Tenth Class

The final session of existentialism was a somber yet intriguing reflection of everything we had learned and come to understand throughout the semester. The groups prompt was simply "What is existentialism?" which is an incredibly broad prompt to cover so I commend the presenters as what they came up with was well beyond anything I would have been able to. The presentation began with attempting to put some sort of definition on existentialism which proved to be easier said than done. They came down to existentialism, in essence, being about us humans as disoriented individuals becoming increasingly aware that we don't quite fit in in the world or really have any definitive purpose or place to belong. They also stated that existentialism and philosophy by extension should be viewed more as a form of expression rather than a way of always determining the objective truths of reality. I would say that the ultimate goal for myself as a philosopher would be to discover objective truths but I understood what they meant when they said it was a form of expression because essentially what existentialist are doing through philosophy is finding their own justification for existence or even just a reason to continue on - even if that means accepting the absurdity of it all like in Camus' case. One of the questions was something along the lines of do you think that people do things outside themselves such as posting on social media, raising a child, or doing charity simply in order to leave a mark on the world. I think that people are always trying to leave a mark on the world whether it be through their relationships, their work, or their family. When someone is doing any of these things they are confirming their own existence to themselves and that their impact on the world is meaningful. When someone has a child they are essentially extending their own mortality as they can see themselves living on through the mark they made on the world which is their child. This is one of the many ways that existentialist explain procreation. The same thing could be said for our social media posts where we make our mark on the world in a small yet meaningful way. In that way, we are essentially slaves to whatever will prolong our confidence in our short existence. Another concept we talked about was how people simply find themselves in existentialism - it isn't something that is sought out or chosen but rather stumbled upon. The way I took it was that once you begin to question your own purpose and place in the world as an individual you can not ever choose to stop that questioning. You find yourself thinking of why and asking questions that the universe does you no favors in answering which requires you to think more. Once this has happened to someone there really is no going back because they questions being begged to answer are unrelenting and central to the core of who we are as human beings. Any time that a person begins to become self-conscious and brings their being into question they have already, in essence, become an existentialist for the sheer reason that they question. There was a section about how philosophers and existentialist, in particular, are full of hypocrisy and that they often don't actively live by their own philosophy. I think we all know that one person who always tells others how to live without actually following their own advice and no one wants to be around a person like that. However, I don't think that you are necessarily that way if you are an existentialist as many people have diehard beliefs that come from the meditation aspect of existentialism. I also think that it would be incorrect to simply label existentialism as one thing saying that this is how it is and will not ever change as rebellious nature and thinking is right at the center of what makes existentialism what it is. Defining existentialism would not be the goal of existentialism but to find out why we want to know. There are many questions that the presenters brought up in one of their closing slides. They asked about authentic living which to me means finding a purpose or accepting the purposelessness of everything. They asked about our thoughts being our own or part of one larger subconscious which I think is most likely a mix between the two. Another question asked if we are just a creation of our surroundings and as a slight determinist, I have to say that most of what constitutes us is due to our surroundings and the cards we happened to be dealt in life. The last question was as to whether individual thought is a burden or a privilege and to be honest, I would say it is a burden because it essentially assigns you the task of questioning existence which is a question that is extremely difficult to answer. Overall, it seems that the conclusion of the presentation was that existentialism is a fairly gloomy philosophy as it often involves loss of purpose and place in existence, Although, it does offer some interesting avenues such as being able to take control of what worth means to one's self. The majority of the time all philosophy and existentialism are doing is giving us a way to cope with the reality that there really may not be any meaning to existence or further purpose. What I love about philosophy and this whole existentialism class is the inherently social nature of these things as they require bouncing ideas off of other people and having your own viewpoints challenged so that you may explore them completely and test them. When the class came to a close there were lots of sweet goodbyes from everyone and I was so happy that I got to experience such an interesting student-lead program. I really needed to explore my existential thought in these past few months and this class always delivered.