Summary: The Rise Of Existentialism

And this has repercussions, according to Bro. Abulad, “something of this nihilistic tendency in the air, making it difficult for our time to decide which is good and which is evil.” Thus if this is the case, existentialism serves as a response towards nihilistic tendency. Existentialism is a problematic term to define. It is in the very nature of existentialism to be open-ended and undefinable. For existentialist philosophers, though classified under the same school, still have major differences in their ideologies, yet not contradictory to the existentialist movement.

In Wiggins’ case of fission he undermines the belief that all questions of personal identity must have answers. The belief when asked in response to brain division is found implausible. According to Parfit, ‘If all the possible answers are implausible, it is hard to decide which of them is true, and hard even to keep the belief that one of them must be true’. (1971, p.8) He also undermines the second belief that personal identity plays a part in survival. Wiggins’ case shows that you may not have identity but you may have everything you need for survival.

While logic is firmly rooted in reason, perceptions are just as firmly rooted in one’s senses and can easily be corrupted. Many kinds of faulty logic or perception interfere with our ability to think critically, for example, superstition, argument from ignorance, false analogies, irrelevant comparison and fallacies. Therefore, I believe that perception is certainly not reality and most mistakes in thinking are inadequacies of perception rather than mistakes of logics. Perception is defined as the ability to see, hear or becomes aware of something through the senses (Nature of Logic and Perception). However, since the senses are susceptible to personal interpretation, they are therefore potentially unreliable sources of data.

In logic, solipsism consequently amounts to a refusal to acknowledge our sound judgment experience of the world as substantial. In the second of his Meditations, Descartes examines a bit of wax. In spite of the fact that Descartes' point is a skeptical one, it raises a fascinating point. On what premise do we assert knowledge of the internal experiences of other individuals? From one perspective, our experience of ourselves is the most certain thing as Descartes himself would concur.

Then I will conclude by arguing that the conclusion Descartes comes to cannot be achieved by his own path of logic. Descartes believes that the “self” and the “body” cannot be made of the same “stuff” or serve similar purposes. This stems from his reasoning

However, this is not seen as a solid basis upon which absolute doubt, required by Descartes, can be built. Ironically, his skepticism offers such that I am in a state of doubt, I will also have doubt about the possibility that there could even be a deceiving being. As such, my doubt about the possibility of such a being serves to undermine the greater doubt that is supposed to be generated by this being. In order for the evil demon to generate such a degree of doubt it must be possible for it to exist. However, Descartes does not provide enough proof for his claim of its possibility.

Objections 1. It would seem that life is absurd. For, Nagel states in his article, “that life as a whole is absurd arises when we perceive, an inflated pretension or aspiration which is inseparable from the continuation of human life and which makes its absurdity inescapable, short of escape from life itself.” Absurdity results when there is a certain incongruity between the ways the world actually is, and the way we in turn deal with the world. (Nagel,4) 2. Further, Nagel says, “we cannot live human lives without energy and attention, nor without making choices, which show that, we take some things more seriously than others.” These two view points collide and make our lives absurd because we ignore the doubts that we know cannot be settled, continuing to live with nearly undiminished seriousness in spite of them.

And Him do we worship. (2:137-138) 2. Who can define characteristics of man? Defining man and his characteristics cannot be carried out by man himself. There are several reasons for this, the most important of which are listed below: Firstly, people’s understanding of themselves and their feelings is influenced by their social and cultural standpoints, their unique situations, and their worldly interests. Secondly, people are at various stages of continued development and therefore, they never exactly understand existential dimensions of human beings as they progress and make efforts to reach them.

Second, when Kant’s theory is interpreted as two object interpretation it seemed that the theory implies a radical form of skepticism that traps each of us within the contents of our own mind and cuts us off from reality. According to Kant’s, things in themselves are real while appearances are not, and hence we cannot have experience or knowledge of reality. But Kant denies that appearances are unreal: they are just as real as things in themselves but are in a different metaphysical

They too feel that reason is insufficient to understand the mysteries of the universe, they are cautious that anguish is a universal phenomenon and also believe that morality has validity only when there is positive participation. existentialism just is this bygone cultural