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Existentialism

Stressed the meaning of human existence, freedom of choice, and the uniqueness of each individual.

The most important aspects of humans are their personal, subjective interpretations of life and the choices they make in light of those interpretations.

◦Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche: All people have a will to power

◦To control one’s life, tendency to gain mastery over one’s self and one’s destiny.

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According to Comte, the only thing we can be sure of is that which is pub- licly observable—that is, sense experiences that can be shared with other individuals. The data of sci- ence are publicly observable and therefore can be trusted. For example, scientific laws are statements.about how empirical events vary together, and once determined, they can be experienced by any inter- ested party. Comte’s insistence on equating knowl- edge with empirical observations was called positivism. As an aside, positivism does not have as its opposite “negativism.” It derives from a French term meaning to be put into place, or to be placed in the mind by experience, akin to the English verb posit.

The Law of Three Stages.

According to Comte, societies pass through stages that are defined in terms of the way its members explain natural events. The first stage, and the most primitive, is theological, and explanations are based on supersti- tion and mysticism. In the second stage, which is metaphysical, explanations are based on unseen essences, principles, causes, or laws. During the third and highest stage of development, the scientific description is emphasized over explanation, and the prediction and control of natural phenomena becomes all important. In other words, during the scientific stage, positivism is accepted. Comte used the term sociology to describe the study of how different societies compared in terms of the three stages of development.

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The rational, empirical, and positivistic philoso- phers (that is, the philosophers of the Enlightenment) had attempted to create political and moral systems based on their philosophies. According to the roman- tics, these efforts had failed because they viewed humans mainly as either victims of experience or vehicles by which some grandiose, rational principle was manifested (such as in Hegel). During the roman- tic movement, in the late 18th to mid-19th century, the good life was defined as one lived honestly in accordance with one’s inner nature. The great philosophical systems were no longer to be trusted; in general, science was also seen as antithetical— or at best irrelevant—to understanding humans. Rousseau is usually thought of as the father ofromanticism, and it is to his philosophy that we turn next.

For Rousseau, humans are basically good – born good but are made bad by societal institutions.

Suggested that education should take advantage of natural impulses rather than distort them.

Educational institutions should create a situation in which a child’s natural abilities and interests can be nurtured.

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For the rationalist, the mind added something to sensory data rather than simply passively organizing and storing it in memory. Typically, the rationalist assumed innate mental structures, principles, operations, or abilities that are used in analyzing the content of thought. Furthermore, the rationalist tended to believe that there are truths about ourselves and about the world that cannot be ascertained simply by merely experiencing the content of our minds; these truths must be arrived at by such processes as logical deduction, analysis, and argument. In other words, the information provided by the senses must be digested by a rational system before such truths could be discovered. For the rationalist, it was important not only to understand the contents of the mind, part of which may indeed come from experience, but also to know how the mechanisms, abilities, or faculties of the mind process that content.

Spinoza: Proposed that God, nature, and mind were aspects of the same substance

God, nature, and mind were inseparable.

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Kant (Immanuel Kant) introduced the concept of transcendental idealism, which states that while we can never know things as they are in themselves, we can understand the world as it appears to us through our cognition. This theory acknowledges a realm of reality beyond our sensory experience while also recognizing the limitations of human knowledge. He thought that the mind imposes certain categories or concepts onto sensory data in order to make sense of it. These categories, such as causality, substance, and unity, are innate to human cognition and shape our understanding of the world. Through these categories, Kant tried to bridge the gap between the rationalist emphasis on innate ideas and the empiricist emphasis on sensory experience. Kant acknowledged the importance of sensation as the raw data provided by our senses. Sensation, according to Kant, is the starting point for empirical knowledge. But Kant argued that sensations alone are not sufficient for knowledge. Instead, the mind actively organizes and the sensory input into coherent experiences. He proposed that the mind imposes certain conceptual frameworks, such as space and time, onto sensations to structure our perception of the world. Kant proposed the idea of an "ethical religion" or "rational faith," which emphasizes the importance of moral autonomy and the rational pursuit of the highest good. According to Kant, true religious faith is not based on blind adherence to revealed doctrines but on the rational acceptance of moral principles.

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Reid (Thomas Reid), emphasized the role of common sense in understanding the world. Reid advocated for direct realism, which suggests that our perceptions directly represent the external world as it is. He didn’t agree with the idea that we only have access to mental representations or "ideas" of objects rather than the objects themselves. Reid thought that knowledge comes from self-evident truths that we intuitively grasp. These principles do not come from other beliefs or experiences but are immediately evident to the mind. Reid distinguished between perception and sensation. Sensation refers to the raw data received by our senses, while perception involves the interpretation and understanding of that data. He argued that perception involves more than just the reception of sense data but it also includes active mental processes that organize and make sense of the data. Reid identified certain beliefs as "natural," meaning they are inherent in human nature and are universally accepted. These natural beliefs form the foundation of knowledge and are essential for navigating the world. Reid was a firm believer in the existence of God. He argued that the order and complexity observed in the natural world were evidence of a divine creator. Reid saw the existence of God as a necessary postulate for making sense of the universe and human experience.

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Spinoza proposed that god, nature, and mind are aspects of the same substance. People do not have free will. Humans are part of nature and nature(god) is lawful. Spinoza did not think that knowledge was obtained from outside and, like Descartes, that knowledge could be obtained from within by meditating. The basis of Leibniz's understanding of philosophy is logic; metaphysics, knowledge and ethics are based on the principles of logic. Leibniz states that sensory data turns into knowledge thanks to the mind or reason. He tries to put forward a theory that aims to unite reason and experience.

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Goethe:

He placed psychological experiences above sensations and characterized sensations as meaningless. His ideas about Romanticism emphasized the importance of individual expression, the exploration of nature, and the reconciliation of opposites.

Schopenhauer:

For Schopenhauer, life itself is the expression of an ultimate force or energy that he called "will". For him, the self is a manifestation of "will", even though most of our motivations are unknown to our conscious mind. This idea is known as the concept of the "unconscious", which is influential in Freudian and Jungian psychology. He is often referred to as the philosopher of pessimism because he thought that this "will" had no purpose or goal, but was merely a blind effort. His ideas are similar to Buddhism, as he thinks that existence always entails suffering.

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What is existentialism?

It is mostly about the meaning of human existence, freedom of choice, and the uniqueness of each individual. In existentialism, the terms responsibility and freedom are quite important. Each person decides for himself. Each person builds his own values and these are not decided by any other authority than the person himself.  There is not a source or authority for actions rather than individuals. So, there is anxiety of choice in existentialism because each person will pay the price individually. It was popular in the mid-twentieth century and it can be considered as a part of onotlogy. In terms of psychology, Freud was very pleased due to Nietzche’s ideas and analysis about the role of psychology in culture and history.

◦       Søren Kierkegaard: Truth is always what a person believes privately and emotionally. Here the terms privately and emotionallay refer to existentialism.

◦       Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche: All people have a will to power

◦       To control one’s life, tendency to gain mastery over one’s self and one’s destiny.

Again, here the term “one’s self” refer to existentialism.

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What should be the source of knowledge? How we attain knowledge?

On a general level, while Empiricism tries to explain the world from an objective perspective, Romanticism argues the opposite. The Romantic school assumes that everyone evaluates what they see from their own subjective perspective and sees it that way. Thus, we comprehend what we see and the knowledge we acquire from our human point of view and somehow recreate the world in our minds with our own minds.

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3- what are sensation and perception ?

In Romanticism, sensation is like the raw feelings and experiences we have, including emotions and awe-inspiring moments. Perception is how we understand and interpret those sensations, influenced by our imagination, feelings, and how we see the world.

4- human nature? how to live the life? religion?

In Romanticism, people see human nature as full of feelings, imagination, and a strong bond with nature, valuing personal freedom and expression. Living life the Romantic way means following your passions, being spontaneous, and finding fulfillment through nature and your own emotions. When it comes to religion, Romantics tend to focus more on personal spirituality, intuition, and being amazed by the world, rather than just following strict rules from traditional beliefs.

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Rousseau:

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Romantic philosopher who championed individual freedom and the purity of nature. He believed society corrupted human goodness, advocating for a return to a more natural state. Rousseau's ideas heavily influenced Romanticism, inspiring later writers to celebrate emotion, individualism, and the beauty of the natural world.

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Its a philosophical system that only accept what can be scientifically proved, or capable of logical or mathematical proof, and therefore rejecting metaphysics and theism

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An empiricist is anyone who believes that knowl- edge is derived from experience. Empiricism, then, is a philosophy that stresses the importance of experience in the attainment of knowledge. The term experience, in the definition of empiricism, complicates matters because there are many types of experience. There are “inner” experiences such as dreams, imaginings, fantasies, and a variety of emotions. even after focusing on sensory experience, there is still a problem because the implication is that any philosopher who claims sensory experience to be vital in attaining knowledge is an empiricist. If this were true, Descartes could be called an empiricist because, for him, many ideas came from sensory experience.

All ideas come from sensory experience

The mind is only a name given to the flow of ideas, memories, imagination and feelings.

John Locke: Believed that at birth the human mind is a “tabula rasa” or a blank slate.

Thomas Hobbs: Man is a machine functioning within a larger machine.

George Berkeley: Perception is the only reality

Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) is sometimes also referred to as the founder of British empiricism. Humans were machines. Humans were viewed as machines functioning within a larger machine.

The availability of mental imagery, for Hobbes imagination, was explained by the fact that sense impressions decay over time, as did memory; “So ... imagination and memory are but one thing which for divers considerations hath divers names” (1651/1962, p. 24). Dreams then have this same origin: “The ima- ginations of them that sleep are those we call dreams. And these also, as all other imaginations, have been before, either totally or by parcels, in the sense” (Hobbes, 1651/1962, p. 25). The reason that dreams are typically so vivid is because during sleep there are no new sensory impressions to com- pete with the imagination.

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Positivism Led by Auguste Comte, true knowledge is only scientific knowledge and true knowledge can only be reached through empiricism.

Other ways of knowing, such as intuition, or religious faith, are rejected.

Ernst Mach: he is a physicist and philosopher. According to Mach, says that we can not experience the physical world through direct experience.

-       Ernst worked more on physics and philosophy of science, while Comte worked on social sciences such as sociology.

Comte's positivism argues that knowledge is based on verifiable observations and empirical methods. Mach is known for philosophical views such as phenomenalism. Mach's approach emphasizes that scientific theories should explain observable phenomena and that science should be based solely on experimentation.

(We prepared the information with İrem and Diala)

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Positivism Led by Auguste Comte, true knowledge is only scientific knowledge and true knowledge can only be reached through empiricism.

Other ways of knowing, such as intuition, or religious faith, are rejected.

Ernst Mach: he is a physicist and philosopher. According to Mach, says that we can not experience the physical world through direct experience.

Comte: that the only thing

we can be sure of is that which is publicly

observable.

-       Ernst worked more on physics and philosophy of science, while Comte worked on social sciences such as sociology.

Comte's positivism argues that knowledge is based on verifiable observations and empirical methods. Mach is known for philosophical views such as phenomenalism. Mach's approach emphasizes that scientific theories should explain observable phenomena and that science should be based solely on experimentation.

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Positivism is a movement of thought led by Auguste Comte, which argues that true knowledge is only scientific knowledge, that true knowledge can only be reached through empiricism, and that this knowledge itself is not empirical.

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Rationalism; Also called rationalism or rationalism, it suggests that the accuracy of knowledge can be based on thought and mind, not on sensation and experience. The most important representatives of the rationalism movement are Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Farabi, Descartes and Hegel.

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Romanticism holds that the universe is a single unified and interconnected whole, filled with values, tendencies, and life, not just objective inanimate matter. The Romantic view is that reason, objectivity, and analysis radically distort reality by dividing it into disconnected inanimate entities. Those who laid the theoretical foundations of this movement were Friedrich Schlegel (1772- 1829) and August Wilhelm Schlegel (1767-1845).

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Existentialism is a philosophical system in which individuality comes to the fore and all aspects of human existence are examined. In this movement, the concepts of freedom and responsibility come to the fore. Man has literally been thrown to the earth. Therefore, he is responsible first for his own existence and then for other people. There are no generalized definitions in defining the terms of existential philosophy. The first important existentialist whose terms are accepted is Jean-Paul Sartre.

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Empiricism is the view that suggests that knowledge can be gained through sensations and experience. According to the empiricist view, there is no innate knowledge in the human mind. The human mind is therefore like a blank slate (tabula rasa). Empiricism is the opposite of rationalism.

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Rationalism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the role of reason and logic as the primary sources of knowledge and justification for beliefs.

Hegel: This means that all elements of knowledge are the work of the mind. According to Hegel, man experiences a world that is outside himself in knowledge, that he did not create, and that is independent of man. True knowledge is attained by relating isolated instances to the “whole.”

Hegel proposed the concept of alienation

(self-estrangement) Herbart believed that one learns only from studying external and real objects in the world as well as the ideas that come about from observing them. Examining the difference between the actual existence of an object and its appearance, Herbart concluded that "the world is a world of things-in-themselves [and] the things-in-themselves are perceivable"