules with our projects and that's where human universality comes in because of its perpetual construction
What is Wallace concerned about in regards to thinking? How does he think we usually tend to think about things
Wallace is concerned that we have the be taught how to think. We are arrogant beings because we tend to view things from our point of view. We each have a default setting to believe that we are the absolute center of the universe and everything happens is happening around us
"Now, I can evade this choice... But one can choose not to will himself free. In laziness, heedlessness, capriciousness, cowardice, impatience, one contests the meaning of the project at the very moment that one defines it." (25
We are at the most risk for bad faith when we are being lazy. When we don't want to do something and the real reason we don't want to do it is because we are lazy yet we hide behind feelings, excuses, other ideas and refusing to acknowledge that our freedom is demanded from us all of the time. When we choose to be in bad faith we can do that but we are not allowed to complain if things don't go our way
What is the one thing Wallace says we are certain of all the time? Do you agree? How is this existential in nature? How is it not what Sartre and Beauvoir wanted existentialism to be
We are certain that we are going to see things as we interpret the and anyone who disagrees with this is wrong. We agree with this statement to a certain extent. They said that we are in control of our lives but we do not have the control to choose our perspectives
bad faith
We are in bad faith when we are hiding behind feelings, excuses, others, ideas and refusing to acknowledge that our freedom is demanded of us all the time. We can be in bad faith when we hide behind things saying "im just not wired that way" or "I did it because my parents wanted me to." Beauvoir things that we can be in bad faith if we want to but we cannot complain if things don't go our way. Sartre thinks that being in bad faith is being in rejection of what you are actually
"Clichés, stock phrases, adherence to conventional standardized codes of expression and conduct have the socially recognized function of protecting us against reality, that is, against the claim on our thinking attention which all events and facts arouse by virtue of their existence. If we were responsive to this claim all the time, we would soon be exhausted; the difference in Eichmann was only that he clearly knew of no such claim at all." (418
We can choose what parts of our conscience that we want to listen to. If we respond to everything that our conscience signals to us we will be exhausted but if we respond to a fair amount of our conscience we will find ourselves protected against the banality of evil, unlike Eichmann. Through reflecting on our day and our conscience we are able to avoid this kind of evi
"Furthermore, although it is impossible to find in every man a universal essence that could be said to comprise human nature, there is nonetheless a universal human condition. [...] By condition, they refer, more or less clearly, to all limitations that that a priori define man's fundamental situation in the universe, [which is] the necessity for man to be in the world, to work in it, to live out his life in it among others, and, eventually, to die in it. These limitations are neither subjective nor objective; rather, they have an objective as well as a subjective dimension: objective, because they affect everyone and are evident everywhere; subjective because they are experienced and are meaningless if man does not experience them - that is to say, if man does not freely determine himself and his existence in relation to them." (42)
We can know that the human condition exists because it is experienced and is evident everywhere. The human condition is in perpetual construction because when one chooses oneself, one constructs universality through understanding every other man's project regardless of the era in which he lived. These projects are understandable because we all live by a universal set of rules: we are all born, we all have to do stuff while here, there will be other people in the world and we will all die. We are therefore able to understand others projects because they are either working for or against these guidelines and we can have a mutual respect for them
"These words [concepts], used to group together seen and manifest qualities and occurrence but nevertheless relating to something unseen, are part and parcel of our everyday speech, and still we can give no account of them; when we try to define them, they get slippery; when we talk about their meaning, nothing stays put anymore, everything begins to move." (429
We can't really explain these concepts fully and it takes a whole bunch of ideas and groups them together. Dwelling on these concepts makes us more aware what they are and allows us to unfreeze them and give them real meaning. Concepts such as love, piety and justice embody many ideas in one word and we often forget how much of a weight that they hold and use them freely
two in one thinking
We experience two in one thinking when we have a conversation with ourselves about what we did wrong. This conversation is a sort of disagreement that our conscience is trying to get us to see what we did wrong. Part of us is a witness to what you've done and will tell you what you did wrong
"The sad truth of the matter is that most evil is done by people who never made up their mind to be either bad or good." (438
When people don't reflect on their actions and take a second to think about their day and how it went this can result in evil being done by people who never decided if they were going to be good or bad. These kinds of people don't have evil motives and are often committed on an every day scale, much like Adolf Eichmann. There was nothing physically or mentally wrong with him and he never personally killed anyone or took them from their homes but because of his banality of evil he was found guilty of crimes against humanity. He was just doing his job but he never made the decision to be good or bad and let what was happening continue
"He who does not know the intercourse between me and myself (in which we examine what we say and what we do) will not mind contradicting himself, and this means he will never be either able or willing to give account of what he says or does; nor will he mind committing any crime, since he can be sure that it will be forgotten the next moment." (445
When we don't have that disagreement inside our heads with ourselves and we choose to ignore our conscience we will have no problem committing any crimes. When we are ignoring our conscience we are not being reflective of our own behavior and therefore we can commit all kinds of cries and not be aware that we are exhibiting the banality of evil
"Talking and thinking about piety, justice, courage, and the rest were liable to make men more pious, more just, more courageous, even though they were not given either definitions or 'values' to direct their further conduct." (431
When we think and dwell and talk about these concepts we are able to unfreeze them and discover their true meaning. Therefore when we discover their true meaning we are able to then embody that meaning
"All leaders have experienced that anguish, but it does not prevent them from acting. To the contrary, it is the very condition of their action, for they first contemplate several options, and, in choosing one of them, realize that its only value lies in the fact that it was chosen." (27)
a. Anguish proceeds a decision because you are contemplating the best choice because you are cautious of the possibly huge ramifications of any choice. This is important because even though one may experience anguish that doesn't stop them from making a decision. Even doing nothing is a decision. We will never know what would have happened if we went another route. If we worry too much about these decisions though, we will end up in despair.
"What we mean to say is that man first exists; that is, that man primarily exists - that man is, before all else, something that projects itself onto a future, and is conscious of doing so." (23)
a. Humans have the potential to be anything that we want to do. Sartre believes that we all come into the world blank and that we have to decide what we want to be and continually practice this in order to create our essence. This also emphasizes the free will and individual choice that Sartre focuses on because man is free to make his own choices and is not confined to any predetermined destinies. We are nothing more than our project and what we do with it.
"Man is not only that which he conceives himself to be, but that which he wills himself to be, and since he conceives of himself only after he exists, just as he wills himself to be after being thrown into existence, man is nothing other than what he makes of himself." (22)
a. Man must make his own project out of his life. We must make our essence every day as we intend it to be because our existence proceeds essence. This is important because it reflects Sartre's big thing about individual choice and existence before essence. We must ultimately create our own essence and this responsibility is on us because there is not predetermined formula to follow.
"Man is nothing other than his own project. He exists only to the extent that he realizes himself, therefore he is nothing more than the sum of his actions, nothing more than his life... There is no genius other than that which is expressed in works of art; the genius of Proust resides in the totality of his works; the genius of Racine is found in the series of his tragedies, outside of which there is nothing." (37)
a. This is an example of Sartre's opinion that existentialism is optimistic because of the potential that one's life holds and freedom to make choices. This also reflects the pessimistic views because the amount of freedom is terrifying and the idea that you are indeed not free and that things will just work out regardless is more comforting to think about than the absolute freedom.
"When we say that man chooses himself, not only do we mean that each of us must choose himself, but also that in choosing himself, he is choosing for all men. In fact, in creating the man each of us wills ourselves to be, there is not a single one of our actions that does not at the same time create an image of man as we think we ought to be. Choosing to be this or that is to affirm at the same time the value of what we choose, because we can never choose evil. We always choose the good, and nothing can be good for any of us unless it is good for all... Our responsibility is thus much greater than we might have supposed, because it concerns all mankind." (24)
a. When we choose we are sending a message to all mankind that we believe our choice is the best choice. We are saying that everyone should make this choice because we believe it is the best one. Our responsibility is so great because it has a ripple effect. When you make a choice it seems like the best choice in your perspective and that's why Sartre believes there cannot be any evil choices. This realization of our responsibility should lead to anguish because every choice can carry deep and endlessly powerful movements.
"As for despair, it has a very simple meaning. It means that we must limit ourselves to reckoning only with those things that depend on our will, or on the set of probabilities that enable action." (34)
a. When we take anguish too far and we worry too much about our decisions we can end up in despair. Despair is the reaction to freedom that has to deal with control issues. We can solve this problem by limiting our responsibility to things that we can control and let go of what we cannot.
"Whereas for existentialism, it is not impersonal universal man who is the source of values, but the plurality of concrete, particular men projecting themselves toward their ends on the basis of situations whose particularity is as radical and irreducible as subjectivity itself." (18)
if enough people decide to commit to something then it becomes a part of reality. When these things become part of reality then valid laws are forged for all
