PHL314 Existentialism
Professor: Craig DeLancey
Office: CC212A
Email: craig.delancey@oswego.edu
Current Assignments
13 May
Office hours 9:00 - 10:00 a.m. and 1:30 -- 3:00 p.m.
15 May
Final exam, in our regular classroom, 8:00 a.m. -- 10:00 a.m..
Yes, you read that right. Well, I don't write the schedules.
You may bring B&T, The Plague, No Exit, The Flies, The
Geneology of Morals, a copy of "Existentialism is a Humanism,"
your copy of "The Question Concerning Technology," and if you like
a copy of Being and Nothingness if you have one. Consider
the following as worthy of study, along with the study
questions from the midterm and any study questions concerning our
readings:
- What does Heidegger mean by "anxiety"? What does anxiety
reveal?
- What does Sartre say all existentialists have in common?
That is, how does he define existentialism? Would you agree
with his definition? Why or why not?
- How does Sartre interpret and explain "anguish" (which is
a common translation for angst and anxiety), "abandonment" and
"despair" ?
- What does Orestes mean in The Flies when he says there
is another way? What is his epiphany?
- Why don't the characters of No Exit leave the room?
- What would Sartre recommend the subjects in Milgram's
experiment do? How should they understand their situation?
- What are Vladimir and Estragon waiting for, in Waiting
for Godot? Should they keep waiting? What does it mean (that
is, what does Beckett appear to mean to assert by showing) that
they wait without any result? Would Sartre recommend we wait?
Would Heidegger? Would Nietzsche? Would Camus?
- Why does Paneloux decide he will not accept the care of a
doctor? Why does the death of Jacques Othun cause him to commit
to this? Contrast his view with Rieux's notion that the job of
a doctor is to resist the order of creation.
- What does Tarrou mean when he says (in part IV, before he
actually gets the biological plague) that he too suffered from
plague? What kind of plague?
- Nietzsche took as one of his tasks opposition to nihilism.
What is nihilism? How do Heidegger, Sartre, Beckett, and Camus
variously respond to (the possibility of) nihilism?
- Consider Heidegger's "Question Concerning Technology."
According to Heidegger: What is the essence of technology?
What is challenging forth? What is enframing? What is
Bestand (standing-reserve, inventory)? What is the possible
saving grace that may exist within techne?
- What is existentialism? Of the philosophers and writers
we've read, who is an existentialist, who is not, and why?
Tentative assignments (these will be revised)
16 May
Frolic, with anxiety.