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The implications of this concept are enormous and profound. Just as Kierkegaard reverses the Hegelian construct of the universal being over the individual, the inner is placed by Kierkegaard in a position of supremacy over the outer. It has already been shown that faith can make acts moral to the individual performing them even when universal ethics would condemn the same act. Universal ethics are an element of the outer, or that which can be expressed and communicated publicly, whereas faith is inherently incommunicable and therefore individual and inner. Because inner faith can reject outer ethics, the inner gains a place of supremacy over the outer, and the particular experience must be seen as the main constituent of reality. An individual determines their own relationship to the universal based on their relationship to the inward looking absolute. The universal ethical imperative to grieve at the death of a parent -- particularly of a mother -- is rejected by Mersault without any explanation, as is his murder of the little-known Arab man. This, for the magistrate, is not only evidence of his guilt but a danger to society, as it amount to a rejection of society's reality itself, and its faith in the universal.
In the Stranger, Mersault at first find only the rejection of the universal, without the accompanying acceptance of the religious. He as no relationship with the absolute, and hence has no relationship with the universal. The inverse of this could also be true; Mersault, perhaps, has o relationship with the absolute because he has no relationship with the universal, though this would be a reversal of Kierkegaard's levels of influence and responsibility. There are two other characters in the Stranger that are very useful in identifying Mersault's particular relationship with both the universal and the religious. In the chapter concerning Mersault's
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In the next chapter, a priest attempts to convince Mersault to put his faith in God, whom Mersault maintains he does not believe in, insisting that there is no reason for the priest to be so certain in his beliefs. The priest responds that Mersault's heart is blind; faith is not something that comes from outwardly expressible logic, but through individual connection with the absolute. Mersault's rejection of the religious is also his rejection of salvation, revealing his own lack of faith. Ultimately, Mersault achieves inner peace through his acceptance of the world's indifference. Even as he rejects the notion of God, he accepts an absolute that he is a part of, and which frees him from the vagaries of the universal.
If dread enters as the knowledge that there is no knowledge from which to derive a decision, yet decision is all there is, then we reach a complicated idea of what comprises the individual. If there were a concrete and appreciable version of each person, ready at any time to assess, then the concept of dread would have less terrible implications. The fact is, when penetrated by the nothing
On the other hand, Schopenchauer argues that because happiness is fundamentally unobtainable, humans are faced with a life of disappointment, which thus leads to the disconnect that causes suicide. However, if both of these philosophers' theories on the cause of suicide were taken at face value, it would be surmised that every human would commit suicide and thus the extinction of the human race would be inevitable. Yet, this is
Foremost, though, is the Nietzschian concept that freedom is never free -- there are costs; personal, societal, and spiritual. To continue that sense of freedom, one must be constantly vigilant and in danger of losing that freedom, for the moment the individual gasps a sigh of relief and feels "free" from contemplating freedom, tyranny will ensue. He believed that it was the internal cost that contained value. This, however,
Identify the following ten terms or philosophers: (Be sure your answers contain details and sufficient information for college level work.) 1) Buddha 2) Freud 3) Plato 4) Relativism 5) Camus 6) Kierkegaard 7) What is your definition or morality? 8) Does God exist and intervene directly in our affairs? 9) What is the relationship between religion and reason? 10) What philosophical ideals are you developing as a result of your
Existentialism: A History Existentialism is a philosophical school of thought that addresses the "problem of being" (Stanford Encyclopedia, 2010). Existentialist questions involve the nature of man in relation to the universe, the subjective nature of "I" versus the objective "we," the creation and measure of meaning in a world with no intrinsic meaning, standards of morality in the absence of Divine Law (God), and the creation and measure of success in
The three approaches to ethics today involve whether one does good out of (1) the need to maximize the well-being of the human race, (2) the need to live according to a moral rule ("Do unto others as you would have others do unto you") or (3) the belief that helping people is charitable and benevolent (virtue ethics). The Virtue Ethicists' central concepts are virtue, practical wisdom and eudaimonia. A