Post
by cybrwurm » 11-17-2011 03:23 PM
] bobbo say: ... What Hubris this?
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wurm say: This Hubris be not existentialism, for Existentialism is a fairly recent philosophical innovation that is very interested in human beings and what makes them tick. Bertrand Russell didn't much care for existentialism because he thought it gave undue emphasis to human beings and their place in the cosmos. He wanted philosophy to focus much more upon the external universe, and thought that placing attention upon humanity was a wasted effort. Of course existentialists disagree to the Nth degree. If we cannot understand ourselves, how can we possibly understand the cosmos? For man is indeed the measure of all things.
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So the core idea of existentialism is that 'existence precedes essence', which is a very radical idea in direct contradiction to almost the entire philosophical tradition going all the way back to Plato. Before existentialism it was a given "fact" that essence precedes existence, and it only took two thousand years to overcome this delusion. For this reason alone, existentialism is by far the most important development in modern philosophy. Two of the most important existentialists of the 20th century are Karl Jaspers and Colin Wilson.
"Anyone who thinks that the truth is simple has got another think comming!" -- Grandpa Walton