Existentialism is a Humanism by Jean-Paul Sartre

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Is an Existentialist Ethics Possible?
Does Sartre’s philosophy give us any clues about how we should live? Yes, says Jonathan Crowe – he showed us that we can’t avoid choosing.

In order to see what shape such a theory [above] might take, let us return to the second objection to an existentialist ethics mentioned at the start of this article – namely, that existentialism treats morality simply as a function of individual preferences.

On the other hand, this existentialist is far more intrigued with exploring why very different people come to prefer very different things pertaining to morality. The part I attribute "here and now" to both dasein and the Benjamin Button Syndrome. I can only note my arguments and then ask others who don't share them to bring their own sets of assumptions down out of the theoretical clouds. Sartreans -- existentialists -- here as well.

Some of Sartre’s comments on values appear to give strong support to this view of existentialism. As with the previous issue, however, I think there is a way of reading Sartre’s argument which avoids this implication.

Same thing? There's what this means to you as an abstract assessment, and there is how you would intertwine it given your own day to day interactions with others.

Existentialism and Humanism contains a famous anecdote that is sometimes cited in support of an interpretation of existentialism as moral subjectivism. The story concerns a student who approached Sartre for help with a moral quandary. The student was faced with a choice between going to England to join the Free French Forces and staying in France to care for his aging mother. As each option held a different type of moral attraction for him, he asked Sartre for advice as to how he should resolve this practical dilemma.

Here, in my view, as with all such quandaries, the question isn't what we choose, but whether or not, philosophically, we can "think up" the optimal frame of mind. Or, deontologically, the only rational frame of mind? Some will rush off to care for their aging mother, while others [like me] may have long ago abandoned all family ties. Are they evil or not? Then back to the manner in which dasein factors into your own moral philosophy. And not just the objectivists.

So, what is the Right Thing To Do?

After considering the student’s situation, Sartre responded with what must have seemed a very unhelpful suggestion: “You are free, so choose.” At first glance, Sartre’s response may seem to support an interpretation of his ethical theory as a form of subjectivism. However, Sartre’s recognition that, in this type of situation, no theory of morality could help the student decide how to act does not necessarily entail that there are no objective values. It may simply be that moral values are such that they do not always point to a single course of action.

This is all hopelessly problematic, ambiguous, subjunctive. Okay, you chuck theoretical assessments. But if there are "objective values" one can turn to in regard to conflicting goods such as the one noted above, what might some of them be in regard to your own sense of family obligations?

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Is an Existentialist Ethics Possible?
Does Sartre’s philosophy give us any clues about how we should live? Yes, says Jonathan Crowe – he showed us that we can’t avoid choosing.

According to some philosophers, all moral values can be reduced to a small set of foundational principles – perhaps even a single, overarching principle, such as Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative or a utilitarian principle requiring the greatest possible proportion of benefit to harm.

Sure, as long as this is either defended or attacked up in the philosophical clouds. I've yet to come upon anyone who is able to defend a particular set of "foundational principles" given an actual set of circumstances revolving around conflicting value judgments.

If anyone here has come upon a argument demonstrating that a "single, overarching principle" is in fact within the reach of ethicists, I'd be curious to hear it.

Other philosophers, such as John Finnis and Charles Taylor, recognise that not all moral values are part of the same overarching theory. In fact, we often find ourselves in situations where we are called upon to choose between several attractive courses of action, each of which appears to represent a different type of moral value. In these situations, as Sartre makes clear, there is nothing left to do except choose.

And isn't that [perhaps] why the character Anton Chigurh from No Country For Old Men fascinates some? Since we are often tugged ambivalently in conflicting directions, why not just leave it all up to that flip of the coin? Or does the coin flip reflect instead that [perhaps] all of our behaviors come down to coins that nature itself flips? Or dominoes that it topples over?

Then, of course, all of the different "types" of moral theories themselves. Why embrace one and not another? Yet even here philosophers are unable to finally pin down the most reliable recourse given any particular context in which different people do embrace different theories.

Then the gap between those who never really do come down out of the theoretical clouds in order to defend their own sets of assumptions and those like me who insist on it.

Here is a classic theoretical assessment:

This sort of approach to ethics enables us to explain how it might be that freedom is self-evidently valuable. On this view, choice is an essential component of moral deliberation. It is impossible to engage in genuine ethical reflection without recognising the central position of choice in moral experience. This goes some way to explaining why one cannot consider ethical questions without receiving practical reinforcement of the moral value of freedom.

Self-evidently valuable? Sure, in free will world, that seems abundantly clear to most of us. But: freedom to do what, when, where and why? The acquisition of a "self" itself [in the is/ought world] is what most intrigues me.

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Is an Existentialist Ethics Possible?
Does Sartre’s philosophy give us any clues about how we should live? Yes, says Jonathan Crowe – he showed us that we can’t avoid choosing.

The realisation that choice is an essential aspect of moral reflection does not mean that morality is simply a matter of individual preferences. Indeed, the opposite is the case.

On the other hand, suppose, given a free will world, you choose for whatever reason, to separate yourself from all others. Here, everything would revolve around your own individual preferences. Unless, of course, you believed in God. Then everything would revolve around I and Thou.

But the overwhelming preponderance of us do choose to live among others in communities large and small. And isn't that why there are conflicting goods in the first place? We all need the same things but argue over which way is best to attain them. Capitalism vs. socialism, for example. As for the things we want, they often precipitate endless conflicts given what others want instead.

Since we cannot avoid becoming aware of the importance of freedom in moral experience, it follows that we must acknowledge any course of action that conflicts with the value of freedom as morally untenable.

Over and again: whose rendition of freedom pertaining to what particular moral experience? Just run that by those among us here who really do believe that morally and politically, they and only others who are "one of us" are on the One True Path.

Go ahead, challenge them on that and see what happens.

In Sartre’s terms, such actions are revealed as forms of self-deception or ‘bad faith’.

In other words, you don't share his own moral convictions? On the other hand, better perhaps to have what you construe to be an "authentic" moral philosophy than to be...fractured and fragmented?

Furthermore, as Sartre argues in Existentialism and Humanism, this realisation of the need to value freedom extends not only to our own freedom, but also to the freedom of others. In other words, it is impossible to regard freedom as a purely subjective value. This is because freedom’s value is most keenly experienced through our awareness of the needs and desires of other moral actors.

Still, the existentialists have gotten no further in pinning down the most rational assessment of either freedom or morality. Instead, most of them -- the atheists -- argue that in a No God universe you cannot fall back on this particular transcending font [religion] and that philosophers themselves are no closer to a deontological morality here and now than Plato and Aristotle or Descartes or Kant were there and then.

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Is an Existentialist Ethics Possible?
Does Sartre’s philosophy give us any clues about how we should live? Yes, says Jonathan Crowe – he showed us that we can’t avoid choosing.

Our awareness of the value of freedom arises from our practical experience of ethical choice. However, the core subject-matter of moral choice concerns our relationships with other inhabitants of our moral universe.

Okay, so what are the odds that, over the years, your relationships with others are going to significantly overlap with my own relationships? No, instead, given all of the many vast and varied historical and cultural and personal contexts, they may well have been [and still are now] very, very different. And, in my view, being an existentialist here is important because they are always bringing that fact to the attention of...themselves?

Whereas, for any number of moral objectivists among us, the whole point of being one is being able to bring these vast and varied personal experiences down to "one of one" vs. "one of them".

In this sense, moral deliberation is invariably outward-directed; it is a response to a question issued to us from a source external to ourselves. Since the value of freedom is experienced most directly as an element of our interactions with other sentient beings, it is impossible to regard it as something of purely subjective importance.

Same thing?

Okay, moral deliberation is invariably directed outwards. But: if what you face outwardly over the years is, in fact, considerably different from what I and others face, why wouldn't your moral philosophy be different?

Indeed, isn't the whole point of many God and No God moral philosophies to suggest that, either divinely or deontologically, mere mortals do have access to objective morality?

It just has to be their own, right?

And, yes, all of this revolves around intersubjective relationships because even within the same community, different people can have very different personal experiences. Especially in our modern age where the communication technology -- radio, television, phones, the internet, etc. -- has brought millions upon millions into contact with sets of behaviors very much at odds with their own.

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Is an Existentialist Ethics Possible?
Does Sartre’s philosophy give us any clues about how we should live? Yes, says Jonathan Crowe – he showed us that we can’t avoid choosing.

The idea of freedom has played an important role in many influential modern moral theories, including those of Kant and G.W.F. Hegel.

Okay, there are the particular moral theories of any number of philosophers down through the ages. But, to the extent that any of these men and women believed that an objective morality was within our reach, it would seem those who think they understand them would share the same moral convictions. But is that the case? It's not like Kantians all share the same moral and political dogmas, right? And yet if human moral interactions do come down to wholly rational obligations why wouldn't they? What's the point of embodying categorical and imperative moral convictions if, as with everyone else, they pop up all up and down the moral and political spectrum? A liberal Kantian? A conservative Kantian?

Rarely, however, has it been argued that freedom’s importance means everything is permitted. Rather, freedom has been seen in terms of realising one’s moral potential.

On the contrary, the moral objectivists seem to suggest instead that we are really only free to recognize that their own moral philosophy reflects the optimal frame of mind. Then some extend that beyond the grave by putting our very soul's salvation itself on the line. Christians for example argue that God provides human souls with free will. So, we get to choose among the Gods or in No God at all? But who is kidding whom? There is only one right choice. And the "or else" from them encompasses eternal damnation in Hell itself.

Sartre’s conception of human self-realisation centres on the need to recognise the capacity for meaningful choice in both ourselves and others. This picture of our moral potential is liberating, as it emphasises the need for each person to adopt her or his own set of moral priorities. However, our moral choices are not unrestricted. In the end, we must choose, but we cannot choose to deny freedom.

In other words, if you are partial to No God existentialism, you start with the assumption that there is no "transcending font" out there or up there able to provide you with something -- anything -- in the way of a divine or objective morality. Existence being prior to essence here, you are basically on your own. And, in order to live your life in an ethically "authentic" manner you must accept this as the point of departure.

Which I do. Only I come back around here to "the gap" and to "Rummy's Rule". Along with my own "rooted existentially in dasein" assumption that in a No God world it is entirely reasonable to experience a fractured and fragmented frame of mind in regard to conflicting value judgments. The Benjamin Button Syndrome from the cradle to the grave.

Unless, of course, I'm wrong.

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Gary Cox interview

Gary Cox is the author of several books on existentialism and general philosophy. The 10th anniversary edition of his bestselling self-help book How to Be an Existentialist was published recently. Gavin Smith talks with him about existentialism.

Smith: You begin your introduction to the anniversary edition by talking about the truths of existentialism being timeless. But do you think the heightened anxieties that seem so prevalent make existentialism especially relevant now?

More to the point [mine] it is precisely during times of upheaval -- personal, political, social, economic -- that one is likely to question any number of things regarding one's life. As I have noted before, I doubt it is just a coincidence that existentialism as we know it today came to flourish in the aftermath of WWI, the Great Depression, WW2 and the Cold War culminating in the Cuban Missile Crisis.

My point focuses more on that aspect of the human condition which seems applicable to all of us. In living our lives from day to day we can never really know for certain what new experiences, new relationships or access to new information and knowledge will trigger an avalanche of changes. It's just that to the extent your life basically stays the same from year to year, it is much less likely that you will be challenged to change much at all.

Cox: To answer your question I need to set out briefly what the timeless truths of existentialism are. Basically, they’re the timeless truths of the human condition. Specifically, these are that we’re inalienably free in that we are constantly confronted by the requirement to choose who we are through choosing what we do.

Then back to the part where each of us as individuals comes to embody these "timeless truths" in, at times, very, very, very different sets of circumstances. And even then only after acknowledging how we don't really have the capacity to know for certain if all of this unfolds in a universe where "somehow" human beings acquired some measure of inalienable autonomy.

We are responsible for the choices we make. It is often recognised that existentialism is a philosophy of freedom, less so that it is a philosophy of responsibility.

And who needs a context here, right? In fact, the objectivists among us often insist our only responsibility is to think exactly like they do. And, for some, even then only if you are white, a male and straight.

Our inalienable freedom makes us anxious. In The Concept of Anxiety, the original existentialist Søren Kierkegaard wrote, “Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom”. It is the result of responsibility. Fear is the possibility that I might fall; anxiety is that there is nothing to stop me from jumping.

Next up: Erich Fromm.

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Gary Cox interview

Gary Cox is the author of several books on existentialism and general philosophy. The 10th anniversary edition of his bestselling self-help book How to Be an Existentialist was published recently. Gavin Smith talks with him about existentialism.

Gary Cox: At any given moment, we are indeterminate in the sense that we are no longer what we were and not yet what we hope to become through our current actions. We always lack in the present what we hope to gain in the future. This lack is the basis of desire.

Think about that. At any given point in time [in a free will world] you have the option to do any number of things. You could watch television, you could masturbate, you could plot a murder, you could commit suicide.

You could post something here. But then straight back to how and why each of us as individuals opt to do things that others would be appalled regarding. In other words, in any particular set of circumstances, is there or is there not a way to grasp what some insist all rational men and women are [philosophically or otherwise] obligated to do?

Gary Cox: We are embodied. We seek to transcend and surpass what we are now through our actions but we can never transcend our bodies. The body is an ever-present set of facts – a ‘facticity’, as Sartre calls it – that challenges us, limits our freedom, presents possibilities, lets us down.

For example, the body might be black in a racist community, female in a patriarchal community, homosexual in a straight community. Or a doctor might have just informed someone they have just a few days to live. The body is no less entangled at the complex intersection of genes and memes, nature and nurture.

Then the part where "hell is other people":

Gary Cox: We are also constantly confronted by the existence of other people as beings that constantly look at and judge us: we have a being-for-others that is a key part of who we are.

And why, over and again, are personas so vital in our interactions with others? Because, in my view, in the absence of moral commandments from God or a deontological moral philosophy from ethicists, we often have to disguise ourselves in order to minimize conflicts. The "games" we play pertaining to any number of relationships. Especially "on the job". And, "online" who really knows what to believe from anyone?

Gary Cox: We are contingent in that our existence is not necessary. That we need not be, renders our existence absurd, and life has no other meaning than the one we choose to give it. Moreover, each moment of our life is defined by our mortality, by the fact that life is a finite project. Our death is ‘our own most possibility’: nobody else can die your death for you.

Still, this is no less but another "general description intellectual contraption". Its applicability to each of us as individuals can vary considerably. The part I root existentially in dasein.

[Gary Childress]

Kate Taylor recalls a ‘humanist’ classic by Jean-Paul Sartre.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/152/Ex ... aul_Sartre

And existential jism is a human jism as well.

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Gary, stop interupting iambiguous as he talks to himself and thinks people read his posts.

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Gary Cox interview

Gary Cox is the author of several books on existentialism and general philosophy. The 10th anniversary edition of his bestselling self-help book How to Be an Existentialist was published recently. Gavin Smith talks with him about existentialism.

Gary Cox: It’s a grim list [above] for sure, but to seek to fool yourself that life is not governed by these truths is to be inauthentic, is to live in bad faith. Bad faith is basically acting as though one has no choice, as though one’s life is on rails, or generally, exercising one’s freedom negatively to deny or stifle it.

Still, there are different interpretations here regarding bad faith. Then the part where there are existentialists all up and down the moral and political spectrum. There are God and No God existentialists. What's crucial to me as a moral nihilist is the extent to which any particular existentialist construes bad faith to be analogous to the manner in which the moral objectivists divide up the world between "one of us" and "one of them". And the extent to which those like Sartre took into account the points I raise in my signature threads.

It’s choosing not to choose. We are all guilty of bad faith to some extent. It’s difficult to entirely avoid, and maybe it has practical uses; but to overcome bad faith and fully recognise in one’s thought and actions that one is inescapably free, not a fixed entity like a chair or a stone but the growing sum total of one’s ongoing choices, is to achieve the existentialist holy grail of authenticity.

As always, from my own frame of mind, it's one thing to sustain purely philosophical assessments of bad faith and authenticity, and another thing altogether to explore them in regard to actual sets of circumstances. Contexts in which different people come to very different conclusions regarding what it means to embody rational assessments of freedom. How is bad faith here different from, say, hypocrisy?

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Gary Cox interview

Gary Cox is the author of several books on existentialism and general philosophy. The 10th anniversary edition of his bestselling self-help book How to Be an Existentialist was published recently. Gavin Smith talks with him about existentialism.

So the main focus of the book is to show how a worthwhile life is possible in the teeth of the inescapable truths of the human condition. And existentialism is always highly relevant because these truths, our all-too-human lot, remain the case at all times and in all places. Given that existentialism is always maximally relevant, it cannot be more relevant at one time than another. But although it is not especially relevant now, it is highly relevant now.

And all I can do is to ask others [existentialists or not] to name those maximally relevant truths regarding the human condition and probe the extent to which they too make an important distinction here between the either/or and the is/ought world.

The crucial point [mine] always being that while there may well be such a secular or sacred font "out there" or "up there" that does establish this, I am not myself "here and now" privy to it.

And moral nihilism resolves around my own subjective assumption that we interact in a Godless universe. And if that is in fact true then, in regard to conflicting goods, why this "Ism" instead of that one? For most existentialists, it comes down to another assumption: that existence is prior to essence.

If this is an age of heightened anxiety, it is not because there is more to be anxious about now than in the past. Perhaps we simply hear more about anxiety because of social media, and our increased awareness of it creates the impression that there is more of it about.

And how does this not basically revolve around dasein? Still, in a world where, technologically, we have access to hundreds and hundreds of conflicting points of view about any number of things, our "modern"/"postmodern" world is, if anything, awash in One True Paths.

But a huge fuss is made about anxiety these days to the extent that it has become fetishized. Certainly there is a trend, largely due to an exponential growth in the number of ‘support’ professionals of all kinds, towards treating any level of anxiety as a medical problem, when fundamentally, anxiety is part and parcel of what it is to be human.

Only most of us don't live in villages anymore. And the folks who own and operate the medical industrial complex are more than eager to turn our anxieties into commodities. Then the objectivists all up and down the moral and political spectrum insisting that unless you become "one of us" the anxieties will never go away. On the other hand, for those of the wrong color or gender or sexual orientation, becoming "one of them" is not even an option, is it?

I worry about global warming; my parents worried about nuclear holocaust; their parents worried about TB. For most people, certainly in the developed world, modern technology has eliminated the worries caused by a hand-to-mouth existence, but we all still have to contend with the existential issues of other people, risk, ageing, and death. And still above all it is the responsibility of our freedom that makes us anxious, not the world itself. We will always be anxious because we will always be free.

Then, for any number of moral and political and spiritual dogmatists among us, all of these existential issues can be subsumed in their own dogma. The "psychology of objectivism" I call it. It's not about what one believes regarding the existential parameters of the human condition, but that the belief itself becomes the antidote.

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Gary Cox interview

Gary Cox is the author of several books on existentialism and general philosophy. The 10th anniversary edition of his bestselling self-help book How to Be an Existentialist was published recently. Gavin Smith talks with him about existentialism.

Gavin Smith: What else can existentialism teach us about the world of social media?

Gary Cox: If existentialism is about getting real, then the first thing it teaches us about social media is that we cannot wish it away, that most of us cannot entirely escape it and its many challenges, that it must therefore be dealt with.

And, of course, to the extent social media is around to sustain pop culture, mindless consumption and celebrities, don't expect it to be of any particular use in the way of...consciousness raising?

Existentialists talk about recognising our being-in-situation – recognising our reality for what it is and dealing with it positively rather than wishing we were someone else somewhere else. Social media now definitely belongs to our being-in-situation.

And, come on, what are the odds that the social, political and economic "situation" that you are in will overlap considerably with the "situation" that I am in, that others here are in? Enough to effectively communicate some things, of course, but with any number of exceptions. On the other hand, unlike all other animals, human beings actually are capable [in a free will world] of accumulating new experiences such that minds are changed [sometimes dramatically] around any number of corners.

Still, one person's assessment of dealing with any particular situation "positively" may well be another person's utter calamity. And it's not like philosophers can step in and settle things.

As for social media, isn't that a classic example of something that some revel in while others deplore? How ought reasonable men and women react to it?

Existentialism also has much to say about the phenomenon of being-for-others: how part of what we are is unavoidably shaped and influenced by other people and the opinions they form of us – opinions we cannot control.

Same thing. In other words, historically, culturally and experientially, we have no control over when we are born, where we are born, and how as children our lives are profoundly shaped and molded by others. And even our understanding of it all is shaped by forces far bigger than any particular individuals.

An understanding of our being-for-others as part of the human psyche sheds light on why we find social media so attractive, addictive, and troubling. Thus it provides a useful guide to how social media is best dealt with: how best to behave when using it to maximise pleasure and opportunity while minimising anxiety and paranoia. Sartre famously wrote, “There is no need for red-hot pokers. Hell is other people!”. Yet surely, other people – even people on social media – can often also be heaven, if dealt with in the right way.

The right way. And that would be...how? And if we were to create a new thread exploring our own reactions to social media, how would our value judgments here not, in turn, be but another manifestation of dasein?

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Gary Cox interview

Gary Cox is the author of several books on existentialism and general philosophy. The 10th anniversary edition of his bestselling self-help book How to Be an Existentialist was published recently. Gavin Smith talks with him about existentialism.

Gavin Smith: Given that existentialist themes were addressed by the Greeks two and a half millenia ago, is it not reasonable to argue that existentialism is an exploration of themes that have always existed?

Gary Cox: As you say, what might be broadly called ‘existentialist themes’ have been around for thousands of years. The list of timeless existential truths I just gave clearly shows that much of existentialism is really a matter of taking an honest and courageous look at the fundamentals of the human condition.

Ever and always, in my view, making that crucial distinction between 1] fundamental, objective truths that are applicable to existentialists and non-existentialists alike, and 2] those far more subjective/subjunctive "personal pinions" that revolve around the assumption that "existence is prior to essence".

And that's because in regard to conflicting goods, those all up and down the moral and political spectrum accumulate their own set of assumptions regarding what is in fact true...about fetuses about guns about the role of government about sexual preferences.

And until either an essential God or No God foundation can be established for identifying, accumulating and then enforcing the most rational rules of behavior, how can the fact that people around the globe often live very different lives, sustaining very different sets of behaviors and having very different understandings of the world around them, not play a crucial role in explaining centuries old moral and political conflagrations that beset us?

Gary Cox: The ancient Greek philosophers were bound to draw many of the same broad conclusions about human reality as philosophers draw today; as Shakespeare drew in his day; as future thinkers will draw in their day.

In other words, though we often do sustain very different lives provoking very different perspectives regarding right and wrong, good and bad, rational and irrational behavior, there are still any number of factors unfolding among us such that in existing we share many of the same experiences. We all have the same need -- subsistence -- in turn.

Gary Cox: If existentialism as a specific relatively modern philosophical school did anything original, it was to systematically explain the existential truths of human reality, our being-in-the-world, as a coherent whole – not least by employing many of the best ideas relating to the nature of consciousness and freedom that had accumulated in Western philosophy by the nineteenth century. This comprehensive holism is seen in such major existentialist works as Heidegger’s Being and Time, Sartre’s Being and Nothingness, and de Beauvoir’s Ethics of Ambiguity.

In my view, it's not being born and raised in a world that matters nearly as much as the particular historical, cultural and experiential parameters of that world in terms of both your childhood indoctrination and your experiences as adults.

And the works cited above do not, in my opinion, adequately address the points that I raise regarding dasein and the Benjamin Button Syndrome. Or, if some here are convinced that this is not the case at all, let them cite instances from these books in which the authors do come down out of the philosophical clouds.

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Gary Cox interview

Gary Cox is the author of several books on existentialism and general philosophy. The 10th anniversary edition of his bestselling self-help book How to Be an Existentialist was published recently. Gavin Smith talks with him about existentialism.

Gavin Smith: Is it hard to free existentialism from the myths and images of post-war Left Bank Paris?

Gary Cox: On one level existentialism is intimately bound up with wartime and post-war Paris because several of the major existentialist philosophers – Sartre, de Beauvoir, Camus, and Merleau-Ponty – coexisted in that time and place and were profoundly shaped by it. I sought to capture that time and place, and the philosophy, literature and art it inspired, in my biography of Sartre, Existentialism and Excess. For some, existentialism is synonymous with the romance and eroticism of that era, its heady intellectual atmosphere supercharged by the backdrop of a war-torn Europe.

The historical context, in other words. All of the tumultuous events that unfolded back then prompting any number of men and women to reevaluate the world around them. Also, a world such that, increasingly, through ever more sophisticated communication technology, exposed different cultures to what could be very different ways of understanding the "human condition".

However, given that existentialism is a philosophy for all time, it need not be associated with that era.

Still, it's important to note that existentialism as a philosophy of life is more likely to manifest itself historically during times of great upheavel and change. Things like wars and pandemics and economic depressions and natural disasters are likely to confront us with a need to reevaluate any number of things regarding our interactions with others.

Perhaps an excessive association with that era wrongly leads some to suppose that existentialism was merely a philosophy of that time, a fad that it is now well past its sell-by-date, which is not true.

Look at the world around us today. Increasingly, it appears that democracy and the rule of law may well give way to more draconian, more autocratic political economies. We just never really know what is around the next corner...events that might precipitate any number of dire consequences.

Nazi-occupied Paris may have provided the existentialist philosophers who endured it with dramatic illustrations of their philosophical points – Sartre for example was exercised by the choice between cowardice and courage in the face of torture – but absolutely any time or place will provide illustrations to support existentialist claims.

Forget Sartre. If you want to explore the best account of all this, then, in my opinion, read Simone de Beauvoir's The Blood of Others. Existentialism...for all practical purposes.

Then the part where those like Sartre recognized the role that political economy [dialectical materialism] plays in our lives. The part that, in my opinion, those like Camus were often oblivious to...

Moreover, although Sartre thought that existentialism should and could be synthesised with Marxism, it is not at all certain that it is a particularly left-wing philosophy.

Start here: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/207071

Then it's all up and down the political spectrum...

Existentialist arguments can also be used to support broadly so-called centre-right views concerning individualism, personal aspiration, personal responsibility, self-reliance, limited altruism, and our oversensitive blame and excuse culture. Certainly, How to Be an Existentialist has been criticised by some and praised by others for lacking the arguably excessive sympathy bordering on mawkishness that to some extent characterises the modern left. I leave people to make up their own minds by actually reading the book.

And then my very own components here? Dasein, the gap, Rummy's Rule, Benjamin Button. In particular, the contributions of those like Wilhelm Reich. And those who attempt to intertwine Sartre and Marx with those like Freud and Jung.

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Gary Cox interview

Gary Cox is the author of several books on existentialism and general philosophy. The 10th anniversary edition of his bestselling self-help book How to Be an Existentialist was published recently. Gavin Smith talks with him about existentialism.

Gavin Smith Will the bleak realism of existentialism ever replace the comfort offered by religion, whether traditional or New Age?

Also, can it ever be replaced by a "school of philosophy" actually able to demonstrate that essence is indeed prior to existence? No God perhaps but the wisest of philosophers will always be around to assure us that, given the tools of philosophy, one or another deontological moral assessment can be encompassed by the philosopher-kings in order to recreate the Republic.

Only not just philosophically of course.

Or the ideologues with their "scientific" assessments of the "human condition", or, for others, with their inherently superior "Northern European" political agendas. Someone will always be around to "properly" distinguish "one of us" from "one of them".

Gary Cox: Many religious people are simply not willing to go out of their comfort zone to contemplate the stark, mostly atheistic realism of existentialism.

That's why they call them leaps of faith. You believe despite the lack of evidence establishing there is an existing God. And that it is your God. And existentialism is as stark or as liberating as any particular individual thinks it is. Also, as with non-existentialists, comfort or lack thereof will be derived more from the circumstances of your life than from a "philosophy".

Gary Cox: Indeed the church has actively discouraged them from doing so by preaching that existentialism is a heresy, which of course from the point of view of orthodox religion, it is. In 1948 the Catholic Church added Sartre’s complete works – even those not yet written – to its list of forbidden books.

Next up: forbidden philosophy forums.