phil 3430: existentialism (and the meaning of life)

To live a human existence is a temporal matter, a matter of being underway, where its origin and its goal are entrenched in shadow. It is to live one’s present in a way that is fundamentally informed by what is not present: the past, the future, other people, the objects and the situations one desires. It is to live constantly in the mode of discovery without ever discovering what can be guaranteed to be ultimate truth. It is to live an existence that will end.

Existentialism takes the character of human existence as its central theme, and has produced insights such as these. These insights can be profoundly under- Source: http://existentialcomics.com/comic/248 mining and alienating, and thus existentialism has thematized also the mood of anxiety. But it is also possible to live authentically in the face of this discovery, and thus existentialism has bolstered also the uest for meaning and for a way of living that genuinely addresses this alienation.

This course will explore the nature of human existence as existentialism describes it, and also the possibility of living in a way that genuinely faces up to this nature. Our study will focus primarily on two of the central igures in the existentialist tradition: Sartre will provide us with the basic tenets of existentialism, and Kierkegaard with an existentialist orientation to the reuirement to answer to the absolute within the conines of a singular life. In addition to our general study of these igures, we will read other philosophical texts as they become relevant, and also some literature, oriented as it can be to illuminating what it is like for individuals to grapple with the nature of their existence. Professor Shannon Hoff, Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2:00-3:15, Winter 2020