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From: tfl@security.UUCP (Tom Litant)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: re: Existentialism
Message-ID: <344@security.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 28-Jun-83 14:21:48 EDT
Article-I.D.: security.344
Posted: Tue Jun 28 14:21:48 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 28-Jun-83 17:31:26 EDT
Organization: MITRE Corp., Bedford MA
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What `existentialism' is is probably one of the hardest things to pin down,
for at least two reasons:
1) There were many different `flavors' of existentialism, e.g., Atheist,
Christian(e.g. Kierkegaard), and so on.
2) A number of the paradigm existentialists, e.g. Sartre, claimed that they
weren't existentialists at all.
However, an answer to your question, if I may be allowed to be overly
superficial, comes from the fact that Existentialism has generally been a
reaction against the earlier philosophical view that one's essence precedes
one's existence.  The Existentialists claim, on the contrary, that man's
existence precedes his essence (excuse the non-gender neutral vocabulary), and
that a meaningful existence involves spending one's life defining one's
essence.  Now, both theistic and non-theistic existentialism seem to agree
that this is man's task, and not god's, although, of course, the latter denies
the existence of said being.  I guess that the impression one gets from most
literary existentialism is that values are not defined absolutely, by fiat, by
an absolute being, correct intuition, or whatever, which throws incredible
responsibility and loneliness on to the shoulders of the individual (see
Sartre's THE FLIES, for example).
Beyond this, I believe that Existentialism has little to add to Philosophy
(though it adds much to literature), though this could be due to my background
in Contemporary Analytic Philosophy, which tends to be antagonistic towards
Continental Philosophy.
p.s. To those advocating what has been loosely termed "Absolute Value Systems"
on the net, what does one do about such tribes as the Ichs (spelling?).  If I
recall correctly, this african tribe caused great consternation in the
anthropology world by their cavalier disregard for what has been considered
cross-cultural fundamental moral behavior. (e.g., mothers would steal food
from their children at the expense of the child's life)  Normative Ethics is
always fun, but tends to generate more heat than light.


	       ..............tom litant