Existentialism is false hope..

reality really aint that bleak: you gotcher personal connection with nature, sex, weed, alcohol, good health, shit load of entertaining things to do, potential to hone your skills, and a lifetime (most the time) to do it.

you gotta narrow what it takes for you to be happy. accept oblivion, its not so bad if you take your head out of your own ass. and also, shit happens, but you gotta deal.

 

When reading Camus, I followed his thinking all the way up to the question of "why not commit suicide".

It's like he had to quickly invent a get-out clause in order to stop himself appearing hypocritical by not actually killing himself.

I think the original question is a good one, and it seemed to me that he didn't have the guts to follow the logic through to it's inevitable conclusion.

I agree with the 'false hope' statement.

 

Pseudointellectual?

 

How am I being dishonest? If I lack the understanding of my point of view please correct me.

 

Purpose is subjective. Individuals can choose their own purpose by which to live. That's just a fancy way of saying that people will find things they want to do, and do them. There is no collective purpose; none at all. There is only individual's goal and ambitions, which may or may not be realize. Choosing a life of idleness as a result of nihilism is no less valid than devoting one's life to the pursuit of knowledge, or to the creation of literature or music. Similarly, none of those pursuits are any less valid than idleness.

 

Also, for the people saying their own aspirations may appear minuscule in a "grander context": EVERYTHING IS MINUSCULE. In some respects, I am a nihilist. But the one tenet on nihilism that I simply do not buy is the doctrine that there is no objective truth. How can there not be? Isn't to say that objective truth does not exist a truth in and of itself? It's more accurate to say that I'm a relativist. Nothing REALLY matters, but who cares? My outlooks fluctuates from pessimistic to optimistic; hedonistic to altruistic; stoic to ...the opposite of stoic. It all depends on my mood. All that matters is that I'm satisfied with my life as it is, enjoy what I've done already, and look forward to what is left to be done.

 

I really don't like the label existentialism --- all of the above ideas existed in ancient Greece (Sextus Empiricus, etc.).

Well, I think there is a difference between ultimate ends and practical/limited ends. Again, I don't know what you call existentialism, but I personally think it is essential to have practical goals/ends with the purpose of continued engagement and inquiry. Despite the fact that those practical ends won't survive the test of time. My intention is to keep playing the game, paradoxically.

That is what some people we call existentialists call "created meaning." It's a personal meaning. Not a universality.

Work has personal meaning for me. It leaves me fulfilled: not because it will grant me heaven or utopia, but in-itself work holds personal value for me.

That would be my beef with hedonism/Epicureanism, cynicism, sophism, pessimism/nihilism...whatever you want to call it. It doesn't recognize value in engaging adversity.

P.S. What I'm saying is not some kind of "truth." Rather, it's a matter of taste: a life of engagement is to me more 'tasteful' than one of self-indulgent nihilistic withdrawal.

 

*Huge round of applause to this post!*

 

You're too lazy to explain you argument? What kind of philosopher are you, why even bother posting here in the first place if you can't even be bothered to properly explain your argument??

Of course we never find any answers! There is no absolute Truth with a capital T. There may be no ultimate value, no ultimate purpose to our existences, but very clearly you can either be a miserable bastard or you can enjoy life, in all its imperfect, suffering-filled, miserableness, and learn to focus your energies, however ultimately pointless they may be, on the things that really matter to you. For me existentialism is about not being depressed and anxious and worrying about petty small shit like money, whether you have a good job or are being a good responsible citizen (which these days means having a sweet job and contributing to the economy); taking responsibility for your own life and aiming to do something 'worthwhile' with it (by your OWN standards!) even if it does ultimately add up to nothing. And as others on this thread have made clear, it doesn't add up to nothing if it has an impact, no matter how small, on how others think and lead their lives, which I don't think anyone could deny it does!

We exist, and experience all this shit. Even if it means nothing, even if it can never be made sense of, we EXPERIENCE it. And we can experience it miserably, or pleasurably, which are you gonna choose??

 

-Nihilism says there is no meaning to life, whatsoever.
-Existentialism says there being no INHERENT, OBJECTIVE meaning to life. Your life is self-defined and therefore any purpose(or the word you use, "hope") is subjective.

The key difference between the two is whether a person is to be held responsible for what they've done. I see the two as polar perspectives on the same theory rather than polar theories.

edyb, it seems you're only highlighting the one solid thing that makes it different from your belief, nihilism. Instead of saying "existentialism gives false hope" you might as well say "existentialism is false." So I think this topic is, fittingly enough, meaningless. Because if you're just looking for people to prove existentialism as true or not true, I think you're far better off reading a book than posting here.

I'm not a scholar of philosophy but it's my understanding that there's alot of argument over exactly what some of these beliefs really are, so these opinions are largely based on my own viewpoint and are not reflective of every thinker.

 

No.

 

well , the anti-anything no seems about finest original opinion a person will ever have . congratulations on that achievement . oh . context . i forget about exclusive context and tumble in apology .

yes .

to concur implies shared , intersected existence . isolation will kill you , and so intersected existence remains true . a fluid motion of mind is neccessity . life is motion . life motion defeats entropy even as it eats here and shits there , even more as life creates a wild light .

ultimately , light conserves space .

 

lovely post! Really, I like it!

 

i've seen that wild light - it's trippy - more colors than i knew were real . i would think only to be a lover of existence . in theory , the All of it .

 

I'm just a poor dumb oklahoma country dude, but existentialism is about choice and risk. There is no way that intellecutal argument or posturing can settle a debate between nihilism and existentialism. How can anyone know that hope is "false", except after the fact--at which point we may still not know, and it certainly won't matter? By going for the "hope" option, what more attractive options are we foreclosing? The satisfaction of revelling in life's meaninglessness? When we bet on a horse in a race an it finishes last, I guess one way of describing that is that we had "false hope". Another way is to say that we aren't clairvoyant, and it seemed like a good bet at the time. But in the absence of clairvoyance, the alternative to the bet would seem to be to stay home and play UNO with grandma, and what fun is that? I can't understand why anyone would opt for nihilism, how it can be considered a purer or more authentic postion, or why that would matter, but whatever floats your boat!

 

I am sorry, but I must correct you here. A modern nihilist does NOT say there is no meaning to life, the defenition is being redefined with things such as the American Nihilist Underground Society; nihilism is about redefining life according to yourself, shutting out society in your own values, and living to how YOU want, not the society in which we live in, very much like existentialism.

Also existentialism is not false hope, but rather more reliant on yourself than anything. YOU must make the hope and without yourself, there is nothing. As you are the only thing that you can be positive exists and be sure of.

As Descartes said "I think, thefore I am."

 

somehow i always thought existentialism was detatchment from any emotional need either to feel hope, nor to dispair at the lack of it.

essentially that the alpha, omega and essence of existentialism IS detatchment.

so if it is detatchment from neither an emotional need for hope, nor dispair at the lack of it, how can it be a false hope? how can something be a "false" hope, if it doesn't claim to be a hope of any kind at all?

=^^=
.../\...

 

Or maybe it's that nihilism is the long route to existentialism.

Also... Saying that "the essence of our life is to give our life essence" is a buffer for "We have no set purpose or meaning."....

Accepting that there is nothingness or nonexistence is a long depressing process...

Giving up the idea that we have a purpose or are more than nothing is like throwing up a white flag and surrendering all hope that we might ever amount to anything.

Think of it in the stages of grief...

Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance...

Different people get stuck in different stages... ignorant people in denial. nihilists in anger or depresson... and I believe that existentialists have come to accept that we have no purpose and no hope.. but realize that our experience is ours to embrace.. and do so....

Existentialism is the final stage of nihilism?

 

Existentialism can lead to many things. It accepts the truths of nihilism and it used as a beacon to guide us into a new path from those that we've been traveling on (religion, etc).
So basically where does it lead, it can lead to us creating a meaning for ourselves which can either be destruction (by fracturing apart, possibly killing ourselves through war, etc) or becoming the god that most of society used to believe in (through technology, thorough understanding of our own nature and how it relates to the things around it).

 

War is the meaning of atheticism for the new kibitzers