In the first installment of a two-part series, Nicholas Joll tries to convince us that, for one thing, fire is not hot and, for another, that sincerity is impossible.
Truth and Authenticity in Michael Haneke’s Caché
The films of Austrian director Michael Haneke seem to start out “normally” and then slowly descend into an abyss—but what if that abyss is in fact living authentically? Could we see Haneke’s award-winning Caché (2005) as an exemplification of Sartrean existentialism? And what are some other philosophical influences in his work?
Not School Digest #4: Sartre, Heidegger, Zizek, Marx, and Theater
Excerpts from discussions on Sartre’s Nausea, Heidegger’s “The Question Concerning Technology,” Slavoj Zizek’s Year of Dreaming Dangerously, Marx and Engels’s “Communist Manifesto,” Peter Schaffer’s play Equus, and Cormac McCarthy’s The Sunset Limited: A Novel in Dramatic Form.
Sincerity. Sincerely.
Judgment without Morality
Both Sartre and Anscombe say that they’re teasing out the logical consequences of atheism for ethics, and of course we saw this back in Nietzsche too. If you ask “are these figures moral realists or moral irrealists?”, I think they’re going to say you’re missing the point. No, a sentence like “X is right” no longer becomes simply true or Continue Reading …
Not School: Jean-Paul Sartre’s “Nausea”
Featuring Mark Linsenmayer, Sean Webb, Stan Martin, and Yannick Kilberger. Recorded January 26, 2014.
One of the seminal texts of existentialism, but very slow and hard to get through as an actual book. While ordinarily we see objects as meaningful as things with history and often purpose, we can set that aside and see them instead as brute and meaningless. We can’t handle that, aren’t meant to handle that, and so instead of this being a machine-like, unemotional way of experiencing things, it is (for Roquentin) intolerably icky.
Not Ep. 87 Addendum: Citizen Outtakes from “No Exit”
A couple of minutes of us chatting with Lucy Lawless and Jaime Murray as we share our preconceptions about the play and give excuses for being unprepared, about 5 minutes of blooper-type material, then the rest is our talking afterward about some of our choices in silly voices, what we think Sartre was talking about, what we were all up to in our lives that week, etc.
Sartre’s “No Exit” Read with Lucy Lawless & Jaime Murray
In support of our ep. #87 discussing Sartre, the PEL Players present our 2nd annual dramatic reading of a work of philosophical theater.
Not Ep. 87: Sartre’s “No Exit” Read with Lucy Lawless & Jaime Murray
The PEL Players present our 2nd annual dramatic reading of a work of philosophical theater.
End song: “No Exit” by Mark Lint
Episode 87: Sartre on Freedom and Self-Deception
On Jean-Paul Sartre’s “Existentialism is a Humanism” (1946), “Bad Faith” (pt. 1, ch. 2 of Being & Nothingness, 1943), and his play No Exit (1944).
Episode 87: Sartre on Freedom and Self-Deception
On Jean-Paul Sartre’s “Existentialism is a Humanism” (1946), “Bad Faith” (pt. 1, ch. 2 of Being & Nothingness, 1943), and his play No Exit (1944).
What is human nature? Sartre says that there isn’t one, but there is a universal human condition, which is our absolute freedom. If you claim to be determined by your character or circumstances, you’re acting in “bad faith.” Learn more.
End song: “Minnesota Freak” by Mark Lint and the Fake (2000).
Precognition of Ep. 87: Sartre
Mark Linsenmayer lays out some themes from Jean-Paul Sartre’s “Existentialism is a Humanism” and the “Bad Faith” chapter (Part 1, Ch. 2) of Being & Nothingness.
Precognition of Ep. 87: Sartre
Mark Linsenmayer lays out some themes from Jean-Paul Sartre’s “Existentialism is a Humanism” and the “Bad Faith” chapter (Part 1, Ch. 2) of Being & Nothingness.
Topic for #80: Heidegger on our Existential Situation
Listen right now to Seth giving a 10-min summary of Heidegger’s essay via a new “Precognition” mini-sode. Back in episode 32 (over two years ago!) we covered the project of Martin Heidegger’s most famous work, Being and Time, composed early in his career. (Incidentally, I see a new and exciting looking translation of this on Amazon that you may want Continue Reading …
Fink on the Split Subject (Lacan vs. Sartre)
I ended our episode bemoaning that I feel like I still don’t understand this talk of “subject” as opposed to “self.” A few of you have made some good comments on this, but I’m still not satisfied. Let me pull a few things out of the Fink book: 1. In chapter 2 about “The Nature of Unconscious Thought,” he concludes Continue Reading …
The Existential Weirdness of Fandom
In one of Woody Allen’s films (Annie Hall?), one of the characters remarks that existentialism is a matter of projecting one’s neuroses onto the world. Instead of me being depressed, I am in an ontological state of despair. Instead of being a person who is considering what to do with my evening, it is the world that is pulsing with Continue Reading …
Stokely Carmichael’s Sartrean Influences
One of the names dropped during the Race and Philosophy episode was that of Stokely Carmichael. Below is a famous recording of one Carmichael’s “Black Power” speeches, given after Carmichael was appointed Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC: Watch on YouTube.
Sartre Speaks on Intellectuals (via Open Culture)
Hey, check out my post on openculture.com: I found a video of Sartre speaking (in French with subtitles) during the Vietnam War about bad faith among intellectuals.
Sartre’s Legacy
Our Sartre episode focused on one single, apparently not widely discussed text:The Transcendence of the Ego: An Existentialist Theory of Consciousness. I say not very widely discussed because you would expect Sartre and consciousness to have a ton of videos on youtube and lots of scholarly papers when Googled. Instead, most of the things that come up when you search Continue Reading …
JPS, per BBC
Watch on YouTube.
Read the full article…