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Politics : View from the Center and Left
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To: epicure who wrote (192129)6/20/2012 12:17:54 AM
From: Bread Upon The Water  Read Replies (1) of 543802
 


What I get here, from Koan, is an idea that existentialism leads to one place. IMO that makes no sense at all. You and Koan could both be existentialists, and come to completely different POVs. I mean if the whole thing is based upon the individual, than it's going to be subjective. So you can't really tell other people they aren't being existential enough, or they aren't doing it "right" or that they got "lost"- especially not when the existentialist philosophers themselves often seem to disagree.



I think I have to agree with that more or less. I put the more or less in there because I do not have as much background in the field as either John or Koan and cannot bring the perspective they do to the discussion.

When I started my discussion with Koan I thought, "Well existentialism is just another philosophical field/branch like "Idealism" or "Empiricism" and all one has to do is learn the terms that apply to it and we can define it". And if that was the case I thought Koan was really out of it with respect to this individual approach to it.

But then after reading the Wiki article on it I did realize that it is the individual who gets to "exist", to define his being by his actions (if I've understood the Wiki dissertation correctly) so in that sense Koan's definition of existentialism as being nothing but consciousness I could see being more or less in play if that consciousness led to action ("being" in existentialist philosophical terms).

Still Koan loses me when he gets into these seemingly mystical approaches about existentialism when he says it is really hard to see and when has to use his mind's eye to see it. I frankly don't know want he is talking about there. Obviously it must relate to his own personal experience of it, but how one could relate this to others in any meaningful way I don't know.

And if John has the heart for it I 'd like to hear from him how the Christian existentialists get to "be" when there is all that religious doctrine throne into the mix.
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