Heidegger's Being and Time, A Primer
It is hard to overstate the importance of Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time. It turned the world of philosophy upside down and inaugurated existentialist phenomenology, existentialism, philosophical...
Category
Existentialism
9 posts
Sartre’s Voyeuristic Reimagining of Hegel’s Master/Slave Dialectic
What follows is an exegetical account of Jean Paul Sartre’s section “The Look” from Being and Nothingness. In this section, Sartre explains how our encounter with the Other challenges our own sense...
On Nietzsche's Relationship to the Left, and the Allure of Esoteric Knowledge
1. Nobody understands Nietzsche (except me) by Sam Kriss recounts his adolescent fascination with Nietzsche, initially driven by a Gnostic yearning for intellectual escape from the perceived...
The Birth of the Self, an Existentialist Story
Existentialism, a philosophy centered on individual existence and freedom, traces its roots to the 19th-century thinkers Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche. Though differing significantly in...
Authenticity and The Ex-stasis of Transcendence
FOLLOW TO PREVIOUS PART ONE: --- In this second part, Sartre defends Existentialism against common critiques that it is politically ineffective, pessimistic, and too individualistic or solipsistic....
Angst, Abandonment, and Despair
In this old thinkPhilosophy podcast from 2018, I explore Jean-Paul Sartre's essay “Existentialism is a Humanism,” a key introduction to existentialist philosophy. Sartre argues that existentialism’s...
Heidegger In A Tiny Nutshell
Pushing Off Of Aristotle Heidegger criticizes Aristotle’s study of beings in the Physics and Metaphysics because it assumes things/objects as the primary focus. Humans (subjects, more precisely)...
Heidegger On What Makes For A Good Friend
In the course of giving his account of intersubjectivity (or the Being-with others of Mitsein), Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) comments on two kinds of concern for the other — a leaping in for and a...
Dear Philosopher: How Can I Discover My Authentic Self?
Questioner: I've been feeling a bit lost lately. I've faced some hard challenges that make me question everything and I don’t know if my reactions and opinions are actually mine. I think that growing...