Paul Sartre
The Various Opinions On The Human Condition
The absurdity of the human condition knows no bounds. It is really a Sisyphean task, and one can only hope for enough joy in it to resume on. Therefore we find any number of distractions, from faith to hedonism to family, all of which has its veneer of respectability depending on the society.
Existentialism is often associated with its most prominent proponents, often brooding and even pessimistic, from Ingmar Bergman to Jean-Paul Sartre, but it also can claim among its leading lights such great souls as Erich Fromm, Viktor Frankl, Richard Taylor, Hermann Hesse, and Krishnamurti, whose revelations are “sunlit” regardless of accounting for the full record of human torment.
Erich Fromm is well known for his eminently readable treatise The Art of Loving which offers a view of love radically unlike any ever espoused. Among his many alarming insights is the proven fact that many people think only in terms of being loved, while love is correctly about being loving. Viktor Frankl identifies a sense of purpose, or meaning, as being the primary force to human existence after the most immediate needs of food, shelter, and clothing are met.
His hypotheses are put to the harshest test possible first hand in a chain of nazi death camps where the psychiatrist is a prisoner subjected to the most brutal of abject deprivation and embarrassment. Such revelations from an educated delicate man who has literally been to hell and back are worth considering!
Richard Taylor ( Good and Evil ), Hermann Hesse ( On Trees ), and Krishnamurti ( Commentary on Living ) all share a grounded outlook that’s at once straightforward without being simplified. Taylor talks about the purpose of life, while Hesse’s essay talks about life without end or purpose. Krishnamurti also avoids talks of should, ought, must, preferring instead to target understanding what is. The second two are more mystical in flavor but no less profound in insight, and while a few of these names aren’t names typically linked with the existential cannon the problems they deal with not to mention the insights they offer, can only enrich our understanding of the human condition which is to point out, help us know ourselves.
Taylor observes that conceptions of the good life have been set up on rationality rather than desideration. By way of this vital understanding, he is ready to show that points to consider of life’s purpose are inevitably flawed unless we consider that the question is not one to be fixed through rationalization alone, a perspective shared by Hesse and Krishnamurti.
To find more interesting articles such as this one visit www.blogdelver.com.
Jean Paul Sartre: The Road to Freedom (Human, All Too Human, BBC)
Tags: filosofia, jean, paul, paul sartre, paul sartre existentialism, paul sartre nausea, paul sartre no exit, paul sartre quotes, philosophy, sartre
This entry was posted on Saturday, March 6th, 2010 at 1:48 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.