Eric Scheske
Monday
More Sartre
So what did Sartre say? Basically, he simply denied that we have any natural
traits (i.e., essences, characteristics). Instead of such essences, Sartre said,
we have existence, and that's it. Our essences don't really exist. At best, they
have a secondary reality because
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It's Friday the 13th. Avoid ladders, black cats and ridiculous superstitions.
Friday
Office Party Night
Office party tonight. There'll be a lot of drinking and, no doubt, the
stereotypical office party drunken antics, including the woman who drinks too
much, flirts outrageously with the boss, then goes home with him, leaving me to
deal with the fall-out later. Fortunately, that
Wednesday
Jean-Paul Sarte is also significant because his immense popularity offers
further proof that there is something about existentialism that appeals to
modern man.
In 1945, after Sartre's philosophy began to filter through Paris' streets, he
scheduled a public lecture. Although it was not widely advertised, by the
Monday
The Catcher in the Rye is one of the few books that I've read twice. The
narrator and protagonist, Holden Caulfield, is a teenage jerk, but his constant,
pointed criticisms of the shallowness of modern life make me laugh. Holden
punches and weaves through everyday banalities that most
Friday
Brews You Can Use
My small town has a great event planned this evening for downtown shopping. My
office is located in the middle of it all, thereby enabling me to have a few
drinks, venture out and check out the sites, go back and have a few drinks,
venture
Thursday
The Stranger
The whole attitude of existentialism is perhaps best seen in the most-popular
existentialist novel of the twentieth century, Albert Camus' short book, The
Stranger [https://amzn.to/2sNUVD9], which I'll summarize in hopes of giving the
reader a good “feel” for existentialism.
The hero of
Wednesday
The experts often disagree about the definition of existentialism, but in
general, the term refers to a type of thought that emphasizes existence rather
than essence. Here's how one scholar put it: “[G]enerally we can describe
thinking as existentialist if it makes existence rather than essence the
Tuesday
Existentialism and the Modern Man
There is one good religious projection in particular that has been spraying for
the past one hundred years in one form or another and has cropped up
occasionally with tremendous popularity, though few recognize it as a religious
phenomenon. It has been a spiritual artesian