DE Weekly: Finitude, Nothingness, & Meaning
In existentialism, there are some concepts with relative consensus, and others with lots of varying theories. Life itself (specifically the meaning of life) is one of those major questions with many answers. Another is Death itself. We’ve all heard the question “What is the meaning of life?”, but here’s another question: what is the meaning of death?
The existentialists had widely differing views on the importance of death and on the meaning of death, each with their own unique input. The two authors I’ll discuss today are Jean-Paul Sartre and Martin Heidegger.
DE Weekly: Merleau-Ponty, Behavior, & Sedimentation
In existentialism, as in any philosophy, there are established truths which are endorsed by most of its influential thinkers. The absurdity of life, the acceptance of death, and the ability to make our own meaning are some examples of this. Sedimentation is another.
Along the same vein as facticity, which I wrote about a few weeks ago, sedimentation is a concept that represents another force in our lives that influences the way we live and interact with the world around us.
DE Weekly: Sartre, Facticity, & Transcendence
Throughout their rigorous study of the human condition, the existentialists introduced and coined key words to represent the important concepts of their philosophies. Two of these key concepts are facticity and transcendence.
Facticity refers to the concrete facts of an individual’s existence––birthdate, birthplace, physical appearance, the social class one is born into––which are inescapable and cannot be changed.