Reading ‘is’ Existentially in Republic 476–80

An existential reading of ‘is’ in the argument at Republic 476–480 is widely thought to be objectionable because it commits Plato to belief in degrees of existence. In this paper, I argue that neither proposed alternative—the veridical reading or the predicative reading—can be reconciled with the text, thus forcing the existential reading upon us. Further, I show that when Plato's doctrine of existence is properly understood, his commitment to degrees of existence is not at all absurd.     

Fear of self-annihilation and existential uncertainty as predictors of worldview defense: Comparing terror management and uncertainty theories

Terror management theory (TMT) proposes that thoughts of death trigger a concern about self-annihilation that motivates the defense of cultural worldviews. In contrast, uncertainty theorists propose that thoughts of death trigger feelings of uncertainty that motivate worldview defense. University students (N = 414) completed measures of the chronic fear of self-annihilation and existential uncertainty as well as the need for closure. They then evaluated either a meaning threat stimulus or a control stimulus. Consistent with TMT, participants with a high fear of self-annihilation and a high need for closure showed the greatest dislike of the meaning threat stimulus, even after controlling for their existential uncertainty. Contrary to the uncertainty perspective, fear of existential uncertainty showed no significant effects.     

Facing the absurd: On Lev Shestov’s angel of death

2018 marks one hundred and fifty two years since the birth of the Russian religious existential thinker Lev Shestov (1866–1938), whose name is counted amongst the most influential European philosophers of the 20^th century. A paradoxical and provocative writer, Lev Shestov searched for ways to diminish the burden of psychological and existential suffering in the life of the individual. His parable about receiving ‘the mysterious gift’ of ‘a new pair of eyes’ from the Angel of Death engaged the existential problems of facing uncertainty, the unknown and death with the possibility of a creative transformation, which could allow an individual to see things outside the law of reason and ‘preconceived self-evident truths.’ Drawing on Shestov’s analysis of Dostoevsky, Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, as well as Camus and Lovtsky’s observations, I argue that Shestov’s interest in the human psyche manifested in his writing, in which he often strove to ‘psychoanalyse’ his characters, found common ground with the psychoanalytical approach. However, unlike Freud’s psychoanalysis, which was grounded in reason and analytical systematisation, Shestov’s philosophy aspired to find a cure to enable an individual to withstand the pressure of the absurd reality of human existence by breaking free from the constraints of rational thought.     

“In that sleep of death what dreams...”: Foucault,Existential Phenomenology,and the Kantian Imagination

Although Foucault's early writings were strongly influenced by the discourse of existential phenomenology, he later considered it an obstacle to a better understanding of social and political power. This essay seeks to understand some of the reasons for his shift, specifically with respect to Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty. I argue that Foucault diverges from existential phenomenology according to an alternative tendency within the Kantian inheritance they both share: one which stresses the world-disruptive rather than the unifying or world-disclosive power of transcendental imagination. Examining the role played by dreams and death in Foucault's early introduction to Binswanger's Dream and Existence allows us to situate his later analysis of the historical and political (rather than existential) meaning of death with respect to larger philosophical currents.     

Longing,Dread and Care: Spengler’s Account of the Existential Structure of Human Experience

ABSTRACT

In The Decline of the West Spengler puts forward a type of philosophical anthropology, an account of the structures of human experiential consciousness and a method of “physiognomic” analysis, which I argue has dimensions that can be understood as akin to existential phenomenology. Humanity, for Spengler, is witness to the creative flux of “Becoming” and constructs a world of phenomena bounded by death, underpinned by the two prime feelings of dread and longing and structured by the two forms of Destiny (Time) and Direction (Space). Human existence, Spengler argues, is future-directed and open in the sense that there is a certain degree of freedom in the ways in which humanity can actualize its existential possibilities. In the course of elaborating the existential implications of this future-orientation, Spengler introduces the concept of care (Sorge), the fundamental experiential structure.     

The Mania of Existence: Klein,Winnicott, and Heidegger's Concept of Inauthenticity

This paper offers a new interpretation of Heidegger's concept of inauthenticity (Uneigentlichkeit) in Being and Time. It breaks from the “conformity interpretation” of inauthenticity, according to which the anonymity of the inauthentic person is due to her conformity to das Man. Rather, it argues that the anonymity of the inauthentic person is due to “existential mania” – a state in which a person denies her death and anxiety, understands her abilities to be limitless, and is perpetually active. It shows how this existential mania – and the anonymity to which it gives rise – is analogous to the mania described by the object relations psychoanalyst Melanie Klein. Finally, drawing on D. W. Winnicott's discussion of mania, it shows how both the inauthentic person's conformity to das Man, and her existential mania, give rise to anonymity.     

Where,O death,is thy sting? The meaning-providing function of beliefs in literal immortality

Terror management theory suggests that humans invest in cultural worldviews that allay mortality-related anxiety by promising death transcendence. Many religious individuals adhere to belief in literal immortality – believing that one will live on after death. Across two studies (n?=?1137), we explored the terror management function of such beliefs by exploring whether these beliefs are associated with lower death anxiety and greater meaning among individuals of varying religiousness. In both Study 1 (n?=?236) and Study 2 (n?=?901), belief in literal immortality was related to lower death anxiety only among intrinsically religious participants. Moreover, meaning in life mediated the relationship between belief in literal immortality and death anxiety. Study 2 clarified that this mediational relationship was only present for intrinsically religious individuals. We discuss the importance of particular religious beliefs in the provision of meaning in order to manage existential concerns.     

Psychological and existential vulnerability among clinical young women: a quantitative comparison of depression-related subgroups

The objective was to explore psychological and existential vulnerability among clinical young women in Sweden. Females (n?=?53) with depression as the most common preliminary diagnosis were investigated through an online questionnaire. Included measures were Karolinska Scales of Personality, Self-concept, Strategies to Handle Negative Emotions, Sense of Coherence, and questions pertaining to existential meaning-making, including religious/spiritual belief. The sample was divided into High (n?=?35) and Low/Inter (n?=?18) groups according to scores on the anxiety- and depression-related personality scale Inhibition of aggression. Using independent samples t-test, the High group showed signs of significantly higher psychological and existential vulnerability than the Low/Inter group. Salutogenic factors being (1) coming from socially and societally engaged families and (2) being in a functional existential meaning-making process. The conclusion is that vulnerabilities in the psychological and existential domains are linked, especially in individuals high on depression-like aspects of personality. However, no significant differences for religion/spirituality were found. Treatment implications were addressed.     

Pragmatic Existential Therapy

A pragmatic model of existential therapy is offered to support the thesis that brief, solution focused therapy is a clinical application of existential psychology. Superseding pioneering existential therapies more concerned with insight than with clinical technique, pragmatic existential therapy is a dynamic clinical intervention facilitating in patients, decision, choice, self-commitment, and concrete action, the goal of which is movement toward the future and fulfillment of patients' latent potentials. In addition to clarifying the model's theoretical focus on (a) lived experience, (b) self-creation, and (c) existential anxiety, practical guides to brief existential treatment are offered. Sources from existential philosophy and psychology, as well as brief solution focused treatment, are used to evidence core elements of an existential therapy that is not contemplative and insight-focused, but pragmatic and action-based.     

The heavy weight of death: how anti‐fat bias is affected by weight‐based group membership and existential threat

Anti‐fat bias is marked by a devaluation of overweight people compared with non‐overweight persons. Even though belonging to the same group, research on social identity theory (SIT) indicates that overweight people also devaluate overweight others. Merging insights from research on anti‐fat bias, SIT, and terror management theory, our study (n = 101) provides new insights on motivational aspects of anti‐fat bias by investigating the effects of existential threat on the evaluation of non‐overweight and overweight people. Results revealed that participants in the existential threat condition displayed in‐group bias: Participants perceiving themselves as non‐overweight showed more pronounced anti‐fat bias compared with participants in the non‐death threat condition. In contrast, participants perceiving themselves as overweight demonstrated less anti‐fat bias than controls.     

Intrinsic religiosity protects believers from the existential fear of a human Jesus

ABSTRACT

The present study examined the role of internalised religious beliefs in defending against existential concerns aroused from a creaturely Jesus. Prior work has found that biologically human traits (e.g., vomiting, sweating, etc.) can increase death concerns when applied to both humans and a god. Intrinsic beliefs, however, have been shown to reduce mortality awareness. In the current study, religious participants were primed with thoughts of either a human or neutral Jesus followed by a single item measure about fear of death. A moderated regression analysis found that whereas high intrinsic individuals were buffered from existential concerns, low intrinsic individuals experienced a greater fear of death when primed with a human Jesus. These results replicate prior work within terror management theory and the psychology of religion suggesting that internalised beliefs serve a protective function against existential anxieties.     

Individual and Community in Early Heidegger: Situating das Man,the Man-self,and Self-ownership in Dasein's Ontological Structure

In Sein und Zeit, Heidegger claims that (1) das Manis an 'existential' i.e. a necessary feature of Dasein's Being; and (2) Dasein need not always exist in the mode of the Man-self, but can also be eigentlich, which I translate as 'self-owningly'. These apparently contradictory statements have prompted a debate between Hubert Dreyfus, who recommends abandoning (2), and Frederick Olafson, who favors jettisoning (1). I offer an interpretation of the structure of Dasein's Being compatible with both (1) and (2), thus resolving the Dreyfus-Olafson debate. Central to this resolution is the distinction between das Manand the Man-self. Das Manis one of three existential 'horizons', or fields of possibilities; the other two horizons are the world and death. At any time, Dasein encounters entities in one of two basic modes: either by 'expressly seizing' possibilities of the horizon, or by occluding these possibilities. These modes are 'existentiell', i.e. features of Dasein's Being that are possible, but not essential. Self-ownership and the Man-self are the two basic existentiell modes of being oneself, i.e. projecting everyday possibilities of oneself appropriated from the horizon of das Man. What differentiates these two modes is the stance one takes to the possibility of death, the existential horizon of being oneself.     

A Brief Overview of Existential Depth Psychotherapy

Abstract

This article introduces the special issue of The Humanistic Psychologist, entitled “Depth, Death, and Dialogue: New Inquiries in Existential Depth Psychotherapy.” It begins by identifying several commitments that existential psychotherapists tend to hold in common and that distinguish their approach to depth psychotherapy from others. These commitments include, among others, the meaning, ownership, there-ness, everydayness, phenomenology, and wholeness of human existence, as well as its possibility for authenticity. The article then distinguishes among different kinds of approaches to existential depth psychotherapy, using the criteria of the degree to which they harken to the intellectual Zeitgeists of America or Europe and, with this, the manner in which they address everyday (ontic) and/or philosophical (ontologic) concerns. A brief discussion of the author's understanding of the ontical and the ontological foundations for existential psychology ensues before the article closes with a crucial challenge facing existential depth psychotherapy and brief introduction to the articles in the special issue.     

Level of Aspiration as a Method of Studying Personality: IV. The Analysis of Patterns of Response

Summary

It was hypothesized that Israeli Jews of Eastern descent would find absurd jokes less funny than would Israeli Jews of Western descent. Thirty-five respondents of each ethnic group reacted to five absurd and five nonabsurd jokes. As predicted, the former found abstract humor less funny that did the latter. Moreover, the respondents' educational level did not affect their reactions to the jokes. The element of incongruity was grasped by the Eastern Ss but they did not consider it funny. It is suggested that enjoyment of absurd humor represents a temporary release from rational thought. Since those of Eastern descent come from a culture where rational logic was less emphasized, they have less need for such a release and, therefore, find absurd humor less funny.     

The worm at the core: A terror management perspective on the roots of psychological dysfunction

A growing body of research derived from terror management theory [e.g., Solomon, S., Greenberg, J., & Pyszczynski, T. (1991). A terror management theory of social behavior: The psychological functions of self-esteem and cultural worldviews. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology: vol. 24 (pp. 93–159). New York: Academic Press] suggests that the human struggle with the awareness of inevitable death can greatly impact people's physical and psychological well-being. The current article reviews converging lines of research that investigate the role of terror management processes in physical and mental health. Specifically, we present research that elucidates the role of death concerns in (1) conscious threat-focused defenses, (2) self-esteem striving, (3) depression, (4) anxiety disorders, (5) discomfort with the physicality of the body and (6) neuroticism. We conclude that terror management theory builds upon the work of other existential scholars and mental health perspectives to provide a broad conceptual and empirically based account of how deeply rooted existential fears manifest in ways that prove both psychologically and physically problematic. We also suggest how future research and social interventions can be employed to help individuals manage basic fears in ways that do not compromise their psychological and physical health.     

The Trial of Albert Camus

The fiftieth anniversary of Camus’ death in 2010 was largely ignored in his native Algeria, reflecting the critical response to Camus’ writings that regards him as a colonialist writer and apologist for the French domination of his native Algeria. This critique also claims that Camus’ colonial attitudes are hidden and reinforced by a European attitude that sees him as dealing first and foremost with universal questions about the human predicament and existential isolation. However, Camus’ journalism shows an Algerian closely identified with the destiny of all the peoples of Algeria, and his novel The Outsider contains sufficient indications that, whatever its existential importance, in the concrete situation of Camus’ Algeria the Arab has the precise status of outsider.     

Existential themes in the treatment of people at suicide risk. Understandings and practices of specialist healthcare professionals

ABSTRACT

This qualitative study focuses on the ways in which existential themes were understood and addressed in therapeutic relationships with patients who had attempted suicide. Health care professionals (HCP) from Norway specialist healthcare participated in focus groups. The interviews were transcribed and analysed by systematic text-condensation through a four-step procedure. We found that the HCPs emphasised the context-specific functions of their departments. They considered these conversations essential but demanding. They indicated existential themes of hope/hopelessness, loneliness, meaning, life/death, shame, religion and suicide. The HCPs’ understandings of themes deemed to be existential and how they should be addressed were primarily based on clinical experience. This appeared to exacerbate the pressure on their personal involvement, leading to the question of whether patients’ existential needs are tackled or instead disappear into a conversational vacuum. The study suggests that HCPs' professional competence of existential themes pertaining to patients at suicide risk needs to be strengthened.     

A Burden to Others: A Common Source of Distress for the Terminally Ill

Recent research into the desire for death among people with terminal illness has begun to recognize the importance of “feeling oneself a burden to others” as a factor in suicidal behaviour. In this study, 69 patients with advanced cancer underwent semi‐structured interviews. The sense of self‐perceived burden was found to be a common experience, reported by 39.1% of participants as a minimal or mild concern and by 38% as a moderate to extreme concern. The sense of burden showed a low correlation with physical symptoms (r = 0.02–0.24) and higher correlations with psychological problems (r = 0.35–0.39) and existential issues (r = 0.45–0.49). Comparisons of participants with high or low levels of self‐perceived burden showed the importance of this factor for overall quality of life. In summary, self‐perceived burden is an important but underestimated dimension of social cognition in the medically ill.     

Fundamental Dilemmas in Contemporary Psychodynamic and Insight-Oriented Psychotherapy

Contemporary psychotherapists are being called on to provide treatment with increased degrees of brevity and efficacy. To meet these demands, the practice of brief psychodynamic psychotherapy has turned to (a) the increased emphasis upon a specific psychodynamic focus for treatment versus the more comprehensive goals of longer-term treatment, and (b) the augmented use of confrontation of psychological defenses versus the enhanced use of emotional support as in more nondirective psychotherapy. Other approaches to insight-oriented psychotherapy that have been influenced by this trend include: client-centered psychotherapy with its focus upon the therapeutic relationship; existential psychotherapy with its focus upon death anxiety; and, the revitalization of interpersonal psychotherapy from its original Sullivanian conceptualization. The clinical dilemmas that limitations of time and restricted therapeutic focus place upon each of these methods of treatment are the central issues of this discussion.     

The Black Foe: Being Towards Death1

The ontology of death is universal, hence archetypal. Nowhere do we witness any organic creature escape its talons. Analytical psychology has had an intimate relationship to death for the simple fact that it contemplates the soul, the numinous, and an afterlife. From Hegel to Heidegger, Freud and Jung, death was an existential force that sustained and transformed life, the positive significance of the negative. Rather than merely a destructive phenomenon, death informs Being, the power of nothingness that dialectically drives life. In this paper, I will introduce the notion of what I call the omega principle, the psychological orientation and trajectory of our being towards death, which we may say is a universal preoccupation and recapitulation of the collective unconscious that subsumes our personal relation to death, an eternal return of the objective psyche constellated as esse in anima.