Reflecting on Existentialism

@hue-man,

Epistemology is made of words, and words aren't precise like numbers. I think a person uses the word "proven" for that which they are thoroughly persuaded of. And they find what they consider "proven" for themselves rejected by others. Unless there is some ultimate reality or thing-in-itself to be right about, all we really have is opinion.

I think we philosophical types are often attracted to philosophy as a method for arriving at the truth, and that was my experience. But at some point, in my passion for epistemology, I had to abandon any static view of true as a mirage, as an idol, really.
For a pragmatic point of view there is plenty that is "proven," that we can bank on (cash value).
If there really were such a thing as proof in the strong sense, why so much disagreement? Are their two humans anywhere that agree on everything? This speaks strongly against some universal reason that would make strong proof possible.

I see man as a being with provisional opinions, to be replaced when they stop giving him pleasure on a practical, aesthetic, or religious level. Or when another opinion offers more pleasure.
The opinion that proof and certainty are possible is an opinion that gives many people pleasure. In the same way perhaps that the opinion that a personal god exists gives pleasure.
It enhances our sense of power, and connection to this power.

(As always, subject to revision...)

@hue-man,

What I appreciate most about Existentialism is that it led me to my favorite philosopher, Jose Ortega y Gasset (1893-1955). I had read Sartre and Camus in high school, and in college I got interested in Religious Existentialism with Paul Tillich and Existentialist Psychology with Rollo May, read a little Kierkegaard, read William Barrett's survey of the movement, Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy, and Walter Kaufmann's anthology, Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre.

Then, I discovered Ortega. A classmate of mine knew I was interested in philosophy and gave me a translation of one of his essays and I was hooked. I found out that my college library had, at that time, nine volumes of his complete works in Spanish. Having spent my childhood in Uruguay in South America, I was fluent in Spanish and could read his works in the original. Soon thereafter I purchased a set for myself and I can't begin to tell you how much pleasure I've had in reading them again and again over the last 50 years, and discovering some new insight almost every time.

Now Ortega was considered by some to be an Existentialist, and he was branded as such by the Catholic church in Spain, who even banned his works. Various critics have tried to label him as a neoKantian Idealist, a phenomenologist, a historicist, and even as a pragmatist, which he vehemently denied. However, for me he was always different from any of those labels, although for some reason I felt there was something that was missing about his sources.

Ortega coined several names for his philosophy: Perspectivism, Vital Reason, Historical Reason, and Philosophy of Life. It was only in the 1990's that a historian, John T. Graham, discovered that Ortega's metaphysics, as well as his theory of history and sociology, were influenced by William James and Pragmatism. In his first book on Ortega's philosophy, A Pragmatist Philosophy of Life in Ortega y GassetA Pragmatist Philosophy of Life in Ortega y Gasset, p. 42)

Julian Marias, Ortega's most devoted student, argued that Ortega was not any of the labels that were ascribed to him, including pragmatism, but Graham concluded, as a result of 10 years of research into Ortega's works and archives, that he was all of them, and more. He summarized Ortega's position as follows:

As a "philosophy of life" . . . t comprised a long hidden beginning in a pragmatist metaphysics inspired by William James, and with a general method from a realist phenomenology imitating Edmund Husserl, which served both his proto-existentialism (prior to Martin Heidegger's) and his realist historicism, which I situate between Wilhelm Dilthey and Benedetto Croce." (Ibid., p. vii)

Ortega claimed that his "Vital" or "Historical Reason" went "beyond philosophy," and my own opinion is that it represents at least a "new way of thinking," to use an expression that was used by William James. If rational thinking has a future, I believe it is along the lines that Ortega developed, and I plan to devote my retirement years to promulgating and expanding his thought.

As an environmentalist since the first Earth Day in 1970, I have been increasingly concerned about the future of human life on this planet, and with the threat of climate change looming before us it is easy to feel that that future looks bleak. But I have discovered in Ortega's works the possibility that his thought can lead us to an understanding of what I am calling the "Metaphysics of Sustainability."

Anyone who knows a little bit about Ortega's thought may be familiar with his formula, "I am I and my circumstance." What is often overlooked is that this phrase is only half of the complete sentence that appears in his first book. The rest of the sentence is ". . . and if I don't save it I don't save myself." Thus, being an environmentalist as well as an amateur philosopher, I prefer to substitute the word "environment" for "circumstance," and I render the full thought as:

[CENTER]"My life consists of my self and my environment, and if I don't save it I don't save myself." [/CENTER]

I invite anyone who has been excited by Existentialism to read Ortega's works and discover for themselves the joys of his "new way of thinking" for themselves.

@hue-man,

Ah yes, man and his environment are one. To think of man apart from his environment is take an abstraction for reality.

Thanks for your post.

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;106422 wrote:

Epistemology is made of words, and words aren't precise like numbers. I think a person uses the word "proven" for that which they are thoroughly persuaded of. And they find what they consider "proven" for themselves rejected by others. Unless there is some ultimate reality or thing-in-itself to be right about, all we really have is opinion.

Language is subject to logic. Epistemology deals with the nature of knowledge, and empiricism holds that knowledge is attained through the senses. Skepticism about the external world simply isn't justified. If I want to prove that there is a table all I have to do is show you a table. You don't always need an argument to know something.

Reconstructo;106422 wrote:

I think we philosophical types are often attracted to philosophy as a method for arriving at the truth, and that was my experience. But at some point, in my passion for epistemology, I had to abandon any static view of true as a mirage, as an idol, really.
For a pragmatic point of view there is plenty that is "proven," that we can bank on (cash value).

Truth is one reason why I'm attracted to philosophy, but there's another (subjective values). You sound very Nietzschean. I appreciate Nietzsche, but I'm glad that I haven't adopted his cynical relativism.

Reconstructo;106422 wrote:

If there really were such a thing as proof in the strong sense, why so much disagreement? Are their two humans anywhere that agree on everything? This speaks strongly against some universal reason that would make strong proof possible.

There may or may not be two humans somewhere that agree on everything, but that doesn't matter. Just because a certain methodology isn't universally adopted doesn't mean that every methodology is wrong anymore than the universal adoption of a single methodology would prove that it's right. What adds credence to a methodology is its ability to make verifiable claims.

Reconstructo;106422 wrote:

I see man as a being with provisional opinions, to be replaced when they stop giving him pleasure on a practical, aesthetic, or religious level. Or when another opinion offers more pleasure.
The opinion that proof and certainty are possible is an opinion that gives many people pleasure. In the same way perhaps that the opinion that a personal god exists gives pleasure.
It enhances our sense of power, and connection to this power.

Assuming that this was true, that man's will to truth is driven by his feeling of pleasure and power, it says nothing about the credibility of truth claims.

@hue-man,

Ah, sir, but a table is not just sense impressions of wood. "Table" is a word and its associated concept. Empiricism is itself made of metaphorical concepts. "Nature" is an abstract concept. So is "experience" and "senses." Examine their etymology. Study the nature of the language we argue with.

Empiricism is never without its conceptual edifice. The senses alone could never generate language. So a naive empiricism is just as absurd as a naive skepticism.

I never said that any methodology is wrong. I personally like some more than others. Consider always that my assertions are merely persuasions. I make no claim to anything higher. My sentences will be assimilated or vomited. I agree with Nietzsche that the spirit is a stomach.

The credibility of truth claims is strongly related to pleasure and power. We believe what we want to believe. Glance at your TV. But many philosophers want to put themselves above this, pretend to something higher than opinion. It's not unlike those preachers who have Jesus on the telephone. Truth is the corpse of God.

Nietzsche can be applied to Kant's purposes. Life is ultimately based on faith as much as criticism, and I like to use criticism to point out the unconscious faith of the half-critical in a primitive notion of truth.

Wink

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;107195 wrote:

Ah, sir, but a table is not just sense impressions of wood. "Table" is a word and its associated concept. Empiricism is itself made of metaphorical concepts. "Nature" is an abstract concept. So is "experience" and "senses." Examine their etymology. Study the nature of the language we argue with.

You're confusing the word with the thing in itself. It's more about the objects that the words refer to than the words themselves.

Reconstructo;107195 wrote:

Empiricism is never without its conceptual edifice. The senses alone could never generate language. So a naive empiricism is just as absurd as a naive skepticism.

Knowledge cannot be achieved by intuition alone. Cognition alone can never generate language. The cognitive ability to generate language depends on sense experience. I would not know the English language if I could not hear it or see it first.

Reconstructo;107195 wrote:

I never said that any methodology is wrong. I personally like some more than others.

You like some methods more than others for a reason. I assume that the reason is because the method yields actual, falsifiable evidence.

Reconstructo;107195 wrote:

The credibility of truth claims is strongly related to pleasure and power. We believe what we want to believe. Glance at your TV. But many philosophers want to put themselves above this, pretend to something higher than opinion. It's not unlike those preachers who have Jesus on the telephone. Truth is the corpse of God.

Just because people choose to believe what they want to believe does not make all of those beliefs credible or justified. As to your claim that truth is the corpse of God, to the contrary, truth is what put God in his grave.

So I'm pretending to something higher than opinion? How do you know that I'm pretending to believe in truth? Is your statement true? You do realize that all of your arguments are self-defeating don't you? An infinite skeptic cannot help but step on their feet.

Reconstructo;107195 wrote:

Nietzsche can be applied to Kant's purposes. Life is ultimately based on faith as much as criticism, and I like to use criticism to point out the unconscious faith of the half-critical in a primitive notion of truth.

So I'm a half-critic if I don't succumb to infinite skepticism, deconstructionism, and cynical relativism? I love to study continental philosophy, but I loathe its adoption. Its appeal seems to be rooted in obscure prose and it tends to have the same affect as poetry on human emotions. The obscurity of its letters, however stylish it may be, does not conceal the circularity of its arguments.

@hue-man,

In other words, does naturance preceed nurturance?

@Theaetetus,

Theaetetus;105766 wrote:

I don't think you are being fair to the philosophers that are often called the existentialists. You need to understand that there was a state of mind and a psychology that arose in Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries, and existentialism was a reaction to that state of being. And now the United States is faced with a similar dilemma that caused that psychological conflict in Europe back then. Don't be surprised to see an American version of existentialism inspired by the existential continental philosophers in the next decade.

Maybe I won't be surprised, but I will be astonished. And very disappointed if it took hold in America.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;108274 wrote:

Maybe I won't be surprised, but I will be astonished. And very disappointed if it took hold in America.

I've been here for 50 years!

---------- Post added 12-05-2009 at 08:26 AM ----------

[CENTER]A Study of the Hidden World of Early American Existentialism

By: Dan Le

BOOOH![/CENTER]

@longknowledge,

Existentialism may be in decline but the owl of Minerva spreads its wings only at dusk.

It's bad faith to say so but I can't help but extend that metaphor.

Even though we don't see it or recognize it to be existentialism, that particular owl, the owl of existentialism, will be up all night hunting, caring for its young, and hanging out with the other owls.

@hue-man,

hue-man;107916 wrote:

Knowledge cannot be achieved by intuition alone. Cognition alone can never generate language. The cognitive ability to generate language depends on sense experience. I would not know the English language if I could not hear it or see it first.

You like some methods more than others for a reason. I assume that the reason is because the method yields actual, falsifiable evidence.

Just because people choose to believe what they want to believe does not make all of those beliefs credible or justified. As to your claim that truth is the corpse of God, to the contrary, truth is what put God in his grave.

So I'm pretending to something higher than opinion? How do you know that I'm pretending to believe in truth? Is your statement true? You do realize that all of your arguments are self-defeating don't you? An infinite skeptic cannot help but step on their feet.

So I'm a half-critic if I don't succumb to infinite skepticism, deconstructionism, and cynical relativism? I love to study continental philosophy, but I loathe its adoption. Its appeal seems to be rooted in obscure prose and it tends to have the same affect as poetry on human emotions. The obscurity of its letters, however stylish it may be, does not conceal the circularity of its arguments.

Answering in order.
1. Of course we need sense experience. Who said otherwise? But sense-data alone is meaningless.
2. Falsifiable evidence is good. But it's not the only kind of "truth" I like. Do you think you can find falsifiable evidence for your post?
3. What people believe is that which for them is justified. For you, the "truth" that "God is Dead" functions as admission to an in-group. Atheism is no more justified than theism. Your preference serves a quasi-religious function? Do you get to parade about the town with this faith that faith is ignorant?
4. I'm not an "infinite skeptic." You tell me: are you pretending to something higher than opinion?
5. Much of the continental tradition is obscure. Some of it is not. I like Richard Rorty, who is a sort of bridge between the traditions. I can't agree with you about the "circularity of its arguments." That may apply in some cases but I think you are on a better track with the poetry reference. Argument is one means of persuasions. Metaphorical description is another means. I don't care much for "deconstruction." It's a boogey-man word. My moniker is Re-constructo, not De-constructo. I think there is much worth knowing, worth believing in. But I like to point out how much of our belief is based on taste, faith, etc. I like to take a more holistic view of man. Reason is ultimately subordinate to life. And that's why there is so much disagreement upon the earth. Different lives inspire different truths. We often agree on the position of matter in spacetime, but that's where agreement often ends. For instance, you and I are wrestling with concepts. Where is the proof for either of us? There's a realm of experience in language that often has no direct connection to reality. Abstract words are created by means of metaphor. They are mental objects, with no simple correlative in the real world.:sarcastic:

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