One of the most wishy-washy, bourgeois philosophy out there. Bitch I know I exist, now how is that going to help us get rid of capitalism.
One of the most wishy-washy, bourgeois philosophy out there. Bitch I know I exist, now how is that going to help us get rid of capitalism.
Existentialism isn't about if you exist or not, it's about existence preceding essence. Think of it as a fundamentally materialist philosophy: who you are isn't a platonic form of a universal (man, god, soul, etc) but instead your life and actions in the world.
In a way, Dickens in "A Christmas Carol" gives the Christian version of this with Marley: the chain you wear you forge in life. The difference is existentialism doesn't require an afterlife, this is it.
As a philosophy, it's actually really helpful as a supplement to Marxist thought, since it means that life in the world (being in the world to use that bastard Heidegger's term) matters as such. Indeed, since it's being in the world, then it's always a historical and material life we occupy. This is in keeping with materialist principles, but then goes to give the individual a place in the material world they exist in.
Tldr existentialism is good my dude.
My remark was not intended as a serious critique of existentialism. Existence preceding essence is the part of existentialism that I take the least issue with, but that itself is a very vague statement. My main gripe with existentialism is its humanism that is really just a vestige from the enlightenment. This is especially apparent when Sartre tries to mix existentialism with marxism and fit human agency and free will into histomat. It ends up being a dysfunctional idealist mess and never caught on. Foucault and structuralism pretty much buried what was left of existentialism, which really hasn't been relevant since Sartre died.
Structuralism allows us to understand the material and historical conditions we live in better than existentialism, but you still have to turn back to the individual's place in that structure.
Even Derrida went back to existentialism at the end with "The Gift of Death." Reports of its demise are greatly exaggerated.
Again, I'd say that the interest in the phenomenological life of the individual is complemented (in the sense that it's completed) through structuralist and materialist thought. Understanding something like the prison allows us to understand the material and historical conditions that structure existence, but the prisoner in that system is not an "essence" anymore than one worker can stand in for all workers.
Another thinker that I think takes Foucault and merges him with existentialism effectively is agamben, in something like "what is an apparatus."
This isn't to say that there's not plenty of lib strains of existentialism, but it doesn't have to be that way. Indeed, a real recognition that existence precedes essence means that you recognize sometimes the material, social, and ideological conditions we live in prevent a free sovereign choice that :LIB: idiots believe in.
Edit. Sartre is easily the least interesting existentialist to me w his philosophy, so we're in agreement there.
I think you are working with a broader definition of existentialism, which doesn't really have a solid definition. I am talking about the strains of existentialism that are obsessed with things like authenticity, free will, etc, that is essentially just spicier liberalism. I would count people like Sartre and Camus into that category.
Yeah I'll admit that I have a broad definition. In particular I think the older strands that are indebted to theology are actually more useful than Camus. Kierkegaard or Augustine, in their decentering of man in the face of god, are more useful for materialist politics than :LIB: thinkers like Camus that want to simply put man in the place of god. Put another way, the kind of existentialism that I'm interested in takes as a starting point the idea that the individual is not an autonomous sovereign subject in control of its actions but instead embedded in the world and history. Given the fact we are thrown into this world without asking for it, this kind of existentialism is basically interested in how to act when you're not sovereign. Augustine's idea of bondage to sin is maybe the root of this kind of thinking.
For materialist politics this isn't to say we're all chained and screwed, but instead to reflect the reality that individual action is always incomplete and that it's only in collective action that we gain real power (this bit is something that Arendt talks about in the human condition)
I wish I could read philosophy, but last time I tried I ended up trying to build a time machine in my underpants so I could go back and kill Derrida.