Good Morning!

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Good Morning!

• Bell Ringer

• Review your God paper with your neighbor.
• Agenda and Objectives Through notes and
  discussion students will define existentialism
  and identify the major themes of existentialism

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Existentialism

• Ms. Krall

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What does it mean to exist?

• To have reason
• Physical and mental awareness of your
  surroundings and choices
• Participation in life through interaction with
  others
• Understanding your personal nature

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Themes in Art
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Mark Rothko (untitled 1968)
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Edward Hopper (New York Movie 1939)
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Edvard Munch (night in saint cloud 1890)
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Edward Degas (Labsinthe 1876)
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Pablo Picasso (Guernica 1937)
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I think therefore I am

• Existentialism is the title of the set of
  philosophical ideals that emphasize the existence
  of the human being, the lack of meaning and
  purpose in life, and the solitude of human
  existence
• Its roots come from the 19th century but does not
  become a movement until WW II

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Review of Existentialismdefinition and themes.

• What is life?
• What is my place in it?
• What choices does this obligate me to make?

• Significance of the individual
• Importance of passion
• Irrational aspects of life
• Importance of human freedom.

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In defining who you are as a human being, which
is more important-to be able to define your
existence or to be be able to define your essence?
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What does it mean to have essence?

• Principle purpose and purity of everything and
  anything
• Having awareness of your self and things around
  you
• The reality of something
• Things you might be remembered by

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Essence vs. Existence

• Essence can be defined as the basic nature of
  something that determines its shape, its
  activity, its defining characteristics, and
  possibilities of its everyday life.
• It therefore sets the ground rules for the
  actions and/or purpose that an object can or
  cant do.
• Most Philosophers believe that essence precedes
  existence- except many Existentialists!

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Good morning!..

• Bell Ringer..
• Agenda and Objectivethrough notes and discussion
  students will identify the themes of
  existentialism.

• Define Existentialism and give one characteristic
  of existentialism

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Thought for the Day

• To be nobody but yourself in a world which is
  doing its best day and night to make you
  everybody else means to fight the hardest battle
  which any human being can fight, and never stop
  fighting. e.e cummings

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Common Themes in Existentialism

• Existence Precedes Essence

• The belief that nothing can explain or
  rationalize our existence.
• There is no answer to Why am I?
• Humans exist in a meaningless, irrational
  universe and any search for order will bring them
  into direct conflict with this universe.

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Back to Existence Precedes Essence

• Existentialism is defined by the slogan Existence
  precedes Essence. This means
• 1. We have no predetermined nature or essence
  that controls what we are, what we do, or what is
  valuable for us.
• 2. We are radically free to act independently of
  determination by outside influences.
• 3. We create our own human nature through these
  free choices.
• 4. We also create our values through these
  choices.

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The Traditional View
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The Existentialist view

• We create our own nature We are thrown into
  existence first without a predetermined nature
  and only later do we construct our nature or
  essence through our actions.

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Second Theme

• Absurdity life is absurd and reason is useless
  in dealing with the depths of human life

• Man seen in this light is full of contradictions.
• Man creates himself through the choices he makes
  and thus takes responsibility.

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Third ThemeAlienation

• The development of science has separated man
  from concrete earthy existence, and forced him to
  live at a high level of abstraction. We have
  collectivized individual man out of existence,
  driven God from the heavens or from the hearts of
  men. Man lives in alienation from God, from
  nature, from other men, from his own true self.

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Continued

• Existentialists are concerned how technology
  shuts man out of nature and from each other
• Crowding of people into cities
• Subdivision of labor
• Government control
• Growth of advertising, propaganda and the mass
  media of entertainment and communication

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FourthFear, Dread and Anxiety

• Anxiety stems from our understanding and
  recognition of the total freedom of choice that
  confronts us every moment, and the individuals
  confrontation with nothingness.
• Dread is a feeling of general apprehension to
  make a commitment to a personally valid way of
  life.

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Fifth Encounter with Nothingness and Death.

• If man is alienated from nature, God, neighbors,
  and self, what is left?
• Death hangs over all of us. Our awareness of it
  can bring freedom or anguish.

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SixthFreedom

• Existentialists write about the loss of freedom
  or the threat to it, or the enlargement of the
  range of human freedoms.
• Freedom is the acceptance of responsibility for
  choice and a commitment to ones choice.

• Believers-stress the man of faith rather than the
  man of will. Mans essential nature is God-like
  and humans should not alienate ourselves from
  it.
• Non believers- Because there is no God, we must
  accept individual responsibility for our own
  becoming.

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The Existentialist- Absolute Individuality and
Absolute Freedom

• The Existentialist conceptions of freedom and
  value arise from their view of the individual.
  Since we are all ultimately alone, isolated
  islands of subjectivity in an objective world, we
  have absolute freedom over our internal nature,
  and the source of our value can only be internal.
  

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Bell Ringer Review!

• What is the definition of existentialism?
• What are the six themes of existentialism?

• Existence precedes essence
• Life is absurd
• Alienation
• Nothingness and Death
• Fear, Dread, Anxiety
• Freedom

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For review

• Existentialism attempts to describe our desire to
  make rational decisions despite existing in an
  irrational universe.
• Two views- life might be without inherent meaning
  (existential atheists) or it might be without a
  meaning we can understand (existential theists).
• We are forced to define our own meanings, knowing
  they might be temporary. Everything is left up to
  Man.

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Noted Existentialists

• Soren Kierkegaard
• Friedrich Nietzsche
• Albert Camus
• Jean Paul Sartre
• Victor Frankl

• Please read n their biographies from your
  textbook.

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Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)

• It is a persons responsibility to live a totally
  committed (valid) life and should be prepared to
  defy the norms of society for the sake of that
  commitment.
• Anti-conformist!

• Father of existentialism
• Rejected Plato and Aristotle (the idea that the
  essence of something determines what it is
  essence before existence.)
• Believed that individual choice determines
  essence (existence precedes essence!)

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• "...the thing is to find a truth which is true
  for me, to find the idea for which I can live and
  die" - Journals 1835
• suggests that people might effectively choose to
  live within either of two "existence spheres". He
  called these "spheres" the aesthetic and the
  ethical.

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The aesthetic

• Aesthetical lives were lives lived in search of
  such things pleasure, novelty, and romantic
  individualism.
• thought that such "pleasure", such "novelty", and
  such "romantic individualism" would eventually
  tend to decay or become meaningless and this
  would inevitably lead to much boredom and dire
  frustration.

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Ethical

• Ethical lives, meanwhile, as being lived with a
  sense of duty to observe societal obligations.
• Such a life would be easy, in some ways, to live,
  yet would also involve much compromise.
• Such compromise would inevitably mean that Human
  integrity would tend to be eroded even though
  lives seemed to be progressing (19th century)
• Neither were satisfactory- so enter the 3rd-
  religious
• they could "live in the truth," that they were
  "individual before the Eternal"

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Welcome back!

• Bell Ringerwhat are Kierkegaard's three stages
  of living?

• Agenda and Objective through notes and readings
  students will evaluate Nietzsche's view on
  existentialism

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Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

• Most controversial and most important
• Looks at life critically
• Reflects upon the concept of Nihilism (life is
  senseless and useless), Saw society heading down
  a trivial, meaningless path of existence.

• Frustrated with the practice of Christianity
  during his life time God is dead.
• There is not one way of looking at human
  behavior. Perspectivalism observing life based
  on your own personal perspective.

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Think about itideas of Nietzsche

• Take a few minutes and evaluate Nietzsche's
  concepts

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Think about it

• Doctrine of eternal recurrence- everything
  happens an infinite number of times with an
  infinite number of variations

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Thus Spoke Zarathustrawhat is the main point?

• Metaphorical prose
• Zarathustra- spent 10 years meditating on a
  mountain, comes down with an eagle and snake to
  teach men wisdom he has acquired.

• Sees man is empty and prescribes a better future.

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Bell RingerThus Spoke Zarathustra

• Read the Prologue

• What is Zarathustras attitude toward man?
• What advice is Zarathustra giving man?

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Nietzsches advice to face the modern world1
Ubermensch

• Overman the ideal and not reality.
• Confronts all possible terrors and misery and is
  able to rise up and overcome personal desires
  (desires that make him part of the herd.)
• Power the capacity to live well.

• The feeling of being in command of oneself and
  ones future.
• Is independent, confident and has disdain for the
  weak.
• Ready to reinvent at a moments notice.
• Attention is on this world and not the afterlife.

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Review of the Ubermensch

• Practice ethical relativism by judging actions as
  good or bad
• Lives in current moment and not worried about
  afterlife
• Has control of ones desires
• Looks for ways to improve him or herself through
  knowledge and willingness to change.

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21st century Teenage Ubermensch

• Practices ethical relativism
• Lives in current moment
• Demonstrates the will to power through
  imagination and creativity
• Looks for ways to improve oneself through
  knowledge and change.

• What are some examples of ways the media attempts
  to influence teenagers?
• For example
• Media control/manipulation
• Name Brand attraction
• Technology
• Sexuality
• Drug use/abuse
• How would the ideal of the Ubermensch deal with
  media expectations for teenagers?

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Nietzsche and Nihilism (something to think about)
Every belief, every considering something-true
is necessarily false because there is simply no
true world. Nihilism isnot only the belief that
everything deserves to perish but one actually
puts ones shoulder to the plow one destroys.
For some time now our whole European culture has
been moving as toward a catastrophe, with a
tortured tension that is growing from decade to
decade restlessly, violently, headlong, like a
river that wants to reach the end (Will to
Power)
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• Read the following quote
• What is Nietzsche trying to say???

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The Full quote(to think about)

• God is dead. God remains dead. And we have
  killed him. How shall we, murderers of all
  murderers, console ourselves? That which was the
  holiest and mightiest of all that the world has
  yet possessed has bled to death under our knives.
  Who will wipe this blood off us? With what water
  could we purify ourselves? What festivals of
  atonement, what sacred games shall we need to
  invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too
  great for us? Must we not ourselves become gods
  simply to be worthy of it?

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2 The Will to Power

• It is the only law and the only morality.
• It applies to all living things. The pressure for
  survival or adaptation is less important than the
  desire to expand ones power.
• Living in itself appears as a subsidiary aim,
  something necessary to promote ones power.
• The notion of the will to power is contrasted by
  Nietzsche with that of utilitarianism, which
  claims all people want fundamentally to be happy.

• Humans are divided into a natural aristocratic
  group and a naturally dependent and inferior one,
  which are always opposed. Exploitation is a
  natural consequence of the will to power.
• Superior people express the will to power, taking
  advantage of their natural gifts to achieve their
  full potential and dominance over others.
• Inferior people use different ideologies, or
  slave moralities, to try to deny the will to
  power.
• Self expressing the will to power truly living
  cant be wrong.

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Good Morning

• Bell Ringer What is Nietzsches Will to Power?

• Agenda and Objective Finish Nietzsche and by
  analyzing readings, students will identify Camus
  thoughts on Existentialism

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For Monday

• Bring The Stranger to classyou will be
  reading/working on your paper.
• If finished, you will start the Metamorphosis.

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The Will to Power-universal desire to control
others and impose our values on them.

• Slave morality is a social illness. It is
  essentially a morality of utility.
• This is the morality of the INFERIOR PEOPLE.
• Most slaves choose to be victims. This morality
  favors a limited existence. It makes the best of
  a bad situation.

• It promotes virtues such as pity, and obliging
  hand, warm heart, patience, humility and
  friendliness, which serve to ease existence for
  those who suffer.
• Good is related to charity, pity, restraint, and
  subservience. It means tending to ease
  suffering.
• Evil is seen in the cruel, selfish, wealthy,
  indulgent and aggressive. It means tending to
  inspire fear.

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Nietzsches moral viewpoint

• God is dead
• Nietzsche
• Nietzsche is dead
• God

The death of God would lead to the loss of any
universal perspective of things and any coherent
sense of objective truth. There is a God in each
of us, waiting to be born.
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• These solutions (ubermensch, the will to Power)
  were created to rail against the suppressive
  structure of society, which created mediocrity
  and lives based on self-delusion.

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ReadingThe Myth of Sisyphus

• What is Sisyphus fate?
• Is he truly happy?

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The Point of Sisyphus?

• Man is in a paradox.
• One the one hand, evidence shows that the world
  is unpredictable and chaotic. Life comes into
  existence and then passes. Ideas are proven to be
  true and then determined to be false
• On the other, man tries to make sense of this
  world.
• This human condition- the constant attempt to
  derive meaning from the meaninglessness. And thus
  it is absurd.

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Good Morning!

• Bell RingerCompare your Camus answers with your
  neighbor
• Agenda and Objective Through a reading students
  will identify Kafkas views on Existentialism

• What does the term Metamorphosis mean?

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Noted Existentialists

• We strive for clarity, meaning and explanation in
  a life that in turn cannot offer these answers.
• However, man still chooses to strive above his
  meaningless and anguished existence. Life is
  absurd!

Albert Camus 1913-1956
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How to deal with the absurd?

• To live in revolt
• To accept the tension and struggle of the search
  for meaning in a chaotic world.

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Jean Paul Sartre

• What is free will?
• What is determinism?

• How is existentialism the complete opposite of
  determinism?

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Good Morning!

• Bell RingerComplete Metamorphosis questions (10
  minutes)

• Agenda and Objective Through a reading students
  will identify Kafkas views on Existentialism

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Good Morning

• Bell RingerPick up Papers, read Sartres
  biography.

• What is his belief on existence?
• On freedom?
• How does he define self?

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Essence and J. P. Sartre

• existence precedes essence.
• What we choose to do determines our nature
• The decision making process creates our
  personality and reality.

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ActivityLiving an Authentic Life

• With partneranswer the questions provided

• What is free will?
• What is determinism?
• How is existentialism the complete opposite of
  determinism

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Good morningBell Ringer..

• Pair up and share Sartre questions.
• Tuesday Note quiz!

• Agenda and Objective By analyzing a reading
  excerpt students will review Sartres view of
  existentialism.
• Tomorrow Metamorphosis!

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ActivityFreedom questions

• Free will!
• All existence is meaningless in itself!
• It is the person decides (creates) individual
  fate and therefore accepts responsibilities for
  their actions.

• Gives you total freedom and responsibility to
  choose your meaning of existence.
• Is freedom a good thing???
• To be free is to be caught in a paradox.

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Sartres view point

• How would you interpret these quotes?

• Hell is other people
• Man is condemned to be free.
• Man is nothing else but what he makes himself.

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Good Morning!

• Bell Ringer Please review Frankls view of
  existentialism by filling out review sheet.
• Quiz on Tuesday!

• Agenda and Objective Through review and
  discussion, students will understand Frankls and
  Kafkas contribution to existentialism.

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Viktor Frankl

• Developed an existential approach to
  psychotherapy.
• Humanity's primary motivational force is the
  search for meaning.

• Not an atheist/agnostic like Nietzsche
• Not a pessimist like Sartre
• Is hopeful in mankinds ability to overcome evil
  and suffering.

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Noted Existentialists

• Franz Kafka (1883-1924)

• Writer who focused on alienation. Wrote about
  dehumanization, oppressive governments,
  ineffective bureaucracies.
• Wrote The Metamorphosis

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Good Morning!

• Bell RingerReview for Tomorrows quiz
• Agenda and Objective Through a film analysis,
  students will identify major themes of
  existentialism

• 6 themes of existentialism
• Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Camus, Kafka, Sartre
• Will to Power, Ubermensch, Nihilism

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William Faulkner

• Our tragedy today is a general and universal
  physical fear so long sustained by now that we
  can even bear it. There are no longer problems
  of the spirit. There is only one question When
  will I be blown up?