"Go with no fear; but, don't go because you feel you must"
Preface: On Shaping My Process of Study and Writing.
In the heat of it, at the time, as a re-entry student from the summer of 1994 until the Bachelor's degree completion in December of 1996 there were things that I was unaware I was learning for how to go about the process of working on this style/type of work/paper & the presentation/demonstration of the material for it, philosophy. Picking this current paper up, taking on the task of independently studying, I am beginning to realize some of what I saw there as a formal student, as, how it applies. Therefore, this first topic in the series of five potentially scheduled over the next four years as summer breaks from guitar practice* is opening with trying to explain where my process is currently and how it has come to this point. I am unsure how much more there is to learn of the process and how much of that will be included in later topic papers.
The process of hammering out the process feels to be going well. The perusal, as quick shot, through the material feels to have worked really well. In the moment, while going through the literature, fairly cold as it were ... although it feels good to jog through, it's also scary, because, it feels ... without knowing this style of study very well ... like, high line walking without a safety net, something like that, like climbing without a safety tether. But, in the end, nearing the end, having completed all the reading time, with jotting notes down along the way, and, sitting to write, although there's no obvious flashing solid beacon in my mind, there is, nonetheless, a somewhat secure sense that the process is on the right track.
About the flashing beacon, it may be more of a difference of like the impression in the mind compared to the picture on the page. I feel there is a decent impression, but, I don't have a very solid graphic image in my mind of where Existentialism is.
Before having gone over the material I was running into definitions, some even saying it is difficult to define, while others looked rather well explained ... I couldn't see into what the ones that do look really good were saying but they seemed informative and clear on the surface. I could have spent time memorizing the definitions, but, if that was all I'd done I wouldn't have been able to nearly as well grasp conceptually where I think I have arrived from the quick reads while jotting notes.
After having looked at the four books and the dozen plus articles, the definition(s) that say it's difficult look more like I felt to begin with, because I knew practically nothing about the topic, of course it'd be difficult for me to define; while, the ones that seemed closer to saying something about it, they now have closer to, if not basically, all they need in order for them to not only define their take on the word, but, also, to make like nice synopses of the idea I get of the topic now in my mind.
Working on the process as much as the topic this time out I will be running real short on time and will not have good time to spend mulling over all the notes I've taken. The take on my comprehension, especially in terms of some of the better chops that I was arriving at likely will not make it into the paper, it won't have the quality I believe it could have. Note: chops get stolen, I suppose hard copy could help some but even that wouldn't be 100% secure. I imagine that if it is as perceived and they do 'walk off' it may be seen as merely pilfering and is how they get away with it.
Why Existentialism?
Where my present curiosity about Existentialism begins is in terms of how the Psychotherapy article in an old Grolier CD Encyclopedia is divided into three main areas. There it is divided into the camps of Psychodynamic, which is the Freudian type Psychoanalysis area of thought; then, the second listed is called Phenomenological Psychotherapy ... this one says it's like the Humanists, many of whom are Existentialists; then, last, there is CBT or Cognitive-Behavioral Therapies, as cognitive restructuring and behavior modification.
Slight digression yet interesting to know: you find along the way that there are both three Viennese schools (of thought) of Psychoanalysis, and, three schools of Psychotherapy. The Viennese as (1) Sigmund Freud's Psychoanalysis (will to Pleasure), (2) Alfred Adler’s Individual Psychology (will to Power), and, (3) Viktor E. Frankl's Logotherapy (will to Meaning). Where, the types or waves of Psychotherapy go from the first one being, again, Freudian, then, you find maybe debatable whether Behaviorist stuff gets second seat or if Humanism does instead; that is, maybe, is it debasing Behaviorist as not exactly as 'Psychotherapy' as the other two; though, I guess, predating the Humanistic Psychotherapy era.
Now, back to the 'Phenomenological Psychotherapy' section in the Grolier article on Psychotherapy in general. Their classifying it that way looks to be at least somewhat of an anomaly, unique to that article specifically. I thought it looked cool and like they knew what they were doing at first, then, as I read on some in other places I began to wonder. The Humanistic, Existential, and Phenomenological, became a question. Was the header wrong? Was the article in Grolier mislabeling the middle school of Psychotherapy there in placing it as Phenomenological instead of Humanistic?
Venn diagram time: this technique of drawing circles, in logic and reasoning class, to find out whether there is some, all, or no overlap of the circles, maybe sometimes one circle is completely within another(s). But, in order to draw the diagram, I need a better conceptual comprehension of the ideas. Finding the definitions not doing enough in my mind for what I needed to feel, for comfortable, with the ideas, I needed more to go on. What I find, when I begin running into these kinds of things, these kinds of ideas, is that I need to have more than a sentence or two definition can give. That is to say, the definition, although it may could be a beginning for the conceptual integration in my mind, is sometimes very distant from that, from feeling the definition breathe in my mind.
I guess, Existential Psychotherapy struck me as somewhat the more interesting sounding term at the time, unsure exactly how it wound up first. Then, as Existentialism is the philosophy root of that, while, having had to drop the 2nd major of an anticipated dual major Bachelor's degree over a couple of decades ago, I decided to dig there, into the philosophy, sort of independently informally 'working' on that incomplete 2nd major.
Stepping Back into Some Personal History - Openly in Mixed Company without Fear of Repercussion?
Decades ago I think I came across a definition, in the 1976 Colliers set that the step dad had had. I will have to paraphrase, of course. There was something in it about "<...an oft hostile universe...>". Existentialism was somewhat of a curiosity then, if I recall correctly, because, I was likely working on reading over the articles listed in their (Collier's) outline of Philosophy from that set of Encyclopedias, this was within a year or two after the degree completion in late 1996.
That part of that definition strikes me as existing now ... I have learned since both U.S. military duty and university training that my childhood was obviously sheltered, aside from whatever it was missing*, however illusory the sense of private and secure in the lack of open direct communication about trespass that was likely going on even then. The upbringing I imagined my parents provided I have found I expect in my own home as a free single person. That home felt secure and I was free to come and go as I chose with no apprehension about it either way, it had nothing* to do with the length of my hair, nothing to do with my employment status. Of legal driving age I had car of my own and I was free to roam as far as what little money I had could afford and home was still there, in my mind, while away, and, on the ground on return.
I don't know how relative it is. I don't know if it is me, myself, who is juvenile to expect my space to be appreciated as my space, whether it is my physical person or the room I sleep in, or the relationship I may be involved in with another free person, or the house I call my home, even the property that house sits on; or, if it is the perceived surveillance, eavesdropping and physical trespass that is the more juvenile. I guess I need therapy, but, I would need it with someone I felt good to work with that way, and, I expect finding that is like the proverbial needle in a haystack. I tried three or four, maybe five therapists before I declared a college major solidly to follow through on. I learned the term 'personal enrichment' once finally at the four year university, I was there to do my own therapy; but, I have a mind that searches for 'light' too, an intellectual side that needs nurturing mighty bad. The continuing study for me is some of both, still self-therapy and intellectual pursuit.
What do I See as Existentialism After some Study?
Although I'm tempted to say 'it is chiefly a two-sided coin', and, though that may seem partly true to me, what I'm trying to type out is as close as I can get to what it looks like to me personally, not what it is, more objectively, in the event there may could be some significant difference. There are two sides, but, 'chiefly' I expect overstates them as equally wanting for explanation. That this is the case may be, can't cite exactly where, some of what makes existentialism what it is, that is, leaning a little heavy on the empirical and not as much on the theoretical. Basically, more the psychology, the sociology and the social psychology; than, the ontology, the phenomenology and the epistemology; though, of course, there is more and less cross over of all the theoretical into the 'real world' for application, I guess.
It is sort of as though, how I'm seein' it, that ontico stuff from Heidegger is basically maybe some nutshell of it, but, I have not studied ontology (what is; what it is to 'be') to make any sort of decently informed claim on that. There's the phenomenology (what is perceived) again, like, the root of phenomenological psychotherapy, some difference in the two, as best I peripherally gather so far, some fun, what looks like could be some creative use of the idea of philosophical phenomenology in phenomenological psychotherapy. Maybe the least is epistemology, what we can know and how, unless it gets twisted relationships-wise in what would look to me to be even funnier than phenomenology does.
Existentialism looks to be more about the psychology side of it, which, may be part of the confusion on the part of some when it comes to defining it; because, although, the philosophy (as ontology) side can seem a little heavy it may be more or & less, depending on the individual perspective, part of the definition. I see mostly about what it is like to exist as a human, the experience of being a living sentient human being. And, although, there may be another bent within this cordoning it off into psychology, I, myself, would want to have difficulty with what looks may could be a predisposition(?) in this perspective. A point of view that may be inclined to suppose that existentialism is more about merely existing, in the sense of suffering through an existence. My contention, of course, likely not a new one, if there is a helluva lot more to living as a human than simply surviving through archaic hard wired strife that could possibly be easily enough managed were open communication not such a species issue. Open, direct, honest communication.
Not having studied the psychotherapy itself, aware there are themes, are there that many and are they that complicated that they couldn't be taught in single block of instruction in a basic being-a-human type class somewhere? I have just in the past day or two gone back over the article on Irvin D. Yalom's book on Existential Psychotherapy. I have not had the good fortune, as I consider it would be, to have as yet read the book itself. Death, Freedom, Isolation and Meaninglessness the articles states as sections in the book. You know, you have the things that Martin Heidegger's Being and Time addresses as well, not looking back, from some recall, things like Conscience and Guilt, besides of course, Death. Human things, well, sentient things, I guess.
All the variety of human experience. I noted contention on my part with the negative assessment of reality of the condition of being human. Likely Carl Rogers that talks about the inherent goodness of people. Not the same thing, good things don't always come to good people, 'maybe some hardship'll build you some character', sorts of stuff. I guess the bad stuff is what we have the problems with not the good stuff, thus, the bad stuff is what gets the press, even here, the dirty laundry, I'm nearing project time clock completion and am just now arriving at the idea of it. Could it be for further thought? I mean, what ever all the neuroses, from phobias to schizoid issues I take it, neurosis being any kind of psychological issue, no matter how small ... is that why they're calling them themes instead of issues or what, to lay at least that much positive into the picture ... maybe asking for creative thought on the idea of positive themes.
Maybe that's why it's labeled like it is, maybe they meant it to be the negative side of the experience. They labeled it Existentialism BECAUSE Existentialism looks like merely existing, suffering through an existence ... it's in the label, oh man! I bet that's it. The label looks more like existing as 'suffering' as Buddhist Noble Truths, than, existing as 'alive and thriving' ... there seems implication in the word 'existentialism' in the direction of suffering. The question I find is, Is that all it is, an implication, and not necessarily how the label would be best interpreted? If it is merely implication then I'd be tasked with listing what all there is to the existence that is beyond merely existing, onto living well, the fun side of life, as validly a part of the existence. Like I say, I haven't read any books on Existential Psychotherapy specifically, well, not considering Rogers' On Becoming a Person as maybe an example of a type of therapy within the idea, still, not like Yalom's work entitled on topic specifically ... to know whether they talk beyond 'illness'.
There was idea in closing down shop yesterday on this project ... whence it cometh ... thought ... that headier side stuff isn't just for the philosophy side ... this was briefly noted above, more to it though. Elaborated some any way. In the Death issue you have a questioning, you have the living mind as a living mind attempting to know what is on that other side, there's some of the wonder about how ontology may could fit, it's like ... you want to wonder if there may be a bridge for the living mind that could show that mind while still alive and thriving how to fathom whether there is some sort of existing reality beyond the physical life as most of us would suppose we know it. When you look at that ontology side of existentialism you may could wonder at the potential for something like 'spiritual' or 'religious' about it, in the quest for understanding while alive what it all may be deeper than the physical or molecular appearance, supposing there may could be anything to the idea of deeper somehow; and, that the physical mind may be able to comprehend, at least to a better extent than it would without the search for the understanding.
... the struggle to survive physically while attempting to justify the survival itself, as, in contemplating the reality possibly in back of ... it makes it look like a search for religion or spirituality to question the physical side of it, while being in a physical state of existence, as potentially merely an illusion of some sort, and, that there may be an 'essence' (as source) beneath(?) the physical appearance ... is it fear of death that begs for an out in thought of a beyond, is it empirically based genuine and within bounds as from threads and fabrics of deja vous and precognition ... that the physical side looks to tell too little of the story and there is a sincere interest, even for the perceived finite mind (possibly confer, Atman*), to attempt to gather as far as it is mentally capable ... what about mystic ... mysticism ... meditation beyond intellectual ...
A Perceived Expanded Reality
I went to a Woodstock Reunion in the summer of 1999. Thirtieth anniversary of the original Woodstock Music and Arts Festival. I didn't make it to the shows at the original site. I picked up a ticket in Waco, Texas, for a Greyhound bus to Liberty, New York ... I was just guessing at where the show may be near, looked like a good place for it to me. I get to New York City, to the terminals at Port Authority, huge, multi tiered parking like terminal for Greyhound buses. I'm about to make a connection, I guess I was in the right line, through Monticello; when, there's this tie died long hair dude, I suppose we sum one another up and he opens a conversation. He guesses that I'm headed to the show too, and, since I don't exactly know where I'm to go, he offers to show me the way, let's me tag along with him.
Monticello is indeed where we went, but, not on to Liberty. Once in Monticello we needed to catch a local shuttle out to White Lake, small town about 12 miles from there that is about 5 miles short of the Festival site. The other five we'd have to hump from White Lake out to the show; but, when we got off the bus and probably hadn't walked two blocks, this other person, in a car, pulls over and asks us if we want a ride out to the site, dude alone, living in NYC but from Tennessee, somewhere like that, first one from maybe Georgia.
Has his own tickets to the original site show, sounded expensive, we only stopped there to look around a couple of minutes and then he drives us all three to the farmhouse up the road just a-ways farther.
... anyway, holding on a continuation of the expanded rendition of the weekend-plus experience ...
After that weekend of next to zero sleep I'm on my own to walk back out, I go to the original site first, two miles maybe ... but, in that two miles, first I stop at the shoppette(?) on the way ... after leaving that store ... very soon after, almost immediately ... walking up the main road to the turn off that goes to the amphitheatre hillside site ... I saw a kid on a bicycle ... I didn't just see him though, it was a deja vous, okay, no problem, deja vous happens sometimes ... I'm walking on, and on, there's a dude at this house at the turn off wearing a colored t-shirt ... I think the t-shirt may have been a different color than the image, the image of the deja vous, in my mind ... I turn onto the site road, by now, I'm done with threads, man, I'm seein' the fabric, I begin to see the deja vous past right now and look into the future about what is going to be happening ... yes, in case it is too far beyond your experience, this is a true story ... I was precognitive for about, maybe half a mile of walking ... I get to the site, look around a little, get told I ain't supposed to be on the property because they're cleaning up afterward, not doin' the show then ... I'm going to turn back, but I am wrecked from the sleep dep and the walk, I probably stepped into one of the porta-toilets at the parking areas, then, there's this bird's nest sort of rise in the ground, not like bird bird, more like human sized bird, it's just an indentation sorta burmed around it ... I laid down in there under the trees and drifted off to sleep for just a moment, when I woke, no more pre-cog ... wildest trip ever, no LSD anyhow involved, and, I was, at that point, on nothing, something like corn nuts and sleep dep.
I haven't looked at the ones talking about religious experience and peak experiences and all that as yet, it's all curious and I want to go everywhere and do and read everything but time truly is the commodity, man. Life is wild, crazy, like I want to live every minute for all it is worth for as long as I got it ... 99 a hundred ... I plan on pacing my life to make centenarian. Even kept isolated for decades I enjoy living life, I find ways to explore where I need to go, I guess it's cyber and the sky falling that has gotten away with it, what else I don't know, they cut that arm off, I grew another one. Books are crazy now. I've always* had a library card and checked books out most anywhere I've lived until this stint since after the move from where the hardest of it was onset in 1994. The people who write tell me stuff that blows my mind and I dig it, as, like it extremely. Recreation and Expanding. It sucks being debilitated* but my time is my own and I enjoy most every minute of it. I live the(?) good life, it ain't a perfect life, but there is nothing like having every minute of every day for your own. I don't know where the rationalization (reaction formation, denial, sublimation) is exactly, like I say, it ain't perfect, but, overall ... this is one damn decent chapter in life, I don't get to travel on the ground to have those kinds of stories (for quite awhile now), still, there's so much to explore in other ways, and, climbing and exploring and searching is some big part of where it's at for some of us.
Some Vocabulary Could be Nice, but ...
... it may could also be distracting and confusing without time and space to walk through it all
Where Does the Study Go from Here?
When I'm saying that this is how I see it currently, I, of course, do not know what sort of psychical interchange may could be occurring that could be affecting my perception of what appears to be my own thoughts. I suppose, as long as I can see the ideas clearly enough, and, am able to place them into words to explain what they are well enough, as long as is qualified with a disclaimor noting that I may have, may have, lost my mind, then, maybe it'll be okay.
You, of course, might likely have to study the idea yourself; because, if you are new to it, reading where I say that I am with it now may do no more for you than what the definitions I began with were doing for me. The question becomes, should I have tried to elaborate in an attempt at bringing your mind closer to my own ... to try and, what may could be seen as, do your work for you; which, not only can I not do, I can't even show you mine, in a sense, it's like the idea of trying to place 50 years of a life into say 5,000 words, or, say, 5,000 years into a 50 word paragraph. Some are likely better at it than others, I suppose. Besides, the thought this morning is like, is this was a graded paper it would be graded by someone(s) who knew the topic and could tell by my presentation that I had done my work, not intended as an instructional for someone new to the topic, not necessarily anyway.
Myself? I'm in a tossup as to what direction next exactly. After reading a quick once over of Being and Time the main curiosity is Ontology. There too, from that read, is the Phenomenology that went into it. Then there is Being and Nothing: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology that I wonder how well may could be a good read for either. Unsure if the broader perspective of Metaphysics in general would be better before Ontology specifically; besides I wonder what the diagram for Phenomenology looks like relative to Epistemology and Metaphysics, does it split equally between the two? The two that are listed as main branches of Philosophy are the Epistemology and the Metaphysics; but, considering where the series of studies began, Phenomenology is the obvious next step in the path. Then, about that, where the studies began, there's the one I haven't even mentioned, Humanism ... I did look that up in a dictionary though, finding a definition that makes me nuts over the idea of 'consensus', well, the first definition ... I guess I'm too confused with how I'm supposed to get from Humanism in general to Humanistic Psychology, maybe that's where I should go next to try and unravel the knot in my mind in that regard.
Ethical Qualms?
I guess if you never write anything down you can't be accused of violating a terms of use that stipulates coming up with something original as part of their access requirement? I feel the terms on archive org are obviously taken over by confusion and that those terms are likely not where that site comes from; still, I guess I may do better to shop and buy the primary source material for the next time in this study series.
Working while not 'working'? It makes my day, I don't know how else to say it. If I was to do something else to start the day it would do more to wreck the rest of the day than to set it in motion, overall. My 'personal projects', as I term them, give me the morale boost that I need to make my life make sense and get me comfortably feeling decent through the more 'mundane' motions of the 2nd half of the day each day. Though, there is one serious potential, I assume, for the following qualifier to be read in terribly understated ways ... 'at this point in my life' ... for me, where I am in life, what I have and/or have not been through, I find that this is how it works really well for me, to structure my day with my stuff as early in the day before the harder stress of the day begins, it not only feels better to have my time, as I've said, it makes me feel better to get to the other things in the day later on each day. It's an issue because I ain't dead yet, it's a non-issue because I do and don't function how I do and don't by now. Am in the process of a very gradual shift over six months to find out if I can rest sunup to noon, have the afternoon summer for all else and then all night for indoor things and project time, will have to find out if the heat that way will or won't too adversely affect project time, given the slow shift shaping into it.
Selected Bibliography
Books
Frankl, Viktor E., Man's Search for Meaning (Revised and Updated). Washington Square Press, N.Y., 1984. archive.org
Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time trans John MacQuarrie & Edward Robinson, Harper & Row, NY. 1962 [translated from German Sein und Zeit (7th edtn)]. archive.org. ... 1st edition1927.
MacQuarrie, John. Martin Heidegger. John Knox Press, Richmond, VA, 1969. archive.org
Sanborn, Patricia F., Existentialism. Western Publishing Co., Inc., U.S.A., 1968. archive.org
Encyclopedia Articles
Burnham, Douglas and Papandreopoulos, G. "Existentialism." Retrieved from https://www.iep.utm.edu/existent 29 August 2019.
Crowell, Steven. "Existentialism." (9 March 2015). Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/existentialism 29 August 2019.
Dreyfus, Hubert L. "Existentialism." Microsoft(R) Student 2008 [DVD]. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation, 2007.
Edwards, Paul "'My Death.'" The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Macmillan, New York, 1967 rprnt edtn 1972, vol. 5, 416-419.
"existentialism." Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite [DVD]. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, 2013.
"Existentialism" Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existentialism 29 January 2019.
Gunderson, Keith "Cybernetics." The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Macmillan, New York, 1967 rprnt edtn 1972, vol. 2, 280-284.
Heath, P.L. "Nothing." The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Macmillan, New York, 1967 rprnt edtn 1972, vol. 5, 524-525.
MacIntyre, Alasdair. "Being." The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Macmillan, New York, 1967 rprnt edtn 1972, vol. 1, 273-277.
MacIntyre, Alasdair. "Essence and Existence." The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Macmillan, New York, 1967 rprnt edtn 1972, vol. 3, 59-61.
MacIntyre, Alasdair. "Existentialism." The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Macmillan, New York, 1967 rprnt edtn 1972, vol. 3, 147-154.
Needleman, Jacob. "Existence." The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Macmillan, New York, 1967 rprnt edtn 1972, vol. 3, 141-147.
Olson, Robert G. "Death." The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Macmillan, New York, 1967 rprnt edtn 1972, vol. 2, 307-309.
Olson, Robert G. "Nihilism." The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Macmillan, New York, 1967 rprnt edtn 1972, vol. 5, 514-517.
Petrović, G. "Alienation." The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Macmillan, New York, 1967 rprnt edtn 1972, vol. 1, 76-81.
Prior, A.N. "Existential Psychoanalysis." The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Macmillan, New York, 1967 rprnt edtn 1972, vol. 3, 154-156.
Soll, Ivan. "Existentialism." 2014 World Book Multimedia Encyclopedia [DVD]. World Book, Chicago, 2014.
Solomon, Robert C. "existentialism." The 1999 Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia [CD]. Grolier Interactive Inc., U.S.A.,1998.
Internet Articles
Sartre, Jean-Paul. tr. Philip Mairet. "Existentialism is a Humanism." (Lecture 1946).
Viewed at https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exist/sartre.htm 27 September 2019.
Bakewell, Sarah, interview by Nigel Warburton. "The best books on Existentialism."
Retrieved from https://fivebooks.com/best-books/existentialism-sarah-bakewell/ 30 September 2019.
5125 words
George R. Breeden, 2019.12.17t
In the heat of it, at the time, as a re-entry student from the summer of 1994 until the Bachelor's degree completion in December of 1996 there were things that I was unaware I was learning for how to go about the process of working on this style/type of work/paper & the presentation/demonstration of the material for it, philosophy. Picking this current paper up, taking on the task of independently studying, I am beginning to realize some of what I saw there as a formal student, as, how it applies. Therefore, this first topic in the series of five potentially scheduled over the next four years as summer breaks from guitar practice* is opening with trying to explain where my process is currently and how it has come to this point. I am unsure how much more there is to learn of the process and how much of that will be included in later topic papers.
The process of hammering out the process feels to be going well. The perusal, as quick shot, through the material feels to have worked really well. In the moment, while going through the literature, fairly cold as it were ... although it feels good to jog through, it's also scary, because, it feels ... without knowing this style of study very well ... like, high line walking without a safety net, something like that, like climbing without a safety tether. But, in the end, nearing the end, having completed all the reading time, with jotting notes down along the way, and, sitting to write, although there's no obvious flashing solid beacon in my mind, there is, nonetheless, a somewhat secure sense that the process is on the right track.
About the flashing beacon, it may be more of a difference of like the impression in the mind compared to the picture on the page. I feel there is a decent impression, but, I don't have a very solid graphic image in my mind of where Existentialism is.
Before having gone over the material I was running into definitions, some even saying it is difficult to define, while others looked rather well explained ... I couldn't see into what the ones that do look really good were saying but they seemed informative and clear on the surface. I could have spent time memorizing the definitions, but, if that was all I'd done I wouldn't have been able to nearly as well grasp conceptually where I think I have arrived from the quick reads while jotting notes.
After having looked at the four books and the dozen plus articles, the definition(s) that say it's difficult look more like I felt to begin with, because I knew practically nothing about the topic, of course it'd be difficult for me to define; while, the ones that seemed closer to saying something about it, they now have closer to, if not basically, all they need in order for them to not only define their take on the word, but, also, to make like nice synopses of the idea I get of the topic now in my mind.
Working on the process as much as the topic this time out I will be running real short on time and will not have good time to spend mulling over all the notes I've taken. The take on my comprehension, especially in terms of some of the better chops that I was arriving at likely will not make it into the paper, it won't have the quality I believe it could have. Note: chops get stolen, I suppose hard copy could help some but even that wouldn't be 100% secure. I imagine that if it is as perceived and they do 'walk off' it may be seen as merely pilfering and is how they get away with it.
Why Existentialism?
Where my present curiosity about Existentialism begins is in terms of how the Psychotherapy article in an old Grolier CD Encyclopedia is divided into three main areas. There it is divided into the camps of Psychodynamic, which is the Freudian type Psychoanalysis area of thought; then, the second listed is called Phenomenological Psychotherapy ... this one says it's like the Humanists, many of whom are Existentialists; then, last, there is CBT or Cognitive-Behavioral Therapies, as cognitive restructuring and behavior modification.
Slight digression yet interesting to know: you find along the way that there are both three Viennese schools (of thought) of Psychoanalysis, and, three schools of Psychotherapy. The Viennese as (1) Sigmund Freud's Psychoanalysis (will to Pleasure), (2) Alfred Adler’s Individual Psychology (will to Power), and, (3) Viktor E. Frankl's Logotherapy (will to Meaning). Where, the types or waves of Psychotherapy go from the first one being, again, Freudian, then, you find maybe debatable whether Behaviorist stuff gets second seat or if Humanism does instead; that is, maybe, is it debasing Behaviorist as not exactly as 'Psychotherapy' as the other two; though, I guess, predating the Humanistic Psychotherapy era.
Now, back to the 'Phenomenological Psychotherapy' section in the Grolier article on Psychotherapy in general. Their classifying it that way looks to be at least somewhat of an anomaly, unique to that article specifically. I thought it looked cool and like they knew what they were doing at first, then, as I read on some in other places I began to wonder. The Humanistic, Existential, and Phenomenological, became a question. Was the header wrong? Was the article in Grolier mislabeling the middle school of Psychotherapy there in placing it as Phenomenological instead of Humanistic?
Venn diagram time: this technique of drawing circles, in logic and reasoning class, to find out whether there is some, all, or no overlap of the circles, maybe sometimes one circle is completely within another(s). But, in order to draw the diagram, I need a better conceptual comprehension of the ideas. Finding the definitions not doing enough in my mind for what I needed to feel, for comfortable, with the ideas, I needed more to go on. What I find, when I begin running into these kinds of things, these kinds of ideas, is that I need to have more than a sentence or two definition can give. That is to say, the definition, although it may could be a beginning for the conceptual integration in my mind, is sometimes very distant from that, from feeling the definition breathe in my mind.
I guess, Existential Psychotherapy struck me as somewhat the more interesting sounding term at the time, unsure exactly how it wound up first. Then, as Existentialism is the philosophy root of that, while, having had to drop the 2nd major of an anticipated dual major Bachelor's degree over a couple of decades ago, I decided to dig there, into the philosophy, sort of independently informally 'working' on that incomplete 2nd major.
Stepping Back into Some Personal History - Openly in Mixed Company without Fear of Repercussion?
Decades ago I think I came across a definition, in the 1976 Colliers set that the step dad had had. I will have to paraphrase, of course. There was something in it about "<...an oft hostile universe...>". Existentialism was somewhat of a curiosity then, if I recall correctly, because, I was likely working on reading over the articles listed in their (Collier's) outline of Philosophy from that set of Encyclopedias, this was within a year or two after the degree completion in late 1996.
That part of that definition strikes me as existing now ... I have learned since both U.S. military duty and university training that my childhood was obviously sheltered, aside from whatever it was missing*, however illusory the sense of private and secure in the lack of open direct communication about trespass that was likely going on even then. The upbringing I imagined my parents provided I have found I expect in my own home as a free single person. That home felt secure and I was free to come and go as I chose with no apprehension about it either way, it had nothing* to do with the length of my hair, nothing to do with my employment status. Of legal driving age I had car of my own and I was free to roam as far as what little money I had could afford and home was still there, in my mind, while away, and, on the ground on return.
I don't know how relative it is. I don't know if it is me, myself, who is juvenile to expect my space to be appreciated as my space, whether it is my physical person or the room I sleep in, or the relationship I may be involved in with another free person, or the house I call my home, even the property that house sits on; or, if it is the perceived surveillance, eavesdropping and physical trespass that is the more juvenile. I guess I need therapy, but, I would need it with someone I felt good to work with that way, and, I expect finding that is like the proverbial needle in a haystack. I tried three or four, maybe five therapists before I declared a college major solidly to follow through on. I learned the term 'personal enrichment' once finally at the four year university, I was there to do my own therapy; but, I have a mind that searches for 'light' too, an intellectual side that needs nurturing mighty bad. The continuing study for me is some of both, still self-therapy and intellectual pursuit.
What do I See as Existentialism After some Study?
Although I'm tempted to say 'it is chiefly a two-sided coin', and, though that may seem partly true to me, what I'm trying to type out is as close as I can get to what it looks like to me personally, not what it is, more objectively, in the event there may could be some significant difference. There are two sides, but, 'chiefly' I expect overstates them as equally wanting for explanation. That this is the case may be, can't cite exactly where, some of what makes existentialism what it is, that is, leaning a little heavy on the empirical and not as much on the theoretical. Basically, more the psychology, the sociology and the social psychology; than, the ontology, the phenomenology and the epistemology; though, of course, there is more and less cross over of all the theoretical into the 'real world' for application, I guess.
It is sort of as though, how I'm seein' it, that ontico stuff from Heidegger is basically maybe some nutshell of it, but, I have not studied ontology (what is; what it is to 'be') to make any sort of decently informed claim on that. There's the phenomenology (what is perceived) again, like, the root of phenomenological psychotherapy, some difference in the two, as best I peripherally gather so far, some fun, what looks like could be some creative use of the idea of philosophical phenomenology in phenomenological psychotherapy. Maybe the least is epistemology, what we can know and how, unless it gets twisted relationships-wise in what would look to me to be even funnier than phenomenology does.
Existentialism looks to be more about the psychology side of it, which, may be part of the confusion on the part of some when it comes to defining it; because, although, the philosophy (as ontology) side can seem a little heavy it may be more or & less, depending on the individual perspective, part of the definition. I see mostly about what it is like to exist as a human, the experience of being a living sentient human being. And, although, there may be another bent within this cordoning it off into psychology, I, myself, would want to have difficulty with what looks may could be a predisposition(?) in this perspective. A point of view that may be inclined to suppose that existentialism is more about merely existing, in the sense of suffering through an existence. My contention, of course, likely not a new one, if there is a helluva lot more to living as a human than simply surviving through archaic hard wired strife that could possibly be easily enough managed were open communication not such a species issue. Open, direct, honest communication.
Not having studied the psychotherapy itself, aware there are themes, are there that many and are they that complicated that they couldn't be taught in single block of instruction in a basic being-a-human type class somewhere? I have just in the past day or two gone back over the article on Irvin D. Yalom's book on Existential Psychotherapy. I have not had the good fortune, as I consider it would be, to have as yet read the book itself. Death, Freedom, Isolation and Meaninglessness the articles states as sections in the book. You know, you have the things that Martin Heidegger's Being and Time addresses as well, not looking back, from some recall, things like Conscience and Guilt, besides of course, Death. Human things, well, sentient things, I guess.
All the variety of human experience. I noted contention on my part with the negative assessment of reality of the condition of being human. Likely Carl Rogers that talks about the inherent goodness of people. Not the same thing, good things don't always come to good people, 'maybe some hardship'll build you some character', sorts of stuff. I guess the bad stuff is what we have the problems with not the good stuff, thus, the bad stuff is what gets the press, even here, the dirty laundry, I'm nearing project time clock completion and am just now arriving at the idea of it. Could it be for further thought? I mean, what ever all the neuroses, from phobias to schizoid issues I take it, neurosis being any kind of psychological issue, no matter how small ... is that why they're calling them themes instead of issues or what, to lay at least that much positive into the picture ... maybe asking for creative thought on the idea of positive themes.
Maybe that's why it's labeled like it is, maybe they meant it to be the negative side of the experience. They labeled it Existentialism BECAUSE Existentialism looks like merely existing, suffering through an existence ... it's in the label, oh man! I bet that's it. The label looks more like existing as 'suffering' as Buddhist Noble Truths, than, existing as 'alive and thriving' ... there seems implication in the word 'existentialism' in the direction of suffering. The question I find is, Is that all it is, an implication, and not necessarily how the label would be best interpreted? If it is merely implication then I'd be tasked with listing what all there is to the existence that is beyond merely existing, onto living well, the fun side of life, as validly a part of the existence. Like I say, I haven't read any books on Existential Psychotherapy specifically, well, not considering Rogers' On Becoming a Person as maybe an example of a type of therapy within the idea, still, not like Yalom's work entitled on topic specifically ... to know whether they talk beyond 'illness'.
There was idea in closing down shop yesterday on this project ... whence it cometh ... thought ... that headier side stuff isn't just for the philosophy side ... this was briefly noted above, more to it though. Elaborated some any way. In the Death issue you have a questioning, you have the living mind as a living mind attempting to know what is on that other side, there's some of the wonder about how ontology may could fit, it's like ... you want to wonder if there may be a bridge for the living mind that could show that mind while still alive and thriving how to fathom whether there is some sort of existing reality beyond the physical life as most of us would suppose we know it. When you look at that ontology side of existentialism you may could wonder at the potential for something like 'spiritual' or 'religious' about it, in the quest for understanding while alive what it all may be deeper than the physical or molecular appearance, supposing there may could be anything to the idea of deeper somehow; and, that the physical mind may be able to comprehend, at least to a better extent than it would without the search for the understanding.
... the struggle to survive physically while attempting to justify the survival itself, as, in contemplating the reality possibly in back of ... it makes it look like a search for religion or spirituality to question the physical side of it, while being in a physical state of existence, as potentially merely an illusion of some sort, and, that there may be an 'essence' (as source) beneath(?) the physical appearance ... is it fear of death that begs for an out in thought of a beyond, is it empirically based genuine and within bounds as from threads and fabrics of deja vous and precognition ... that the physical side looks to tell too little of the story and there is a sincere interest, even for the perceived finite mind (possibly confer, Atman*), to attempt to gather as far as it is mentally capable ... what about mystic ... mysticism ... meditation beyond intellectual ...
A Perceived Expanded Reality
I went to a Woodstock Reunion in the summer of 1999. Thirtieth anniversary of the original Woodstock Music and Arts Festival. I didn't make it to the shows at the original site. I picked up a ticket in Waco, Texas, for a Greyhound bus to Liberty, New York ... I was just guessing at where the show may be near, looked like a good place for it to me. I get to New York City, to the terminals at Port Authority, huge, multi tiered parking like terminal for Greyhound buses. I'm about to make a connection, I guess I was in the right line, through Monticello; when, there's this tie died long hair dude, I suppose we sum one another up and he opens a conversation. He guesses that I'm headed to the show too, and, since I don't exactly know where I'm to go, he offers to show me the way, let's me tag along with him.
Monticello is indeed where we went, but, not on to Liberty. Once in Monticello we needed to catch a local shuttle out to White Lake, small town about 12 miles from there that is about 5 miles short of the Festival site. The other five we'd have to hump from White Lake out to the show; but, when we got off the bus and probably hadn't walked two blocks, this other person, in a car, pulls over and asks us if we want a ride out to the site, dude alone, living in NYC but from Tennessee, somewhere like that, first one from maybe Georgia.
Has his own tickets to the original site show, sounded expensive, we only stopped there to look around a couple of minutes and then he drives us all three to the farmhouse up the road just a-ways farther.
... anyway, holding on a continuation of the expanded rendition of the weekend-plus experience ...
After that weekend of next to zero sleep I'm on my own to walk back out, I go to the original site first, two miles maybe ... but, in that two miles, first I stop at the shoppette(?) on the way ... after leaving that store ... very soon after, almost immediately ... walking up the main road to the turn off that goes to the amphitheatre hillside site ... I saw a kid on a bicycle ... I didn't just see him though, it was a deja vous, okay, no problem, deja vous happens sometimes ... I'm walking on, and on, there's a dude at this house at the turn off wearing a colored t-shirt ... I think the t-shirt may have been a different color than the image, the image of the deja vous, in my mind ... I turn onto the site road, by now, I'm done with threads, man, I'm seein' the fabric, I begin to see the deja vous past right now and look into the future about what is going to be happening ... yes, in case it is too far beyond your experience, this is a true story ... I was precognitive for about, maybe half a mile of walking ... I get to the site, look around a little, get told I ain't supposed to be on the property because they're cleaning up afterward, not doin' the show then ... I'm going to turn back, but I am wrecked from the sleep dep and the walk, I probably stepped into one of the porta-toilets at the parking areas, then, there's this bird's nest sort of rise in the ground, not like bird bird, more like human sized bird, it's just an indentation sorta burmed around it ... I laid down in there under the trees and drifted off to sleep for just a moment, when I woke, no more pre-cog ... wildest trip ever, no LSD anyhow involved, and, I was, at that point, on nothing, something like corn nuts and sleep dep.
I haven't looked at the ones talking about religious experience and peak experiences and all that as yet, it's all curious and I want to go everywhere and do and read everything but time truly is the commodity, man. Life is wild, crazy, like I want to live every minute for all it is worth for as long as I got it ... 99 a hundred ... I plan on pacing my life to make centenarian. Even kept isolated for decades I enjoy living life, I find ways to explore where I need to go, I guess it's cyber and the sky falling that has gotten away with it, what else I don't know, they cut that arm off, I grew another one. Books are crazy now. I've always* had a library card and checked books out most anywhere I've lived until this stint since after the move from where the hardest of it was onset in 1994. The people who write tell me stuff that blows my mind and I dig it, as, like it extremely. Recreation and Expanding. It sucks being debilitated* but my time is my own and I enjoy most every minute of it. I live the(?) good life, it ain't a perfect life, but there is nothing like having every minute of every day for your own. I don't know where the rationalization (reaction formation, denial, sublimation) is exactly, like I say, it ain't perfect, but, overall ... this is one damn decent chapter in life, I don't get to travel on the ground to have those kinds of stories (for quite awhile now), still, there's so much to explore in other ways, and, climbing and exploring and searching is some big part of where it's at for some of us.
Some Vocabulary Could be Nice, but ...
... it may could also be distracting and confusing without time and space to walk through it all
Where Does the Study Go from Here?
When I'm saying that this is how I see it currently, I, of course, do not know what sort of psychical interchange may could be occurring that could be affecting my perception of what appears to be my own thoughts. I suppose, as long as I can see the ideas clearly enough, and, am able to place them into words to explain what they are well enough, as long as is qualified with a disclaimor noting that I may have, may have, lost my mind, then, maybe it'll be okay.
You, of course, might likely have to study the idea yourself; because, if you are new to it, reading where I say that I am with it now may do no more for you than what the definitions I began with were doing for me. The question becomes, should I have tried to elaborate in an attempt at bringing your mind closer to my own ... to try and, what may could be seen as, do your work for you; which, not only can I not do, I can't even show you mine, in a sense, it's like the idea of trying to place 50 years of a life into say 5,000 words, or, say, 5,000 years into a 50 word paragraph. Some are likely better at it than others, I suppose. Besides, the thought this morning is like, is this was a graded paper it would be graded by someone(s) who knew the topic and could tell by my presentation that I had done my work, not intended as an instructional for someone new to the topic, not necessarily anyway.
Myself? I'm in a tossup as to what direction next exactly. After reading a quick once over of Being and Time the main curiosity is Ontology. There too, from that read, is the Phenomenology that went into it. Then there is Being and Nothing: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology that I wonder how well may could be a good read for either. Unsure if the broader perspective of Metaphysics in general would be better before Ontology specifically; besides I wonder what the diagram for Phenomenology looks like relative to Epistemology and Metaphysics, does it split equally between the two? The two that are listed as main branches of Philosophy are the Epistemology and the Metaphysics; but, considering where the series of studies began, Phenomenology is the obvious next step in the path. Then, about that, where the studies began, there's the one I haven't even mentioned, Humanism ... I did look that up in a dictionary though, finding a definition that makes me nuts over the idea of 'consensus', well, the first definition ... I guess I'm too confused with how I'm supposed to get from Humanism in general to Humanistic Psychology, maybe that's where I should go next to try and unravel the knot in my mind in that regard.
Ethical Qualms?
I guess if you never write anything down you can't be accused of violating a terms of use that stipulates coming up with something original as part of their access requirement? I feel the terms on archive org are obviously taken over by confusion and that those terms are likely not where that site comes from; still, I guess I may do better to shop and buy the primary source material for the next time in this study series.
Working while not 'working'? It makes my day, I don't know how else to say it. If I was to do something else to start the day it would do more to wreck the rest of the day than to set it in motion, overall. My 'personal projects', as I term them, give me the morale boost that I need to make my life make sense and get me comfortably feeling decent through the more 'mundane' motions of the 2nd half of the day each day. Though, there is one serious potential, I assume, for the following qualifier to be read in terribly understated ways ... 'at this point in my life' ... for me, where I am in life, what I have and/or have not been through, I find that this is how it works really well for me, to structure my day with my stuff as early in the day before the harder stress of the day begins, it not only feels better to have my time, as I've said, it makes me feel better to get to the other things in the day later on each day. It's an issue because I ain't dead yet, it's a non-issue because I do and don't function how I do and don't by now. Am in the process of a very gradual shift over six months to find out if I can rest sunup to noon, have the afternoon summer for all else and then all night for indoor things and project time, will have to find out if the heat that way will or won't too adversely affect project time, given the slow shift shaping into it.
Selected Bibliography
Books
Frankl, Viktor E., Man's Search for Meaning (Revised and Updated). Washington Square Press, N.Y., 1984. archive.org
Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time trans John MacQuarrie & Edward Robinson, Harper & Row, NY. 1962 [translated from German Sein und Zeit (7th edtn)]. archive.org. ... 1st edition1927.
MacQuarrie, John. Martin Heidegger. John Knox Press, Richmond, VA, 1969. archive.org
Sanborn, Patricia F., Existentialism. Western Publishing Co., Inc., U.S.A., 1968. archive.org
Encyclopedia Articles
Burnham, Douglas and Papandreopoulos, G. "Existentialism." Retrieved from https://www.iep.utm.edu/existent 29 August 2019.
Crowell, Steven. "Existentialism." (9 March 2015). Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/existentialism 29 August 2019.
Dreyfus, Hubert L. "Existentialism." Microsoft(R) Student 2008 [DVD]. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation, 2007.
Edwards, Paul "'My Death.'" The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Macmillan, New York, 1967 rprnt edtn 1972, vol. 5, 416-419.
"existentialism." Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite [DVD]. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, 2013.
"Existentialism" Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existentialism 29 January 2019.
Gunderson, Keith "Cybernetics." The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Macmillan, New York, 1967 rprnt edtn 1972, vol. 2, 280-284.
Heath, P.L. "Nothing." The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Macmillan, New York, 1967 rprnt edtn 1972, vol. 5, 524-525.
MacIntyre, Alasdair. "Being." The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Macmillan, New York, 1967 rprnt edtn 1972, vol. 1, 273-277.
MacIntyre, Alasdair. "Essence and Existence." The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Macmillan, New York, 1967 rprnt edtn 1972, vol. 3, 59-61.
MacIntyre, Alasdair. "Existentialism." The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Macmillan, New York, 1967 rprnt edtn 1972, vol. 3, 147-154.
Needleman, Jacob. "Existence." The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Macmillan, New York, 1967 rprnt edtn 1972, vol. 3, 141-147.
Olson, Robert G. "Death." The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Macmillan, New York, 1967 rprnt edtn 1972, vol. 2, 307-309.
Olson, Robert G. "Nihilism." The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Macmillan, New York, 1967 rprnt edtn 1972, vol. 5, 514-517.
Petrović, G. "Alienation." The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Macmillan, New York, 1967 rprnt edtn 1972, vol. 1, 76-81.
Prior, A.N. "Existential Psychoanalysis." The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Macmillan, New York, 1967 rprnt edtn 1972, vol. 3, 154-156.
Soll, Ivan. "Existentialism." 2014 World Book Multimedia Encyclopedia [DVD]. World Book, Chicago, 2014.
Solomon, Robert C. "existentialism." The 1999 Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia [CD]. Grolier Interactive Inc., U.S.A.,1998.
Internet Articles
Sartre, Jean-Paul. tr. Philip Mairet. "Existentialism is a Humanism." (Lecture 1946).
Viewed at https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exist/sartre.htm 27 September 2019.
Bakewell, Sarah, interview by Nigel Warburton. "The best books on Existentialism."
Retrieved from https://fivebooks.com/best-books/existentialism-sarah-bakewell/ 30 September 2019.
5125 words
George R. Breeden, 2019.12.17t
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