Questions about Existentialism

[egocidal]

Paper due in two days on existentialism, here are some of my problems with the idea. Can I get some objections/ideas on ways to answer?

So according to existentialist theory, we decide our values when we make choices. If I want chocolate ice cream instead of vanilla, I am ascribing a higher value to chocolate. My problem with this is that is still doesn't explain WHY I value it, only that I do. Since I cannot say why I value it, I can only say that I must have a human nature, an essence, to guide me. This shows essence before existence, flying in the face of existentialism. is this correct? What did I miss?

Anguish: Existentialism says the simply put, man is anguish, for when he realizes he is resposible for his values, etc, he becomes afraid of that responsibility. Sarte says "if they are not, we say they are simply hiding their fear, making it even more like anguish" or something to that effect. My questions here are:
1) What if man didn't believe that existence came before essence? He would have no anguish because he would say his life was being directed, he isn't solely responsible.
2) What if he embraces that responsibility? Would Sarte just say "Nahhh,,hes hiding his fear."

Thanks a lot. I'm not looking for someone to write my paper, don't get the wrong idea, but let's just say I haven't been asking questions in class to get discussion going.

Or going to class. /images/graemlins/grin.gif


I just saw the post: Free will is a Red Herring. This is a good post, and will read it in total later, but for the purpose of this paper I need to discuss this. I can't just say "Who cares abotu free will/why does it matter?"

[Alex-db]

I havent read anything about this and don't really know what existentialism means. So my post will either be usefully unbiased, or just rubbish.

The problem in your question appeared to me to be here:

[ QUOTE ]
My problem with this is that is still doesn't explain WHY I value it, only that I do. Since I cannot say why I value it, I can only say that I must have a human nature, an essence, to guide me.

[/ QUOTE ]

This isn't true. Our subconcious is a lot more capable than our concious mind. Someone who fails basic physics could still catch a ball without being able to come close to explaining how they managed it.

Similarly, someone with no understanding of an economic theory of utility could still predict that they will experience a higher increase in enjoyment (a chemical response to the food) if they choose chocolate instead of vanilla.

[moorobot]

[ QUOTE ]
So according to existentialist theory, we decide our values when we make choices. If I want chocolate ice cream instead of vanilla, I am ascribing a higher value to chocolate. My problem with this is that is still doesn't explain WHY I value it, only that I do. Since I cannot say why I value it, I can only say that I must have a human nature, an essence, to guide me. This shows essence before existence, flying in the face of existentialism. is this correct? What did I miss?

[/ QUOTE ] No, for Sartre there is no such thing as human nature, as I recall. You value it because of your individual tastes, different from other human beings.

Maybe you can understand this if you think of platonic forms, a classic examples of essensce preceding existensce: Plato thought that every actual instance of a thing was an imperfect example of that ideal. For example, the chair I am sitting on is not a perfect chair, but we know it is a chair because we have some notion/ideal of a perfect chair in our minds, what it means to be a chair, and it approximates that notion but we can still see how it is imperfect. It has some of the qualities that we associate with chairness.

The same thing holds true, inter alia, for human beings. For Plato, all humans have one single standard that they should try to live up to. Failing to achieve this they are pro tanto not fully human. To use your example (whether it is correct or not, just to illustrate a point conceptually): Plato could say that a human would prefer vanilla ice cream, and so you are therefore living up imperfectly to the essential form of a human, you are not living up to human nature when you ate chocolate. Sartre, under his premises, cannot say this; he cannot say that humans prefer vanilla and you are an imperfect 'real' representation of the 'ideal' human for choosing it; you are just a guy that wants chocolate ice cream, there is no reason for you decide on what ice cream to pick other than what you want to do/what you value. For Plato we can value the wrong things, for Sartre we cannot. For Sartre, humans value whatever kinds of ice cream they choose, for Plato, a real, ideal, perfect human could value vanilla ice cream even if 99% of the actual existing representations we call humans pick chocolate. Plato says our values are set for us in advance by an ideal (not by a modern scientific view of human nature), Sartre does not agree with either of these.

Finally, 'values' is ambigous and equivocal. Sartre might be talking about ethical values here i.e. what is right or wrong i.e murder is wrong, and not about tastes and preferences: when you say you like vanilla you are not saying it is wrong to eat chocolate; conversely, when someone says murdering is wrong they are not saying that they 'like' not murdering.

I hope this helps.

[egocidal]

Thanks for the response, good stuff. A couple of things:

[ QUOTE ]
No, for Sartre there is no such thing as human nature, as I recall. You value it because of your individual tastes, different from other human beings.

[/ QUOTE ]

I know, I was saying that the fact that we don't know why we value something more than something else shows we do have human nature, that we are inclined towards something else, "proving" Sarte wrong.


[ QUOTE ]
Finally, 'values' is ambigous and equivocal. Sartre might be talking about ethical values here i.e. what is right or wrong i.e murder is wrong, and not about tastes and preferences: when you say you like vanilla you are not saying it is wrong to eat chocolate; conversely, when someone says murdering is wrong they are not saying that they 'like' not murdering.

[/ QUOTE ]

I suppose when I say "value" I mean "I say X is more important to me than Y", not "X is wrong, and Y is right."

[madnak]

How does not knowing why imply that it's part of your nature?

[moorobot]

[ QUOTE ]
I suppose when I say "value" I mean "I say X is more important to me than Y", not "X is wrong, and Y is right."

[/ QUOTE ] Now that I am a little more sober, I'm pretty sure when Sartre used value s , he meant the ethical part, not the tastes, but I would reread to make sure you and him are using the same definition.

[atrifix]

Well, you've already turned in your paper, so this won't help with that. I haven't read the existentialist literature, so I can't help there either. But maybe you'll be interested in my thoughts.
[ QUOTE ]
My problem with this is that is still doesn't explain WHY I value it, only that I do. Since I cannot say why I value it, I can only say that I must have a human nature, an essence, to guide me. This shows essence before existence, flying in the face of existentialism. is this correct? What did I miss?

[/ QUOTE ]

It seems to me there are at least two problems, the more obvious in deriving a metaphysical conclusion from epistemic premises. Just because you don't know what the reason for the choice is doesn't mean that one doesn't exist. The second problem that may come up is that you are already presupposing the existence of the person, but I don't know enough of the existentialist terminology to comment on that.