Sartrean Reconciliation of Marxism

[RevolverNo9]

This is simply a request for information; in which text does Sartre attempt to reconcile the two philisophical heritages of Marxism and atheistic Existentialism?

I have a vague memory of a 'Theses of Hegel'... but for all I know I may be making that up entirely.

Cheers.

[Monty Cantsin]

"Critique of Dialectical Reason" by Jean-Paul Sartre

http://marxists.anu.edu.au/reference/archi...artre/index.htm (http://marxists.anu.edu.au/reference/archive/sartre/index.htm)

[gilhyle]

Don't look up Critique of Dialectical Reason - it is a complex intellectual failure. Look up Search for a Method - shorter, clearer, a pleasure to read. Wrong but, what the hell.

[TC]

Don't read the whole thing just read the first part, Marxism and Existentialism (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/critic/sartre1.htm)

And Existentialism is a Humanism (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exist/sartre.htm) is short enough to read in a sitting...


...oh and i just love how people just dismiss significant works of literature by one of the most significant authors of the 20th century as a 'failure' with no explaination, as if that statement could stand on the strength of their own immature and virtually anonymous opinion.


Between Existentialism and Marxism (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0394715845/103-4382912-0159031?v=glance&n=283155&v=glance)

[Bannockburn]

To answer your question, it would be Critique of Dialectical Reason which the above poster said. Also like he said, but I disagree with him per se, is that it was an intellectual failure. In fact, he was high on speed when he wrote it. True story.

I also would recommend not to read it. I highly doubt you'll be able to understand it. I talk to Sartrean scholars who have difficulty. Personally, on a side of a joke I think Sartre was competing with Hegel for hardest book to understand and interpret. Yet, with Hegel, his makes sense. With that being said, there is a book called, “The Marxist of John Paul Sartre” by Wilfrid Desan. That will explain it to you.

If you really want to know- that is the book to read.

Also, don't bother with Existentialism And Humanism. Its way to independent insofar as Existentialism can relate to Marxism. Actually, I wrote a paper on Sartre's failure on this work. You have to remember Existentialism and humanism was wrote in 46. Right after the war. Sartre claimed to be apolitical until after the war – so we can assume that in 46 he didn't have a good understanding of Marxism, and still in his “existential period” – instead say in 1960 when the Critique was written.

[Hegemonicretribution]

Originally posted by [email protected] 10 2005, 12:41 PM
Also, don't bother with Existentialism And Humanism. Its way to independent insofar as Existentialism can relate to Marxism. Actually, I wrote a paper on Sartre's failure on this work. You have to remember Existentialism and humanism was wrote in 46. Right after the war. Sartre claimed to be apolitical until after the war – so we can assume that in 46 he didn't have a good understanding of Marxism, and still in his “existential period” – instead say in 1960 when the Critique was written.
I thought it was a re-work of his speach to French intellectuals? Not actually originally designed as a book, but more a continuation and simplification of some of his work in Being and Nothingness.

[gilhyle]

There is something of a difference between being to the point and being immature. But thanks for the complement, anyway - tell you what, you start a thread on the Critique of Dialectical Reason and I'll follow, such fun we'll have.

Hard to argue with reading Existentialism is a Humanism (its so short), but Search for a Method, I still say, is it.

[Hegemonicretribution]

Where the hell does reconsilliation take place in Existentialism and Humanism? It is no where near long enough to reconcile them, and considering it introduces some of the basics of atheistic existentialism, there is definately no room. This piece is in my oppinion weak, incoherant, and contradictory. As my introduction to Satr I was turned of by it, a little further reading explained some of the shortfalls but this does not tie it to Marxism at all.

[The Feral Underclass]

Sartre's intellectual masturbation makes existentialism a ridiculous abstract when actually existentialism relates directly to our existence as a feeling, as a fact. Creating a "mathamatical" "equation" of existentialism is boring and irrelevant - it's pointless.

Camus was by far superior in relating existentialism to human existence than Sartre. Camus understood that everyone knows the absurd of existence whether we write 1000 page books about it. It's around us, it's in our actions and our definitions.

If you really need to read a theoretical or intellectual piece on existentialism, read 'Myth of Sisyphus' or 'The Rebel'. They're accessable and they're human. Sartre never demonstrated that. If he did, he did it badly.

But I would never recommend those books as a starting point to understand existentialism, or as Camus rightly referred to it, the absurd. Even for advanced readers, understanding the meaningless of existence will touch you more through works of literature. The most profound contemporary existential work is 'The Outsider' by far, quickly followed by 'Happy Death'.

Fuck Sartre the bore! He feared his own philosophy. Meaningless = hopelessness, alas he became the victim of his own mind.

[Monty Cantsin]

Originally posted by The Anarchist [email protected] 11 2005, 10:33 PM
Sartre's intellectual masturbation makes existentialism a ridiculous abstract when actually existentialism relates directly to our existence as a feeling, as a fact. Creating a "mathamatical" "equation" of existentialism is boring and irrelevant - it's pointless.

Sartre’s intellectual pursuits are very much an ‘authentic’ existentialist pursuits, the will to knowledge, engaging in hermeneutics and communication through the written word all affirm a value within such activities. Thus it is not a bastardisation of existentialism but a living manifestation of one individual’s existential affirmation through their self-activity.


Camus was by far superior in relating existentialism to human existence than Sartre. Camus understood that everyone knows the absurd of existence whether we write 1000 page books about it. It's around us, it's in our actions and our definitions.

Sartre's writing is the Existentialist affermation of value within the 'absurd'. Camus did the same and i think they both realised that it's not nessary to write 1000 pages to understand the nature of the absurd or the human condition. i dont think sartre advocated writing as the only affermation of value. so your reasoning why Camus is better then sartre falls very short of the mark in achieving cogency, at least with regards to this point.


If you really need to read a theoretical or intellectual piece on existentialism, read 'Myth of Sisyphus' or 'The Rebel'. They're accessable and they're human.

What utterly flawed? Read Sisyphus but not necessarily the rebel which I think is an intellectual failure. It’s riddled with self-contradiction and a lack of understanding in some of the subject matter.


Fuck Sartre the bore! He feared his own philosophy. Meaningless = hopelessness, alas he became the victim of his own mind.

How did he fear his philosophy? He lived he affirmed.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The way I see it the great failure of French existentialists is that their ontological inquiries were carried out under bad faith, under the illusion of a particular semi-moralistic theory of authenticity and bad faith. Their conceptualisation of causality in relation the individual could not touch upon the notion of conditioning or the zone of proximal development because any such thing would negate individual responsibility as part of our nature of being. Though situational conditioning is part of our ontological condition and individual responsibility is a social construct which without any judicial system could not function properly. Individual responsibility is an important concept but Sartre and his buddies put it the wrong way. On the other hand one of the only things I’ll (sort of) agree with Camus about in his rebel is that man is collectively free but a man in a totalitarian state is not free. (we cannot escape our situation we can only manipulate and transform it.)

On the other I can’t agree with Camus labelling of the human condition as absurd when I see so much value being affirmed, maybe we might not see it as an objective fact but value is never the less here and there..

[The Feral Underclass]

Originally posted by Monty [email protected] 12 2005, 10:08 AM
On the other I can’t agree with Camus labelling of the human condition as absurd when I see so much value being affirmed, maybe we might not see it as an objective fact but value is never the less here and there..
How does self definition make existence any less absurd?

[Monty Cantsin]

because absurd means "inconsistent with reason or logic or common sense" but their is reason in life, it's to affirm value at least through the existentialist coloured glasses. If life is absurd then their would be no reason within it but there are our individual reasons and values affirmed within life therefore to classify life as absurd is absurd because your affirming meaning within a supposed meaningless condition when rather the right action would be to kill yourself(that is if you think life absurd).

edit: I should also add that Sartre’s position that there is only subjective value is equally absurd.

If all value is affirmed by individuals as part of the ‘universality of condition’ then this universality of condition becomes an objective phenomenon and to state that it has only happened up to now and has no guarantee on further occurrence is mere scepticism and hinders practical appreciation and analysis because individuals will continue to affirm value as long as they are in existence.

Thus value is an objective element of life and manifests itself in the particular individual who is a particular universality as the universality is a general particularity.

[The Feral Underclass]

Originally posted by Monty [email protected] 12 2005, 11:08 AM
because absurd means "inconsistent with reason or logic or common sense"
Our existence is illogical; it makes no sense and is incredibly unreasonable. We live without definitive purpose, we have no understanding on how we exist in the great expanse of the universe and we are thrust into it without ever having a choice. We are forced to conceive without ever understanding. How is that not absurd?


but their is reason in life, it's to affirm value at least through the existentialist coloured glasses.

How is that any different to the statement "the reason for life is to love god."?

There is no reason. There is no purpose to existence. Attaching meaning to our existence does not suddenly mean that we have purpose. It means we have eluded ourselves. Since we can never be “all that we could be” or realise ourselves in the world, we elude. Eluding is seeking diversion so that we will not have to face the fact of death.

I'm not against people finding value, but I recognise it as meaningless. I can choose to be an alcoholic or a murderer, but you will be hard pressed to tell me why those things are any less valuable that not being an alcoholic or not being a murderer.

And if you say morals..I'll ban you :P


. If life is absurd then their would be no reason within it but there are our individual reasons and values affirmed within life

But how does that make life any less absurd? Are you telling me that because you have found a "reason" to live, you are any less estranged to your existence – separated from the word? Consider the person who identifies worth or self-meaning. A role, a profession or a way of life. If the identification of self is broken, i.e. divorce, death, physical injury, being fired or loss of interest, the meaning for self is lost. You suddenly become estranged to your existence. You are more than what you do...

I have resolved myself with death. Have you?


because your affirming meaning within a supposed meaningless condition when rather the right action would be to kill yourself(that is if you think life absurd).

Or you could live in revolt.

[The Feral Underclass]

Originally posted by Monty [email protected] 12 2005, 11:08 AM
If all value is affirmed by individuals as part of the ‘universality of condition’ then this universality of condition becomes an objective phenomenon and to state that it has only happened up to now and has no guarantee on further occurrence is mere scepticism and hinders practical appreciation and analysis because individuals will continue to affirm value as long as they are in existence.

Thus value is an objective element of life and manifests itself in the particular individual who is a particular universality as the universality is a general particularity.
It just makes you sound like a priest.

[Monty Cantsin]

Our existence is illogical; it makes no sense and is incredibly unreasonable. We live without definitive purpose, we have no understanding on how we exist in the great expanse of the universe and we are thrust into it without ever having a choice. We are forced to conceive without ever understanding. How is that not absurd?

I’m in total disagreement; you seem to be annoyed with your parents for giving birth to you without your consent. The point of life is to affirm value, to learn, to grow to create if the universe was totally understood in black and white removing all the ambiguity in existence then existence wouldn’t be any fun. So there is defined purpose it’s a purpose to find value a universality which manifest itself in each particular individual in their particular way – and that’s the beauty of it not the harshness of it.


How is that any different to the statement "the reason for life is to love god."?

Because it doesn’t rely on any supreme -being it’s something totality human and thus a humanistic belief system.


There is no reason. There is no purpose to existence. Attaching meaning to our existence does not suddenly mean that we have purpose. It means we have eluded ourselves. Since we can never be “all that we could be” or realise ourselves in the world, we elude. Eluding is seeking diversion so that we will not have to face the fact of death.

Well as I’ve stipulated there is meaning to life, life is inherently meaningful because we affirm it by continuing its existence. We’re eluding ourselves if we view life as meaningless because we don’t live it to its fullest. ‘All that we can be’ is all that we can do to cease the day to the best of our ability and affirm our value the value of life.


I'm not against people finding value, but I recognise it as meaningless. I can choose to be an alcoholic or a murderer, but you will be hard pressed to tell me why those things are any less valuable that not being an alcoholic or not being a murderer.

So you cannot decide which is better the pimple or the clear skin? At least when you decide it will be for a reason and possibility there will also be a societal element to it, being if you affirm the mantel of attractiveness or you reject it. If you want to be an alcoholic that’s fine by me as long as you don’t hurt anyone else I care about but when that line is crossed then ethics and morals do come into it, people will have to make a judgment as to if they can accept your behaviour as it inhibits others ability to live life.

At risk of becoming tautological value is affirmed in the mere act of living. By becoming a murderer you affirm value is such actions and other individuals will affirm a value in stoping you.


And if you say morals..I'll ban you

i made it apart of the conversation ;) .


But how does that make life any less absurd? Are you telling me that because you have found a "reason" to live, you are any less estranged to your existence – separated from the word? Consider the person who identifies worth or self-meaning. A role, a profession or a way of life. If the identification of self is broken, i.e. divorce, death, physical injury, being fired or loss of interest, the meaning for self is lost. You suddenly become estranged to your existence. You are more than what you do...

How am I estranged from my existence? I might have not chosen my birth but existence is existence and I have always been apart of mine. Again the reason of life is to affirm our value in it through particular paths of action just because that parth changes or we run up against hard times doesn’t mean that life is less meaningful.


I have resolved myself with death. Have you?

On an intellectual level I know that death consummates life and I’ve said it many times, have I been confronted with it – have I faced it? Well it’s always there the only certainty in life is birth some affirmations and death, But I choice not to dwell on death because that would mean not living to the fullest in my opinion.


Or you could live in revolt.

That would be an affirmation and thus a meaning, which contradicts the notion of the absurd because if existance is absurd it is meaningless.

[Monty Cantsin]

Originally posted by The Anarchist Tension+Oct 12 2005, 10:46 AM--> (The Anarchist Tension @ Oct 12 2005, 10:46 AM)
Monty [email protected] 12 2005, 11:08 AM
If all value is affirmed by individuals as part of the ‘universality of condition’ then this universality of condition becomes an objective phenomenon and to state that it has only happened up to now and has no guarantee on further occurrence is mere scepticism and hinders practical appreciation and analysis because individuals will continue to affirm value as long as they are in existence.

Thus value is an objective element of life and manifests itself in the particular individual who is a particular universality as the universality is a general particularity.
It just makes you sound like a priest. [/b]
That just makes me think you’re position is even more indefensible because your further show of an inability to defend it.

[The Feral Underclass]

Originally posted by Monty [email protected] 12 2005, 12:57 PM
The point of life is to affirm value, to learn, to grow to create
Why? How is it?


f the universe was totally understood in black and white removing all the ambiguity in existence then existence wouldn’t be any fun.

True, but I don't see what relevance that has. Just because existence may be fun, it doesn't give it value or meaning.


So there is defined prepose it’s a prepose to find value a universality which manifest itself in each particular individual in their particular way – and that’s the beauty of it not the harshness of it.

I'm assuming you mean purpose, not "prepose."

It is a definition, but it is not the definition of purpose. I understand the position. That the only purpose is to make a purpose, but that does not mean there is a purpose. In fact, that suggests that because there isn't purpose, one must make one. So you accept that there isn't purpose to existence in the first instance, and that only by making purpose, by defining it as humans do we create purpose.



How is that any different to the statement "the reason for life is to love god."?

Because it doesn’t rely on any supreme -being it’s something totality human and thus a humanistic belief system.

The point is that they are the same. Your definition and a priests definition. They are the same in value. They are equally created by humans.


Well as I’ve stimulated there is meaning to life

You have suggested that there is the possibility of meaning. Not that there is a meaning to life.


life is inherently meaningful because we affirm it but [sic] continuing its existence.

You cannot prove that life is inherently meaningful, because it isn't. Only that we can create meaning.

If we could only conceptualise the fact we exist and that we died, without ever having experienced (the key word) anything, would existence still be meaningful. Or are you saying that experience determines meaning?


We’re eluding ourselves if we view life as meaningless because we don’t live it to its fullest

Life is meaningless, regardless of whether you find meaning. Experience does not determine reality, reality determines experience.

"You cannot create experience. You must undergo it." - Albert Camus


‘All that we can be’ is all that we can do to cease the day to the best of our ability and affirm our value the value of life.

All I need is to believe in god and my life will have value.

Saying a tree is a flower does not make it so.


So you cannot decide which is better the pimple or the clear skin? At least when you decide it will be for a reason and possibility their will also be a societal element to it,

This just seems gargled to me. I don't understand what you're trying to say.


If you want to be an alcoholic that’s fine by me as long as you don’t hurt anyone else I care about but when that line is crossed then ethics and morals do come into it, people will have to make a judgment as to if they can accept your behaviour as it inhibits others ability to live life.

If I was to kill someone, like Maursalt did, would that have really been any more or less meaningful than if I hadn't.


At risk of becoming tautological value is affirmed in the mere act of living.

But that doesn't make it valuable.


How am I estranged from my existence? I might have not chosen my birth but existence is existence and I have always been apart of mine

The world is alien to you. It is unfathomable. You're estranged from your existence because you don't know what it is. Your estranged from it because it isn't yours, you have no control over it. Nature dictates. In 50 years time you'll most likely be dead. No more. You will have no more existence and you will never, ever have it back. You will become irrelevant. You will rot into the ground, your grave will grow over, and the world will change. It will move on, it will continue without you and over time, no one will care. The world doesn't want you...That is estrangement.


But I choice not to dwell on death because that would mean not living to the fullest in my opinion.

On the contrary, one must reconcile with death in order to live life to the fullest. Without recognising your demise, you will always elude to life.



Or you could live in revolt.

That would be an affirmation and thus a meaning,

Yes, it would be a meaning. Revolting against death brings you humanity and with it liberty. But I do not fool myself into believing that this makes me any more meaningful in the vast, unfathomable, hostile universe who sees the only thing that I have, the only thing that I will ever have, the only thing that makes me human, irrelevant. I did not choose to exist, nor do I have a choice in death. We are nothing in this game...

"Beauty is unbearable, drives us to despair, offering us for a minute the glimpse of an eternity that we should like to stretch out over the whole of time." - Albert Camus

Isn't beauty a metaphor for life? Such cruelty we endure; every single day...

[Hegemonicretribution]

Originally posted by The Anarchist [email protected] 12 2005, 01:23 PM
Yes, it would be a meaning. Revolting against death brings you humanity and with it liberty. But I do not fool myself into believing that this makes me any more meaningful in the vast, unfathomable, hostile universe who sees the only thing that I have, the only thing that I will ever have, the only thing that makes me human, irrelevant. I did not choose to exist, nor do I have a choice in death. We are nothing in this game...

I agree with almost all of what you said, but the choice about death. Death is a choice from the moment we have life. Whilst it can be exercised outside of our percieved control, it remains an option.

Likewise when death does come about it will largely be as a result of how we have responded to our condition. This is one problem I have with existentialism and freedom, true consciousness cannot truly be realised, at least as far as I can see.

[The Feral Underclass]

Originally posted by Hegemonicretribution+Oct 12 2005, 05:51 PM--> (Hegemonicretribution @ Oct 12 2005, 05:51 PM)
The Anarchist [email protected] 12 2005, 01:23 PM
Yes, it would be a meaning. Revolting against death brings you humanity and with it liberty. But I do not fool myself into believing that this makes me any more meaningful in the vast, unfathomable, hostile universe who sees the only thing that I have, the only thing that I will ever have, the only thing that makes me human, irrelevant. I did not choose to exist, nor do I have a choice in death. We are nothing in this game...

I agree with almost all of what you said, but the choice about death. Death is a choice from the moment we have life. Whilst it can be exercised outside of our percieved control, it remains an option.

Likewise when death does come about it will largely be as a result of how we have responded to our condition. This is one problem I have with existentialism and freedom, true consciousness cannot truly be realised, at least as far as I can see. [/b]
True. But we cannot choose to not die, which is my point.

[gilhyle]

Seems to me Sartre answered this, by the way in which with great integrity he lived the inauthenticity of his condition. I have a lot of respect for his life and particularly the honest (if deeply flawed manner) in which he created personal value for himself out of the engagement with politics that he imposed on himself as an arbitrary choice.

[Hegemonicretribution]

Originally posted by The Anarchist [email protected] 12 2005, 05:12 PM
True. But we cannot choose to not die, which is my point.
Yes, but our choices influence our death, just as they influence our creation of other life. I suppose that finality could be placed as part of the human condition.

[Hegemonicretribution]

Originally posted by [email protected] 12 2005, 05:56 PM
Seems to me Sartre answered this, by the way in which with great integrity he lived the inauthenticity of his condition. I have a lot of respect for his life and particularly the honest (if deeply flawed manner) in which he created personal value for himself out of the engagement with politics that he imposed on himself as an arbitrary choice.
What are your views on his role in the resistance movement during the war? I have serious doubts about his authenticity, although it is hard to get a truly reliable source about this. Any links would be appreciated.

[gilhyle]

The only thing I have read about Sartre's 'role' in relation to the resistance movement is de Beauvoir's autobiography for the war years. To me she is very clear firstly on the real danger they faced in Paris and secondly about the primarily intellectual character of the role they took on . She does not seem to pretend to a role they did not have, but rather portrays the ambiguity of the position of the intellectual with what I take to be great integrity.

[Monty Cantsin]

Why? How is it?

Because in our ‘universality of condition’ i.e in the human condition affirming value, learning and creating through transforming ourselves and our surroundings is as Chomsky would say is a ‘Trueism’.


True, but I don't see what relevance that has. Just because existence may be fun, it doesn't give it value or meaning.

You have a grand ability of taking things out of context. You stated that because we don’t totally understand existence, existence is therefore cruel and unreasonable. Furthermore that because we didn’t have a choice in our existence or at least its inception, existence is cure and unreasonable. Putting theses two points together we have the problem of being thrust into an existence were we don’t fully understand it’s connotations but are forced to choice our actions within it’s context. To which I replied that the value in life was the journey, the searching, and the affirmation of subjective value in the form of our particular path. Furthermore stating “if the universe was totally understood in black and white removing all the ambiguity in existence then existence wouldn’t be any fun”. By which I meant there is value in this ambiguity it’s not harsh its beauty it gives us something to ponder over, to search and learn from.



It is a definition, but it is not the definition of purpose. I understand the position. That the only purpose is to make a purpose, but that does not mean there is a purpose. In fact, that suggests that because there isn't purpose, one must make one. So you accept that there isn't purpose to existence in the first instance, and that only by making purpose, by defining it as humans do we create purpose.

Sartre conceived at least within his early period that the human condition could be summed up in his maxim “existence processed essence” that we choose our path in life which is an affirmation of a subjective value. Along with his anti-determinist/free will view he considered that this was a “universality of condition” that we chose our own essence through our own actions and create what man is and what he values along with what values we uphold as individuals and collectively as humanity. But if we as human-beings are bound by this maxim is it not an objective attribute of human-beings rather then just a subjective affirmation? does not it mean that humanity through it’s choices and actions creates it’s own affirmations and values as a general universality of each particular individual affirming those values which they choice to uphold? This would seem that the subjective/objective dichotomy so dear to philosophy is sometimes at least a false one. As you’re already stated this doesn’t make sense to you even though you admit that human-beings find their own value and meaning creating it if you want to say in a subjective affirmation. But you can’t work out that if all human-beings in their act of living in ‘rebelling’ if you will are affirming a value (meaning) in life that it becomes not a particular things of a few individuals but part of what it is to be human, part of our essence.


The point is that they are the same. Your definition and a priests definition. They are the same in value. They are equally created by humans.

The priest is affirming a value which is human but is doing so under bad faith by finding that value outside of faith in humanity and the self. The individual who has to invent an authority figure which threatens to punish them if their bad, the individual who cannot live morally because he simply believes it to be just or to meet human-needs is a weak individual without self-esteem, self-belief and without a strong volition. There are other positives and negatives in religion though. But values created by humans are fine along as it’s done authentically created. values formed through self-deception though are still values.


If we could only conceptualise the fact we exist and that we died, without ever having experienced (the key word) anything, would existence still be meaningful. Or are you saying that experience determines meaning?

Experience is an intrigue part of human-existence – the limits of doubt is the doubter must exist in order to doubt. If we said that you were born and died without experience then you would not have lived in any real since because you were never conscious of yourself or your surroundings. But the meaning of life would have been affirmed in your parents attempt to bring you into this world it would not have been their affirmation not your own. The question does experience determines meaning? Well this falls into knowledge based on a priori or a posteriori and the analytic-synthetic distinction debate. In philosophy we create concepts to explain phenomenon and so we fall into the argument is a human-being so because of its empirical existence or some kind of priori some defining essence before the empirical. We could argue that meaning determines experience because the meaning of being human determines the particular form of experience the said entity will have opposed to the existence of a block of wood without experience. Or we could see meaning of being human contingent on a particular experience and we should probably conceptualise the limits and bounds of when such a statement as “that is a human-being” is true or not. But really these two different points are different sides of the same coin.


Experience does not determine reality, reality determines experience.

sounds like a False dichotomy


"You cannot create experience. You must undergo it." - Albert Camus


“Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like an nightmare on the brains of the living.”-Karl Marx- ‘The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon’

Experience and reality both happen to and are created by you and by me, subjectivity and objectivity.


All I need is to believe in god and my life will have value.

sure that's a form of value and affirmation but i think it's one of bad faith.



Saying a tree is a flower does not make it so.

not objectivly but if you really Believe that a tree is a flower then subjectively in your own perception of the world it is.


This just seems gargled to me. I don't understand what you're trying to say.

According to Plato the difference between a right opinion and knowledge is that the knowledge is tethered down to the reason behind the right opinion and the opinion is right only momentarily because it is not in touch with the reason for it being right. In that example I was putting forth two different values one can have regarding notions of attractiveness and saying one will be chosen over another because of a reason. Which mirrors the argument that life has reason but that you just have to find it and furthermore that your particular reason will be affirmed after deduction of competing notions and elements.


If I was to kill someone, like Maursalt did, would that have really been any more or less meaningful than if I hadn't. .

See your starting to come around Maursalt's action did have meaning and it was just a question of distribution and particularity.


The world is alien to you. It is unfathomable. You're estranged from your existence because you don't know what it is.

I’m willing to work with the assumption that existence is existence, what else may it be?


Your estranged from it because it isn't yours, you have no control over it. Nature dictates. In 50 years time you'll most likely be dead. No more. You will have no more existence and you will never, ever have it back. You will become irrelevant. You will rot into the ground, your grave will grow over, and the world will change. It will move on, it will continue without you and over time, no one will care. The world doesn't want you...That is estrangement.

Death Decision might not been mine but the fact that we die makes life more valuable. Kierkegaard during his ‘at the graveside’ uses the Market forces influence on the price of a commodity as an analogy of what death does to life. Death gives life value because life is scarce and finite thus life is given urgency because of death. He also thinks that in this urgency we should find our own wisdom other then death because living in fear of death is paramount to not living, thus we should affirm some other value. he also says that the living cannot speak in unity he subjectifies value in the individual’s affirmation of it.


On the contrary, one must reconcile with death in order to live life to the fullest.

I said that, you’re just quoting selectively


Yes, it would be a meaning. Revolting against death brings you humanity and with it liberty.

As you’ve stipulated you’re revolted against the absurd by putting forth reasons to live which is contrary to the notion that life is inconstant with reason or that life is absurd because you’ve found reason in life.


I did not choose to exist, nor do I have a choice in death.

It annoys you that death will choice the hour for you doesn’t it? is something to do with an outside authority coercing you’re actions? The thing is though that death doesn’t have to win you can choose your own demise you can choose to head death off from making the choice for you. But you don’t do that because you have reason to live because life isn’t absurd.

[gilhyle]

Small Point:

" if you really Believe that a tree is a flower then subjectively in your own perception of the world it is."

This sentence resolves into two options

if you really Believe that a tree is a flower then subjectively in your own perception of the world you believe a tree is a flower.

OR

if you really Believe that a tree is a flower then subjectively in your own perception of the world you are wrong.

Take your pick. Both can be true. They can be true together. YOu can even combine them into one sentence. But mixing them is ineffectual.

[Monty Cantsin]

TAT, have you been busy lately or have you given up Absurdism officially? :P

[The Feral Underclass]

Originally posted by Monty [email protected] 27 2005, 07:33 AM
TAT, have you been busy lately or have you given up Absurdism officially? :P
The former.

I really have no time to reply to indepth posts at the moment.

[Trissy]

Where the hell does reconsilliation take place in Existentialism and Humanism? It is no where near long enough to reconcile them, and considering it introduces some of the basics of atheistic existentialism, there is definately no room. This piece is in my oppinion weak, incoherant, and contradictory. As my introduction to Satre I was turned of by it, a little further reading explained some of the shortfalls but this does not tie it to Marxism at all.
But herein lies the problem...how do we approach the issue at hand? As a potential philosopher addressing both Sartre and Marx with no prior knowledge? As a Sartrean trying to understand Marxism? As a Marxist trying to understand Sartre? Any of these paths seems to leads us to problems but it is hard to identify the sole cause of them. Most Marxists just dismiss Sartre. As someone who neither accepts Sartre or Marx fully I can admit that I believe Sartre to be mistaken if he believes that reconciliation is possible but does this mean that I believe Marx's work is superior? Of course not. They were both men and as fallible as the rest of us. I believe if anything that some of what Marx says must be seen within the framework of Sartrean Libertarianism. What does Dialectical Materialism with its determinism lead to if not complacency? I have mentioned my problems with Dialectical Materialism here before and so now is not the time to go into it, but I think we do a great disservice to both writers if we rush to dismiss one over the other.


Sartre's intellectual masturbation makes existentialism a ridiculous abstract when actually existentialism relates directly to our existence as a feeling, as a fact.
:lol: as a feeling, as a fact? Not meaning to go off subject but frankly Wittgenstein would turn in his grave if he heard such a statement. The line between objectivity and subjectivity is a messy one if such a line exists and can be drawn at all.

To criticise Sartre as abstract because he comes at it from a philosophical/psychological standpoint hardly refutes him or his approach. When has difficulty been an admirable argument against something? I don't understand advanced mathmatics but I don't dismiss the idea that it could prove useful to humanity when used by engineers, scientists and inventors. Just because a lot of Sartre's work is difficult to grasp doesn't mean that it is all of no use to the common man. I find his desciptions of bad faith in Being and Nothingness particularly useful despite the fact that the work as a whole is very difficult to interpret and understand.


Camus was by far superior in relating existentialism to human existence than Sartre. Camus understood that everyone knows the absurd of existence whether we write 1000 page books about it. It's around us, it's in our actions and our definitions
That's a very utopian reading of the situation if I may say so. If anything Camus recognised that people can go their whole life without recognising the absurdity of their situation. People sit on the trains and tube each morning in complete ignorance of absurdism. His argument (like Sartre's) was that once we recognise the Absurd/feel nausea we find it very difficult to escape from its grasp. That is not the same as to say we all recognise it in everyday living or that it is inescapable. In the difficult terminology of Sartre it can be understood in terms of thetic and non-thetic awareness.


If you really need to read a theoretical or intellectual piece on existentialism, read 'Myth of Sisyphus' or 'The Rebel'. They're accessable and they're human. Sartre never demonstrated that. If he did, he did it badly.

That's a matter of interpretation. I think they both do a good job at relating things to human existence. When Sartre descibes the feeling of nausea in the novel 'Nausea' I think he does a brilliant job of describing the situations when we are confronted with a world of superfluous matter that thrusts itself upon us. Likewise his examples of bad faith in the waiter, the woman on a date and the homosexual in Being and Nothingness are particularly vivid and relevant to the experiences of my life. Plus his description of reflecting on trying to catch a tram and the lack of a transcendental ego in 'The Transcendence of the Ego' is particularly sharp and intuitively persuasive. To say that Sartre lacks the ability to relate things to human life is a gross oversimplification.


Our existence is illogical; it makes no sense and is incredibly unreasonable. We live without definitive purpose, we have no understanding on how we exist in the great expanse of the universe and we are thrust into it without ever having a choice. We are forced to conceive without ever understanding. How is that not absurd?

Our existence may lack sense or reason in an objective sense but that is far from it being absurd in the strongest sense as Camus is tempted to express it (i.e. a contradiction). A way that this is often understood is through the example of the blind eye. The purpose of the eyeball is to see and if it is blind it fails to fulfil this purpose...but that is not illogical. It is not the same as saying the eye does and does not see or that a batchelor is a married man. Instead our existence strikes us as absurd in a weaker sense...in the sense of it being meaningless and unreasonable. If no God appears to us in our everyday lives to establish a purpose to our lives then it seems fair to say that there is no contradiction...it is not like someone picking up a butter knife and saying that it is and is not designed to butter bread. For things to be absurd in the stronger sense we need a God or divine designer as much as if we are to say that there is a determining human nature...the only difference is that the former has a God who has made an error and the latter has one who has managed to avoid such a mistake.

In the light of this nausea/the absurd must be read in a different (and somewhat weaker) sense, namely as being without absolute meaning and as potentially offensive to our reasoning.


There is no reason. There is no purpose to existence. Attaching meaning to our existence does not suddenly mean that we have purpose. It means we have eluded ourselves. Since we can never be “all that we could be” or realise ourselves in the world, we elude. Eluding is seeking diversion so that we will not have to face the fact of death.

I'm not against people finding value, but I recognise it as meaningless. I can choose to be an alcoholic or a murderer, but you will be hard pressed to tell me why those things are any less valuable that not being an alcoholic or not being a murderer.
Which is exactly where I have a problem with Camus in the 'Myth of Sisyphus'.
He asks the question 'Why do I go on living?' and says if he is a true philosopher he will kill himself if he cannot find a reason. He then finds that their is no objective reason to live but states that in acknowledging the absurd we can live a life of revolt against it which will provide a subjective reason to live. But this is clearly not a decent answer!!! He doesn't define what he means by 'reason' when he asks his question and so escapes doing away with himself by arguing that although their is no reason(1), there is reason(2). He has just fudged his answer! If he meant objective in the question then fighting againt the absurd is as absurd and giving into it...EVERYTHING IS ABSURD...hence he should kill himself. If he means subjective then it seems that the answer is simple enough. Of course we can find subjective reasons. In that case the question is just plain silly and hence of very little value.

The fact that Camus did not hang himself is of great irritation to me <_< Sartre may be more dense in areas of his writing but I somehow feel that at least he would have grasped such an inconsistancey.


Because in our ‘universality of condition’ i.e in the human condition affirming value, learning and creating through transforming ourselves and our surroundings is as Chomsky would say is a ‘Trueism’.

Trueism indeed&#33; :lol: Wittgenstein would eat Chomsky for breakfast if he had the chance and very probable throw him up with disgust by lunchtime&#33; The only world I have is my world. How this relates to existentialism is my current problem...I am torn in many ways between the Existentialism of Sartre, Wittgenstein, Marx&#39;s critique of society, Nietzsche and a few aspects of the Pragmatists. As you may imagine this is decades from any possible peace treaty in my mind...



"You cannot create experience. You must undergo it." - Albert Camus

“Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like an nightmare on the brains of the living.”-Karl Marx- ‘The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon’

Experience and reality both happen to and are created by you and by me, subjectivity and objectivity.


I think it is important to point out that here arises the reason for the disagreement in the first place over possibility of reconciliation between Marx and Sartre.

"If, however, it is true that existence is prior to essence, man is respobsible for what he is, and places the entire responsibility for his existence squarely upon his own shoulders"

"For if indeed existence proceeds essence, one will never be able to explain one&#39;s actions by reference to a given and specific human nature; in other words, there is no determinism - man is free, man is freedom. [...] We are left alone without excuse. That is what I mean when I say man is condemned to be free. Condemned, because he did not create himself, yet he is nevertheless at liberty, and from the moment that he is thrown into this world he is responsible for everything he does"

"I do not know whither the Russian revolution will lead. I can admire it and take it as an example in so far as it is evident, today, that the proletariat plays a part in Russia which it has attained in no other nation. But I cannot affirm that this will necessarily lead to the triumph of the proletariat: I must confine myself to what I can see. Nor can I be sure that comrades-in-arms will take up my work after my death and carry it to the maximum perfection, seeing that those men who are free agents and will decide, tomorrow, what man is then to be. Tomorrow, after my death, some men may decide to establish Fascism, and others may be so cowardly or so slack as to let them do so. If so, Fascism will then be the truth of men, and so much the worse for us. Does that mean that I should abandon myself to quietism? No"

These quotes from &#39;Existentialism & Humanism&#39; show where the impossibility of reconciliation lies. This is not to say that we cannot adapt either one view, the other or both to find a fit but it shows where the disagreement must lie. We can of course argue that Sartre was just wrong in this lecture but I see that a far too simplistic a standpoint. Sartre&#39;s views change over his career and so we must acknowledge this. The Sartre who wrote &#39;The Transcendence of the Ego&#39; in 1937 is not the same Sartre who wrote Being and Nothingness or who gave that lecture or indeed who wrote &#39;The Critique of Dialectical Reason&#39;. Sartre&#39;s own distinction between facticity and transcendence in Being and Nothingness suggest that he himself would recognise this.

[The Feral Underclass]

Originally posted by Monty [email protected] 15 2005, 04:29 PM

Why? How is it?

Because in our ‘universality of condition’ i.e in the human condition affirming value, learning and creating through transforming ourselves and our surroundings is as Chomsky would say is a ‘Trueism’.
That doesn&#39;t answer my question. All you have done is describe something that I have never contested to be anything other than self-evident. Human beings search for value and believe to affirm value in that search. I have accepted that.

My question to you was: How is that the point of existence? All I understand from what you are saying is that you have discovered a certain way to elude your condition.


To which I replied that the value in life was the journey, the searching, and the affirmation of subjective value in the form of our particular path

Which again is just an excuse peddled by philosophers to justify either their continual intellectual masturbation or to make themselves feel better.

Subjection is all fine and well. I do it, all humans do it whether it&#39;s finding value in your "search" or your "path" (which I find a nauseating way to describe existence) or "god".

Philosophers peddle value and priests peddle god. Neither of them is meaningful in the sense of being real.


In that example I was putting forth two different values one can have regarding notions of attractiveness and saying one will be chosen over another because of a reason. Which mirrors the argument that life has reason but that you just have to find it and furthermore that your particular reason will be affirmed after deduction of competing notions and elements.

This is repetition.


Furthermore stating “if the universe was totally understood in black and white removing all the ambiguity in existence then existence wouldn’t be any fun”. By which I meant there is value in this ambiguity it’s not harsh its beauty it gives us something to ponder over, to search and learn from.

Which is both futile and pointless.



The point is that they are the same. Your definition and a priest’s definition. They are the same in value. They are equally created by humans.

The priest is affirming a value which is human but is doing so under bad faith by finding that value outside of faith in humanity and the self. The individual who has to invent an authority figure which threatens to punish them if their bad, the individual who cannot live morally because he simply believes it to be just or to meet human-needs is a weak individual without self-esteem, self-belief and without a strong volition. There are other positives and negatives in religion though. But values created by humans are fine along as it’s done authentically created. values formed through self-deception though are still values.

Whether a priest affirms value in "bad faith" is of no relevance to my point. Neither of these affirmations of value is real or meaningful. They both elude to death.

When someone is on their death bed the same question will always come back to them: "I have know idea what this is all about - I&#39;m not going to exist" and their "search" as you call it is of absolutely no consequence anymore.

When your life is about to cease to exist, whether or not you became a brain surgeon and saved thousands of lives through the discovery of some miracle cure for brain tumours, it will mean absolutely nothing, in fact it&#39;s more likely that one turns to a priest on their death bed than to your memories.

As Camus pointed out "I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn&#39;t, than live my life as if there isn&#39;t and die to find out there is."

Hopefully you see his point.



Yes, it would be a meaning. Revolting against death brings you humanity and with it liberty.

As you’ve stipulated you’re revolted against the absurd by putting forth reasons to live which is contrary to the notion that life is inconstant with reason or that life is absurd because you’ve found reason in life.

Revolting against death is not reason to live, it&#39;s in spite of death. It&#39;s the choice between dying or the choice of rebelling against death.

As I said it is a meaning but that does not mean that I or Camus has discovered meaning to existence.

I have accepted my demise and live in revolt of it.


The thing is though that death doesn’t have to win you can choose your own demise you can choose to head death off from making the choice for you. But you don’t do that because you have reason to live because life isn’t absurd.

My choice to not die is not an affirmation that life has meaning, it&#39;s the absurd. If I kill myself I succumb to my demise. Instead I choose to rebel against it in a world that is unfathamoble, which I have no control over and which will destroy me anyway.

[The Feral Underclass]

Originally posted by [email protected] 30 2005, 04:59 AM
He asks the question &#39;Why do I go on living?&#39; and says if he is a true philosopher he will kill himself if he cannot find a reason.
No, he says that this is the question propositioned by the fact that there is no reason for living, not that it is the conclusion of the fact.


But this is clearly not a decent answer&#33;&#33;&#33; He doesn&#39;t define what he means by &#39;reason&#39;

A purpose or function to our existence that is fact.


He has just fudged his answer&#33; If he meant objective in the question then fighting againt the absurd is as absurd and giving into it...EVERYTHING IS ABSURD...hence he should kill himself.

But he doesn&#39;t claim that we should kill ourselves because existence is absurd. He states that killing oneself is accepting your own "inevitability" and that in fact one shouldn&#39;t kill yourself but live in revolt of death.

He states that existence is absurd because of the realities of it and the choices that this proposes to us. Either we accept our demise and end our lives or we live in revolt of that demise by existing within this unfathomable world.

Whether this is subjective meaning or not is of little consequence except in so much as subjective meaning is invaluable because it&#39;s subjective.


The fact that Camus did not hang himself is of great irritation to me <_< Sartre may be more dense in areas of his writing but I somehow feel that at least he would have grasped such an inconsistancey.

There is no inconsistency. Camus states that both no objective meaning and the abundance of subjective meaning exist simultaneously; but this isn&#39;t important. What is relevant to ourselves is our relationship to death (which is neither an affirmation or a quest of and for meaning).

This, as Nietzsche points out is when civilsation will begin to collapse beyond a return to anything.

[Hegemonicretribution]

He has just fudged his answer&#33; If he meant objective in the question then fighting againt the absurd is as absurd and giving into it...EVERYTHING IS ABSURD...hence he should kill himself.

Or not kill himself. Revolting against death is as valid a choice as accepting death. It does not matter whether one course of action is chosen, or another, both could in theory be valid choices, ergo your conclusion here is not the only possible one.

[Monty Cantsin]

Originally posted by [email protected] 3 2006, 12:27 PM

He has just fudged his answer&#33; If he meant objective in the question then fighting againt the absurd is as absurd and giving into it...EVERYTHING IS ABSURD...hence he should kill himself.

Or not kill himself. Revolting against death is as valid a choice as accepting death. It does not matter whether one course of action is chosen, or another, both could in theory be valid choices, ergo your conclusion here is not the only possible one.
I can&#39;t remember who wrote the orignal post but i&#39;m going to reply to it because it sounds like somthing i would have said.

It does matter what ones actions are because if they state life is absurd and meaningless and then continue to live and affirm a value in life then they&#39;ve contradicted their ideas by their actions. Camus said that if a Nihilist declares that existence is meaningless and continues to live it he is contradicting his ideas with his body.

explain to me how it could work any other way because the logic seems to me iron clad.

[The Sloth]

Originally posted by Monty [email protected] 12 2005, 09:17 AM
The point of life is to affirm value, to learn, to grow to create..

i don&#39;t see how someone could reasonably extract any absolute &#39;meaning&#39; out of life.. all you have are circumstantial &#39;referrals&#39; to other things. any kind of meaning, any kind of statement of purpose to existence is bound to be metaphysical, to be based on the arbitrary prejudices of a particular person, living in a particular time.

saying that the point of life is anything except breathing (or not breathing, depending on whatever value-less choice you decide to make) can&#39;t really be justified.

[hoopla]

Originally posted by Brooklyn&#045;[email protected] 27 2006, 04:18 AM
saying that the point of life is anything except breathing (or not breathing, depending on whatever value-less choice you decide to make) can&#39;t really be justified.
IMO (I have never really worried about the meaning of life, well, for a few weeks before I chose a university, maybe) if there is a meaning of life, it definetly isn&#39;t breathing. Just cos its natural, doesn&#39;t make it good iyswim

[hoopla]

Originally posted by Monty [email protected] 11 2006, 10:27 AM
It does matter what ones actions are because if they state life is absurd and meaningless and then continue to live and affirm a value in life then they&#39;ve contradicted their ideas by their actions. Camus said that if a Nihilist declares that existence is meaningless and continues to live it he is contradicting his ideas with his body.

IMVO hegemony is right. The fact that life is objectively absurd, cannot imply anything else about the meaning of the nihilist&#39;s life, because nothing else can be objectively said.

Or, in other words, Camus cannot be talking objectively. The real point, being: can you say that life is absurd?

No?

[The Sloth]

Originally posted by [email protected] 27 2006, 08:16 AM

IMO (I have never really worried about the meaning of life, well, for a few weeks before I chose a university, maybe) if there is a meaning of life, it definetly isn&#39;t breathing. Just cos its natural, doesn&#39;t make it good iyswim
i definitely agree, i mentioned "breathing" as an example of the arbitrary decisions that people make about life&#39;s "meaning".. i also added the option of "not breathing" to demonstration another absurdity.

again, i definitely agree.. simply because something is natural doesn&#39;t imply that it should, by necessity, play some kind of role in our metaphysical speculations.