DE Weekly: Existential Metaphysics, Phenomenology, & Acts of Consciousness
Last week, I wrote about existential aesthetics, or what it is that makes something existential in nature––art, novels, movies, songs, and everything in between. I would like to continue the conversation about existential aesthetics in this newsletter, specifically the metaphysics that define it, and art as an expression of human freedom.
At its core, existential aesthetics means to mirror certain aspects of human experience and existence. We are thrown into the world with no inherent or apparent meaning, forced to be the authors of our own lives. How do we do it?
DE Weekly: Art, Angst, & Existential Aesthetics
Sometimes, I will be reading something, or watching something, or I’ll simply see something and think to myself, “There is something existential about this.” Perhaps it is just me, and the amount of time I spend with the philosophy––but, I’ve seen others make similar observations, so maybe it is something inside of all of us to some degree.
Existentialism is called what it is because of its emphasis on existence: how humans exist and operate in the world as unique beings.
DE Weekly: Heidegger, Dostoevsky, & Authentic Being-for-Others
Over the past two weeks, I’ve written about the various writings and opinions of Existentialist authors who gave us a foundation for what could be called “existential ethics.”
Two weeks ago, I wrote about Emmanuel Levinas, who opined that we should treat ethics as “first philosophy,” meaning fundamentally underpinning our philosophy should be the obligation of ethical responsibility.
DE Weekly: Values, Moral Relativism, & Existential Ethics
Last week, I introduced Emmanuel Levinas, the twentieth-century French philosopher who posited ethics as “first philosophy.” To him, this meant that the force fundamentally underpinning all of philosophy is our ethical responsibility.
Before anything else, Levinas argued, we are first of all called into existence to be unconditionally obligated to serve others. Our first act as a Self, then, should be to consider the Other.
DE Weekly: Levinas, First Philosophy, & the Ethical Infinite
In Existentialism, the Self and the Other are two major focuses, accounting for one of the most important areas of study of the philosophy. The Self represents one’s own consciousness and being, the most fundamental way a being-in-the-world exists apart from others. The Other represents another free consciousness, totally separate from yours, that disturbs the subjectivity of your existence.
Jean-Paul Sartre is famous for birthing the phrase “Hell is––other people!” in his iconic play No Exit, and elaborating on the intricacies of the Self and the Other in Being and Nothingness.
DE Weekly: Time, Eternalism, & Illusion
Over two millennia ago, the Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle concocted a paradox called the “Paradox of Time,” found today in his Physics. In this paradox, we are asked to consider how time can really and truly exist.
Aristotle’s time paradox says that time is composed of non-existent states, the past and the future. These non-existent states are separated by a vanishing present; as soon as each moment of the present passes, it is gone to the past.
DE Weekly: Augustine, Sartre, & Ex Nihilo
Creatio ex nihilo is a Latin phrase which means “creation out of nothing.” In a religious context, it infers that God created the universe and everything in it out of absolutely nothing: no pre-existing materials. It differentiates the act of creation in the human sense (say, me creating this newsletter) from God’s creation.
St. Augustine of Hippo, one of my favorite writers, once said that in light of this creatio ex nihilo, every creature on the earth carries with it the heritage of nonbeing. In other words, there is a palpable sense of true nothingness that haunts us and every other finite thing in this world.
DE Weekly: Monism, Dualism, & Phenomenological Ontology
Like any philosophy, Existentialism boasts a wide array of philosophical thought, owing to the varying worldviews of its most prolific authors; Albert Camus is not the same as Jean-Paul Sartre is not the same as Martin Heidegger is not the same as Søren Kierkegaard. However, there are consistent through points that can be traced in the writings of all of the above.
That being said, we might ask ourselves: is there a common ontology that underpins the whole of existential thought (or at least much of it)?
DE Weekly: Husserl, Aristotle, & Pyrrhonism
Would you believe me if I told you the ideas that led to the development of Existentialism appeared as early as the fourth century BC? The ideas I mean are those of suspension of judgment toward what we perceive, skepticism about the order of things, and the desire to adopt a tranquil disposition in relation to the world and the human condition.
Traditionally, philosophical ideas that we would call “existential” in nature are traced back to Søren Kierkegaard, the eighteenth-century Danish philosopher and theologian who approached the ideas through a Christian lens.
DE Weekly: Aestheticism, Wilde, & The Picture of Dorian Gray
“I sent my Soul through the Invisible, Some letter of that After-life to spell: And by and by my Soul return’d to me, And answer’d: ‘I Myself am Heav’n and Hell.’” This poem from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is repeated in a film I watched this past week, the 1945 adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray.
The poem is read throughout the movie by the film’s namesake, Dorian Gray. Sitting for a portrait painted by his friend Basil Hallward, Dorian meets Lord Henry Wotton, a man who lives only for pleasure, and suggests to Dorian that men should pursue only their sensual pleasures.