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existentialism

שו”תCategory: philosophyexistentialism
asked 7 years ago

Hello Rabbi Michi!
I would love to know what you think about existentialism as a tool for forming positions about the world (as a way to reach faith, for example).
Happy Holidays!


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מיכי Staff answered 7 years ago
In my opinion, existentialism is generally devoid of philosophical value. It belongs more to psychology than to philosophy. Thinkers report personal experiences and insights they have drawn from them. Although sometimes these insights have some objective value, it really doesn’t matter that they were learned from existentialist experiences. What is important is the bottom line. Kind of like what is divided in the philosophy of science between the context of discovery of a theory and the context of justification. It doesn’t matter how the scientist arrived at the theory (discovered it), what is important is whether it stands the scientific-empirical test.  

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אורי replied 7 years ago

In the book “True and Unstable” you argued that relying on intuition is an essential part of learning about the world.. Don't existential experiences fall into this category? (It seems to me that such experiences can be trusted, especially when many people have the same experience)

מיכי Staff replied 7 years ago

I don't call that existentialism. Every philosophical discipline starts with initial intuitions from which the axioms are created. Existentialism is closer to experiences and psychology.

אורי replied 7 years ago

I still can't understand the difference... in the context of faith, for example: If a person experiences the world directly, let's say, and thus assumes that such and such an external world exists - and then through a logical process he deduces from the existence of this world the existence of God, why is his philosophical process more reliable than a person who experiences God himself directly? (And from this experience he can conclude, for example, that God exists, that He demands something of Him, or that He loves Him, depending on the nature of the experience)

מיכי Staff replied 7 years ago

There is no difference. The question is whether it is an experience or a recognition. If it is an experience, it is existentialism and it has no meaning on the factual level. If it is a recognition or an intuitive insight, then it is not existentialism, and in both cases it is perfectly fine.

אורי replied 7 years ago

So if I understand correctly, I can divide existential thought between descriptions of experiences and descriptions of “cognitions”:
That is, if the thinker describes an experience of loneliness or an experience of absurdity, for example, this has nothing to do with philosophy because philosophy by definition deals with the world outside of man and not with man himself(?). Such experiences are more related to the field of psychology.
On the other hand, if the thinker describes something like his experience with things outside of him - like God, he can deduce from this insights about God (say - that God is greater than him or that He demands something from him) and then the thinker and those who identify with his feelings will be able to treat this information as valid on the factual level because they arrived at it in the form of recognition of the world (which is what is called philosophy)

But even from the analysis of the first type (the person's experiences) conclusions can be drawn about the person himself and perhaps also about the world, right? (If a person feels a moral obligation, which is what existentialism deals with, he can develop philosophical conclusions about good and evil or the existence of commanding authority)

מיכי Staff replied 7 years ago

Precise. In my book True and Unstable (see a bit in the fourth notebook here) I explained that “feeling” a moral obligation means recognition, not experience.

אורי replied 7 years ago

Sorry for the digging, but now I'm a little confused... At first you said that existentialism is generally devoid of philosophical value, but at the end you said that the "knowledge" that existentialist thinkers describe can lead to philosophical conclusions on the factual level, and that sometimes the experiences described are actually knowledge, as in the case of ethical feelings.

מיכי Staff replied 7 years ago

I will explain once again because we have already exhausted ourselves. When there are basic insights that are based on intuition, philosophical conclusions can be drawn from them. This is not existentialism, since all philosophy is structured this way. But experiences that lead to psychological insights are not philosophy.

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