Existentialism basic writings guignon pdf

What Is The Relevance Of Existentialism (Sartre And Nietzsche) To The Philosophy Of Well-Being?

What is the relevance of existentialism (Sartre and Nietzsche) to the philosophy of well-being? Your paper’s thesis will establish the relevance by critically engaging with one of the theories of well-being we’ve studied (hedonism, Aristotle’s theory, or desire theory). The thesis might have this form: This aspect of existentialism calls into question that feature of desire theory. A sample thesis (you may write about this, if you like): “The existentialist notion of self-creation calls into doubt the desire-theorist’s straight-forward focus on the satisfaction of desires as a way of increasing well-being.” Don’t write about marginal issues; make sure that what you explore is important in each theory. (if you write about Aristotle, your paper should be on the long side of the word count, because you’ll have to explain some central aspects of his theory, which are difficult to state briefly).

At least 2/3 of your paper should be devoted to existentialism.

The target reader has not read any of these texts, so you’ll have to provide whatever background is necessary. Do not use quotations; use

straightforward language

NOTE

The essay must be between 1600–1900 words (5–6 pages). Include a standard heading: writer's name, assignment name and essay title (e.g., "Midterm Exam: Mapping Plato's Divided Line onto His Cave Allegory"), department name, course name and number, professor's name, date submitted, and word count.

For this assignment, do not use quotations. Also, you ought to strive to describe the author's ideas in your own words; do not rely too much on jargon. Be sure to use very plain language. You ought to strive to breakdown the ideas into the simplest, most straightforward terms possible; this involves thoughtful word-choice and uncomplicated sentence structure (but of course, you don’t want to simplify expression at the expense of accurately representing the details and subtleties of the concepts and arguments).

Heidegger and Nietzsche on the Self

Charles Guignon on Heidegger — on desires and identity Heidegger captures this way of thinking of human existence by saying that what is distinctive about Dasein[1] is that its being—that is, its life as a whole—is at issue for it. In other words, we are beings who care about what we are: we care about where our lives are going and what we are becoming in our actions. Because our being is at issue for us in this way, we are always taking a stand on our lives in what we do. To say that I take a stand on my life means that I do not always act on my immediate desires and basic needs, for I have second-order motivations and commitments that range over and affect the sorts of first-order desires I have. For example, given my concern to be a person who is capable of self-control, I make an effort to moderate my cravings for chocolate, and this second-order commitment keeps those first-order cravings in check (at least sometimes). [2] My second-order commitments make up the motivational set that underlies my identity as an agent in the world. I can be a moderate, stable person—or, for that matter, a slacker or a loser—only because there are overarching motivations that shape my life and give me an orientation in the world.[3]

[1] Dasein is Heidegger’s term for human being (literally, “being there”).

[2] This way of putting the idea is drawn from Harry Frankfurt’s “Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person,” Journal of Philosophy 67 (January 1971): 5-20. Heidegger’s own formulation of the idea traces back to Hegel’s “Introduction” to the Phenomenology of Spirit. In Heidegger’s view, even the person Frankfurt calls “wanton” must have second-order commitments (to being wanton) if he or she is to count as an instance of Dasein.]

[3] Guignon, C. (2004). “Becoming a self: The role of authenticity in Being and Time.” The Existentialists: Critical Essays on Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Sartre, 122.

Nietzsche on the Self [TR: Nietzsche does not believe that we are completely free to create ourselves, as Sartre does. N believes that there are parts of our ourselves that we cannot eliminate. However, N does believe in a kind of self-creation. —How to make sense of this?]

The Will to Power §485 (1887) The subject: this is the term for our belief in a unity underlying all the different impulses of the highest feeling of reality: we understand this belief as the effect of one cause....— "The subject" is the fiction that many similar states in us are the effect of one substratum: but it is we who first created the "similarity" of these states; our adjusting them and making them similar is the fact, not their similarity...

Beyond Good and Evil (1886) §12 First of all, we must also put an end to that other and more disastrous atomism, the one Christianity has taught best and longest, the atomism of the soul. Let this expression signify the belief that the soul is something indestructible, eternal, indivisible...: this belief must be thrown out of science! Between you and me, there is absolutely no need to give up “the soul” itself, and relinquish one of the oldest and most venerable hypotheses . . . the path lies open for new versions and sophistications of the soul hypothesis – and concepts like the “mortal soul” and the “soul as subject-multiplicity” and the “soul as a society constructed out of drives and affects” want henceforth to have civil rights in the realm of science.

Daybreak (1881) §119(a) [drives] Take some trifling experience. Suppose we were in the market place one day and we noticed someone laughing at us as we went by: this event will signify this or that to us according to whether this or that drive happens at that moment to be at its height in us — and it will be a quite different even according to the kind of person we are. [1] One person will absorb it like a drop of rain, [2] another will shake it from him like an insect, [3] another will try to pick a quarrel, [4] another will examine his clothing to see if there is anything about it that might give rise to laughter, [5] another will be led to

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Heidegger and Nietzsche on the Self

reflect on the nature of laughter as such, [6] another will be glad to have involuntarily augmented the amount of cheerfulness and sunshine in the world. . .

Daybreak §119(b) —and in each case a drive has gratified itself, whether it be the drive to [2?] annoyance or [3] to combativeness or [4? or 5] to reflection or [6] to benevolence. This drive seized the event as its prey: why precisely this one? Because, thirsty and hungry, it was lying in wait.

Daybreak §560(a) [managing, manipulating drives] What we are at liberty to do. — One can dispose of one's drives like a gardener and, though few know it, cultivate the shoots of anger, pity, curiosity, vanity as productively and profitably as a beautiful fruit tree on a trellis; one can do it with the good or bad taste of a gardener and, as it were, in the French or English or Dutch or Chinese fashion. . .

Daybreak §560(b) . . . one can also let nature rule and only attend to a little embellishment and tidying-up here and there; one can, finally, without paying any attention to them at all, let the plants grow up and fight their fight out among themselves — indeed, one can take delight in such a wilderness, and desire precisely this delight, though it gives one some trouble, too. All this we are at liberty to do: but how many know we are at liberty to do it? Do the majority not believe in themselves as in complete fully-developed facts? Have the great philosophers not put their seal on this prejudice with the doctrine of the unchangeability of character?

Daybreak §109(a) Self-mastery and moderation and their ultimate motive. - I find no more than six essentially different methods of combating the vehemence of a drive. First, one can avoid opportunities for gratification of the drive, and through long and ever longer periods of non-gratification weaken it and make it wither away. . . Thirdly, one can deliberately give oneself over to the wild and

unrestrained gratification of a drive in order to generate disgust with it and with disgust to acquire a power over the drive. . .

Daybreak §109(b) . . . that one desires to combat the vehemence of a drive at all, however, does not stand within our own power; nor does the choice of any particular method; nor does the success or failure of this method.

Daybreak §109(c) What is clearly the case is that in this entire procedure our intellect is only the blind instrument of another drive which is a rival of the drive whose vehemence is tormenting us: whether it be the drive to restfulness, or the fear of disgrace and other evil consequences, or love. While 'we' believe we are complaining about the vehemence of a drive, at bottom it is one drive which is complaining about another; that is to say: for us to become aware that we are suffering from the vehemence of a drive presupposes the existence of another equally vehement or even more vehement drive, and that a struggle is in prospect in which our intellect is going to have to take sides.

The Gay Science (1882, 1887) §290 One thing is needful.—To "give style" to one's character—a great and rare art! It is practiced by those who survey all the strengths and weaknesses of their nature and then fit them into an artistic plan until every one of them appears as art and reason and even weaknesses delight the eye. Here a large mass of second nature has been added; there a piece of original nature has been removed—both times through long practice and daily work at it. Here the ugly that could not be removed is concealed; there it has been reinterpreted and made sublime. Much that is vague and resisted shaping has been saved and exploited for distant views ... In the end, when the work is finished, it becomes evident how the constraint of a single taste governed and formed everything large and small. Whether this taste was good or bad is less important than one might suppose, if only it was a single taste!

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