Recently there has been a growing interest not only in existentialism, but also in existential questions, as well as key figures in existential thinking. Yet despite this renewed interest, a systematic reconsideration of Kierkegaard’s existential approach is missing. This anthology is the first in a series of three that will attempt to fill this lacuna. The 13 chapters of the first anthology deal with various aspects of Kierkegaard's existential approach. Its reception will be examined (...) in the works of influential philsophers such as Heidegger, Gadamer, and Habermas, as well as in lesser known philosophers from the interwar period, such as Jean Wahl, Lev Shestov, and Benjamin Fondane. Other chapters reconsider central notions, such as "anxiety", "existence", "imagination", and "despair". Finally, some chapters deal with Kierkegaard's relevance for central issues in contemporary philosophy, including "naturalism", "self-constitution", and "bioethics". This book is of relevance not only to researchers working in Kierkegaard Studies, but to anyone with an interest in existentialism and existential thinking. (shrink)

As humans, we want to live meaningfully, yet we are often driven by impulse. In Religion and the Meaning of Life, Williams investigates this paradox – one with profound implications. Delving into felt realities pertinent to meaning, such as boredom, trauma, suicide, denial of death, and indifference, Williams describes ways to acquire meaning and potential obstacles to its acquisition. This book is unique in its willingness to transcend a more secular stance and explore how one's belief in God may be (...) relevant to life's meaning. Religion and the Meaning of Life's interdisciplinary approach makes it useful to philosophers, religious studies scholars, psychologists, students, and general readers alike. The insights from this book have profound real-world applications – they can transform how readers search for meaning and, consequently, how readers see and exist in the world. (shrink)

Contemporary society is rife with instability. Contemporary genetic research has raised and given life to the one-time science fiction specter: the clone. The scarcity of natural energy sources has led to greater manipulation of atomic or nuclear energy and as a result greater danger. And the promises of globalization have, in some cases, delivered their intended results, but in many other ways they have created even greater social and economic gaps. An urgent commentary in the tradition of Herbert Marcuse's One (...) Dimensional Man or even Sigmund Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents, Raphael Sassower's powerful new book is a culmination of many years of research and thought carefully arranged into an extended essay on our contemporary social, cultural, and existential orientation in the modern world. (shrink)

Advances in the neurosciences have many implications for a collective understanding of what it means to be human, in particular, notions of the self, the concept of volition or agency, questions of individual responsibility, and the phenomenology of consciousness. As the ability to peer directly into the brain is scientifically honed, and conscious states can be correlated with patterns of neural processing, an easy—but premature—leap is to postulate a one-way, brain-based determinism. That leap is problematic, however, and emerging findings in (...) neuroscience can even be seen as compatible with some of the basic tenets of existentialism. Given the compelling authority of modern “science,” it is especially important to question how the findings of neuroscience are framed, and how the articulation of research results challenge or change individuals’ perceptions of themselves. Context plays an essential role in the emergence of human identity and in the sculpting of the human brain; for example, even a lack of stimuli (“nothing”) can lead to substantial consequences for brain, behavior, and experience. Conversely, advances in understanding the brain might contribute to more precise definitions of what it means to be human, including definitions of appropriate social and moral behavior. Put another way, the issue is not simply the ethics involved in framing neurotechnology, but also the incorporation of neuroscientific findings into a richer understanding of human ethical (and existential) functioning. (shrink)

Walker Percy's use of the terms Umwelt and Welt as well as his separation of events into dyadic and triadic ones, where the latter involve human beings, is brought to bear on the relationship between science and religion with the upshot being that science is not equipped to really understand or explain triadic entities.

This article is about the therapeutic use of photography in mental health care. We will first describe the intelligent nature of perception as we understand on the basis of neurobiological research findings. We will link our interpretation of visual perception with the phenomenology of perception from the theory of Merleau‐Ponty.. Then we will discuss how patients in mental health care with mental health problems may profit by an experiential approach that is concomitant with the existential reality described by (...) Merleau‐Ponty. The experiential approach we go into more detail is Focusing. We will demonstrate the limitations and feasibility of Focusing in the procedures of working with photography as a therapeutic medium. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Collective Regret and Guilt and Heroic Agency:A Pro-Existential ApproachIonut UnteaIntroductory Discussion: Challenging the Supposedly "Rationally Refutable" Character of GuiltStudies in social psychology point out that feelings of guilt are more likely than feelings of regret to occur in an interpersonal context (Wagner et al. 1) marked by "interpersonal harm," or harm done to others (Berndsen et al. 55, 66). In keeping with these studies, in social ontology, regret (...) seems to involve an evaluation of the kind of wrongdoing that is out of someone's control (Konzelmann Ziv 488), while the feeling of guilt implies the self-attribution of blame over something that is connected, even in a loose manner, to a blameworthy action (Gilbert, "Group Wrongs" 65, 66n3).In order to advance the argument of the reasonableness of a person's feeling of guilt if that person is part of a group that has acted wrongfully, Margaret Gilbert distinguishes between feelings of personal guilt and feelings of collective guilt ("Group Wrongs" 76), with the latter still impacting on the individual feelings of guilt. From this point of view, a person may be "personally guiltless," but can still reasonably feel guilt if that person's group behaves in a morally unacceptable way ("Group Wrongs" 66). By distinguishing between personal and collective guilt, Gilbert intends to give an "intelligible" dimension to what she calls Jaspers's "dilemma" ("Collective Guilt" 135, 136). She emphasizes Karl Jaspers's hesitation in categorizing his own feeling of guilt for what his people have done: "There is a way that he 'cannot help feeling' which is 'rationally refutable'" (Gilbert "Collective Guilt" 135; Jaspers 74). As a philosopher, Gilbert argues, Jaspers finds this existential dilemma "extremely problematic" ("Collective Guilt" 135). Nonetheless, Gilbert also concedes that these two types of guilt may be difficult to distinguish in regard to their "phenomenological conditions" at the level of [End Page 59] the "pangs and twinges" experienced by each person, but rather on the basis of the "judgment or thought" involved with that feeling ("Collective Guilt" 135).Gilbert argues that "it is indeed intelligible for group members to feel guilt over the action in question" by virtue of what she calls a "foundational joint commitment," which brings together a number of people to "intend as a body" to carry out certain actions ("Collective Guilt" 136). Although not committed to the goal of showing the intelligibility of the feeling of membership guilt as is Gilbert, I favor the acceptance of a kind of reasonableness of such a feeling, even when it conserves its "rationally refutable" character. This even applies when membership guilt may not so easily be distinguished from personal guilt. Gilbert sees joint commitment as "authority-creating," in the sense that "a person or body" may become "authorized" to apply the collective intention to the concrete settings. This is realized by making decisions for the entire group, thus bringing the collective intention into effect ("Collective Guilt" 136). This joint commitment becomes binding for individual members of the group since once they commit themselves to the group's intention, "they are not in a position unilaterally to change the collective's mind." This does not apply in situations when "they may do so by mutual consent" ("Collective Guilt" 127). What I find concerning about Gilbert's involvement of the argument of the "authority-creating" ("Collective Guilt" 136) joint commitment within the dimension of membership guilt is precisely that it discourages any contestation of the authority that decides the content of the collective intention, unless this is done by "mutual consent" ("Collective Guilt" 127). This makes the members of the collective rather passive, and unwilling to challenge the authority generated through their participation in the joint commitment.This reluctance of the members of a collective body to challenge the authority that gives content to their collective intention can easily be identified in history and in the contemporary landscapes of political authority, especially in countries led continuously for decades by authoritarian leaders. In spite of the oppressive character of their leadership, these are very rarely contested, and then only by sporadic voices who fail to generate a coherent long-term commitment from other group members. In this sense, Gilbert's... (shrink)

The insanity defense presents many difficult questions for the legal system. It attracts attention beyond its practical significance (it is seldom used successfully) because it goes to the heart of the concept of legal responsibility. “Not guilty by reason of insanity” generally requires that as a result of mental illness the defendant was unable to distinguish right from wrong at the time of the crime. The many difficult and complex questions presented by the insanity defense have led some in the (...) legal community to hope that neuroscience might help resolve some of these problems, but that hope is not likely to be realized. (shrink)

The purpose of this engaging book is twofold: to explain and justify the primary objects and methods of the discipline of philosophy, and to show how philosophy ...

Abstract Stephen Jay Gould's NOMA (nonoverlapping magisteria) theory was meant to be an alternative to the traditional “conflict model” regarding the relationship between science and religion. But NOMA has been plagued with problems from the beginning. The problem most acutely felt was that of demarcating the disciplines of science and theology. This paper is an attempt to retain the insights of NOMA and the conflict model, while eliminating their shortcomings. It acknowledges with the conflict model that the conflict is real, (...) but not necessarily a fight unto death. It agrees with the NOMA that the two are different kinds of disciplines, and it goes on to spell out the difference in some detail. They turn out to be so radically different that the two cannot be reconciled by keeping one away from the other's turf, as NOMA suggests, but may be reconciled through a fusion of horizons in the Gadamerian sense. (shrink)

Continual pressure on managers, their efficiency, and the need to search for novel solutions to problems can lead to psychologically demanding situations. In efforts to understand the main obstacles to work and to effectively manage work-related processes, and in the need to achieve personal development, new approaches that are based on existential philosophies emerge. The aim of this article is to highlight the ways in which existential approaches have been used or discussed in management and to show that (...) existential themes and their applications in management can also be found in the Eastern tradition of thought. The paper presents six case vignettes from management practice that use Western and Eastern existential insights and offer recommendations for self-development of managers. The paper concludes that although it is difficult or impossible to create a unified framework of existential philosophy of management because of the diversity of existential approaches and because of the problematic nature of comparing Eastern and Western philosophies, it is possible to work towards gathering applicable insights and values. (shrink)

Exploring the putative role of nature in human well-being has typically been operationalized and measured within a quantitative paradigm of research. However, such approaches are limited in the extent to which they can capture the full range of how natural experiences support well-being. The aim of the study was to explore personal experiences in nature and consider how they might be important to human health and well-being. Based on a descriptive phenomenological analysis of fifty descriptions of memorable moments in nature (...) from England, Indonesia, and Norway, our findings illustrate a common structure presented under three themes: 1. serenity that gives rise to a growing awareness of how the body is stimulated by the senses; 2. admiration and appreciation for the sensation of beauty; 3. an emerging sense of togetherness and deep emotional bonding. The findings are discussed using the concepts of ecological time and the ecological body, which foreground being in nature as constituted as an interdependent and dynamic human process. We conclude by understanding well-being in terms of human responsiveness to their surroundings and thus as rooted in the human condition. (shrink)

The original interest of this article lies in existential import. It provides a broader view on the problem by reference to modern, symbolic logic (ch.1). Gradually, however, our interest will change into the amalgamated expressions often used in logic; that is, why are such expressions as “x is a round triangle” applied in logic? We critically discuss this question from an extensional viewpoint, namely model theoretic semantics (ch.2). We also touch on Church’s λ-calculus in the appendix (app.2).

An existential-dialectical-phenomenological approach is applied to the understanding of the universal tensions between multicultural and transcultural value-laden modalities of existence. Differences in cultural comportments are described as variations in local human ways in dealing with universal and bipolar existential modalities, values, or needs, such as freedom versus limitation, independence versus dependence, and connectedness versus separateness. Cultures are described as being organized around and as providing their members with ways of dealing with these value-laden dialectical dilemmas. Cultures are (...) further depicted as legitimating one dialectical pole to the detriment of the other dialectical pole. Some cultures, for example, legitimate the dialectical poles of freedom, independence, and separateness, while deemphasizing or denying the dialectical poles of limitation, dependence, and connectedness. Other cultures legitimate the opposite. These one-sided value orientations of cultures are referred to as cultural tilts. The implications for the practice of multicultural counseling and phenomenologically-based qualitative research are delineated. (shrink)

The authors argue that Morenian-inspired existential psychodrama turns out to be a formidable lever for opening up existence as it allows schizophrenic patients to incorporate the experience of an “absolutely other” on which the foundation of any autonomous self is built. More precisely, by relying on their clinical experiences, the authors show how psycho-dramatic play goes along with an intense movement of original projection which carries psychotic patients externally in relation to themselves. Offset from their pathological world, these patients (...) feel more inclined to “wear someone else’s shoes,” for the duration of the game, and they do so in a manner that is both sensorial and pathic. This surprising and creative “journey,” which allows them to return to the world better attuned to others and to themselves, is merely an enactment of a “true” intersubjective encounter: the very essence of existential psychodrama. By applying phenomenology to this psychodramatic method, notably by relying on the hypothesis of psychosis being a disorder of what Bin Kimura calls the “ aida,” the authors hope to contribute to the advancement of psychosis’ psychotherapy. (shrink)

This book delves into Carl Schmitt's early legal works and explores their hermeneutic nature. Drawing on the insights of the giants of existential hermeneutics, such as Heidegger and Gadamer, we illuminate the essence of hermeneutic thought - the existential openness inherent in us as human beings, and then examine its implications for Carl Schmitt's early legal thought. The journey that this text embarks on reveals that the openness inherent in human beings inevitably extends to the legal phenomenon. This (...) realisation exposes two potential pitfalls or flawed appropriations within juridico-hermeneutical activity. First, there's the scientism that restricts law strictly to positive legislation, depriving it of its broader scope. Second, there's what might be called legal romanticism, in which the interpreter, on the basis of whim and subjectivity, dictates what the law means. The book delves into Schmitt's early works, highlighting his awareness of these extremes and the ways in which he addresses them. (shrink)

The existential approach described by Mark Nesti offers a radical alternative to the cognitive-behavioral model which informs most contemporary applied sports psychology. Whereas standard psychological models of athlete behavior would advocate appropriate "mental skills" training such as visualizing the perfect race to help an athlete overcome performance problems, the existential approach will refer to an athletes unique emotional world to find deeper causes of their limitation. These causes may be only very indirectly linked to the athletes (...) sporting life. Existential sports psychology has gone out of phenomenological theory and existential philosophy. Mark Nesti's text is the first book to present an overview of this exciting approach. It contains case studies and a framework for psychologists to apply this approach to their work. (shrink)

This book focuses on feminist analyses of women’s oppression-perpetuating choices in order to ascertain how such biases in theorizing can undermine liberation.

This article describes the origin and the work of a volunteer run nonprofit agency designed to provide low cost psychotherapy. The agency was developed by psychotherapists connected with the Seattle University graduate program guided by the vision of psychotherapy as a healing relationship and in response to a growing crisis in the mental health system. We address the benefits and the challenges of this collaborative effort, and especially the difficulty involved in successfully running an agency while staying true to a (...) particular vision of therapy, collaboration, and community. (shrink)

This article describes the origin and the work of a volunteer run nonprofit agency designed to provide low cost psychotherapy. The agency was developed by psychotherapists connected with the Seattle University graduate program guided by the vision of psychotherapy as a healing relationship and in response to a growing crisis in the mental health system. We address the benefits and the challenges of this collaborative effort, and especially the difficulty involved in successfully running an agency while staying true to a (...) particular vision of therapy, collaboration, and community. (shrink)

This chapter provides an overview of how existential phenomenology has influenced qualitative research methods across a range of disciplines across the social, health, educational, and psychological sciences. It focuses specifically on how the concepts of “existential structures,” or “existentials”—such as selfhood, temporality, spatiality, affectivity, and embodiment—have been used in qualitative research. After providing a brief introduction to what qualitative research is and why philosophers should be interested in it, the chapter provides clear, straightforward examples of how qualitative researchers (...) have used existentials to analyze qualitative data and design qualitative studies. The chapter is intended to introduce philosophers to existential approaches to phenomenological qualitative research, with the aim of facilitating interdisciplinary dialogue and collaboration. (shrink)

Based mainly on research conducted as part of a doctoral thesis (Guimond-Plourde, 2004), this paper introduces an epistemological and methodological framework based on the foundations and characteristics of a qualitative/interpretative approach rooted in hermeneutic phenomenology as conducive to disclosing the meaning that healthy adolescents, aged 15 to 17, attribute to the stress they experience in school and to their coping behaviour. Moving from the empirical to the phenomenal makes it possible to evoke a return to dimensions of meaning which (...) have been set aside or forgotten in the lived experience of stress-coping. By thus bringing stress-coping into focus in a new way, it enables us to glimpse the phenomenon anew, with the prospect of revealing what we haven't yet appreciated. A dual philosophical approach is outlined: a phenomenological perspective apprehends stress-coping as an existential phenomenon, while the hermeneutic focus is on interpreting the links between lived experience and meaning. The kind of knowledge generated by means of this approach offers a new way of understanding that focuses on the unique and personal nature of healthy adolescents' daily life at school and, as such, provides educators with a sensitive account of adolescents' experiences of stress in the school context. (shrink)

This book tracks a particular understanding of self, philosophically, from research evidence and its implications for psychotherapy.

It is a central tenet of (neo-)Aristotelian metaphysics that reality is structured by relations of existential priority or, conversely put, existential dependence: some entities depend for their existence on other entities that help to bring about their existence. After briefly looking at the origins of this idea in Aristotle’s Categories, the chapter examines some contemporary definitions of existential dependence. A notion of existential dependence defined in terms of metaphysical explanation is shown to fulfill numerous Aristotelian desiderata. (...) It is discussed how such explanations can be underwritten by conceptual connections and at the same time be a guide to the priority-structure of non-linguistic reality; finally, the chapter defends the proposed notion of existential dependence against objections from the recent literature. (shrink)

Europe's leading existential thinkers -- Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Albert Camus -- all felt that Americans were too self-confident and shallow to accept their philosophy of responsibility, choice, and the absurd. "There is no pessimism in America regarding human nature and social organization," Sartre remarked in 1950, while Beauvoir wrote that Americans had no "feeling for sin and for remorse" and Camus derided American materialism and optimism. Existentialism, however, enjoyed rapid, widespread, and enduring popularity among Americans. No (...) less than their European counterparts, American intellectuals participated in the conversation of existentialism. In Existential America , historian George Cotkin argues that the existential approach to life, marked by vexing despair and dauntless commitment in the face of uncertainty, has deep American roots and helps to define the United States in the twentieth-century in ways that have never been fully realized or appreciated. As Cotkin shows, not only did Americans readily take to existentialism, but they were already heirs to a rich tradition of thinkers -- from Jonathan Edwards and Herman Melville to Emily Dickinson and William James -- who had wrestled with the problems of existence and the contingency of the world long before Sartre and his colleagues. After introducing this concept of an American existential tradition, Cotkin examines how formal existentialism first arrived in America in the 1930s through discussion of Kierkegaard and the early vogue among New York intellectuals for the works of Sartre, Beauvoir, and Camus. Cotkin then traces the evolution of existentialism in America: its adoption by Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison to help articulate the African-American experience its expression in the works of Norman Mailer and photographer Robert Frank its incorporation into the tenets of the feminist and radical student movements of the 1960s and its lingering presence in contemporary American thought and popular culture, particularly in such films as Crimes and Misdemeanors , Fight Club and American Beauty . The only full-length study of existentialism in America, this highly engaging and original work provides an invaluable guide to the history of American culture since the end of the Second World War. (shrink)

Both Sartre and Kohut use the idea of conflict in a positive sense to explain how authentic relations and viable therapy are possible, although there are important differences between the two thinkers on this topic. For Kohut it will be shown that optimal frustration is conceived of as a mechanism through which the healthy child, or the well-managed patient, learns to react in a calming and loving way to internal drive demands. Concomitantly, this individual learns to cope with a world (...) that is obdurate, one that will thwart his desires. By contrast, in the authentic case the child for Sartre is taught to accept the gulf between him/herself and the adult. Positive conflict becomes something the child not only accepts but also enjoys as he/ she learns to cope enthusiastically in the face of his environment's inevitable obduracy. Sartre's sense of joy and volition will be shown to go beyond Kohut's more guarded optimism in the face of the challenge of contingency. The above ideas of both Sartre and Kohut will also be used to criticize views of therapy in which understanding and empathy on the part of the therapist are taken to be the sine qua non of the therapeutic process. (shrink)