A web page by Natalie
This site contains information on Existentialism, Jean Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, The Theatre of the Absurd, Ecophilosophy, Fake Philosophy, and Mediums.
Existentialism was a philosophical movement in the twentieth century. Many of the philosohpers based their works upon idea's and concept's of Kierkegaard, Hegel, and Marx. Existentialism is founded on the idea that the universe has no intrinsic purpose, there for man must take responsibility for his actions.
Sartre lived from 1905-1980. He believed that existentialism had to start from nothing but humanity itself, meaning that they must start with the existence of people. He went on to say that man's existence is more important than who or what he is. He must then create who he is for himself becuase it is not innately placed inside his head. Sartre did not believe in any world of ideas or a single meaning for life. Without a cookie cutter meaning of life men must create a meaning for their own life, they must find out why they are on the earth and live for that purpose. While man must create his own reason for being alive he must also take the responsibility that goes with that. Men are free and therefore have the responsibility to owning up to their actions, they must not blame it on "human nature" or the "human spirit" for they are themselves and no one can change that. Sartre believed that by being free men must want to live life truthfully and wisely and therefore place all the blame of a failure or mishap on themselves. From deducing all that Sartre got to the conclusion that "to exist is to create your own life".
Simone de Beauvoir was a female existentialist and also Sartre's life long partner. Hearing what Sarte taught Simone put his ideas to feminism in the way that men and women are only what they make themselves. She thought that men were not innately stronger and more capable for working outside the home or having a male nature and that women were not innately more suited for life at home and for maturing the children or having a female nature.She taught that people must break beyond thee old fashioned prejudices and make themselves what they want to be.
The Theater of the Absurd was a theater in which they aimed to get the audience to think and change their life according to what they learned there. The theater showed the lack of disorder in lfie to get the audience to disagree and show defense. They would also show trivial situations, for example brushing one's teeth, the audience would laugh in defense so as not to be ridiculed for their own routine. They would also show cases in which unrealistic events would happen and the character would not be surprised. This would of course make the audience surprised that the character was not surprised. In this way the theater hoped to make people take another look at their lives and put less emphasis on the trivial events of everyday life but to instead look inside themselves for something more real and true.
Ecophilosophy is the branch of philosophy which is looking at why the western civilization and humnanity in general is polluting and killing the earth. They look past the end results of global warming and polution and try to look at why pollution started in the first place. They believe that western thought in general is flawed. For example the idea that man is the smartest and greatest animal alive, and that we are at the top of the food chain. If we did not have this idea, the earth might not be as polluted as it is now.
Fake philosophy is the business of writing books that say they have the answers to people's problems and life's deepest questions. Fake philosophy comes in the form of UFO books, Spiritual Medium books, Looking into the Future books, etc. This business has grown with the weakening of the spiritual empire of christianety and when people are turning to more alternative ideas. These fake books do not contain any truth becuase they are not based on logical resoning or thought, which is what philosophy is based on at the most fundamental level.These books seem realistic becuase they complie a bunch of independent coincidences and rare events together to look like these happenings are every day and ordinary. In not being factual or even realistic these books are fake philosophy.
Spiritual mediums do not exist, however mediums do exist in the context people are sometimes mediums for their unconsciousness. When a person finds themselves doing something and they don't know why this can be explained as thoughts or memories that exist inside them that they were not aware of. An example could be a lullabye that a nanny used to sing to them at night or a poster that they saw at school every day. By mediums to our unconsciousness we can realize that amazing ability our unconsciousness has at storing experiences.