Existentialist Critiques of Cartesianism

Existentialist Critiques of Cartesianism
Author: Ilham Dilman
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 194
Release: 2016-01-20
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1349131423

A discussion of existentialist critiques of Cartesian epistemology, the scepticism to which it leads, its objectivist conception of the self, Cartesian dualism and solipsism and the deterministic conception of human life. By the author of "Morality and the Inner Life: A Study of Plato's 'Gorgias'".

Rethinking Existentialism

Rethinking Existentialism
Author: Jonathan Webber
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2018-07-12
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0191054763

In Rethinking Existentialism, Jonathan Webber articulates an original interpretation of existentialism as the ethical theory that human freedom is the foundation of all other values. Offering an original analysis of classic literary and philosophical works published by Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Frantz Fanon up until 1952, Webber's conception of existentialism is developed in critical contrast with central works by Albert Camus, Sigmund Freud, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Presenting his arguments in an accessible and engaging style, Webber contends that Beauvoir and Sartre initially disagreed over the structure of human freedom in 1943 but Sartre ultimately came to accept Beauvoir's view over the next decade. He develops the viewpoint that Beauvoir provides a more significant argument for authenticity than either Sartre or Fanon. He articulates in detail the existentialist theories of individual character and the social identities of gender and race, key concerns in current discourse. Webber concludes by sketching out the broader implications of his interpretation of existentialism for philosophy, psychology, and psychotherapy.

The Religious Existentialists and the Redemption of Feeling

The Religious Existentialists and the Redemption of Feeling
Author: Anthony Malagon
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2019-06-27
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1498584772

Traditional philosophizing has generally depended upon reason as its primary access to truth. Subjective experiences such as feelings, the passions, and emotions have typically been viewed as secondary to reason, untrustworthy, or both. The Religious Existentialists and the Redemption of Feeling revisits how the movement of existentialism, via the religious existentialists, has contributed to a rethinking of the role of subjective experience, in contrast to the rationalist and idealist traditions, thus reframing the importance of feelings in general for the philosophical enterprise as a whole. Through the considerations of a variety of thinkers, this collection provides a fresh look at the contributions of twentieth-century existentialists, thereby re-contextualizing the very notion of existentialism, offering a powerful and genuine re-evaluation of the significance of subjectivity, and underscoring the continued relevance of the religious existentialists.

Neuroexistentialism

Neuroexistentialism
Author: Gregg D. Caruso
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 393
Release: 2018
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0190460725

Existentialisms arise when the foundations of being, such as meaning, morals, and purpose come under assault. In the first-wave of existentialism, writings typified by Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, and Nietzsche concerned the increasingly apparent inability of religion, and religious tradition, to support a foundation of being. Second-wave existentialism, personified philosophically by Sartre, Camus, and de Beauvoir, developed in response to similar realizations about the overly optimistic Enlightenment vision of reason and the common good. The third-wave of existentialism, a new existentialism, developed in response to advances in the neurosciences that threaten the last vestiges of an immaterial soul or self. Given the increasing explanatory and therapeutic power of neuroscience, the mind no longer stands apart from the world to serve as a foundation of meaning. This produces foundational anxiety. In Neuroexistentialism, a group of contributors that includes some of the world's leading philosophers, neuroscientists, cognitive scientists, and legal scholars, explores the anxiety caused by third-wave existentialism and possible responses to it. Together, these essays tackle our neuroexistentialist predicament, and explore what the mind sciences can tell us about morality, love, emotion, autonomy, consciousness, selfhood, free will, moral responsibility, law, the nature of criminal punishment, meaning in life, and purpose.

Ricoeur and Lacan

Ricoeur and Lacan
Author: Karl Simms
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 172
Release: 2007-06-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1441163956

This is the first comparative study of the work of the philosopher Paul Ricoeur and the psychoanalayst Jacques Lacan. The book explores the conflict between the two thinkers that arose from their differing views of ethics: Ricoeur's universalist stance drew on a phenomenological reading of Kant, whereas Lacan's was a relativist position, derived from a psychoanalytic reading of Freud and de Sade. Ricoeur and Lacan gives a full critical overview of the work of both figures, tracing the origins and development of their principal ideas, and identifying key similarities and differences. Not only a valuable and original addition to the literature on two major thinkers, Ricoeur and Lacan is also an important study of contemporary Continental ethics.

Science as Social Existence

Science as Social Existence
Author: Jeff Kochan
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
Total Pages: 262
Release: 2017-12-18
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1783744138

In this bold and original study, Jeff Kochan constructively combines the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) with Martin Heidegger’s early existential conception of science. Kochan shows convincingly that these apparently quite different approaches to science are, in fact, largely compatible, even mutually reinforcing. By combining Heidegger with SSK, Kochan argues, we can explicate, elaborate, and empirically ground Heidegger’s philosophy of science in a way that makes it more accessible and useful for social scientists and historians of science. Likewise, incorporating Heideggerian phenomenology into SSK renders SKK a more robust and attractive methodology for use by scholars in the interdisciplinary field of Science and Technology Studies (STS). Kochan’s ground-breaking reinterpretation of Heidegger also enables STS scholars to sustain a principled analytical focus on scientific subjectivity, without running afoul of the orthodox subject-object distinction they often reject. Science as Social Existence is the first book of its kind, unfurling its argument through a range of topics relevant to contemporary STS research. These include the epistemology and metaphysics of scientific practice, as well as the methods of explanation appropriate to social scientific and historical studies of science. Science as Social Existence puts concentrated emphasis on the compatibility of Heidegger’s existential conception of science with the historical sociology of scientific knowledge, pursuing this combination at both macro- and micro-historical levels. Beautifully written and accessible, Science as Social Existence puts new and powerful tools into the hands of sociologists and historians of science, cultural theorists of science, Heidegger scholars, and pluralist philosophers of science.

No Exit

No Exit
Author: Yoav Di-Capua
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 372
Release: 2018-03-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 022649988X

It is a curious and relatively little-known fact that for two decades—from the end of World War II until the late 1960s—existentialism’s most fertile ground outside of Europe was in the Middle East, and Jean-Paul Sartre was the Arab intelligentsia’s uncontested champion. In the Arab world, neither before nor since has another Western intellectual been so widely translated, debated, and celebrated. By closely following the remarkable career of Arab existentialism, Yoav Di-Capua reconstructs the cosmopolitan milieu of the generation that tried to articulate a political and philosophical vision for an egalitarian postcolonial world. He tells this story by touring a fascinating selection of Arabic and Hebrew archives, including unpublished diaries and interviews. Tragically, the warm and hopeful relationships forged between Arab intellectuals, Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and others ended when, on the eve of the 1967 war, Sartre failed to embrace the Palestinian cause. Today, when the prospect of global ethical engagement seems to be slipping ever farther out of reach, No Exit provides a timely, humanistic account of the intellectual hopes, struggles, and victories that shaped the Arab experience of decolonization and a delightfully wide-ranging excavation of existentialism’s non-Western history.

The Cambridge Companion to Philosophical Methodology

The Cambridge Companion to Philosophical Methodology
Author: Giuseppina D'Oro
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 487
Release: 2017-02-16
Genre: History
ISBN: 1107121523

The volume provides clear and comprehensive coverage of the main methodological debates and approaches within philosophy. The book gives equal weight to analytical and continental approaches, and pays attention to approaches that are often overlooked.

The Immaterial Self

The Immaterial Self
Author: John Foster
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 309
Release: 2002-01-04
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1134731051

Dualism argues that the mind is more than just the brain. It holds that there exists two very different realms, one mental and the other physical. Both are fundamental and one cannot be reduced to the other - there are minds and there is a physical world. This book examines and defends the most famous dualist account of the mind, the cartesian, which attributes the immaterial contents of the mind to an immaterial self. John Foster's new book exposes the inadequacies of the dominant materialist and reductionist accounts of the mind. In doing so he is in radical conflict with the current philosophical establishment. Ambitious and controversial, The Immaterial Self is the most powerful and effective defence of Cartesian dualism since Descartes' own

Cross-Cultural Existentialism

Cross-Cultural Existentialism
Author: Leah Kalmanson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 201
Release: 2020-09-17
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1350140023

Engaging in existential discourse beyond the European tradition, this book turns to Asian philosophies to reassess vital questions of life's purpose, death's imminence, and our capacity for living meaningfully in conditions of uncertainty. Inspired by the dilemmas of European existentialism, this cross-cultural study seeks concrete techniques for existential practice via the philosophies of East Asia. The investigation begins with the provocative writings of twentieth-century Korean Buddhist nun Kim Iryop, who asserts that meditative concentration conducts a potent energy outward throughout the entire karmic network, enabling the radical transformation of our shared existential conditions. Understanding her claim requires a look at East Asian sources more broadly. Considering practices as diverse as Buddhist merit-making ceremonies, Confucian/Ruist methods for self-cultivation, the ritual memorization and recitation of texts, and Yijing divination, the book concludes by advocating a speculative turn. This 'speculative existentialism' counters the suspicion toward metaphysics characteristic of twentieth-century European existential thought and, at the same time, advances a program for action. It is not a how-to guide for living, but rather a philosophical methodology that takes seriously the power of mental cultivation to transform the meaning of the life that we share.