Questions for the Final Exam

1. Explain the basic views and then critique Sartre's "Existentialism is a Humanism."

2. Please compare and contrast the ontologies (theories of being, reality) of Heidgger, Sartre, and Marcel. How do each relate God to the concept of Being? How do they integrate the traditional categories of Aristotle? How do each relate to what we have learned about Descartes? In your opinion which ontology best embodies the existentialist spirit?

3. Discuss the issue of suicide in the existentialist literature. Specifically, discuss the the tension among the views held by Dostoevsky's Kirillov, Hesse's Harry Haller, and Camus.

4. Discuss ways in which Camus may not be a strict existentialist. Why isn't he a dialogical existentialist? What is he is he is not an existentialist?

5. Heraclitus once said that "being loves to hide itself." What does this mean in the context of Sartre's novel Nausea? What kind of "being" is this? Is Roquentin's case an exception to Heraclitus' truth?

6. What is the Roquentin's relationship to Descartes (99-103)? How could this passage be called "Contemporary Cartesian Mismeditations"?

7. One would think that an existentialist would write a novel about human freedom, but it seems that Sartre has written about en-soi, the opposite of freedom. Nearly every reference to "existence" is to en-soi, not the Existenz of pour-soi. Roquentin says that "I, too, wanted to be. That is all I wanted" (p. 175; cf. p. 54). What kind of "being" is this?

8. Did Camus misread Nausea? See pages the novel (pp. 56-157). Are there any philosophical suicides in the novel?

9. Explain what Sartre means when he says that there is a dialectical coincidence of sincerity and bad faith? What would a dualistic view of the two be like?  Why can there be both false and true acts of transcendence?

10. Analyse the problem of the freedom of the will using the readings from Marcel, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty. You should touch on the issues of causality and determinism, the nature of the will, and the limits to human freedom. How would Merleau-Ponty and Sartre respond to Marcel's distinction between autonomy and true freedom.

11. Please explain each of the clauses of Merleau-Ponty's new definition of existentialism: "A more complete definition of what is called existentialism than we get from talking of anxiety and the contradictions of the human condition might be found in the idea of a universality which men affirm or imply by the mere fact of their being and at the very moment of their opposition to each other, in the idea of a reason immanent in unreason, of a freedom which comes into being in the act of accepting limits....'' (Sense and Non-Sense, p. 70). What is your opinion of this view of existentialism?

12. Explain how Merleau-Ponty supports the position that Hegel is one of the founding fathers of modern existentialism? How successful do you think he is in defending this thesis? Does he mean to over both types of existentialism?

13. Why does Simone de Beauvoir criticize Heidegger's concept of Mitsein? Is is a fair criticism? How could she, without contradiction, then say: "Male and female stand opposed within a primordial Mitsein, and woman has not broken it." What does she mean by "woman has not broken it," and is this fact good or bad?  Compare de Beauvoir criticism with Merleau-Ponty's (Sense and Non-Sense, p. 69).

14. Even with his figurative language, Buber is still operating within a fundamental ontology. Please lay out this theory of being and relate it to the other ontologies we have studied this semester. Does Buber solve basic problems better than Sartre, Marcel, or Heidegger? Who is he closest to on the question of the role of language?

15. Write a concise essay on the interface between existentialism and feminism, using the excerpts from de Beauvoir's Second Sex as your text. Also assess her feminism in terms of your understanding of contemporary feminist thought.

16. Assess the issues involved in Sartre's notorious 1970 interview. Is there any way for one to reconcile the early and late Sartre?

17. Why does Sartre think that emotions are choices? Explain by giving your own example. How this is relate to phenomenology, especially the difference between act and operative intentionality?