Required Reading: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on Existentialism

Idk if crossposting is allowed but someone in askphilosophy directed me towards existentialism which Id never heard of, so maybe you guys can help me out.

There are billions of years behind me, I’m sure I’m not the first person to think this but I just can’t find the name for it. I tried googling this and couldn’t find exactly what I’m talking about.

This was inspired by Jordan Peterson’s suits, and a recent CJ the X YT video about them. Just google Jordan Peterson suits and you’ll find them. These suits are ridiculous, so rightfully so people all over the internet hated on these suits. I agree that these suits are ridiculous, but there’s something about full commitment to the ridiculous while still upholding the cultural standards of how a suit should fit that makes them amazing to me. Like if the colors and everything were swapped to “normal” it would be an ok suit, but it’s the fact that you decided to go with these ridiculous pallets while still having that shit on is insane in an admirable sense.

So I guess my question is, is this an accepted philosophical idea? A sort of radical subjectivity, where you decide to use a specific language/art to express yourself, in this case the language/art is fashion, but doing it in such a way where it alienates you into a niche of 1? But like not in a bad way, I’m having a little trouble expressing this, but in a way where you accept that you might be the only one to understand it and be ok with that?

EDIT: I don’t agree with everything JP says but this is more about his decision to wear these crazy suits and trying to extrapolate that to a workable aesthetic philosophy and possibly life philosophy but I’m not super well versed so I need a little help

I've been on this chase for more in life but I actually have everything I need like a car , food, clothes, money, a roof over my head, tv, shower, a solid jobetc. I feel like now what? Get a better car or buy a better house? None of that stuff changes me or makes me feel better.

I feel like I'm kinda stuck being absolutely bored because so many things are on repeat and there's nothing more to life than what I have. Better than being homeless but I'm stuck at a crossroads.

i really like the beliefs of existentialism but i’m very new to philosophy and so far everything i’ve read or absurdism and nihilism seems to be very alike to existentialism so i was hoping someone would help me understand the difference thankssss

Absurdism as a theatrical moment though kicked in the late 20th century had its genesis as early as the early 18th century. And there's one irish author that tried to potray the Absurdist spirit but was deeply misunderstood not only by his contemporaries but also by the literary critics of the ensuing age.

He was firstly a religious sceptic and was unapologetic in reproaching ill practises of the ecclesiastical class, He condemned all the major religious philosophies in his book Tale of Tub.

Gulliver's Travels is inarguably his most misunderstood work, It's irrelevant details about the eponymous character's travels to seemingly strange lands, if anything reveal the Absurdity of the Gulliver's world. Those who have read the work would know It keeps on getting distrubing as Gulliver nears the end of his travels.

He himself said about the work that he wrote it "To vex the world rather than to divert it" But his contemporaries were probably not ready to embrace the absurdism hence the work which could have been the epitome of Absurdism in the English canon got devolved to merely being a Children's Book.

His absurdist spirit got him labelled as 'misanthrope' thus most of his works were dismissed from being thought about seriously.

The link for article is below:

https://www.playforthoughts.com/blog/albert-camus

Have a nice read! If you have some feedback that might help me with my writing, I'd be grateful to hear one!

Hey all, hope you're doing well.

I recently reread Sartre's existentialism is a humanism and took one of the main points to be that we are moreally responsible for our behaviour as it informs its image. I quote:

"If I am a worker, for instance, I may choose to join a Christian rather than a

Communist trade union. And if, by that membership, I choose to signify that

resignation is, after all, the attitude that best becomes a man, that man’s kingdom is not

upon this earth, I do not commit myself alone to that view. Resignation is my will for

everyone, and my action is, in consequence, a commitment on behalf of all mankind." p5 of Marxist archive version

My question is two-fold:

First of all, am I correct in my understanding that this means I am morally responsible as who I am (whatever my identity: queer/ politician/ poet/ father) because I inform these categories? That is to say that I give definition to these categories seeing as existence precedes essence?

If so, for me a problem arises that I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on.

Isn't it very possible that I am misunderstood? Isn't it possible that I exhibit very nuanced behavior, which to me is related to a very specific identity (lets call this A) but that the onlooker, in their brutish ignorance actually understand me in a very different way (lets call this B). I may act out of the intention to inform A but I end up informing B. But how can I carry responsibility for informing B if I am not aware that I will be understood in this way beforehand?

It puzzles me and perhaps I'm overlooking something, I'd be very happy to hear your thoughts, suggestions on additional readings etc.

Thanks!

“What kind of philosopher are you?” kind of thing.

It got me wondering if there are any fun ways of learning about philosophy that are maybe a little more legitimate in their explanation of the different branches of philosophy, maybe even interactive like a quiz. I’m probably hoping for a little too much.

I ask because when it comes to reading, especially non-fiction, my brain is as dumb as a butt. I love philosophy, and talking about it, and sometimes a YouTube video will do me some good, but that’s also a platform that so often lacks legitimacy in the content. Never know what I’m getting into.

Tldr: any suggestions for interactive/fun ways to learn about existentialism/other philosophy, that provides accurate and useful info?

You got: Existentialist

Existentialism The existentialist is a rare individual who values freedom and takes responsibility for the consequences that result from the practice of their freedom. An individual who does not play the victim and is weak can shift the responsibility to someone else. An existentialist understands that emotions are essentially strategic choices and that if their emotions control an individual's life, they are not entirely responsible for their actions. An individual that's not responsible for their actions can play the victim. To existentialists, you can undo the past, the present is what it is, but the future is what man makes of it. The main philosophy behind existentialism is the power of choice. Notable Philosophers: Jean-Paul Sartre

there were a post i saw and in that post someone was so sure that the afterlife doesnt exist we simply just die and they didnt provide proof

Silence; I feel the soft warm blanket carefully wrapping my body. My two-room flat feels sterile as always, not in a sense of cleanness but of emotions. It feels empty. The birds tweet in beautiful melodies and the sky is blue as the sea.

My stomach feels distressed so I stand up to make some breakfast. I check the fridge. That is when I realize that I am out of apples. I sit down. I wonder how that could have happened. I have to get apples. I shower and get dressed, I wear the usual. I make my bed. I close the fridge and go.

The warmth of the sun gives me comfort, I feel in harmony. As I walk down the street an elderly person stares at me. I stop for a moment and walk over to them. We shake hands. The elderly person says that I dropped my wallet when I left the house. I express my gratitude and wish a nice day. I pick up my wallet and continue my journey to the store.

As I reach the pedestrian bridge, I see a policeman standing at the entry. I ask what is going on. The policeman informs me that the bridge is closed due to construction work. I see his frustration. I tell him that I am out of apples. He looks at me, as if he is about to say something. Then he nods. As I enter the bridge he grabs my arm and whispers with a deep strong voice into my ear: "My shift ends soon and you might not be able to use it on your way back." I look at him, nod and move on.

After a while I reach the store and go in. It is not full but also not empty. I walk through the aisles until I reach the fruit section. There are the apples. I stare at them and my eyes widen. I reach out for one, slowly. My fingertips cautiously wrap around it and my grip firms quickly. I pick it up.

After selecting a bunch of apples and packing them each in individual plastic bags I turn around and see a man violently stabbing himself with an insulin syringe. "Why does this shit not work!" he yells. I look at him. We shake hands. He pulls out a knife and stabs the next person passing by. I pull out the knife and stab the diabetic. Then the store security guard finally comes run over and screams at me: "Why do you pack them apples individually!? Are you insane!?" The diabetic pulls out the knife from his chest and stabs the security guard. The security guard forcefully takes one of my apples out of my hands, rips off the plastic bag, screams and eats it. By now the store is crowded. Its getting fuller and fuller. People run into the store and as soon as they spot the apples they reach out to them and eat them.

I hide under the apple counter. I hear the rumbling above me, people drop to the floor. One after the other. I crawl out on the other side of the counter and see that the diabetic and the security guard went postal. They stabbed every person that came into the store. I am not in harmony anymore. I stare at them. They stare at me.

They both nod. I pick up the apples that I dropped and go to the check out. The cashier lady seems very friendly. I drop my apples on the conveyor belt. The cashier lady registers every Apple. "That's 3.80$." I give her the money, we shake hands and I leave the store.

I walk back home. As I reach the bridge I see a police man. It is another one. He tells me that the bridge is closed due to construction. I tell him that I got apples. He doesn't nod.

Behind me I hear a car crashing into a building. I turn around as fast as I can. Out jumps the diabetic and stabs the police man. The police man falls to the ground. The diabetic looks over to me. I look at the police man. The police man looks at the diabetic. I say "apples" and run.

I run as fast as my legs can carry me. The diabetic is right behind me. After crossing the bridge I trip and fall to the ground. The diabetic jumps on me and asks. "Can I have an apple? My blood sugar is low." I look at him and nod.

We both sit down and have an apple. After finishing his apple he says: "that was a good apple." I nod. He nods back. Then he stands up and leaves.

I go home. As I reach my door, I open it and go in. I unpack the apples, open the fridge and put all of them in but one. I take it into the kitchen and carefully slice it into easily edible pieces and put them in a bowl. I place the bowl on the couch table in the living room. I sit down, shake hands with myself and have breakfast.

The end.

There’s nothing to do, not sure if it’s the right sub. But I’ve just been thinking about death lately and how nothing really matters?? So should I grind, should I live, should I chill, should I even try. I’m not religious either. I’m 21 and scared tbh. I just go on about my day

So I've just finished reading Spinoza's Ethics. His concept of "loving god" really stood out to me and I associated it almost immediately with Nietzsche's amor fati and Kierkegaard's leap of faith (yes yes, I know that he never said that in those exact words). Now, I know that Spinoza's views differ a lot from both of them, mostly in the theism department, but still, to me it looks like the three of them used different foundations to get to the same (or at least very similar) existentialist conclusions. So, could Spinoza be considered the first existentialist?

I mean this in a lot of different ways. When I was 5 years old I had my first mental breakdown related to existence during prayer time with my parents. They raised me to be Christian so I told them the thought of going to heaven forever scared me. So they asked me why and explained it was eternal happiness and told me not to worry. But I spiraled and freaked out about the permanence of it. I didn’t want to go to heaven forever because the idea of forever was too much. As I got older I stopped believing in religion and started realizing life had no purpose and it was going to end in nothingness. In my opinion more likely than anything else. And I gave up on everything. This was when I was around 14. I stopped caring about school I fully turned into a hedonist because since nothing mattered I focused on making myself feel good in the now. I didn’t go to college, never made plans for the future, got a job to be able to move out but other than that I have no hobbies or interest in anything. I’ve been diagnosed depressed since I was 14 years old. And nothing ever changed. I do nothing everyday and I’m exhausted all the time. I’m only 21. Around the time I was 17 I started developing severe anxiety thinking about death. I thought whatever the outcome is, nothing, afterlife, reincarnation, etc. Something will be eternal. And I can’t move on from it. It sends me into spirals. All the time. I don’t understand how everyone just lives their lives knowing they’ll die and there’s nothing they can do. How does eternity not scare everyone? Please if you have a reason tell me. I’ve thought about how we never existed for billions of years until suddenly we did so it must not be that bad, but I don’t find a lot of comfort in it. At least when we weren’t existing before we didn’t know and it came to an end. This time when we die it’s really over. And I hate that I’m able to think about it. I wish I never thought this deeply and I wish I had hope or some sort of motivation. I waste my life away. I know I can’t live my life the way I would want to so I don’t even try. I have been drunk pretty much the entire past 3 years, binge drinking, daily drinking. I only want to get better so I don’t drink myself to death because of my stupid fear of death. But everytime I try to get sober I start spiraling again.

If so, did depression create ur interest in existentialism or did existentialism create your depression? I’m tryna see something

How do you approach American politics from an existentialist perspective? How should the existentialist determine what is best for a society, and how do you debate in partisan politics?

I was curious if there was any literature referring to the ability to make decisions independent of history, and if this ability is a consequence of reaching a certain stages of personal development.

I’m interested in the idea that when we are children, we are always witnessing the whole within its parts. Everything is infinite and captivating. 30 minutes of waiting seems like an eternity. Our brains are more saturated with neurons at this point in our lives than they will ever be.

But then something starts to dawn on us, slowly but surely, in one form or the other, the cognizance of something trying to shape or mold us. Something that defies our nature. Something that limits us. It’s these gradual hints of disincentive that eventually point to the ultimate disincentive. Death.

I think this is where Play first comes in contact with Work, and it is when one starts to suffuse the other that The Game appears. The previously infinite being becomes aware of death, and so then the attention attenuates to the end, which creates definition, rules, and division, pruning our neurons, thereby forming that infinite being into what we call Ego.

This is where I think the wisdom traditions come in. The vast majority of the traditions have central figures, whose practices are aimed at rediscovering this infinite nature that lies within. They point to a “centering” principle concerning presence in the moment, presence in the infinite, unfettered by the influences of the past or present. In a way this is a process of turning an “individual” into a “dividual”.

The usual rules and definitions that define an individual fall away, and they become aware of themselves as a participant, and mediator of the Event. Mastery of this practice would then imply the integration/mediation of the World and all its uncertainties, and the Event and its indivisible nature, into one’s own Will, therefore granting them the ability to make decisions independent of history.

Would be curious to hear from you all about this topic. Also I think this is my first Reddit post. Had to break it in sometime!

Title pretty much sums it up. I seem to be in a dilemma for quite a while.

I am open to discuss with people with different perspective.

Im still quite young not even old enough to drink. But I have this thought in my head where I have trouble accepting things as they are. Like why is earth this way why is the cosmos this way why is physicality a thing etc. I'm a Deist so I believe that natural laws were shaped by a superior force. But for some reason I'm struggling with why the universe is like it is. I love life I have a craving for it. I'm not someone who lacks meaning in life, but right now I'm off balance I feel distant and fake. From reality I feel destroyed. I've come to accept that reality is what it is and human consciousness just exists. Making us this way, I believe the universe was designed and now we are living in it yearning for answers. I just wanna live the human experience accepting life as it is like not wondering why everything cars, people, planets, reality is the way it is or even real. I wanna feel grounded again and not overthinking quiestions wothout answer. I feel fake

Having a body having a brain. Knowing that you aren’t you that you are comprised of organelles and tissue. It freaks me out i feel like it’s wrong. If something in your body you cannot control (who is you? your brain? your body?) happens suddenly you will die. i don’t like having a brain, one accident and im in a wheelchair and assisted living the rest of my life. it makes you wish for eternal nonexistentence, like at least then your consciousness (or lack thereof) isn’t governed by a meat suit. it’s uncomfortable to realize that every single thing that you think makes you unique is governed by receptors and genes

In my opinion the Will to Death makes more sense than Schopenhaur's Will to Live because even though something in us wants to live and to be perpetuated beyond time but If you look closely the tangible aspects of our existence are all going through decadence since we had our first breath on this planet.

No matter how much we all take care of ourselves, in the end we all are dying, Ageing is beyond our control, we are more dead every other day than the previous one.

Mainlander's Will to Death can concordantly be understood with both Existentialism and Absurdism. Existentialists seek the question of their lives' existence and while the Absurdists argue for an absence of life's meaning the former make the life open to interpretation without being rigid in their definitions of It.

The inherent Absurdity of existence can drive a person insane should he not distract himself by his own forged meanings of Life, Mainländer chose the Inevitable Death as his only meaning of Life.

May he rest in eternal peace for what we all long in one way or another.

We as humans, sentient beings, are caught up in life’s meaninglessness. But one must also assume that a god suffers from the same strife.

A conscious entity such as a god would be struggling with its own meaninglessness the same as we are. It exists, but it doesn’t know why. It’s simply does. There is no discernible reason for why it should exist, and there is no rhyme or reason it should do anything even if it is all powerful.

We as humans however struggle to find meaning in our own lives, but effortless apply meaning to everything around us, “A hammer has its uses.” So to speak. It’s the result of us being pattern seeking organisms.

Imagine a scenario where a god creates life for the purpose of giving the god’s existence meaning. I am not religious but I thought the idea was interesting enough to share.

In fact, it would be kind of funny to interpret the reason the god if the Bible seems so hell bent on being praised is because he is existentially insecure.

Is the idea that nothing makes sense the inevitable result of logical reasoning? This is the kind of reasoning that might introduce you to existential nihilism:

{Reality is just a bunch of things that exist, a bunch of facts that happen. Why these things exist at all? You can try to find an answer to that question. Let's say you find the exact reasons why reality is the way it is, whathever way that is. So what? There's nothing more than plain existence. There's no worth, value, purpose, sense, to be found, anywhere. Everything is meaningless}.

This certainly seems quite logical. But... What "value", "purpose", "worth", "sense", "meaningless" mean? We all assume we know what these things are. But they're just words. They need a definition in order to make any sense. Otherwise, it's word jugglery.

This is what I like to call "objectification". Inside, we feel lack of motivation, lack of purpose, lack of direction, lack of energy to do things. And instead of saying "ok, this is just a subjective feeling I have for whathever reason", we try to convince ourselves that all of this is a real, objective property of reality itself, of life itself.

Instead of saying "I'm tired and unmotivated", we say "life doesn't make sense".

Then, all those words were only a reflection of our inner, subjective and illogical feelings.

Logic doesn't support nihilism. Nihilism is kind of depression trying to look as logic. But logic won't ever tell you "life is meaningless", nor "life is meaningful". "Meaninglessness" and "meaningfulness" don't make any sense! They're just stupid feelings! Nothing to do with reality itself. So logic doesn't care about them!

So the philosophical problem of "does life have a meaning?" is just word jugglery. No need to answer that question in a flashy manner. Just ask: what exactly do you mean by "meaning of life"? And only after defining that consistently, you can begin to formulate an answer.

I made a comment on twitter, i dont understand why is it so bad, im a teenager and trying to learn, i like hearing people’s opinion but i feel so stupid now 😭😭

I’ve had many existential experiences. Like many of you it hits hard when you’re laying in the bed drifting off to sleep. I find it funny, sad, and intriguing how the earth and all of lives, including problems, accomplishments, aspirations etc… Are all insignificant in the scheme of the universe. We are like comma on a random page in a series of novels. There but insignificant to the meaning of the story. Our history will long be forgotten in time much like that comma on that one random page.

That is all thought I’ll give you guys that daily dose of existentialism.