Folie 1

ACT and ExistentialismA short story of good and bad

ACBS Parma 2011Rainer F. SonntagOlpeSorry for my English.

All translations are mine.What is Existentialism? Normal philosophy Diverse The concept of existence Diversity of ExistentialismSren KierkegaardGabriel MarcelKarl JaspersMartin HeideggerJean-Paul SartreAlbert CamusWhat is Existence? Specifically human Behaving towards ones behavior Action Existence precedes essence Freedom ( as blessing and as curse)

Philadelphia 2005Albert Camus (1913-1960)

When Karl Jaspers, revealing the impossibility of constituting the world as a unity, exclaims: This limitation leads me to myself, where I can no longer withdraw behind an objective point of view that I am merely representing, where neither I myself nor the existence of others can any longer become an object for me,he is evoking after many others those waterless deserts where thought reaches its confines.After many others, yes indeed, but how eager they were to get out of them! At that last crossroad where thought hesitates, many men have arrived and even some of the humblest. They then abdicated what was most precious to them, their life.Others, princes of the mind, abdicated likewise, but they initiated the suicide of their thought in its purest revolt. The real effort is to stay there, rather, in so far as that is possible, and to examine closely the odd vegetation of those distant regions. Tenacity and acumen are privileged spectators of this inhuman show in which absurdity, hope, and death carry on their dialogue.. (Camus: Myth of Sisiphus)Struggling with ambiguityThis citation expresses the deep experience of human ambivalence.Just when it is most important to us we do not succeed in deciding between two alternatives by rational, calculating weighing of pros and cons.Struggling with ambiguityIn a similar vein Richard Rorty characterizes a liberal ironic as someone who denies that there is a rational answer to questions like:Why not being cruel?Such questions are as hopeless as:Struggling with ambiguityIs it right to deliver n innocents over to be tortured to save the lives of m x n other innocents? If so, what are the correct values of m and n? Anybody who thinks that there are well-grounded theoretical answers to this sort of questions algorithms for resolving moral dilemmas of this sort is still, in his heart, a theologian or a metaphysician. (Rorty, 1989, p. xv)Struggling with ambiguityInteresting, isnt it?Calculating thinking (Heidegger), i.e. rational thinking as theology and metaphysics!And if we cant calculate decisions what then?Relinquish solid ground&confide

Coming to actionPresent moment and then:Jumping (Kierkegaard) with eyes openNot easy!We dont like to think without bannister (Hannah Arendt)Coming to actionOn the other hand:Jumping can feel free (bungee jumbing)The jump voluntarilyWe are thrown into our freedom to decide and choose (Heidegger)How do we deal with that? The way to freedom(to a free self)

Montesquieu

Rousseau

Diderot

VoltairePhilippe PinelPredecessors

14th July 1789

The French RevolutionPredecessorsIsaak Newton (1642-1726) breaks the power of theologyDavid Hume (1711-1776): Religion cannot be justified rationallyHume again: Causality is a fiction. No way from being (science) to ought (ethics)So what?Nowhere solid groundReligion passEven science cannot give us directionJohann Gottlieb Fichte 1790 I am living in a new world since a read the Critique of Pure Reason. Sentences I believed to be unfailable are made failed;

Kantthings I thought to be unproofable, e.g. the concept of absolute freedom, der Pflicht etc., have been proofed for me, and about that I am much the more happy. It is unbelievable what respect for human kind , what power this system gives us!

KantThe self sets itself.

1762-1814The big amazementI am writing, so I have an imagination of my writing, however, others are writing beside me. How do I know that my writing is not the writing of another one? why do I see my seeing as mine? [] Why do we count our imaginations as belonging to us?(zit. n. Groheim, 2004, S. 199).Early perspective takingFichte and the wall: See the difference between your-self and the wall

The big word The self sets itself, and it is, by virtue of this mere setting through itself; and vice versa: the self is, and it sets its being, by virtue of its mere being. The big wordAt the same time it is the acting, and the product of the action; the doing, and that, what is put forth through the actions; acting and deed are one and the same; therefore is:The big wordI am, expression of a deed-action; [] The self is as whatever it sets itself; and it sets itself as that what it is. Thus: I am quite, what I am (Fichte, 1794, S. 16). Thats it Difficult FreedomFriedrichSchlegel

(1772-1829)

Schlegel atiltA free and educated human being should be able to arbitrary and as he likes put himself into a philosophical or philological, critiqual or poetic, historical or rhetoric, antique or modern mood, totally voluntary, just as one tunes an instrument, at any time, and at any intensity.

Kritische Friedrich-Schlegel-Ausgabe. Erste Abteilung: Kritische Neuausgabe, Band 2, Mnchen, Paderborn, Wien, Zrich 1967, S. 147-164. http://www.zeno.org/nid/20005618886Freedom is hard to standRiders on the stormInto this house we're bornInto this world we're thrownLike a dog without a bone An actor out aloneRiders on the stormFreedom is hard to standCoercion to authenticityPolitical existentialismAdventure existentialismInauthenticity as a sin Fundamental ontology as solutionThe vlkische in National SocialismCoercsion to authenticity

HeideggerKarl Jaspers &Defusion

Concordance therapy:Learning to bring thoughts, bodily processes, and motor actions into accordanceCoercsion to authenticityWhat counts, is total dedication (Sartre, 1946 in his diary)TerrorismThe eerie world of absolute selflessness (Hannah Arendt, 1951) Political ExistentialismGlorification of war

The males courage really is the most delicious (The fight as inner experience, 1926)

Ernst JngerOur time shows strong pacifist tendencies. This trend comes from two sources: idealism blood-dread. The first avoids war because he loves human beings, the other because he is afraid.

Adventure existentialism

The wholelife as a dareAdventure existentialismTake it lightly

Defusion with Richard Rorty: Its all just stories

Story telling The purpose of freedom? Well, Love!Self-knowledge is of social origin. It is only when a persons private world becomes important to others that it is made important to him.(About behaviorism. 1974)

Human Flourishing

Science and Ancient Ideas of What it Means to be Human: Exploring the Implicit Values Underlying ACT

Thank you