Sartre - Pros and Cons - Existentialism Part I
BackPart I of an indeterminate number of videos on this subject.
Part I
Part II
Part III
This is a video about Sartre's Existentialism. I will discuss some of his key points and then challenge some of the choices that Sartre made with his existential freedom. This first video is fairly introductory. If you know Sartre already, the con section may be more interesting.
"Existentialism is a Humanism":
Excellent Documentary on Sartre in 6 parts:
(Other parts to the documentary linked to the first)
Music:
Dissolved Girl by Massive Attack
Change by Deftones
Channel: Education
Uploaded: December 26, 2007 at 1:17 am
Author: PianoIsTheRemedy
Length: 00:09:59
Rating: 4.55
Views: 2620
Tags: jean paul sartre existentialism philosophy atheism
Video Comments:
lokifluf (September 23, 2008 at 9:06 am)
by focusing on the hammer as we know it herrunus manages to miss the point once again - take for example the piece of wood you mentioned above - it is a piece of wood, however it can also be a hammer. the argument is that it needs to be a wooden hammer in itself before it can be a hammer for us.
lokifluf (September 23, 2008 at 9:03 am)
would disagree - heidegger only managed to escape cartesianism by excluding the body and constructing the abstract dasein. sartre attempted to overcome this, sometimes successfully, sometimes unsuccessfully.
RobsStudio (July 7, 2008 at 2:20 am)
This is great!
courtabeth (July 2, 2008 at 5:52 am)
Sartre for me is not so much about not being programed than taking responsibility for one's own freedom;one's existence is not so much unprogrammed as absurd,individual,and meaningliss,and we are free(in the prison of life)to make decisions which make us,though we must take responsibility for those decisions as they define our essence.
PianoIsTheRemedy (July 2, 2008 at 9:32 am)
I can't argue with that. I think that's well put and insightful.
riv3rrun (May 30, 2008 at 2:01 am)
Nietzsche died before WWI, in 1900. The Nazi's didn't need to distort his views, his own sister (an extreme anti-Semite), "edited" his works to lend them a more anti-Semitic tone. More accurately anti-Jewish, or anti-Zionist, as Palestinians are obviously Semites too. Gos is far from dead here in the US, the influence of religion here is off the scale compared to other modern industrial countries, and has been steadily increasing over the past 10-20 years.
riv3rrun (May 30, 2008 at 1:54 am)
You said "you don't think the sole purpose for your existence is to reproduce...". Natural selection works at the genetic level, the "genes eye view", to quote Dawkins. It's important to not confuse differential selection at the genetic level with ontological claims about your purpose. To do so is to give away to much to natural selection and to confuse ultimate causation (mutations going back 4+ billion years) with proximate causation (us here and now).There is no toolmaker. we have no essence.
zxzxzx09 (February 23, 2008 at 2:19 am)
Interesting how the title is "Sartre - Pros and Cons". I should as though you are weighing him out according to your values, yet you said nothing about what he done wrong. Anyway, i did have a question to ask: do you think Existentialism is the default philosophy for atheists, very few people are nihilists, so it seems that you can straight away become a existentialist without growing through the stage of nihilism and figuring out your own values.
PianoIsTheRemedy (February 23, 2008 at 10:33 am)
This is a multi-part series, so I can see how the pros and cons title would be confusing. On existentialism and atheism: I think there are many different "philosophies of life" for atheists, and existentialism is just one. I am still undergoing a radical development as I'm struggling through the 1960s... I can tell you this: Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens are rudimentary philosophers. There is so much more out there!
Israe5l (May 9, 2008 at 11:10 pm)
Good question:"do you think Existentialism is the default philosophy for atheist?" Reading about Sartre, one may jump to the conclusion that Sartre doesn't have any metaphysics. Does this come from the he's statment "existence preceeds essence"? But this does not mean "there is only existence". I think its safe to say, atheist are mainly empiricists (if not logical positivist type). But even empiricist have their metaphysics. Or else, they are left with naked language and experience.