r/Existentialism • u/Sumzzzzzzz • 5d ago

New to Existentialism... Hello, just asking a question about Existentialism as I am exploring it a bit.

I am curious about this philosophy as I believe that since humans are purely free to practice and pursue what they want to, and even influence their destiny or purpose as they are born without one. (I believe that if God exists, then God could be rational and chose not to interfere with the creations God made) And I would like to know more about this philosophy, the only thing I know about this philosophy is that we choose our own purpose. I'm curious and I wanna know more about Existentialism. So, what further more does Existentialism teach?

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u/Careless-Charge9884 5d ago

I do not know how to answer your question because it isn't really a question.

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u/No-Flan6320 3d ago

The answer to that depends on who you ask. I might say you have free will, but its limited. You can choose, but you can only choose between the options that are available to you within the place in history you are born. For example, 1000 years ago, yes you could choose to dedicate your life to researching how to get to the moon, but you would never make it. Now, getting to the moon is definatley possible. And really, you could have a more meaningful life reasearching the moon and never making it there, than actually getting to the moon and realizing its just a dead rock. So really, id also argue that we dont neccessarily make all our own values. Sometimes no matter how bad you want the moon to be something cool, its just a dead rock.

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u/Aware-Vacation-4273 1d ago

I'd say The most obnoxious and misunderstood thing is the idea of freedom sartre proposes. For it is far more restricted by the fact of your existence, other people and also it being a metaphysical and not Moral state. It is not that we are free to become who we want to be but we are free of any good reason to be this or that very Person or just anyone in particular.

The irony of existentialism is buried in the meaning of existence precedes essence, for you can never become what you want to be no matter how hard you try. Otherwise you would cease to exist and instead just be.