Posts
If you haven't yet spent a few moments this year
staring out the window, chin in hand and ruminating on the meaning of
life — or its absence — then the chances are it's only a matter of time by The Philosopher's Zone.
 |
| Has isolation had you questioning the meaning of it all? Photo: Getty images: Martin-dm |
Friedrich Nietzsche once observed that when
things are going well, we tend not to bother ourselves too much with the
how or the why of our delight.
Pain, on the other hand, makes philosophers of us all.
And
right now, there seems to be more than enough pain to go around.
COVID-19 is laying waste to people's lives and livelihoods, outrage over
racial injustice has thousands out on the streets, and — in case it had
slipped your mind, what with everything else going on — the planet
continues to heat up at a terrifying rate...
Why Sartre suits self-isolation
In many respects, Sartre's philosophy was tailor-made for the rigours of self-isolation. As an existentialist, he subscribed to all those lugubrious theses about each of us being cast adrift in an absurd, meaningless universe, battling constantly against the dread and nausea occasioned by our own cosmic insignificance.
In many respects, Sartre's philosophy was tailor-made for the rigours of self-isolation. As an existentialist, he subscribed to all those lugubrious theses about each of us being cast adrift in an absurd, meaningless universe, battling constantly against the dread and nausea occasioned by our own cosmic insignificance.
But from all this he drew some surprisingly upbeat conclusions.
Source: ABC News
