Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea

Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot: A Tragicomedy in Two Acts

Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince

There's also a text, but no one has likely read it since it's more of a history of existentialist thought:

L. Nathan Oaklander, Existentialist Philosophy: An Introduction, Second Edition.

Anyhow.

I got home from the bookstore today, and I looked at my books - and I was amazed to find that The Little Prince is a children's book! You should see the edition the professor ordered in, too. It's gorgeous, and apparently has all the restored original artwork reproduced in it.

I read the whole thing this afternoon.

I read "Nausea" about 20 years ago. I don't remember much, frankly, other than the autodidact (the "self-taught man") who loved humanity but didn't like people. He'd have been a lurker of internet forums had the novel been written today.

Camus, while having once been an intellectual collaborator of Sartre's, nevertheless declared that he was not an existentialist.

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You're lucky you don't have any Kirkegaard on your reading list.

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Actually I do - I had a look at that text I was mentioning earlier before bed last night, and it is actually a cross between a text and an anthology. It has selections from Kierkegaard, Sartre, Camus, de Beauvoir, Nietzsche, and Heidegger. And I happen to know that the professor who teaches the course is into Kierkegaard, because he taught my first year philosophy course, and during the very short bit we did on existentialism, he showed a movie that was pretty much about Kierkegaard.

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Masochist!
You've done used up the high-point of the whole thing with Saint-Exupery. All downhill from there. Try to stay awake through the course. Stoned would help.

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Ha! Stoned probably won't happen. I started to read a couple of the other books I got last night, and they even seemed somewhat interesting. It's better than Ar--------, that's for sure.

Mediaboy, I have The Outsider - got it at a "hurt penguin" sale at the campus bookstore last September. I enjoyed it too.

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Camus, while having once been an intellectual collaborator of Sartre's, nevertheless declared that he was not an existentialist.

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Yeah, according to commentary guy in my text (I read the intro to the text last night - and it worked, I went to sleep right away!) there are quite a few people whose philosophy fits within the boundaries of "existential thought" even though they did not like the label.

And if you think about it, no wonder they don't like the label - it attempts to universalize a brand of philosophy whose claim to fame is that it is about particular individuals rather than universals or generalizations.

But it will be interesting to find out why he declined to be called an existentialist. I'm sure it will come up in class. I'm actually getting kind of excited about this course, despite nonesuch's warning.

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Was the "Little Prince" the same as the cartoon? A little boy on a lonely little planet, catches a comet in a net and zooms to Earth?

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I've never seen the cartoon, but yes, Trinitty, that's the theme of the story. It's a wonderful story - I seriously need to read it again. I love his discussion with the business man who "owns" the universe and all the stars in it. My advice to you, Trinitty, is to run, don't walk, to your nearest bookstore and buy that book. It's just fantastic.

What is existentialism?

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Was the "Little Prince" the same as the cartoon? A little boy on a lonely little planet, catches a comet in a net and zooms to Earth?

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The Little Prince
from outer space
can catch a shooting star
and saaaail awaay;

Existentialism is a modern branch of philosophy, from the last couple of centuries or so, although there has been thought throughout the ages that could probably be considered to be of an existentialist bent.

Anyhow. I think existentialism is supposed to be about how all of life's fundamental questions are dealt with by each person themselves. Take death for example. A scientist can tell you all you want to know about the death process, all the bodily and psychological stuff that happens, etc. A philosopher, on the other hand, will ask questions like, what does it mean to die? What is death? Is death important?

But the thing is, many philosophers before the existentialists looked at these other questions in a general way, or even an objective, third-party way. They would try to find an overall, objective truth as an answer. But to an existentialist, generalizations and grand theories pretty much mean nothing. To an existentialist considering death, the question is, "How do I feel about death? How will I handle death? What does death mean to me?"

And it's the same with any other subject you might want to philosophize about. To an existentialist, grand theories about life, the universe, and everything mean nothing if it does not help them know how to process things for themselves.

So the idea is (I think), an existentialist is concerned with the individual person and how they live their life in the here and now. Generalizations are useless, because they don't tell you exactly how you are feeling right now, and how you are dealing with the world. They don't deal with emotions and passions and times when you're not always rational.

I dug out that book I mentioned, Kaufmann's "Existentialism..." and was reading over the Nietzsche section again. Nietzsche is very misunderstood today...well, he was always misunderstood..when he wasn't ignored. I actually felt nausea while reading the "God is dead" passage this morning. A madman appears, accusing modern man of killing God, leaving himself alone in a cold, indifferent universe. Modern man responds by calling the madman irrelevant.

Nietzsche's aphorisms are a blast, too.

[ April 11, 2002: Message edited by: Arch Stanton ]

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Whereas our predecessors thought that they could keep themselves outside history and that they had soared to heights from which they could judge events as they really were, circumstances have plunged us into our time. But since we were in it, how could we see it as a whole? Since we were situated, the only novels we could dream of were novels of situation, without internal narrators or all-knowing witnesses. ... Our age would be explained, but no one could keep it from having been inexpliciable to us.

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Read a good poem about existentialism in the library once, it was all about how all life came about as the result of a fart from God's butt, that there was no purpose to us existing or not existing - we are just here because we are here.

In highschool it is often contrasted with the theory of inalterable fate, meaning that you will read "Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are Dead" with "Hamlet," and some peoce of CRCAP written by a modern day Type II Alcoholic who doesn't care whether he lives or dies along with something like "Oedopus Rex."

About "The Little Prince" Amur will love it! The most important part for me was when the boy found out this his rose was not the only rose, and the rose's response to his disillusionment.

Below the difference between existentialism and fate - but which is which?
http://gunther.simplenet.com/v/data/letslive.htm http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/times.html

[ April 12, 2002: Message edited by: vaudree ]

We had snow the day before.

This thread seems to have run out of steam.

Mist rises in the morning.
I wait for irises.
Warmth felt, not seen.

Y'see Arch? In existential mode, if you work on it long enough, you get a haiku.

[ April 13, 2002: Message edited by: Croesus_Krept ]

( ohhhh my it's going to be hard to get tonight, i'm going on a date with the duchess of genomes and she's hard to count... she can smell her cut before you begin to bargain -- a real clever riddle: what do a camel and a cat have in common? oooohhh my, it's going to be a hard act to follow and it'll take more than mental arithmetic and a goat-horn neck rub to get her loosened up, kids... )

[ April 18, 2002: Message edited by: Croesus_Krept ]

ppppppppooooooooooooopppppp

[ April 13, 2002: Message edited by: Croesus_Krept ]

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When I think of all the worries people seem to find
And how they're in a hurry to complicate their mind
By chasing after money and dreams that can't come true
I'm glad that we are different, we've better things to do
May others plan their future, I'm busy lovin' you
...
We'll take the most from living, have pleasure while we can

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Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.

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[ April 13, 2002: Message edited by: vaudree ]

p.s.: I have made a new friend: a canadian casanova, a real actor, a great loser, someone to talk with, hallelujiah! But it annoys me to think that he's slept with 5 times as many girls as I have... My faith in Canada is restored a little bit... I won't come home, since you want donkeys and prats and silly knobs and dummy students to stay in school. Art and artistry have been forgotten by the bureaucracy... I want to keep my mind free and independent of all that small-minded little self-possessive righteousness that infects so many of you... Dunces!

ppphhhttttt !!!

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he really creeped me out in Endgame.

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Not just you, my friend, not just you...

edited to add:

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I am sorry to say that you reveal that the simple-minded culture of Canada remains unchanged: you remain obdurately opposed to pure expression... [etc. so forth]

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You want pure expression, CK? Try this on for size: fuck you, you creep.

[ April 19, 2002: Message edited by: 'lance ]

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It is most noteworthy that when a true intellectual attempts to explain something in an entertaining, yet accurate manner, there is always one or two of you who must object to the voicing of intellectual opinions...

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I would assume you are referring to yourself when you say "a true intellectual"? Hee, sorry, couldn't resist.

But seriously. I was sort of getting what you were trying to say, and I appreciate your comments about existentialism. But a lot of the time your point gets lost in the midst of a lot of rambling, and it's hard to sort out what you're trying to say. Is it possible that when most people agree that your writing style is difficult to read, that maybe the problem is with you and not everyone else?

[ April 19, 2002: Message edited by: Michelle ]

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And I think I'm going to spend the entire free time not reading anything except fluff.

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