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Throwing out a suggestion here. Instead of the geographical division, it might be more interesting and appropriate to do it chronologically. Working through the minor figures has really brought home to me the fact that Marcel, Shestov, Berdyaev, Buber and Unamuno had all arrived at substantive "existentialist" positions (and written some of their major works) by the early 1920s. By the end of the decade, you can add Jaspers and Heidegger. I could divide the history into "Introduction" (the material I recently provided about where the term came from), "Nineteen century", "Early twentieth century", "1920s/1930s" and "After World War 2" (can improve those headings, of course). Then we could show the simultaneous development of the themes across different countries. In any case, I can try it, and it will be the easiest thing to revert back to German, French, Other if it doesn't work out. KD Tries Again ( talk) 22:03, 13 November 2008 (UTC)KD Tries Again
Yes. I think maybe those last sections can go altogether, once the key figures are properly explained. KD Tries Again ( talk) 17:45, 14 November 2008 (UTC)KD Tries Again
Real life has been keeping me away, but I finally made the proposed structural changes to the history section and continued to develop the thumbnail accounts of some of the pre-Sartre existentialists. I will improve these and add cites, then work either on Kierkegaard/Nietzsche or the post-WW2 section. I think it's useful to make the chronology explicit in this way rather than have all the thinkers who actually preceded Heidegger/Sartre end up as a footnote to the better known writers. KD Tries Again ( talk) 22:55, 21 November 2008 (UTC)KD Tries Again
Thanks, that's helpful - although I think the stand-alone quote from Kierkegaard should be merged into the Kierkegaard/Nietzsche section (I don't mind if that section is re-titled Nineteenth Century, or similar). I have some good material on the explosion of existentialism as a popular phenomenon in France between 1945 and 1947 and will amend that section accordingly - hopefully tomorrow. I also just added a bit from Camus' remarks on Kafka. KD Tries Again ( talk) 22:38, 22 November 2008 (UTC)KD Tries Again
Added a new paragraph on the developments in Paris after Second World War. Will rewrite the following paragraphs accordingly, and also add something about Heidegger's reception in France. KD Tries Again ( talk) 21:48, 23 November 2008 (UTC)KD Tries Again
Will get back to all this soon; busy with real life. KD Tries Again ( talk) 14:51, 10 December 2008 (UTC)KD Tries Again
I'm not really sure how these concepts are translated, and I am aware that angst is not despair, etc., but I'm also not sure that this article would benefit from stressing the distinction too much... they are quite similar concepts after all, and all are quite important. A full exegesis would be quite large... Der Zeitgeist ( talk) 12:39, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
The section on Nihilism contains what I would call poorly done independent analysis, not to mention factual errors. Nietzsche isn't a nihilist, although he is frequently called one by people who don't understand his work. What he says is that you must create your own meaning. He does indeed reject the notion of an afterlife, but that does not make him a nihilist because in the next breath he urges the reader to create new values now, in *this* life. Clearly he finds tremendous meaning in the here and now... go read for example about the ubermensch.
Nietzsche might argue that Christians and many like them are the true nihilists, by sacrificing huge swaths of their real lives in the hope of maybe receiving some other one later from the God on high. He wants to shove the responsibility back on to the individual for creating a Heaven on Earth. This is bound to make him unpopular with the God fearing folks, but a nihilist it does not make.
It would be nice to get a professional to improve this section. My hunch is that it could be much improved simply by removing the whole Nihilism subsection. 148.87.1.169 ( talk) 09:46, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
I tried to clean up the opening paragraphs of the article, which had been stable for a couple of months. Some comments had been introduced about compilations of theories and refining writings which didn't make much sense to me. Also, after much discussion, I thought we'd achieved consensus that Existentialism is not "a position" in philosophy. KD Tries Again ( talk) 21:20, 26 January 2009 (UTC)KD Tries Again
We know. So what is the position taken by existentialists? It's not a "movement" either in any clear sense. Most of the philosophers described as "existentialists" in the literature were working quite independently of each other, and as the article rightly says, the term was applied retrospectively to many of them by later writers. Again, it's not appropriate to just change a sentence which is supported by citations; it gives the appearance that the authors cited say something they in fact don't say. KD Tries Again ( talk) 20:11, 6 February 2009 (UTC)KD Tries Again
Perhaps we can eliminate the problem simply by removing any allusion to there being some kind of shared belief or common position in which these philosophers stand? It seems to me that it would be more accurate to describe the existentialist philosophers' relationships as incidental. Perhaps something in the vein of "Existentialist philosophers take the human subject and its conditions of existence as a starting point for philosophical thought?" Der Zeitgeist ( talk) 12:23, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
Loose "group." Perhaps just "a number of?" Other than that, go for it! Der Zeitgeist ( talk) 18:05, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
Philosophers can agree on a methodological approach without sharing the same position. Is the phrase "explicit conceptual manifestation" a quote or very close paraphrase of Solomon, because otherwise I think it has to go? If it doesn't have support, it's O.R. (and it seems pretty meaningless). KD Tries Again ( talk) 17:12, 20 February 2009 (UTC)KD Tries Again
The problem is that the phrase indicates an affiliation between the existentialist philosophers that isn't there: While some of them have been influenced by preceding existentialist philosophers, each develops his own theory. While there are certain similarities in the assumptions underlying their philosophical works, this does not constitute sharing a position. Der Zeitgeist ( talk) 12:40, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
Again, I'd recommend User 71.247.6.158 to open a Wikipedia account [ [1]], otherwise it makes communication and following his/her edits very difficult. Although I don't know what Solomon means by that phrase, it is indeed his, so I withdraw my objection as to the citation. I am not sure the casual reader will get it outside of the original context. KD Tries Again ( talk) 21:45, 21 February 2009 (UTC)KD Tries Again
Aside from the fact that the meanings of neither "position" nor "attitude" or "belief" coincide in a way that makes it acceptable to equate them with each other (least of all using formal logic), the problem is with "sharing", not with "position". Der Zeitgeist ( talk) 11:37, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
I more or less agree with Der Z; I'd just add that "existentialism" is a very unusual case in the history of philosophy simply because the term was coined in the 1940s, then retrospectively applied to various authors working in different countries over the previous one hundred years. These authors hadn't regarded themselves as members of a movement, or thought of their philosophy as "existentialism". Thus it's quite unlike "logical positivism" or "phenomenology" or "neo-Kantianism" or "Oxford philosophy" or "post-structuralism", etc., where philosophers would have known that they were participating (or not) in a movement. KD Tries Again ( talk) 18:21, 23 February 2009 (UTC)KD Tries Again
1: Not every word is a term. There are concepts, conjunctives, question words, etc. A term is a specific word for designating a particular kind of limiting.
2: As I said, there's a difference between the existentialist attitude and existentialist philosophy and literature.
3: Because I am not editing the page, but arguing for a position; we have to reach consensus before editing the page.
4: The thing is that existentialism isn't a discipline, it isn't a single set of statements about something, nor a method. It is simply a way of retrospectively grouping a bunch of philosophers together because one can find similarities or lines of influence if one looks.
Are you the same IP user from before? Der Zeitgeist ( talk) 09:47, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
By the way, now the first sentence of the introduction is correctly punctuated, it is evident that the comment about "conditions of existence" is unsupported by citation; does it really add anything? KD Tries Again ( talk) 19:16, 24 February 2009 (UTC)KD Tries Again
http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Talk:Existentialism&action=edit§ion=26
As far as I can tell (the google books link), Solomon doesn't characterise existentialist philosophy as an attitude (that just wouldn't make sense). He says something like "existentialist philosophy is the explicit conceptual manifestation of an existential attitude." In other words, existentialist philosophy is, according to Solomon, different from existentialist philosophy in that existentialist philosophy is the conceptual manifestation of the existential attitude. And that is the context, the thing you are missing. Der Zeitgeist ( talk) 10:14, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
Sorry, but the "It" refers to "existential attitude," not "existential philosophy" see original passage; but why the obsession - is anyone proposing a change here? KD Tries Again ( talk) 18:23, 25 February 2009 (UTC)KD Tries Again
No, for every case of a manifestation, it is such that the manifestation is manifestly different from the thing it is a manifestation of. Manifestation simply means "the way in which something becomes clear," but there is always a difference between "the way in which" and the thing that becomes clear; an illness becomes clear in its symptoms, but the symptoms are not the illness. If so, one could simply cool a person with a fever down to cure him of his disease.
When it comes to arguing over an "it," it just seems a bit futile; Solomon may have been more worried about style than content when he wrote those sentences (it seems that way to me, 'cause there's no other way to reconcile the two following sentences otherwise). Der Zeitgeist ( talk) 10:19, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
"Existential attitude is an attitude that...". That's precisely what Solomon means - he's explaining what an "existential attitude" is; there's really no doubt about it. On a different point, if we are retaining the phrase about an "explicit conceptual manifestation...", I believe it should be presented as a quotation from Solomon; it's such a distinctive phrase, that to leave it as it is would amount to plagiarism. KD Tries Again ( talk) 17:35, 26 February 2009 (UTC)KD Tries Again
Well, no, I'm sorry, there's no way those sentences are correct. Firstly, moisture doesn't mean the same as water (you have to differentiate between meaning and reference; if you're sailing on the ocean, you wouldn't say you're in the middle of a lot of moisture), and you cannot define fever as the illness (that would land you right back in the trap I mentioned where you attempt to cure the illness (let's say you have pneumonia) by cooling the body). I think you can investigate those sentences on your own.
Secondly, nowhere has it been claimed that existentialism is a manifestation of philosophy, nor that philosophy as such is a manifestation of existentialism. Existentialist philosophy, however, is a philosophical manifestation of the existentialist attitude; the existentialist attitude precedes philosophy by being an attitude we can take towards our lives as they are lived and experienced. Following Pascal, for instance, the existentialist attitude is allowing oneself to focus on those uncomfortable things, angst, despair, etc., instead of keeping oneself distracted with parties. Allowing oneself to focus on them allows one to investigate them, to theorise about them. This theorising is different from allowing oneself to focus on them; I doubt very much that Kierkegaard wrote Begrepet Angest while in a state of perpetual angst, and even if he did, it wouldn't help his theoretical investigation of it; the work is a theoretical investigation of something that, strictly speaking, has no theoretical dimension; angst as an experience is a pure experience, a mute experience that doesn't have an inherent meaning to the person experiencing it while he's experiencing it. This is why simply reading Begrepet Angest isn't going to help a person that suffers from anxiety fight off the anxiety while being in its grip, but it may help him handle it in other respects. That the experience is mute doesn't, however, exclude the possibility of theorising about it, and it doesn't mean you can never be right about it. It simply means that what you say about the experience is not the same as what the experience actually is as experienced.
To sum up, then, the existentialist attitude is more of a pre-theoretical attitude, it's something for each individual. Existentialist philosophy, however, is a theoretical approach to these things, trying to get them to "speak" about their meaning. If we add to this the plethora of sources provided below, I do not think we need to discuss this issue much further. Der Zeitgeist ( talk) 12:03, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
Existentialism is not simply a philosophy, but "the explicit conceptual manifestation of an existential attitude" [1] applied to the work of a number of nineteenth and twentieth century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, took the human subject — not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual and his or her conditions of existence — as a starting point for philosophical thought. Existential attitude begins with a sense of disorientation and confusion in the face of an apparently meaningless or absurd world. Many existentialists have also regarded traditional systematic or academic philosophy, in both style and content, as too abstract and remote from concrete human experience.
- ^ Solomon, Robert C. (1987). From Hegel to Existentialism. Oxford University Press. p. 238. ISBN 0195061829.
{{ cite book}}
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-- 71.247.227.185 ( talk) 16:37, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
I restore the very good edit of 151.59 although anonymous -- Athex50 ( talk) 12:05, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
And, above all, largely well-known and confirmed -- Athex50 ( talk) 12:15, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
Sorry! I think you are wrong, but don't insist neither argue about. Only I pray you to gather evidence, and after that I hope you'll restore. By -- Athex50 ( talk) 12:36, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
The text in question is false. First of all, Sartre considered the peculiar state of man to be for-itself, not by-itself, and this condition wasn't put into relief against animals, but rather as anything that could be said to be in-itself, most explicitly, at one point in Being and Nothingness, a statue, depicting a "perfect sadness" (I think it was sadness, at least). He doesn't mention animals. The rest of that first paragraph makes close to no sense. The paragraph on Camus is uninformative and written poorly, and I do not believe Michel Onfray is an existentialist philosopher. Der Zeitgeist ( talk) 16:08, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
Can we find a citation to support putting Murakami in the introduction? It's not so much that I disagree, but you could insert hundreds of novelists for the same reason. I think Dostoevsky and Kafka are special cases, because the existentialist philosophers write about them, you'll find them in existentialist anthologies, and they're obvious examples of the point being made. But if Murakami, why not Musil or Proust or Cervantes or Lewis Carroll? For Le Neant was a boojum, you see. KD Tries Again ( talk) 17:15, 20 February 2009 (UTC)KD Tries Again
It's evident that you are the same IP User who was warned repeatedly by administrators and other editors last year about civility and about working together with other editors to achieve a consensus. You forced debate about the precise wording of the introduction for weeks on end, ultimately accepting that you had nothing further to offer[ [2]]. You now seem to want to repeat the debate, but I am still not clear what positive contribution you have to make. I would contact you via your talk page, but you have had four different IP numbers (at least) this year already, so it is impossible to maintain communication with you via a talk page. You have been advised by more than one administrator that there are good reasons to open an account, but you still haven't done so. Although the changing IP numbers make it difficult to trace your Wiki history, it is still fairly easy to put together a record which calls into question your good faith. Please stop questioning other editors competence and challenging other contributions as "baseless". And as Snowded advised, please learn to let go when there is no support for your position. Thanks. KD Tries Again ( talk) 15:05, 25 February 2009 (UTC)KD Tries Again
Just for the record, the original proposal was "Existentialism is a term which has been applied to the work of a disparate group of late nineteenth and twentieth century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject - not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual. Many existentialists have also regarded traditional systematic or academic philosophy, in both style and content, as too abstract and remote from concrete human experience." I am not sure what significant mistakes were eliminated. I am very much in favor of improving the existing article. KD Tries Again ( talk) 18:17, 25 February 2009 (UTC)KD Tries Again
One of WP's core policies on reliable sources is turning to tertiary reference sources. The seven sources listed several months ago by JennaVecia are inadequate as very few or none of them appear to be drawn from reference sources written by the appropriate experts -- in this case, professional philosophers. I suggest at least the following sources:
Macintyre, "Existentialism" in Edwards, Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Flew, A Dictionary of Philosophy
Guignon, "Existentialism" in Craig, Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Cooper, "Existentialist Ethics" in Craig, ibid.
McBride, "Existentialism" in Audi, Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy
Baldwin, "Existentialism" in Honderich, Oxford Companion to Philosophy
Now, to just address the absurdly overwrought discussion of the genus of existentialism (as in, "existentialism is ..."), here's what the above sources say:
Macintyre: "doctrine"; "a historical movement"
Flew: "a philosophical trend or attitude"
Guignon: "a loosely connected group of thinkers"; "a backlash against philosophical and scientific systems that ..."
Cooper: "a tradition"
McBride: "a philosophical and literary movement"
Baldwin: "a loose term for the reaction ... against the abstract rationalism of Hegel's philosophy"
If we add introductory monographs, we could include
Warnock: "a kind of philosophical activity [with] common interests, common ancestry, and common presuppositions"
Cooper: "a relatively systematic philosophy"
Flynn: "a tradition"; "a philosophical movement"
So, in light of multiple reliable secondary and tertiary sources by experts, can we agree on something very close to "philosophical movement or tradition"? 271828182 ( talk) 06:16, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
A lot of images have been added to the article lately. Most are relevant, but I question the relevance of Gödel, Trent Reznor, the Edward Lear Cartoon under Absurdity, and the need for both individual photos and a photo of Sartre and Beauvoir together (it would perhaps be better to keep the one with both of them and loose the individual ones, as that would save some space? The images are taking up a lot of space, and shifting the links for editing the heading). Der Zeitgeist ( talk) 13:49, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
Ok. I will wait a bit before changing it, though... I want to know if anyone has any more ideas on what pictures to keep and what pictures to remove. Der Zeitgeist ( talk) 14:28, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
For me, Lear, Godel and Reznor can go. KD Tries Again ( talk) 19:21, 8 March 2009 (UTC)KD Tries Again
They're gone. Now what about Sartre+Beauvoir vs Sartre and Beauvoir? Der Zeitgeist ( talk) 00:24, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
The Nihilism section has seen some changes, but I wonder if we should change it from being under "types" to its own heading along the lines of "relations to nihilism" or something? Also, I don't know how one decides whether or not the "issues" related to it have been resolved or not. Der Zeitgeist ( talk) 13:49, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
Ok, then, that's done. Now the section just needs some expansion. Der Zeitgeist ( talk) 14:26, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
I have removed the claim in the criticism section that Godel's incompleteness theorems 'epistemologically refute positivism'. I have no idea what it is for a claim to be refuted epistemologically but, those worries aside, the claim that Godel's theorems refute positivism is ridiculous. And yet, despite myself and someone else removing the claim, it has twice been restored with the suggestion that we read an article cited which says nothing to support the claim WHATSOEVER!
The two incompleteness theorems demonstrate that 1) for any formal system T (sufficient to capture arithmetic), there are truths in T which cannot be proved from T's axioms and a corollary, 2) T cannot prove its own consistency. The positivists were not in the business of creating formal systems of any kind! The only view which could be said to have been 'refuted' by Godel's theorems that I can think of is Formalism; and even that has modern proponents. The article cited in support of this claim is an interview with Rebecca Goldstein in which the claim that Godel's theorems refute positivism does not appear even once!
In short, it should be obvious to anyone who knows anything about positivism and Godel's theorems that this claim is patently false. Is there some way that this absurd claim could be prevented from being added to this page again?
Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.15.10.59 ( talk) 17:05, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
And even if it wasn't nonsense, this is an article on Existentialism. I have posted a message at the editor's talk page. We don't even get to the question of whether the point is valid or not: I'd want to see a citation making a direct connection with existentialism, otherwise it's just not notable enough for this article. KD Tries Again ( talk) 17:43, 13 March 2009 (UTC)KD Tries Again
And also what can be seen in this bookreview..
[4]
LoveMonkey (
talk)
18:04, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
Here is a section of the chapter of Goldsteins' book which she was discussing in the Edge article that I used as a source.
[5]
LoveMonkey (
talk)
18:08, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
Again why is a position that has been epistemelogically disproven called logical positivism or positivism included in this article at all. And if it is included why is it's weigh implicit as being pertient. I added the comment and section to show how completely invalid the inclusion of logical positivism is to this article. As far as I can tell existentialism has not been invalidated, but positivism has. LoveMonkey ( talk) 18:17, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
Doesn't matter what I think. What matters is that Godel scientifically dispproved logical positivism. If the position is invalidated scientifically (think about how rare a philosophical position gets scientifically invalidated). Then why is anything about positivism being critical or invalidating another position let alone existentialism included in the article. Go read my comment that the anonymous editor is removing. LoveMonkey ( talk) 18:29, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
LoveMonkey (
talk)
18:33, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
If a criticism of existentialism is going to be included in this article about existentialism a critism of existentialism from the position of logical positivism then the read who may not know needs to understand that logical positivism take on the understanding of "to be" has been epistemologically disproved.
LoveMonkey (
talk)
18:37, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
BINGO on Godel. Existentialism is a valid philosophical position. Positivism is not. Why.....
Because positivism's
ontology or "to be" of an object is "incomplete". This is what Godel proved scientifically with his "
Incompleteness theorems". Positivisms should not be in this article at all as it is just taking up space and invalid. It is a bad thing to leave the article worded as it is now without a clarification on the invalidated
positivistics definition of "to be".
LoveMonkey (
talk)
18:51, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
[7] LoveMonkey ( talk) 19:32, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
And again Godel himself (albeit via Philip J. Davis though)...........
LoveMonkey ( talk) 19:34, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
PS Snowded you'll have to also remove him from the Logical positivism article since it also valdiates what I am saying.
Poor Professor Rebecca Goldstein. Good to see the WP:OR rules the day. As for going no where the anoymous editor is edit warring with a 3RR. I was quoting Professor Rebecca Goldstein's work. You guys are now calling her wrong. LoveMonkey ( talk) 19:44, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
LoveMonkey ( talk) 19:59, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
Since discussion is over according to Snowden, I removed the contested section according to undue weight. LoveMonkey ( talk) 19:57, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
The point is that there is a difference between, on the one hand, (a) valid criticism and (b) invalid criticism, and on the other, (c) relevant criticism and (d) irrelevant criticism.
The matter at hand here is not whether or not a critique of existentialism is (a) or (b), but rather if it is (c) or (d). If you can make the case that Carnap's critique of Heidegger's use of the word "nothing" is _irrelevant_, you may have a case, but that is not done by "disproving" logical positivism; even the failed physics of times gone by have to be mentioned in a history of science; phlogistone is relevant to the understanding of science, but not _valid_ as a scientific statement. Der Zeitgeist ( talk) 15:19, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
Since there has been no opposition to the change of the intro, as proposed at the bottom of the Repaired introduction section or the text on green background, I intend to implement it. -- 71.247.227.185 ( talk) 15:31, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
Here's some opposition for you. You haven't responded to our arguments at all, so I know I'm getting a bit tired, and I'm guessing everyone else is as well. You do not have consensus on your proposed changes, and the changes are disputed. I would urge you to not make them, and I'll let you know that if you do, they will be changed back. Der Zeitgeist ( talk) 15:41, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
Concur with Der Zeitgeist and if you do implement them against clear consensus you will be subject to an ANI report -- Snowded ( talk) 16:44, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
I oppose the change. All it seems to do is make the sentences longer and state, awkwardly, that the "attitude" is somehow "applied" (how?) to the thinkers in question. I am surprised to see the IP editor suggest we begin by saying existentialism is not something. I thought his/her objection had always been that we were failing to say what it 'is'. KD Tries Again ( talk) 18:13, 23 March 2009 (UTC)KD Tries Again
Opposed also. Sorry I haven't had time to develop any of the suggestions I made above w.r.t. sourcing the lead, or supply the page numbers. I hope it's of use to the editors trying to improve this page. 271828182 ( talk) 23:41, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
Existentialism "is not simply a philosophy", but "the explicit conceptual manifestation of an existential attitude". "The existential attitude begins with a disoriented individual facing a confused world that he cannot accept." [1] Since 1940s, the term existentialism has been applied to the work of a number of nineteenth and twentieth century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, took the human subject — not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual and his or her conditions of existence — as a starting point for philosophical thought. Many existentialists have also regarded traditional systematic or academic philosophy, in both style and content, as too abstract and remote from concrete human experience.
- ^ Solomon, Robert C. (1987). From Hegel to Existentialism. Oxford University Press. p. 238. ISBN 0195061829.
{{ cite book}}
: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=
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--
71.247.227.185 ( talk) 01:25, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Ok, I know that this is contrary to all the wiki guidelines, but now that I look at it again, I think all this quoting of authorities has rendered the entire introduction damned near unreadable (nine quotations in the first paragraph?!). Furthermore, I think we're better off formulating a looser definition for the introduction rather than a more "accurate" one (zoom in too close, and you get pixels) — that's what the rest of the article is for. Perhaps we should move away from the philosophers and rather focus on the kinds of problems dealt with in the introduction, as that would remove the problems related to different authors calling it different things according to what field they're writing from, to and in? The philosophers call it a philosophy, the literary people call it a current, the historians call it a concept or term, the idea-historians call it an idea, and so-on. What is common across all these "definitions" is not the people working within the fields defined (Kierkegaard in one, Kafka in another, Sartre in a third, etc.), but rather the themes they deal with. In other words, if we were to go in the direction of "Existentialism is a term," and if you read past these first three words, IP, you will see that your recurring "objection" ("It is not say [sic] what existentialism is.") is invalid, "that has been applied to a loosely defined field of themes, problems and concepts mainly within philosophy and literature, but also in psychology [here referring to Yalom, May, etc.] and other arts [Munch, for instance, is said to have dealt with existentialist themes in his paintings, and theatre is not the same as literature]. These themes are" etc., etc. I'm not going to write it all out here and now, as I'm just suggesting a general direction we may want to consider. In any event, we cannot continue along this fruitless path of attempting to respond to a nonresponsive (there's a difference between responding and simply waving one's arms around to divert attention) IP. Der Zeitgeist ( talk) 18:08, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
No, not everything. We wanted support for the sentences from citations, but there are limits (we may even soon start to infringe on copyrights); the article is supposed to be an article in its own right, and not a patchwork of citations from other authors. The way the citations have become so dominant cannot be said to be anyone's fault, as they have appeared in connection with editing sentences without looking at the whole.
When you say that "nobody calls it a term," that's both a false statement and an example of how you don't respond to what we say: Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy calls it "a term that belongs to intellectual history," and the philosophy dictionary calls it "A loose title for various philosophies that emphasize certain common themes." Furthermore, if you look at the section called "sources for use on the lead" above, you will see that what is said there is compatible with calling it a term. When it comes to not responding, the issue is that you are not reading past the word "term," so you're not really saying anything: It is defined as "a term that is applied to [...]"
Your argument that my arguments are not arguments is useless, and simply point to the fact that you do not know what arguments are: You attempt to latch on to a phrasing in an attempt to score some sort of rhetorical point, but the difference between "I think we're better off" and "we're better off" is negligible, even though the "I think" is what you're latching on to. The same goes for your attempt to construe this as a personal attack (an activity you're not entirely alien to yourself): I'm pointing out in what ways you are not actually responding to what we say. Furthermore, accusing us of running out of arguments, and then not managing anything better than "it is the best wherther you like it or not" is, simply put, pathetic. You talk about being constructive, but you simply want it your own way first, and then you may agree to certain cosmetic changes. I'm not going to go into another long, pointless "argument" with you over this, however, so this ends here. When you want to be constructive, and when you've learned how to speak proper English you may want to make a contribution, but up until then I would implore you to refrain from making edits to the English wikipedia. Der Zeitgeist ( talk) 09:10, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
I've read through the months-long discussion regarding the introduction, and seen some very helpful proposals from each of the main participants. I'd like to plead for at least a conservative interim revision of the unreadable and uninterpretable paragraph that is there now. By conservative, I mean to retaining the existing terminology, but to open with a positive declarative sentence without asides, exceptions and negatives. Hammer out the exact terminology later, and other contentious issues in continued discussion. That change will at least allow the visitor to orient on first arrival. Thanks! Phytism ( talk) 03:49, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
Maybe it should be noted that existentialism was first propounded by the German physicist Gustav Kirchhoff, and later taken up with greater authority by Richard Avenarius and then Ernst Mach, as a reaction to Kant's thing-in-itself and Hegel's metaphysics for their fundamental failure to account for psychology. The slant taken was positivistic and had a great influence on a number of scientists, including psychologists, and philosophers, including Moritz Schlick and the Vienna Circle, John Dewey, William James, Charles Peirce, and F.C.S. Schiller.
At first blush, the relationship between Existentialism, the school of agony, and Logical Positivism may look strained. Nevertheless, although the main content of their themes diverge considerably, both rely on direct experience and discount as fanciful anything that cannot be identified positively.
Although Kierkegaard is now regarded as the patron saint of Existential devotions unto despair, melancholy, and the preoccupation with death, his work was little known outside of Denmark and Germany until well into the twentieth century and not well known within, until he was 'discovered' by those who were already calling themselves 'existentialists'. By contrast, the trend established by Avenarius was famous. Only later did he come to be forgotten and retired to the dusty aisles of the used book shops.
This, of course, brings up the side notion of what history really consists in, but that has to be saved for another day.
Uniquerman ( talk) 18:03, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
Although it is now taken for granted that psychology and epistemology are partially interdependent disciplines, it was not always the case, and existentialism is partly responsible. The Spanish school, exemplified by Jose Ortega y Gasset and Julian Marias, took it a step further, attempting to reconcile classical realism and Cartesian idealism into a unitary whole, bringing epistemology to the point where it meets ontology.
In his History of Philosophy, Marias made a frank but undeveloped try at melding realism and idealism into existentialism, especially in the person of Ortega, who was working toward a sort of neo-Platonic formalism of this world (rather than a shadow one) with his expression, 'me and my circumstances'. By this he did not mean circumstances accreted to the individual, but the definition of the circumstances as integral to the person. If you turn this around from the person to the world, you infer the existential moment ('reality') as an event whose veridical identity comes from neither the place or the thing nor the concept or the mind but the interdependence of person and world.
This is a strain of existentialist metaphysics which is not always recognized and is certainly not well enough explored. Hints of it can be found in the writings of the French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss and the semiological aspects of the work of the French linguist de Saussure and more fully developed expositions in the essays of the American theoretical anthropologist Barbara Lee and the teachings of the nearly unknown American philosopher and anthropologist Mickey Gibson. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.95.93.186 ( talk) 20:28, 5 April 2009 (UTC) 74.95.93.186 ( talk) 20:32, 5 April 2009 (UTC) signed 74.95.93.186 ( talk) 20:33, 5 April 2009 (UTC) uniquerman —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.95.93.186 ( talk) 20:35, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but it's kind of hard to get at your point: What are you getting at here? Do you want the article to mention these things? The problem with your argument, as far as I can tell, is that it makes "Existentialism" a too inclusive term; sure, if you look at philosophers through the ages, you will find people who deal with certain phenomena in this or that way, and this way may appear to be, or may actually be, the same as some existentialist philosopher's way. The problem is that this does not make their philosophy existentialist; Hegel inspired Kierkegaard, both positively and negatively, and he dealt with some of the same subjects., He's also probably _the_ most mentioned philosopher throughout all the Existentialist philosophers' works (both Sartre, Beauvoir, Kierkegaard (although sometimes covertly) and Heidegger mentions him quite often), but Hegel still isn't an existentialist philosopher. When it comes to the Logical Positivists, for instance, they were _quite clearly_, explicitly even, opposed to the ideas of existentialism; Carnap's attempt at a critique of Heidegger would extend to most, if not all, of the other existentialists as well; the notion of [intet, nichts, neant, nothingness] is one of the most central notions of existentialist philosophy. When it comes to the influence of Kierkegaard, I know for a fact that Unamuno read Danish, that he taught himself Danish _in order to_ read Kierkegaard, so his influence cannot have been as small as you make it out to be; Unamuno must have known about him in order to have wanted to teach himself Danish so as to read Kierkegaard in the original language. I think you're mistaking the _general_ popularity of Kierkegaard for his influence in relation to the specifically existentialist philosophers; existentialist philosophy is, and has always been, a limited field of philosophy, so for each age, even if all philosophers haven't heard of some philosopher, he may still be important in existentialist philosophy; even if the logicians didn't bother with Kierkegaard, the existentialist philosophers may have. Der Zeitgeist ( talk) 00:13, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
What I am saying is that, if one is interested in a historical presentation of the notion, existentialism, and the use of the word, then Kirchhoff, Avenarius, and Mach, who were greatly interested in incorporating the science of psychology into philosophy, ought to be represented, if only in passing. If, on the other hand, the main interest is in the formal relation between the ideas of Heidegger, Jaspers, Ortega, Unamuno, Sartre, and others to the ideas of Kierkegaard, then the historicity has little bearing on the subject. Conflating the content with the process takes place at the expense of clarity.
For this issue, documentation is not the limiting factor. Emphasis is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Uniquerman ( talk • contribs) 19:20, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
Rune's dictionary has an entry on existentialist philosophy; he doesn't call it existentialism. So the term was probably coined after that. When it comes to the kind of philosophy, sure, it was plain to see for everyone that Kierkegaard and Unamuno had influenced Heidegger, etc. The definition of existentialist philosophy in that dictionary is, however, just plain weird:
I've looked at Runes, and not found it helpful in the past. As for what the standard source say, for better or worse that is precisely what Wikipedia is supposed to represent. I can give you a long list of what Wiki would consider reliable, authoritative sources on existentialism (Barrett, Macquarrie, Solomon, Kaufmann, Cooper), as well as standard encyclopaedia articles (Britannica, Macmillan) - all of which offer the conventional account of existentialism developing from Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. Wikipedia isn't the place to offer an alternative account. We can only add information to the article which can be supported. The fundamental question is whether there's sufficient support for the claim that Avenarius and Mach, for example, were important for the development of existentialism. I suspect not. The article in Runes is out on a limb, and I'd oppose giving much weight to it. KD Tries Again ( talk) 16:41, 18 April 2009 (UTC)KD Tries Again All right, all right. Understood, one and all. However, however weird the style of the Runes definition of existential philosophy, it is not completely off the wall. It's simply peculiar and not all there. Nevertheless, Kierkegaard's fear and trembling, Heidegger's dread, Sartre's nausea all have a biological component, especially with regard to the certainty of death and the weakness of the flesh, and with Camus and his factual judgments in place of value judgments, all seek the worth of knowledge in relation to their unrationalized direct experience of life. Uniquerman ( talk) 18:30, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
I removed the comment that Heidegger was influenced "much more" by Husserl than by Kierkegaard. Heidegger worked as Husserl's assistant, but the extent to which his work shows Husserl's influence is controversial; Husserl himself regarded Heidegger as having completely abandoned phenomenology. But more important, so what? Heidegger was probably influenced more by Aristotle than he was by Kierkegaard, but the only purpose of the sentence is to indicate why Heidegger has been regarded (rightly or wrongly) as an existentialist. One of the (few) common factors among the so-called existentialists was a debt to Kierkegaard. KD Tries Again ( talk) 15:07, 19 April 2009 (UTC)KD Tries Again
For Nietzsche, I am 100% certain there is no link, other than that Nietzsche provided a in depth refutation of nihilism. Implying a link reinforces the oft-repeated fallacy that Nietzsche was a nihilist. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.1.210.26 ( talk) 02:19, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
Nietzsche and Kierkegaard were essential for the pursuit Italic textof theories on existentialism, however the credit for the birth of it lies with Rene Descartes; in Principles of Philosophy, I quote Descartes, in saying, "Cogito ergo sum," which means in english, "I think, therefore, I am."
( Wvxcjerk ( talk) 03:13, 6 May 2009 (UTC))
Ortega would agree also. He spent a great deal of time on the subject, explaining that Descartes was a thinker of the future, but a man captive of history and his own theology. For Descartes, the ego in question was a reification of the thing that cogito proved the existence of. He didn't go on to the next step that the ego existed insofar as it thought. Ortega, of course, went on to the next step, the postulate that 'reality' is an event requiring both mind and world, his great contribution to the history of philosophy, as Julian Marias would have it. The truth is neither in here or out there but between the two, idealism and realism happily married. This is where people like Saussure, Barbara Lee, Levi-Strauss, and Mickey Gibson come in, confirming by linguistic and anthropological observation what Ortega proposed. Of course, none of this belongs in Wikipedia except as an aside. Uniquerman ( talk) 18:50, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
Why has this article ignored these three great existentialists? I haven't read much, but I do know that these three names are the most famous ones in existentialist and modern literature. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pratinavanil ( talk • contribs) 10:56, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
One would have a better chance making the case for Max Frisch, Heinrich Boll, Malcom Lowry, and Luigi Pirandello. Uniquerman ( talk) 21:06, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
I have reverted some recent additions to this list: Mulla Sadra, Averroes, Thomas Aquinas, The Bible.
First, Sadra and Averroes. Here I think it's a notability problem. I can see from the WP article on Mulla Sadra that one commentator noted existentialist themes in his work. The problem is that some commentator or another has found existentialist themes in the work of countless philosophers and writers, but they don't all need to be on this list. Is there any work on existentialism as such which mentions Sadra? Same question for Averroes. I think it's necessary to show that they are notable in terms of the origins of existentialism. Second, Aquinas: whether or not someone has detected existentialist themes in his work, he's out of place on this list: I'd like to see the same kind of support as for Sadra or Averroes.
Third, I removed The Bible, because it's not a writer, because I suspect you might find precursors for just about anything in the Bible, and citing Kierkegaard as support for the Bible displaying existentialist themes is an anachronism. "Existentialism" wasn't even a term when Kierkegaard was writing. More simply: how does it help a WP reader to understand existentialism to refer them to the Bible? KD Tries Again ( talk) 17:33, 12 July 2009 (UTC)KD Tries Again
I agree that the first paragraph is terrible. It's vague. It led me to the discussion page instead of happily exploring Existentialism and Kierkegaard.
I can't tell what "despite profound doctrinal differences" even means. At such an early point in the article, it's a blank statement that has no relevance to the readers. You can't place a vague, no context, no reference breakaway statement in the middle of a definition and simply expect readers to follow. Nothing led us to the statement and the statement leads nowhere.
What do you mean by doctrinal? What were their differences? Why were they profound?
Those are just the problems you need to address in your literal statement, your logos. Beyond that, you need to explain to readers why that statement is even in there.
What was the result of their differences? Why did they have them? Is this statement even RELEVANT to an opening definition before you even define the terms?
THESE are the questions you need to ask yourself before writing a Wikipedia article.
Through experience we learn - that is why we are here - just wish we could take it with us! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.12.96.110 ( talk) 22:11, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | ← | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | Archive 7 |
Throwing out a suggestion here. Instead of the geographical division, it might be more interesting and appropriate to do it chronologically. Working through the minor figures has really brought home to me the fact that Marcel, Shestov, Berdyaev, Buber and Unamuno had all arrived at substantive "existentialist" positions (and written some of their major works) by the early 1920s. By the end of the decade, you can add Jaspers and Heidegger. I could divide the history into "Introduction" (the material I recently provided about where the term came from), "Nineteen century", "Early twentieth century", "1920s/1930s" and "After World War 2" (can improve those headings, of course). Then we could show the simultaneous development of the themes across different countries. In any case, I can try it, and it will be the easiest thing to revert back to German, French, Other if it doesn't work out. KD Tries Again ( talk) 22:03, 13 November 2008 (UTC)KD Tries Again
Yes. I think maybe those last sections can go altogether, once the key figures are properly explained. KD Tries Again ( talk) 17:45, 14 November 2008 (UTC)KD Tries Again
Real life has been keeping me away, but I finally made the proposed structural changes to the history section and continued to develop the thumbnail accounts of some of the pre-Sartre existentialists. I will improve these and add cites, then work either on Kierkegaard/Nietzsche or the post-WW2 section. I think it's useful to make the chronology explicit in this way rather than have all the thinkers who actually preceded Heidegger/Sartre end up as a footnote to the better known writers. KD Tries Again ( talk) 22:55, 21 November 2008 (UTC)KD Tries Again
Thanks, that's helpful - although I think the stand-alone quote from Kierkegaard should be merged into the Kierkegaard/Nietzsche section (I don't mind if that section is re-titled Nineteenth Century, or similar). I have some good material on the explosion of existentialism as a popular phenomenon in France between 1945 and 1947 and will amend that section accordingly - hopefully tomorrow. I also just added a bit from Camus' remarks on Kafka. KD Tries Again ( talk) 22:38, 22 November 2008 (UTC)KD Tries Again
Added a new paragraph on the developments in Paris after Second World War. Will rewrite the following paragraphs accordingly, and also add something about Heidegger's reception in France. KD Tries Again ( talk) 21:48, 23 November 2008 (UTC)KD Tries Again
Will get back to all this soon; busy with real life. KD Tries Again ( talk) 14:51, 10 December 2008 (UTC)KD Tries Again
I'm not really sure how these concepts are translated, and I am aware that angst is not despair, etc., but I'm also not sure that this article would benefit from stressing the distinction too much... they are quite similar concepts after all, and all are quite important. A full exegesis would be quite large... Der Zeitgeist ( talk) 12:39, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
The section on Nihilism contains what I would call poorly done independent analysis, not to mention factual errors. Nietzsche isn't a nihilist, although he is frequently called one by people who don't understand his work. What he says is that you must create your own meaning. He does indeed reject the notion of an afterlife, but that does not make him a nihilist because in the next breath he urges the reader to create new values now, in *this* life. Clearly he finds tremendous meaning in the here and now... go read for example about the ubermensch.
Nietzsche might argue that Christians and many like them are the true nihilists, by sacrificing huge swaths of their real lives in the hope of maybe receiving some other one later from the God on high. He wants to shove the responsibility back on to the individual for creating a Heaven on Earth. This is bound to make him unpopular with the God fearing folks, but a nihilist it does not make.
It would be nice to get a professional to improve this section. My hunch is that it could be much improved simply by removing the whole Nihilism subsection. 148.87.1.169 ( talk) 09:46, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
I tried to clean up the opening paragraphs of the article, which had been stable for a couple of months. Some comments had been introduced about compilations of theories and refining writings which didn't make much sense to me. Also, after much discussion, I thought we'd achieved consensus that Existentialism is not "a position" in philosophy. KD Tries Again ( talk) 21:20, 26 January 2009 (UTC)KD Tries Again
We know. So what is the position taken by existentialists? It's not a "movement" either in any clear sense. Most of the philosophers described as "existentialists" in the literature were working quite independently of each other, and as the article rightly says, the term was applied retrospectively to many of them by later writers. Again, it's not appropriate to just change a sentence which is supported by citations; it gives the appearance that the authors cited say something they in fact don't say. KD Tries Again ( talk) 20:11, 6 February 2009 (UTC)KD Tries Again
Perhaps we can eliminate the problem simply by removing any allusion to there being some kind of shared belief or common position in which these philosophers stand? It seems to me that it would be more accurate to describe the existentialist philosophers' relationships as incidental. Perhaps something in the vein of "Existentialist philosophers take the human subject and its conditions of existence as a starting point for philosophical thought?" Der Zeitgeist ( talk) 12:23, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
Loose "group." Perhaps just "a number of?" Other than that, go for it! Der Zeitgeist ( talk) 18:05, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
Philosophers can agree on a methodological approach without sharing the same position. Is the phrase "explicit conceptual manifestation" a quote or very close paraphrase of Solomon, because otherwise I think it has to go? If it doesn't have support, it's O.R. (and it seems pretty meaningless). KD Tries Again ( talk) 17:12, 20 February 2009 (UTC)KD Tries Again
The problem is that the phrase indicates an affiliation between the existentialist philosophers that isn't there: While some of them have been influenced by preceding existentialist philosophers, each develops his own theory. While there are certain similarities in the assumptions underlying their philosophical works, this does not constitute sharing a position. Der Zeitgeist ( talk) 12:40, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
Again, I'd recommend User 71.247.6.158 to open a Wikipedia account [ [1]], otherwise it makes communication and following his/her edits very difficult. Although I don't know what Solomon means by that phrase, it is indeed his, so I withdraw my objection as to the citation. I am not sure the casual reader will get it outside of the original context. KD Tries Again ( talk) 21:45, 21 February 2009 (UTC)KD Tries Again
Aside from the fact that the meanings of neither "position" nor "attitude" or "belief" coincide in a way that makes it acceptable to equate them with each other (least of all using formal logic), the problem is with "sharing", not with "position". Der Zeitgeist ( talk) 11:37, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
I more or less agree with Der Z; I'd just add that "existentialism" is a very unusual case in the history of philosophy simply because the term was coined in the 1940s, then retrospectively applied to various authors working in different countries over the previous one hundred years. These authors hadn't regarded themselves as members of a movement, or thought of their philosophy as "existentialism". Thus it's quite unlike "logical positivism" or "phenomenology" or "neo-Kantianism" or "Oxford philosophy" or "post-structuralism", etc., where philosophers would have known that they were participating (or not) in a movement. KD Tries Again ( talk) 18:21, 23 February 2009 (UTC)KD Tries Again
1: Not every word is a term. There are concepts, conjunctives, question words, etc. A term is a specific word for designating a particular kind of limiting.
2: As I said, there's a difference between the existentialist attitude and existentialist philosophy and literature.
3: Because I am not editing the page, but arguing for a position; we have to reach consensus before editing the page.
4: The thing is that existentialism isn't a discipline, it isn't a single set of statements about something, nor a method. It is simply a way of retrospectively grouping a bunch of philosophers together because one can find similarities or lines of influence if one looks.
Are you the same IP user from before? Der Zeitgeist ( talk) 09:47, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
By the way, now the first sentence of the introduction is correctly punctuated, it is evident that the comment about "conditions of existence" is unsupported by citation; does it really add anything? KD Tries Again ( talk) 19:16, 24 February 2009 (UTC)KD Tries Again
http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Talk:Existentialism&action=edit§ion=26
As far as I can tell (the google books link), Solomon doesn't characterise existentialist philosophy as an attitude (that just wouldn't make sense). He says something like "existentialist philosophy is the explicit conceptual manifestation of an existential attitude." In other words, existentialist philosophy is, according to Solomon, different from existentialist philosophy in that existentialist philosophy is the conceptual manifestation of the existential attitude. And that is the context, the thing you are missing. Der Zeitgeist ( talk) 10:14, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
Sorry, but the "It" refers to "existential attitude," not "existential philosophy" see original passage; but why the obsession - is anyone proposing a change here? KD Tries Again ( talk) 18:23, 25 February 2009 (UTC)KD Tries Again
No, for every case of a manifestation, it is such that the manifestation is manifestly different from the thing it is a manifestation of. Manifestation simply means "the way in which something becomes clear," but there is always a difference between "the way in which" and the thing that becomes clear; an illness becomes clear in its symptoms, but the symptoms are not the illness. If so, one could simply cool a person with a fever down to cure him of his disease.
When it comes to arguing over an "it," it just seems a bit futile; Solomon may have been more worried about style than content when he wrote those sentences (it seems that way to me, 'cause there's no other way to reconcile the two following sentences otherwise). Der Zeitgeist ( talk) 10:19, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
"Existential attitude is an attitude that...". That's precisely what Solomon means - he's explaining what an "existential attitude" is; there's really no doubt about it. On a different point, if we are retaining the phrase about an "explicit conceptual manifestation...", I believe it should be presented as a quotation from Solomon; it's such a distinctive phrase, that to leave it as it is would amount to plagiarism. KD Tries Again ( talk) 17:35, 26 February 2009 (UTC)KD Tries Again
Well, no, I'm sorry, there's no way those sentences are correct. Firstly, moisture doesn't mean the same as water (you have to differentiate between meaning and reference; if you're sailing on the ocean, you wouldn't say you're in the middle of a lot of moisture), and you cannot define fever as the illness (that would land you right back in the trap I mentioned where you attempt to cure the illness (let's say you have pneumonia) by cooling the body). I think you can investigate those sentences on your own.
Secondly, nowhere has it been claimed that existentialism is a manifestation of philosophy, nor that philosophy as such is a manifestation of existentialism. Existentialist philosophy, however, is a philosophical manifestation of the existentialist attitude; the existentialist attitude precedes philosophy by being an attitude we can take towards our lives as they are lived and experienced. Following Pascal, for instance, the existentialist attitude is allowing oneself to focus on those uncomfortable things, angst, despair, etc., instead of keeping oneself distracted with parties. Allowing oneself to focus on them allows one to investigate them, to theorise about them. This theorising is different from allowing oneself to focus on them; I doubt very much that Kierkegaard wrote Begrepet Angest while in a state of perpetual angst, and even if he did, it wouldn't help his theoretical investigation of it; the work is a theoretical investigation of something that, strictly speaking, has no theoretical dimension; angst as an experience is a pure experience, a mute experience that doesn't have an inherent meaning to the person experiencing it while he's experiencing it. This is why simply reading Begrepet Angest isn't going to help a person that suffers from anxiety fight off the anxiety while being in its grip, but it may help him handle it in other respects. That the experience is mute doesn't, however, exclude the possibility of theorising about it, and it doesn't mean you can never be right about it. It simply means that what you say about the experience is not the same as what the experience actually is as experienced.
To sum up, then, the existentialist attitude is more of a pre-theoretical attitude, it's something for each individual. Existentialist philosophy, however, is a theoretical approach to these things, trying to get them to "speak" about their meaning. If we add to this the plethora of sources provided below, I do not think we need to discuss this issue much further. Der Zeitgeist ( talk) 12:03, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
Existentialism is not simply a philosophy, but "the explicit conceptual manifestation of an existential attitude" [1] applied to the work of a number of nineteenth and twentieth century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, took the human subject — not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual and his or her conditions of existence — as a starting point for philosophical thought. Existential attitude begins with a sense of disorientation and confusion in the face of an apparently meaningless or absurd world. Many existentialists have also regarded traditional systematic or academic philosophy, in both style and content, as too abstract and remote from concrete human experience.
- ^ Solomon, Robert C. (1987). From Hegel to Existentialism. Oxford University Press. p. 238. ISBN 0195061829.
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-- 71.247.227.185 ( talk) 16:37, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
I restore the very good edit of 151.59 although anonymous -- Athex50 ( talk) 12:05, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
And, above all, largely well-known and confirmed -- Athex50 ( talk) 12:15, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
Sorry! I think you are wrong, but don't insist neither argue about. Only I pray you to gather evidence, and after that I hope you'll restore. By -- Athex50 ( talk) 12:36, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
The text in question is false. First of all, Sartre considered the peculiar state of man to be for-itself, not by-itself, and this condition wasn't put into relief against animals, but rather as anything that could be said to be in-itself, most explicitly, at one point in Being and Nothingness, a statue, depicting a "perfect sadness" (I think it was sadness, at least). He doesn't mention animals. The rest of that first paragraph makes close to no sense. The paragraph on Camus is uninformative and written poorly, and I do not believe Michel Onfray is an existentialist philosopher. Der Zeitgeist ( talk) 16:08, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
Can we find a citation to support putting Murakami in the introduction? It's not so much that I disagree, but you could insert hundreds of novelists for the same reason. I think Dostoevsky and Kafka are special cases, because the existentialist philosophers write about them, you'll find them in existentialist anthologies, and they're obvious examples of the point being made. But if Murakami, why not Musil or Proust or Cervantes or Lewis Carroll? For Le Neant was a boojum, you see. KD Tries Again ( talk) 17:15, 20 February 2009 (UTC)KD Tries Again
It's evident that you are the same IP User who was warned repeatedly by administrators and other editors last year about civility and about working together with other editors to achieve a consensus. You forced debate about the precise wording of the introduction for weeks on end, ultimately accepting that you had nothing further to offer[ [2]]. You now seem to want to repeat the debate, but I am still not clear what positive contribution you have to make. I would contact you via your talk page, but you have had four different IP numbers (at least) this year already, so it is impossible to maintain communication with you via a talk page. You have been advised by more than one administrator that there are good reasons to open an account, but you still haven't done so. Although the changing IP numbers make it difficult to trace your Wiki history, it is still fairly easy to put together a record which calls into question your good faith. Please stop questioning other editors competence and challenging other contributions as "baseless". And as Snowded advised, please learn to let go when there is no support for your position. Thanks. KD Tries Again ( talk) 15:05, 25 February 2009 (UTC)KD Tries Again
Just for the record, the original proposal was "Existentialism is a term which has been applied to the work of a disparate group of late nineteenth and twentieth century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject - not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual. Many existentialists have also regarded traditional systematic or academic philosophy, in both style and content, as too abstract and remote from concrete human experience." I am not sure what significant mistakes were eliminated. I am very much in favor of improving the existing article. KD Tries Again ( talk) 18:17, 25 February 2009 (UTC)KD Tries Again
One of WP's core policies on reliable sources is turning to tertiary reference sources. The seven sources listed several months ago by JennaVecia are inadequate as very few or none of them appear to be drawn from reference sources written by the appropriate experts -- in this case, professional philosophers. I suggest at least the following sources:
Macintyre, "Existentialism" in Edwards, Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Flew, A Dictionary of Philosophy
Guignon, "Existentialism" in Craig, Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Cooper, "Existentialist Ethics" in Craig, ibid.
McBride, "Existentialism" in Audi, Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy
Baldwin, "Existentialism" in Honderich, Oxford Companion to Philosophy
Now, to just address the absurdly overwrought discussion of the genus of existentialism (as in, "existentialism is ..."), here's what the above sources say:
Macintyre: "doctrine"; "a historical movement"
Flew: "a philosophical trend or attitude"
Guignon: "a loosely connected group of thinkers"; "a backlash against philosophical and scientific systems that ..."
Cooper: "a tradition"
McBride: "a philosophical and literary movement"
Baldwin: "a loose term for the reaction ... against the abstract rationalism of Hegel's philosophy"
If we add introductory monographs, we could include
Warnock: "a kind of philosophical activity [with] common interests, common ancestry, and common presuppositions"
Cooper: "a relatively systematic philosophy"
Flynn: "a tradition"; "a philosophical movement"
So, in light of multiple reliable secondary and tertiary sources by experts, can we agree on something very close to "philosophical movement or tradition"? 271828182 ( talk) 06:16, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
A lot of images have been added to the article lately. Most are relevant, but I question the relevance of Gödel, Trent Reznor, the Edward Lear Cartoon under Absurdity, and the need for both individual photos and a photo of Sartre and Beauvoir together (it would perhaps be better to keep the one with both of them and loose the individual ones, as that would save some space? The images are taking up a lot of space, and shifting the links for editing the heading). Der Zeitgeist ( talk) 13:49, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
Ok. I will wait a bit before changing it, though... I want to know if anyone has any more ideas on what pictures to keep and what pictures to remove. Der Zeitgeist ( talk) 14:28, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
For me, Lear, Godel and Reznor can go. KD Tries Again ( talk) 19:21, 8 March 2009 (UTC)KD Tries Again
They're gone. Now what about Sartre+Beauvoir vs Sartre and Beauvoir? Der Zeitgeist ( talk) 00:24, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
The Nihilism section has seen some changes, but I wonder if we should change it from being under "types" to its own heading along the lines of "relations to nihilism" or something? Also, I don't know how one decides whether or not the "issues" related to it have been resolved or not. Der Zeitgeist ( talk) 13:49, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
Ok, then, that's done. Now the section just needs some expansion. Der Zeitgeist ( talk) 14:26, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
I have removed the claim in the criticism section that Godel's incompleteness theorems 'epistemologically refute positivism'. I have no idea what it is for a claim to be refuted epistemologically but, those worries aside, the claim that Godel's theorems refute positivism is ridiculous. And yet, despite myself and someone else removing the claim, it has twice been restored with the suggestion that we read an article cited which says nothing to support the claim WHATSOEVER!
The two incompleteness theorems demonstrate that 1) for any formal system T (sufficient to capture arithmetic), there are truths in T which cannot be proved from T's axioms and a corollary, 2) T cannot prove its own consistency. The positivists were not in the business of creating formal systems of any kind! The only view which could be said to have been 'refuted' by Godel's theorems that I can think of is Formalism; and even that has modern proponents. The article cited in support of this claim is an interview with Rebecca Goldstein in which the claim that Godel's theorems refute positivism does not appear even once!
In short, it should be obvious to anyone who knows anything about positivism and Godel's theorems that this claim is patently false. Is there some way that this absurd claim could be prevented from being added to this page again?
Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.15.10.59 ( talk) 17:05, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
And even if it wasn't nonsense, this is an article on Existentialism. I have posted a message at the editor's talk page. We don't even get to the question of whether the point is valid or not: I'd want to see a citation making a direct connection with existentialism, otherwise it's just not notable enough for this article. KD Tries Again ( talk) 17:43, 13 March 2009 (UTC)KD Tries Again
And also what can be seen in this bookreview..
[4]
LoveMonkey (
talk)
18:04, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
Here is a section of the chapter of Goldsteins' book which she was discussing in the Edge article that I used as a source.
[5]
LoveMonkey (
talk)
18:08, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
Again why is a position that has been epistemelogically disproven called logical positivism or positivism included in this article at all. And if it is included why is it's weigh implicit as being pertient. I added the comment and section to show how completely invalid the inclusion of logical positivism is to this article. As far as I can tell existentialism has not been invalidated, but positivism has. LoveMonkey ( talk) 18:17, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
Doesn't matter what I think. What matters is that Godel scientifically dispproved logical positivism. If the position is invalidated scientifically (think about how rare a philosophical position gets scientifically invalidated). Then why is anything about positivism being critical or invalidating another position let alone existentialism included in the article. Go read my comment that the anonymous editor is removing. LoveMonkey ( talk) 18:29, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
LoveMonkey (
talk)
18:33, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
If a criticism of existentialism is going to be included in this article about existentialism a critism of existentialism from the position of logical positivism then the read who may not know needs to understand that logical positivism take on the understanding of "to be" has been epistemologically disproved.
LoveMonkey (
talk)
18:37, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
BINGO on Godel. Existentialism is a valid philosophical position. Positivism is not. Why.....
Because positivism's
ontology or "to be" of an object is "incomplete". This is what Godel proved scientifically with his "
Incompleteness theorems". Positivisms should not be in this article at all as it is just taking up space and invalid. It is a bad thing to leave the article worded as it is now without a clarification on the invalidated
positivistics definition of "to be".
LoveMonkey (
talk)
18:51, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
[7] LoveMonkey ( talk) 19:32, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
And again Godel himself (albeit via Philip J. Davis though)...........
LoveMonkey ( talk) 19:34, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
PS Snowded you'll have to also remove him from the Logical positivism article since it also valdiates what I am saying.
Poor Professor Rebecca Goldstein. Good to see the WP:OR rules the day. As for going no where the anoymous editor is edit warring with a 3RR. I was quoting Professor Rebecca Goldstein's work. You guys are now calling her wrong. LoveMonkey ( talk) 19:44, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
LoveMonkey ( talk) 19:59, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
Since discussion is over according to Snowden, I removed the contested section according to undue weight. LoveMonkey ( talk) 19:57, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
The point is that there is a difference between, on the one hand, (a) valid criticism and (b) invalid criticism, and on the other, (c) relevant criticism and (d) irrelevant criticism.
The matter at hand here is not whether or not a critique of existentialism is (a) or (b), but rather if it is (c) or (d). If you can make the case that Carnap's critique of Heidegger's use of the word "nothing" is _irrelevant_, you may have a case, but that is not done by "disproving" logical positivism; even the failed physics of times gone by have to be mentioned in a history of science; phlogistone is relevant to the understanding of science, but not _valid_ as a scientific statement. Der Zeitgeist ( talk) 15:19, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
Since there has been no opposition to the change of the intro, as proposed at the bottom of the Repaired introduction section or the text on green background, I intend to implement it. -- 71.247.227.185 ( talk) 15:31, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
Here's some opposition for you. You haven't responded to our arguments at all, so I know I'm getting a bit tired, and I'm guessing everyone else is as well. You do not have consensus on your proposed changes, and the changes are disputed. I would urge you to not make them, and I'll let you know that if you do, they will be changed back. Der Zeitgeist ( talk) 15:41, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
Concur with Der Zeitgeist and if you do implement them against clear consensus you will be subject to an ANI report -- Snowded ( talk) 16:44, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
I oppose the change. All it seems to do is make the sentences longer and state, awkwardly, that the "attitude" is somehow "applied" (how?) to the thinkers in question. I am surprised to see the IP editor suggest we begin by saying existentialism is not something. I thought his/her objection had always been that we were failing to say what it 'is'. KD Tries Again ( talk) 18:13, 23 March 2009 (UTC)KD Tries Again
Opposed also. Sorry I haven't had time to develop any of the suggestions I made above w.r.t. sourcing the lead, or supply the page numbers. I hope it's of use to the editors trying to improve this page. 271828182 ( talk) 23:41, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
Existentialism "is not simply a philosophy", but "the explicit conceptual manifestation of an existential attitude". "The existential attitude begins with a disoriented individual facing a confused world that he cannot accept." [1] Since 1940s, the term existentialism has been applied to the work of a number of nineteenth and twentieth century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, took the human subject — not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual and his or her conditions of existence — as a starting point for philosophical thought. Many existentialists have also regarded traditional systematic or academic philosophy, in both style and content, as too abstract and remote from concrete human experience.
- ^ Solomon, Robert C. (1987). From Hegel to Existentialism. Oxford University Press. p. 238. ISBN 0195061829.
{{ cite book}}
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( help)
--
71.247.227.185 ( talk) 01:25, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Ok, I know that this is contrary to all the wiki guidelines, but now that I look at it again, I think all this quoting of authorities has rendered the entire introduction damned near unreadable (nine quotations in the first paragraph?!). Furthermore, I think we're better off formulating a looser definition for the introduction rather than a more "accurate" one (zoom in too close, and you get pixels) — that's what the rest of the article is for. Perhaps we should move away from the philosophers and rather focus on the kinds of problems dealt with in the introduction, as that would remove the problems related to different authors calling it different things according to what field they're writing from, to and in? The philosophers call it a philosophy, the literary people call it a current, the historians call it a concept or term, the idea-historians call it an idea, and so-on. What is common across all these "definitions" is not the people working within the fields defined (Kierkegaard in one, Kafka in another, Sartre in a third, etc.), but rather the themes they deal with. In other words, if we were to go in the direction of "Existentialism is a term," and if you read past these first three words, IP, you will see that your recurring "objection" ("It is not say [sic] what existentialism is.") is invalid, "that has been applied to a loosely defined field of themes, problems and concepts mainly within philosophy and literature, but also in psychology [here referring to Yalom, May, etc.] and other arts [Munch, for instance, is said to have dealt with existentialist themes in his paintings, and theatre is not the same as literature]. These themes are" etc., etc. I'm not going to write it all out here and now, as I'm just suggesting a general direction we may want to consider. In any event, we cannot continue along this fruitless path of attempting to respond to a nonresponsive (there's a difference between responding and simply waving one's arms around to divert attention) IP. Der Zeitgeist ( talk) 18:08, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
No, not everything. We wanted support for the sentences from citations, but there are limits (we may even soon start to infringe on copyrights); the article is supposed to be an article in its own right, and not a patchwork of citations from other authors. The way the citations have become so dominant cannot be said to be anyone's fault, as they have appeared in connection with editing sentences without looking at the whole.
When you say that "nobody calls it a term," that's both a false statement and an example of how you don't respond to what we say: Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy calls it "a term that belongs to intellectual history," and the philosophy dictionary calls it "A loose title for various philosophies that emphasize certain common themes." Furthermore, if you look at the section called "sources for use on the lead" above, you will see that what is said there is compatible with calling it a term. When it comes to not responding, the issue is that you are not reading past the word "term," so you're not really saying anything: It is defined as "a term that is applied to [...]"
Your argument that my arguments are not arguments is useless, and simply point to the fact that you do not know what arguments are: You attempt to latch on to a phrasing in an attempt to score some sort of rhetorical point, but the difference between "I think we're better off" and "we're better off" is negligible, even though the "I think" is what you're latching on to. The same goes for your attempt to construe this as a personal attack (an activity you're not entirely alien to yourself): I'm pointing out in what ways you are not actually responding to what we say. Furthermore, accusing us of running out of arguments, and then not managing anything better than "it is the best wherther you like it or not" is, simply put, pathetic. You talk about being constructive, but you simply want it your own way first, and then you may agree to certain cosmetic changes. I'm not going to go into another long, pointless "argument" with you over this, however, so this ends here. When you want to be constructive, and when you've learned how to speak proper English you may want to make a contribution, but up until then I would implore you to refrain from making edits to the English wikipedia. Der Zeitgeist ( talk) 09:10, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
I've read through the months-long discussion regarding the introduction, and seen some very helpful proposals from each of the main participants. I'd like to plead for at least a conservative interim revision of the unreadable and uninterpretable paragraph that is there now. By conservative, I mean to retaining the existing terminology, but to open with a positive declarative sentence without asides, exceptions and negatives. Hammer out the exact terminology later, and other contentious issues in continued discussion. That change will at least allow the visitor to orient on first arrival. Thanks! Phytism ( talk) 03:49, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
Maybe it should be noted that existentialism was first propounded by the German physicist Gustav Kirchhoff, and later taken up with greater authority by Richard Avenarius and then Ernst Mach, as a reaction to Kant's thing-in-itself and Hegel's metaphysics for their fundamental failure to account for psychology. The slant taken was positivistic and had a great influence on a number of scientists, including psychologists, and philosophers, including Moritz Schlick and the Vienna Circle, John Dewey, William James, Charles Peirce, and F.C.S. Schiller.
At first blush, the relationship between Existentialism, the school of agony, and Logical Positivism may look strained. Nevertheless, although the main content of their themes diverge considerably, both rely on direct experience and discount as fanciful anything that cannot be identified positively.
Although Kierkegaard is now regarded as the patron saint of Existential devotions unto despair, melancholy, and the preoccupation with death, his work was little known outside of Denmark and Germany until well into the twentieth century and not well known within, until he was 'discovered' by those who were already calling themselves 'existentialists'. By contrast, the trend established by Avenarius was famous. Only later did he come to be forgotten and retired to the dusty aisles of the used book shops.
This, of course, brings up the side notion of what history really consists in, but that has to be saved for another day.
Uniquerman ( talk) 18:03, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
Although it is now taken for granted that psychology and epistemology are partially interdependent disciplines, it was not always the case, and existentialism is partly responsible. The Spanish school, exemplified by Jose Ortega y Gasset and Julian Marias, took it a step further, attempting to reconcile classical realism and Cartesian idealism into a unitary whole, bringing epistemology to the point where it meets ontology.
In his History of Philosophy, Marias made a frank but undeveloped try at melding realism and idealism into existentialism, especially in the person of Ortega, who was working toward a sort of neo-Platonic formalism of this world (rather than a shadow one) with his expression, 'me and my circumstances'. By this he did not mean circumstances accreted to the individual, but the definition of the circumstances as integral to the person. If you turn this around from the person to the world, you infer the existential moment ('reality') as an event whose veridical identity comes from neither the place or the thing nor the concept or the mind but the interdependence of person and world.
This is a strain of existentialist metaphysics which is not always recognized and is certainly not well enough explored. Hints of it can be found in the writings of the French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss and the semiological aspects of the work of the French linguist de Saussure and more fully developed expositions in the essays of the American theoretical anthropologist Barbara Lee and the teachings of the nearly unknown American philosopher and anthropologist Mickey Gibson. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.95.93.186 ( talk) 20:28, 5 April 2009 (UTC) 74.95.93.186 ( talk) 20:32, 5 April 2009 (UTC) signed 74.95.93.186 ( talk) 20:33, 5 April 2009 (UTC) uniquerman —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.95.93.186 ( talk) 20:35, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but it's kind of hard to get at your point: What are you getting at here? Do you want the article to mention these things? The problem with your argument, as far as I can tell, is that it makes "Existentialism" a too inclusive term; sure, if you look at philosophers through the ages, you will find people who deal with certain phenomena in this or that way, and this way may appear to be, or may actually be, the same as some existentialist philosopher's way. The problem is that this does not make their philosophy existentialist; Hegel inspired Kierkegaard, both positively and negatively, and he dealt with some of the same subjects., He's also probably _the_ most mentioned philosopher throughout all the Existentialist philosophers' works (both Sartre, Beauvoir, Kierkegaard (although sometimes covertly) and Heidegger mentions him quite often), but Hegel still isn't an existentialist philosopher. When it comes to the Logical Positivists, for instance, they were _quite clearly_, explicitly even, opposed to the ideas of existentialism; Carnap's attempt at a critique of Heidegger would extend to most, if not all, of the other existentialists as well; the notion of [intet, nichts, neant, nothingness] is one of the most central notions of existentialist philosophy. When it comes to the influence of Kierkegaard, I know for a fact that Unamuno read Danish, that he taught himself Danish _in order to_ read Kierkegaard, so his influence cannot have been as small as you make it out to be; Unamuno must have known about him in order to have wanted to teach himself Danish so as to read Kierkegaard in the original language. I think you're mistaking the _general_ popularity of Kierkegaard for his influence in relation to the specifically existentialist philosophers; existentialist philosophy is, and has always been, a limited field of philosophy, so for each age, even if all philosophers haven't heard of some philosopher, he may still be important in existentialist philosophy; even if the logicians didn't bother with Kierkegaard, the existentialist philosophers may have. Der Zeitgeist ( talk) 00:13, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
What I am saying is that, if one is interested in a historical presentation of the notion, existentialism, and the use of the word, then Kirchhoff, Avenarius, and Mach, who were greatly interested in incorporating the science of psychology into philosophy, ought to be represented, if only in passing. If, on the other hand, the main interest is in the formal relation between the ideas of Heidegger, Jaspers, Ortega, Unamuno, Sartre, and others to the ideas of Kierkegaard, then the historicity has little bearing on the subject. Conflating the content with the process takes place at the expense of clarity.
For this issue, documentation is not the limiting factor. Emphasis is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Uniquerman ( talk • contribs) 19:20, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
Rune's dictionary has an entry on existentialist philosophy; he doesn't call it existentialism. So the term was probably coined after that. When it comes to the kind of philosophy, sure, it was plain to see for everyone that Kierkegaard and Unamuno had influenced Heidegger, etc. The definition of existentialist philosophy in that dictionary is, however, just plain weird:
I've looked at Runes, and not found it helpful in the past. As for what the standard source say, for better or worse that is precisely what Wikipedia is supposed to represent. I can give you a long list of what Wiki would consider reliable, authoritative sources on existentialism (Barrett, Macquarrie, Solomon, Kaufmann, Cooper), as well as standard encyclopaedia articles (Britannica, Macmillan) - all of which offer the conventional account of existentialism developing from Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. Wikipedia isn't the place to offer an alternative account. We can only add information to the article which can be supported. The fundamental question is whether there's sufficient support for the claim that Avenarius and Mach, for example, were important for the development of existentialism. I suspect not. The article in Runes is out on a limb, and I'd oppose giving much weight to it. KD Tries Again ( talk) 16:41, 18 April 2009 (UTC)KD Tries Again All right, all right. Understood, one and all. However, however weird the style of the Runes definition of existential philosophy, it is not completely off the wall. It's simply peculiar and not all there. Nevertheless, Kierkegaard's fear and trembling, Heidegger's dread, Sartre's nausea all have a biological component, especially with regard to the certainty of death and the weakness of the flesh, and with Camus and his factual judgments in place of value judgments, all seek the worth of knowledge in relation to their unrationalized direct experience of life. Uniquerman ( talk) 18:30, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
I removed the comment that Heidegger was influenced "much more" by Husserl than by Kierkegaard. Heidegger worked as Husserl's assistant, but the extent to which his work shows Husserl's influence is controversial; Husserl himself regarded Heidegger as having completely abandoned phenomenology. But more important, so what? Heidegger was probably influenced more by Aristotle than he was by Kierkegaard, but the only purpose of the sentence is to indicate why Heidegger has been regarded (rightly or wrongly) as an existentialist. One of the (few) common factors among the so-called existentialists was a debt to Kierkegaard. KD Tries Again ( talk) 15:07, 19 April 2009 (UTC)KD Tries Again
For Nietzsche, I am 100% certain there is no link, other than that Nietzsche provided a in depth refutation of nihilism. Implying a link reinforces the oft-repeated fallacy that Nietzsche was a nihilist. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.1.210.26 ( talk) 02:19, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
Nietzsche and Kierkegaard were essential for the pursuit Italic textof theories on existentialism, however the credit for the birth of it lies with Rene Descartes; in Principles of Philosophy, I quote Descartes, in saying, "Cogito ergo sum," which means in english, "I think, therefore, I am."
( Wvxcjerk ( talk) 03:13, 6 May 2009 (UTC))
Ortega would agree also. He spent a great deal of time on the subject, explaining that Descartes was a thinker of the future, but a man captive of history and his own theology. For Descartes, the ego in question was a reification of the thing that cogito proved the existence of. He didn't go on to the next step that the ego existed insofar as it thought. Ortega, of course, went on to the next step, the postulate that 'reality' is an event requiring both mind and world, his great contribution to the history of philosophy, as Julian Marias would have it. The truth is neither in here or out there but between the two, idealism and realism happily married. This is where people like Saussure, Barbara Lee, Levi-Strauss, and Mickey Gibson come in, confirming by linguistic and anthropological observation what Ortega proposed. Of course, none of this belongs in Wikipedia except as an aside. Uniquerman ( talk) 18:50, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
Why has this article ignored these three great existentialists? I haven't read much, but I do know that these three names are the most famous ones in existentialist and modern literature. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pratinavanil ( talk • contribs) 10:56, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
One would have a better chance making the case for Max Frisch, Heinrich Boll, Malcom Lowry, and Luigi Pirandello. Uniquerman ( talk) 21:06, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
I have reverted some recent additions to this list: Mulla Sadra, Averroes, Thomas Aquinas, The Bible.
First, Sadra and Averroes. Here I think it's a notability problem. I can see from the WP article on Mulla Sadra that one commentator noted existentialist themes in his work. The problem is that some commentator or another has found existentialist themes in the work of countless philosophers and writers, but they don't all need to be on this list. Is there any work on existentialism as such which mentions Sadra? Same question for Averroes. I think it's necessary to show that they are notable in terms of the origins of existentialism. Second, Aquinas: whether or not someone has detected existentialist themes in his work, he's out of place on this list: I'd like to see the same kind of support as for Sadra or Averroes.
Third, I removed The Bible, because it's not a writer, because I suspect you might find precursors for just about anything in the Bible, and citing Kierkegaard as support for the Bible displaying existentialist themes is an anachronism. "Existentialism" wasn't even a term when Kierkegaard was writing. More simply: how does it help a WP reader to understand existentialism to refer them to the Bible? KD Tries Again ( talk) 17:33, 12 July 2009 (UTC)KD Tries Again
I agree that the first paragraph is terrible. It's vague. It led me to the discussion page instead of happily exploring Existentialism and Kierkegaard.
I can't tell what "despite profound doctrinal differences" even means. At such an early point in the article, it's a blank statement that has no relevance to the readers. You can't place a vague, no context, no reference breakaway statement in the middle of a definition and simply expect readers to follow. Nothing led us to the statement and the statement leads nowhere.
What do you mean by doctrinal? What were their differences? Why were they profound?
Those are just the problems you need to address in your literal statement, your logos. Beyond that, you need to explain to readers why that statement is even in there.
What was the result of their differences? Why did they have them? Is this statement even RELEVANT to an opening definition before you even define the terms?
THESE are the questions you need to ask yourself before writing a Wikipedia article.
Through experience we learn - that is why we are here - just wish we could take it with us! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.12.96.110 ( talk) 22:11, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
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