What is the best existential philosophical work?

Jean-Paul "One eye on the tiddies" Sartre

The void stared back.

Why did you promote Camus' book then tell him to go to bed?

Because Albert Camus tends to browse this forum and get annoyed at people calling him an existentialist. Whenever he is found out, it's custom to tell him to go to bed.

So is Miss Sissypuss worth reading or no?

I believe he is actually viewing both sides of the dialectic simultaneously.

Which dialectic, tho, bro?

Yes. You'll either pick it up and go "a whole book to say this?" because it will be obvious to you already, or youll be a brainlet genuinely learning something new

No Exit

Daily reminder that existentialism has been BTFO by none other than the field of Biology.

Clearly.

how so?

Before you answer this , define existentialism

the philosophical inquiry in finding (typically long-lasting) satisfaction from life.

Kierkegaard's 'Min forstyrrede verden'

yikes

Okay now it's clear why you think that biology "BTFO" existentialism. because that isn't even remotely close to what existentialism is.
Read the works in this thread, starting with this , then this . They are short but potent.
Or maybe Sartre's Existentialism is a Humanism since it's literally baby's first existentialism for you.

Woops, the broken link is No Exit. I accidentally backspaced the last number

It's not that Camus wasn't an existentialist, it's specifically The Stranger that isn't existentialist.

that wasnt me who thought biology btfo exxistentialism.....

The Fall by Camus

For a novice like you, Irrational Man by William Barrett.

Welcome to an anonymous imageboard where you have to mention shit like that when jumping into discussions

not OP, but any relation to that shitty Woody Allen movie?

No, just one of the best introductory studies of existentialism.

what is existentialism?
I read the stranger and I liked it but it seemed a critique on Meursalt's autistic hedonism if anything

In a nutshell, existentialism asserts that existence precedes essence. That something or someone is fundamentally the summation of their objective traits before their subjective traits. A chair, for instance, is not a "chair", but a square of wood with other wood bits arranged in a way that's comfortable for sitting. The concept of "chair" is something that you impose upon the wooden thing. The idea has much broader and deeper implications when applied to humanity. Sartre's existentialism is essentially an accessible distillation of that philosophy as established by proto-existentialists Kafka, Dostoyevsky, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and the like.
The Stranger is not an existential novel. I don't know where people get the idea that it is but that's a popular misconception.

Existentialism (as defined by Sartre because he was the only important one to use the term) tells you that human beings are born without any baggage (because there is no God) and it is up to them to give a meaning to their lives.

But biology tells us that humans are not some special beings, we are just very complex animals. Our purpose in life is to reproduce and pass our genes. You can explain just about everything from an evolutional standpoint.

And if you don't believe that, then you can't really ignore the fact that we are nothing more than bags of molecules interacting with and adapting to the environment. Scientists can pin point exactly the chemicals responsible for what makes us happy, anxious, fall in love. You get depressed? Too anxious to do anything with your life? Take a pill and everything will be normal. I don't think I have to mention the name of that famous author who had the audacity to stop taking his pills and then killed himself shortly after.

Now I am not one to say that science is the only answer and philosophy is dead, but existentialism is too romantic a philosophy for modern science. Humans aren't free to do anything with their lives, they have to answer to those fixed ideas within themselves that instruct and limit them on how to be a human/animal.

*tips reddit*

Is Nausea any good?

Please don't word it like a walking fedora. First off being born without baggage is not precise because existentialism does not conflate itself with "blank slate" theories from the Enlightnment. You're born with particular objective traits derived from your body and that's it. What comes later is imposed on yourself by the surroundings and by your own perceptions in a positive feedback manner.

It also necessarily does not imply any purpose, not even a biological one, because that would be saying our functioning has an essence ("you are meant to reproduce"). Due to that, it is also not supportive of science neither denying of philosophy. Do not confuse existentialism with positivism and empiricism.

Sein und Zeit

Holy shit, are you edgy. I know a very well-informed biologist who has worked in a lab and far from being an edgy fedora is piously religious. The more you learn about biology, the more you see the wonder of it and complexity of the human body that could very well fit in with God or freewill.

People who believe in "scientism" and "scientifically-supported determinism/atheism/nihilism" don't realize how many assumptions they're making about things they know not much about. Just because you have the scientific facts (contrary to your thought) doesn't mean a philosophical worldview goes to support them, you're "adding" the worldview out of your own bias, science itself doesn't say that much on it.

Holy, I wish I had it all figured out like you do! I want more..

>I major in humanities and I only read thinkers from hundreds of years ago and everybody who even mentions contemporary theories is an edgy normie because science is gay

People like you are the reasons why nobody takes the humanities seriously anymore. You will never have a worthwhile thought if you ignore that mountain of arguments and just spout shit that you've come up with when you were trying to look smart in the Starbucks. Again, I don't mean to say that philosophy is useless or that science knows everything, it's just that a lot has changed in the past century and philosophy is not keeping up.

>you're born with particular objective traits
Yes but the big question here is how critical those traits are? When a baby is born you can look at the parents and at its genetic package and make some accurate guesses about its future life. You can also be pretty sure that when he or she will grow up they will want to have sex, start a family, take care of children and if that doesn't happen in lots of cases you can find a reason for it.
>What comes later is imposed on yourself by the surroundings
Correct. But we have some pre-built reactions for the things that the surroundings throw at us.
>and by your own perceptions
That says nothing. What are these perceptions? What makes them our own? How can we trust them?
>that would be saying our functioning has an essence ("you are meant to reproduce")
Notice that when you are saying that the function of humans is to reproduce you are not saying anything out of the ordinary, you are only rephrasing what the majority of people already believes, that the meaning of life is having a family and taking care of your children. When we look at a 30 years old virgin who constructs a meaning out of playing video games, we all think that he is a loser, objectively. What existentialism is trying to say is that the meaning in life is subjective to the individual, right? But that is bullshit in my opinion.

Yes, especially if you're depressed

Why do retards like you feel the need to give non-English titles? You even misspelled it so it's impossible to know what you're talking about.

Being and Nothingness. It is like the essential text of existentialism. After that probably The Ethics of Ambiguity.

>In a nutshell, existentialism asserts that existence precedes essence. That something or someone is fundamentally the summation of their objective traits before their subjective traits. A chair, for instance, is not a "chair", but a square of wood with other wood bits arranged in a way that's comfortable for sitting. The concept of "chair" is something that you impose upon the wooden thing.

Be careful. "Existence" in that popular existentialist expression refers to human existence.

>But biology tells us that humans are not some special beings, we are just very complex animals. Our purpose in life is to reproduce and pass our genes. You can explain just about everything from an evolutional standpoint.
>And if you don't believe that, then you can't really ignore the fact that we are nothing more than bags of molecules interacting with and adapting to the environment. Scientists can pin point exactly the chemicals responsible for what makes us happy, anxious, fall in love. You get depressed? Too anxious to do anything with your life? Take a pill and everything will be normal. I don't think I have to mention the name of that famous author who had the audacity to stop taking his pills and then killed himself shortly after.

Phenomenological sciences solved. Thanks chum, I guess transcendence is just facticity after all. I suppose now I can live my life without being burdened by infinite self-transcendence. If I'm just a bunch of molecules I as you say, there must be nothing to transcend after all. There goes all my existential anguish right down the drain with the money I foolishly poured into my philosophy degree. What else does biology tell us?

>Correct. But we have some pre-built reactions for the things that the surroundings throw at us.

Can you be bothered to read the fucking literature? If you could get through the first three chapters of Being and Nothingness you would maybe be able to make some objections that aren't beyond asinine.

>When we look at a 30 years old virgin who constructs a meaning out of playing video games, we all think that he is a loser, objectively

You say nobody takes the humanities seriously. You think that probably because anyone actually well read can't bear to hear your dumbass uninformed opinions and so avoid you. Stop pontificating without having read the source material of whatever it is you're criticizing.