Abstract for essay on existentialism
"The one exclusive sign of thorough knowledge is the power or teaching."
— Aristotle
Guiding Questions: How do we prove that existentialism is a humanism? 2) How possible is it to discover others through our own self-discovery? 3) Why is the other indispensible to self knowledge?
Your task in this part of the essay is to explain the following quotes based on the discussion that we had in class.
Based on previous class discussions of existentialism, explain why we can say that:
1) Existentialism is an ethic of action and self-commitment
2) the absolute truth of consciousness as it attains to itself is, I think, therefore I am, in other words, this truth is simple, easily attained and within the reach of everybody; it consists in one’s immediate sense of one’s self.
3) The aim of existentialism is to establish the human kingdom as a pattern of values in distinction from the material world.
4) the subjectivity which we postulate as the standard of truth is no narrowly individual subjectivism, because it is not only one’s own self that one discovers in the cogito, but those of others too.
5) when we say “I think” we are attaining to ourselves in the presence of the other, and we are just as certain of the other as we are of ourselves.
6) the man who discovers himself directly in the cogito also discovers all the others, and discovers them as the condition of his own existence.
7) man recognizes that he cannot be anything
