Philosophy Lecture 21/2/13

“The rebels weapon is the proof of his humanity. This irrepressible violence is man re-creating himself.” (Wretched of the Earth)

Existentialism as an agent for political change - via existentialism principles established by Nietzsche, Heidegger - a call to arms from Sartre and the explicit embracing of violence by Franz Fanon.

Key figures in development of existentialism:
Nietzche

He makes a complete break to what we have before.
God is Dead - the end of certainty - and we are faced with a crisis - we need something new to sustain us. (He isn’t saying specific god, he’s talking about this big structures that we rely on such as religion, that we want guidance from. We need certainty. As a kid we like adults to tell us what is right and what will help. Nietzsche uses this analogy, that we we believed in this superstructure such as religion, we are like children. Then we grow up and realize there is no good, no structure etc. Life is confusing. There are no absolutes.He thinks it is just brilliant, as up to this point we were just being told, what you should do to go to hell and heaven etc.  

This crisis is fantastic according to Nietzsche - it means freedom. It gives us the freedom to find value for ourselves (this is called the transvaluation of all values)

For Nietzsche human nature is not universal. Our natures are different and it therefore follows that different people can find and follow different conceptions of excellence, different moralities. (opposing position of natural rights [Locke] and creates space for Fanon’s violence.

The Ubermensch (demi-god - a person with great powers and abilities. Nietzsche’s concept for ‘an over man’) - overcomes what has so far defined us as humans. The Overman renounces all of this, carving out his place in the world according to his own will. Will to power - defining himself by the choices he makes.
* Rousseau - there is a general will*

*Locke - natural rights etc*
Nietzsche disagrees with R and L

CHOICE IS CRUCIAL TO THE EXISTENTIALIST POINT OF VIEW.

Heidegger
- Being and Time: highly influential (Sartre’s being and Nothingness - homeage to it)
- The book is about human existence. Heidegger is interested in what it means to exist and consequently the problems of human life. But before we can investigate the nature of being as such we must first question the nature of the being which causes the questions to be asked. 

- And that is a creature he calls Dasein - Dasein is each of us.
Heidegger thought that humans were Dasein but it’s not only human beings, he thought there was potential for others e.g. aliens to be Dasein too.
Heidegger is largely an attack on Descartes. He lays into the Cartesians, he has no time for them. He dislikes Descartes so much, as the idea of cartesian dualism (two things in the universe, mind and body. These things are completely different) Heidegger thinks that this from Descartes was an utter disaster as if you believe in this, there is no possible way for philosophy to work. If these two things are different, how do they interact? E.g. Casper the ghost, how can a ghost lift something he is see through.
If your mind is one thing and your body another, how do you control your body.
Therefore Heidegger believes this idea is completely wrong.

The thrust of his philosophy is largely directed against one philosopher - Descartes

But if we are stuck in our minds and theres a very real question which plagued Descartes and virtually all of the philosophers after him - how we get out of our minds to know the world itself?

Sceptic's like David Hume doubted that we could ever know the world as it is. Also Bishop Berkeley. 

In place of consciousness and subjectivity Heidegger simply talks about Dasein (being in the world) - he is looking for the essential structure of Dasein.

Being in the world - but not to be understood as a spatial relationship - it denotes a certain type of engagement - I’m in Journalism - one defines me in terms of my engagement with Journalism. Dasein is our engagement in the world - involved in it. 

Your existence is your engagement in the world. Every engagement in the world is to do with choice. Even if you are disengaged, this is a choice. He is not trying to work out what the world is (empirical way), he is just saying this is the way it is.

Heidegger believes that Cartesian Dualism is absurd. For Dasein to exist, it must exist in the world. Therefore there is no Dasein without the world Socrates and Christian philosophers were mistaken.
He says that when we normally speak with ourselves we don’t speak about our authentic selfs at all - true self - being one’s own person. Influenced by Nietzsche has a long argument against slave morality (THIS IS CALLED BAD FAITH)

You are defined by your choices and decisions - existentialism. 

Nietzsche - slave morality (the slave who is following religion and rules etc)
If we want to be an ubermensche we must overcome this, Heidegger is saying the same thing. He says we have our true self, if we make decisions to show our true selves we are living an authentic life. If we follow the crowd, doing what others believe we should do, then we are living an inauthentic self.
Das man self - the inauthentic self - what he has in mind is a sort of social construal of the self. The Das Man self is inauthentic because it is simply a social self, it is not one own’s self at all. 

Existence - this doesn’t just mean taking a place in the world, it has to do with possibilities and choices.This is to be contrasted with what Heidegger calls Facticity (which Sartre will borrow)

Facticity (the events that have brought you to this place now) are those parts of ourself which are simply given - we are thrown into the world. We are born at the certain time at a certain place, of certain parents and we don’t have a choice about any of this. Our Dasein is very much wedded to where we happen to be thrown in life. Facticity - ‘THROWNESS’ - we are born with a blank slate (Chomsky) but already have a past. Moral Luck.

For the existentialist the future is the most important dimension. We are creatures of the ‘possible’.

Transcendence - is my reaction to my facticity - our possibility, which may not be realized. I am defined by my choices - I re-create myself - I am not defined by my past. (This is crucial to Fanon - path to escape the role of victim) = Throughout history, people have thought that certain races or people, Aristotle (people are natural slaves), are inferior. That’s because they were defining people by there past. Heidegger doesn’t believe anything matters e.g. nationality, sex etc. We do not need to be victims, we choose to not be victims. He thinks we should fight aggressively against people who think this.

Sartre
Key Idea - existence precedes essence. We create our own purpose.  

For example, - Simone de Beauvoir - “one is not born a woman, but becomes one” How you act, as a woman, how a woman should act, you are not born with that. You become that. E.g. certain things a woman does, but these are all choices. You are just a physical being, how you present yourself are just choices. We create our own purpose and define our own essence. 

The absurd - there is no guiding spirit, no teleological driving force - stuff happens, good and bad without reason and so life is in some way ridiculous and absurd.

Heidegger’s existentialism was right wing (Nazi) - Sartre’s was left wing.
Shows that existentialism is broad, it is shown in different ways.

Similar to Heidegger - The life of a person is not determined in advance, by God or moral laws says Sartre. The only thing I cannot escape is the need to choose. But the possibility of recreating oneself is frightening - people will try to avoid this freedom. This is bad faith. 

Being-in-itself, being-for-itself

Some people like to be led and to be told what to do, but we need to make choices. Existentialist believes that you can re-create yourself. Your facticity is your past, the most important thing is the next choice you make, and this choice can re-create yourself.
You can change your life by your very next decision. The moments when we are in bad faith, are when we allow ourselves to be defined ‘I’m just a student‘ etc. Then Sartre will say ‘you are not‘ you could decide to be a doctor or anything else. You pretending to yourself that you can be defined is bad faith. In a way its just you dodging a decision.

The alternative is to take responsibility for your actions and be defined by your choices: “all the barriers, all the railings, collapse, annihilated by the consciousness of my liberty. It is I who maintain values in being.” (Think Nietzsche Open Sea)

Humanity for Sartre is:

Abandonment - God is Dead (Nietzsche), God does not guide our actions, there is no divine set of rules to follow - we are alone and there is no one/thing to guide us on how to act.
Anguish - Humans are fundamentally free, ‘condemned to be free’, the responsibility of being free is enormous, we have no excuses, we are responsible for everything we are. We cannot choose our past but we chose how we feel and act to every situation. 

Despair - This is the realization of that the world may prevent us from getting what we want, but we still chose how we react to the setback, we are totality of what we actually do.

Example:
Sartre’s pupil:

Choice between his mother and joining the free French (the resistance).
Abandonment, Anguish, Despair.

The choice? “You are free, therefore choose.”

Bad Faith
Most people think that being a soldier, police officer, student, engineer, confers certain obligations on you, for example students are expected to attend lectures, do exams etc. But Sartre might accuse you of bad faith - the denial that you are radically free, when they think their past determines their future.
Sartre thinks such people are making a metaphysical mistake - turning themselves into inert objects rather than free beings condemned to making free choices.

Examples:
cafe waiter - the waiter is acting out on a role, in doing that he is denying that he is free to otherwise, in that way he is like a mechanical robot. The waiter is trying to represent himself as determined in his actions.