Lectures Notes
from 1972, California State University, Dr. Peter Koestenbaum

This lecture was a little idiotic. Gave names with little to no description. Bold, and seemingly incorrect (or at least very arguable and poorly supported) assertions. A fraud promoting his book in front of a mediocre intro class. Also, the tape kept screwing up, and I abandoned the third section of the lecture sans regret. Marginal thanks for the names and categories, will provide some help for furture study.

Woody Allen’s “Private I on the lookout for the supreme being at the morgue”
“Man’s projects is God” —Sartre
aversion to systematic thought/ logic, as counter to man’s nature

Philosophy today is located in Existentialism, history of thought culminates here

Meetings of Eastern and Western philosophy, yoga + phenomenology.
inwardness, subjectivity, consciousness—transcendental philosophy

Scientific character (?) of phenomenology (calls this the method of the existentialists)—science applied to the study of man, study inwardness without distortion or appearance as a physical object or external thing, yet still scientific
Thus, bridge culture gap between scientific and poetic ways

Way to amend “nefarious materialism” and “creeping mechanization”- ecology vs. technology… and all that brave new world, clockwork orange stuff- this side sees freedom as useless, danger is that we philosophically destory ourselves “use our inwardness to prove we don’t exist”

Two kinds of alienation—(note Dr. K’s 2 kinds of isolation)
without identity—My Fair Lady
without support or a home/ no ground—Fiddler on the Roof

The Key Figures: divided into 4 groups:
1) Precursors: Kierkegaard (religious dimension), Nietzsche (humanistic dimension), Brentano and Husserl (Epistemological/ Theoretical)
2) Principal Thinkers: Heidgegger, Sartre, Jaspers, Marcel
3) Theologians: Tillich (Protestant), Bultmann (essence w/o myth), Maritain (Catholic), Buber (Jewish), Berdyaev (Eastern Orthodox)
4) Psychologists: Binswanger (student of Freud), Boss, Merleau-Ponty, Rollo May

Overview of Existential Philosophy:
1) Methodolgy—how to proceed, and where we’re going, this method is phenomenology
a) demands distance from the object/ subject of search, disengagement—called epoche
b) awareness/ neutralization of presuppositions to point that new lifestyle may be achieved
c) develop sensitive descriptions of perceptions (is this qualitative research?), note missing data… uh, taste music, not just for poets…
2) Ontology—application of method of phenom. to structure of consciousness, metaphysical/ nature of reality issues/ worldview implications of existentialism. Consciousness oft rejected for study elsewhere.
a) field theory- not a body or a soul, but continuous body-consciousness-world field, between ego and world, this is intentionality, one with others, what effects it affects me, I am continuous
b) distinction between empirical and transcendental ego, pure consciousness w/ social roles, physical body, and personality
c) responsibility, or constitution- created and responsible for organization of my world, my social reality and lifestyle, not fate and luck by my own efforts and decisions… the field-like view will revolutionize how we act, our systems (weird how the first and last ontological points are contradictory…)
3) Anthropology—theory of man, how it feels for us to exist in our world
4) Applications—influences
a) literature
b) religion
c) psychotherapy

Existential Theory of Man, characteristics of existentially aware man.

Need to figure out how to use Audacity… also, tried to chat last night (using “Wengo” (French software)—not Skype because I have Windows and he has Linux, and it was too hard), and couldn’t get that to work. But microphone seems to be fine.

On despair, and the physician of the soul in relation to despair.

I wouldn’t suggest becoming such a physician without it.

This book is about despair: what it means to be in despair, the various dialectical manifestations of despair, and the relations despair has to consciousness and will. It also seems to posit authenticity (what I’m interpreting here as a near-synonymous aspect of Kierkegaard’s “faith”) as the solution to despair, rather than virtue. It is about knowing oneself, and more than that, willing to be oneself. Excesses of possibility, of necessity, ignorance, loss, lonliness, and shame are all moments of despair, and often it is not recognized…

Is the content any different from the regular version?

Justice is out, injustice is in. That’s why it’s called in justice.

Prof. Kaufmnn discusses Sartre, Jaspers, Heidegger, Kierkegaard
circa 1973?

This was a short, informative, straightforward lecture—quite helpful in place of an intro. class, along with some interesting Kaufmann claims.

Lecture notes:

Philosophers termed existentials agree on distinctive type of starting points for philosophy/ philosophical reflection, as “edge” moments—confrontation with death; dread and anxiety; despair; guilt

Job, Pascal, St. Augustine? Tragedy itself? Motifs are common, but unusual as starting point for philosophy—not until 20th century, beginning (word) with Sartre. (Nietzsche and Dostoevsky are prior, too—and Tolstoy’s Ivan Ilych)

Opposition to schools (as any philosophers—none is properly part of a school, but a beginning); especially here, solitude as condition for authenticity

Kierkegaard (btw, died when Nietzsche was 11) as father of existentialism, “decisive impulses”—at-one-ment with God as solitude is true Christianity (N. finds oneness that claimed-Christians never achieve)

Existentialism as movement in response to positivism, bias against science, closer to poetry and literature (like Dostoevsky, his psychology, rather than his Christianity)
Sartre’s “bad faith”= self-deception (like in Anna K)

1887, Nietzsche discovers Notes from Underground accidentally, calls Dostoevsky “the only psychologist who had something to teach me”

Kaufmann suggests that existentialists are moralists (?): appeal to readers to become nonconfromists and understand self to “achieve a different form of existence”

Existentialists and Moral Anarchy:
considered anti-academic, closer to real life, in competition with Hegel—thus disinclinded to be prescriptive, re-address being/ fundamental ontology, thus present modes of being (prior to morals?—more metaphysics than ethics, in theory)...
S. tried, but “didn’t understand nature of responsibility”
-extreme individualism and subjectivism, spurning of crowd
-choose with will, “be authentic”
Thus, (as Ivan says), all is permitted (?), and does moral relativism follow?- but this is irresponsible! And they do not succeed to introduce a notion of responsibility, thus no ethic, merely exhortations to authenticity/ resoluteness- no criteria for distinguishing.

Thus, seeking authority (K. has Christianity), but approach is unusual (the state church is still the enemy)- return to this by making the ideas his own, “reads in his own ideas” and they come back endowed with authority (Heidegger does the same with other philosophers/ poets)- interpretation becomes a violence/ a force, and as Sartre does with Marxism. (Kaufmann calls this itself self-deception and finally inauthentic!) Not quite individual identifying himself with an institution for support… Kierkegaard dies without sacraments rather than accept them from the state church. Sartre does not join Communists. Heidegger leaves Nazi party. Rather, “exegetical” thinking—for support, finds texts, subjectively reads own ideas into text, the ideas return with authority, and this is a move to self-deception, and succumb to dread by way of blindness. Early error is to look uncritically at own will, but merely to be led by will—later error is exegetical. (N. asks to have courage not just of one’s convictions, but for an attack on these convictions—Kaufmann feels existentialists lack this).

Suggests American reaction to Vietnam is in part owed to influence of Sartre.

Ha ha hoi polloi!

I’m happier than a pig eating bacon! I’m tickled pinker than a sun-burned Caucasian!

It suddenly looks like “Ren & Stimpy” up in here.

This is a great little book, and it helped me find my school.

“No bad students—only bad teacher!”