Hey /lit/ im new here, any must read books about existentialism

>>8795170
Not really, no. Especially that out of date crap from the 19th century.

Are you having trouble dealing with the fact of the matter dawning on you? Or are you just trying to be Absurd, like Papa Albert recommends?

>nihilism
Fathers and Sons. Then Crime and Punishment so you can laugh at nihilists.

>existentialism
Nausea and The Stranger. Then move on to worthwhile books.

>>8795170
notes from underground by dosto

Read the sticky

>>8795170
The Stranger
East of Eden
Nausea
Crime and Punishment
Notes from the Underground
A Serious Man (film)

>>8795266
I would just like to learn desu, also would sartre be good for that absurd part?

>>8795303
why the fuck did desu get replaced with desu

>>8795279
>Nausea
Absolutely revolting

>>8795312
christ

>>8795303
Camus is absurd while Sartre is existentialism. In Myth of Sisyphus (or one of the essays that gets packaged with it) Camus highlights absurdist characters in literature which could give you further reading.

Also, Tee Bee Aych gets converted to desu along with Cuh - ck (cuck) and Fa mm (senpai) because we like to have fun here desu my newfam cuckboy.

Roody-poo (nigger) and candy-ass (fag) happened too among other filters.

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>>8795303
Sartre deals with existentialism by being nauseous.
Camus is the absurdist.

The Stranger was okay, but both methods bore me to tears.

>>8795332
Lmfao alright thanks for the translations.
I just thought that sartre had his own absurdity thing going on like when you zone or trip the fuck out and realise how weird everything is and camus version of absurdity was like a philosophical one

>>8795366
Neither Camus or Sartre are very philosophical. I need to read some Sartre but I know Camus is more of a fiction writer who analyzes fiction for themes on existentialism/absurdism.

You should read Kafka, especially his short stories. In the Penal Colony is actually a better example of absurdism than The Stranger.

>>8795354
>>8795377
Alright thanks for the help !

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>>8795170

>>8795303
Sartre is traditional existentialism
Camus is your guy for absurdism

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>>8795170
Let me guess, you're from mu, and want to look smart, and the current flavor of the month philosophy is nihilism, so you come here to be spoon-fed?

>>8795549
not OP but what comes after nihilism?

>>8795564
The Ubermensch.

>>8795564
Realizing you're a retarded teenager and growing out of it

Nihilism is a joke for simpletons

>>8795549
Op here and you are exactly right

>>8795549
>>8795605
Not spoon-fed thought just some tips to get me started

>>8795576
why¿

Nietzsche, but ONLY if you've finished starting with the Greeks.

>>8795576
can't disagree

I don't get it. I don't understand how people move forward after they've made any thought at all based on the assumption that the universe will one day break apart and every information in it will vanish. The Earth will burn and the Sun will explode and all the atoms in the universe will naturally break down in time and the star forges will go out cold and there is nothing we can do about it. It is my wildest dream that humankind would one day advance to the point where it could control matter and natural forces on galactic scale and FIGHT the passing of the time and dying of the Universe. But that is not going to happen - look around yourself. We're still fighting over the control of the Earth. Caveman with technology, unable to hold a greater vision where we would colonize the stars together. What a shame.

Even when I think about eternal life after death, I get crushed when I imagine the endless sea of hours and days when I've learned everything there is to learn and done everything there is to do and said everything there is to say; after spending eons with my loved ones, I would beg for release and for the erasure of my consciousness. I get possessed by a Lovecraftian terror when I try to imagine how cosmic my boredom would be to make me want to leave the people I care about now on this Earth. Maybe I could get a divine lobotomy that would make me feel good, make me numb enough to sit through the vast emptiness of eternity. Maybe God would fix me this way.


I've made an observation: one doesn't give a damn about any of this as long as he has problems to solve.

Camus and Sisyphus comfort me a little. The solution is "Just be okay with it". But I'm still looking for an answer.

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>>8795719
Do lots of drugs and fuck lots of bitches my man

>>8795719

embrace the absurd; defy that knowledge and continue to look for meaning in spite of it

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>>8795719
You assume a lot of extra-physics babble there.
We die, the sun dies, the galaxies spread farther and farther out.
But what's likely is that there are other universes doing the same, and in time they will smash into the bits of our once visible-universe. Eventually colliding with other super clusters of matter until it reaches a breaking point and explodes. A new Big Bang for a new universe.

You wont have eternity to live, that's sad and yet comforting. I personally would only want a few hundred years. Get your chemistry and psyche right and find something you enjoy doing.

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>>8795719
Don't be.

>>8795719
>everything is meaningless because stars and the universe lmao
>meaning must be "objective" to be valid even though I can't define objectivity
>muh angst muh depreshun
Your post is beyond embarrassing, Untermensch.

>>8795844
>we die therefore our lives are meaningless
wew lad, it's more like
>my life is meaningless so I'm afraid of death

>>8795377
>Neither Camus or Sartre are very philosophical
>Sartre not very philosophical
Okay, I get it. Sartre isn't exactly popular in academic philosophy this is just plain wrong. Have you read any of his non-fiction philosophical works? Note, Existentialism is a Humanism does not count.

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>>8796250
That's not the reasoning behind suicides.
"Meaning" is a funny word. Okay, so life is meaningless. Find your purpose.
You're afraid because life is meaningless? Okay, dumb. Live your life to the best of your abilities. Have fun with it. Enjoy.

>>8795312
t b h I don't know desu senpai

György Lukács' essay on Existentialism

Just read the Zibaldone

>>8795719
Nietzsche wrote something that, when fully grasped, nullifies the existensial crisis of nihilism:
"It is a measure of the degree of strength of will to what extent one can do without meaning in things, to what extent one can endure to live in a meaningless world *because one organizes a small portion of it oneself*." (Will to Power, 585, Kaufman translation)

If there is any way past nihilism without finding inherent meaning in life, this is it. The universe might one day be *as if* you had never existed, but the "universe" *in which you exist* is the only one that matters to you at all, and you have considerable influence over that "universe".

>>8795170

Because nihilism is, to use the simplest possible language, true, there is no book on the subject that you "must read".

>>8795719
You said you take comfort in Sisyphus and Camus, but in order to be happy you must BECOME Sisyphus. Sisyphus is a fighter, he is given a meaningless task that should make him want to kill himself and get depressed and break down, but he doesn't because he knows that you cannot just lie down like a dog and accept your fate. Humans are given the wonderful ability to not accept their circumstances and to rage against them. Do this. The world will end one day. The universe will as well. Okay. Fight that. Fight against that. You die either way. Better to die on your feet like a man than to die on your knees like a coward. Sisyphus chooses to die on his feet, and pushes the boulder up the mountain anyway.

>>8795377
What are you talking about pseud? Penal Colony is a sympathetic satire of the apparently schizophrenic nature of God between the old testament God and the one presented in the new testament.

Hi :) ??? :(

>>8795576
this. Affter nihilism one must resolve at philosophical pessimism, epicurean hedonism and utilitarianism. Then everything will be clear.

>>8795719
>he thinks colonizing a broader expanse of the universe matters

idioto

>>8795802
>embrace the stupid
>embrace the awful
>embrace the malignant

lol

>>8795564

What comes after nihilism is one a few things.

1) you kill yourself,
2) you putter along unhappily for a few more years, distracting yourself with whatever can entertain you, until you die of somewhat more "natural causes".

3) you become a productive adult of some kind, and this is the most important point, /in the course of entering fully productive and conventional adulthood, you delude yourself into the falsity that nihilism is substantively false, being reinforced on this point both by your biological instincts and your cultural support to the contrary, both of which are false, the evidence for their falsity being contained in science, empirical investigation which some people actually know how to check, and so on/.

I am past thirty. The older I get, the clearer it is to me that in spite of not having the full suite of knowledge or life experience in order to understand what they've osmosed from the television and the books, /the sixteen year olds mouthing, aping the basic ideas of nihilism, really are right all along/. People want to feel good about themselves, and so psychologically they cannot allow this truth to pass. But true it is. And this because of the specifically animal human delusion of the will to life, which when we observe it in other animals (instinct, productivity, etc) we can be a bit more objective and detached about it, but when it comes to ourselves, we are usually hopeless hypocrites. The above anons >>8795576 >>8795622 are examples of such hypocrites.

A further animal, human, philosophical mistake is made when it is insisted that whatever is true ought to have "a certain, pleasing complexity". On the contrary, and for the reasons given above, sometimes truth is extraordinarily simple, to the point of total boredom, anti-humanity, banality and dumbness. Nihilism is one of these cases. If you want to take a human animal pleasure in a certain level of complexity, then study art, science, or politics. To study science in particular, however, is to box one's self in toward the simple conclusion.

Not that any of this really matters of course, nor that it even matters that I should win some internet argument. After all, we'll all cease to exist within a few decades, on the outside. And THERE is the truth.

>>8796710
Part of the problem is that nihilism and pessimism have been roped together. Not every life-denying philosophy is necessarily nihilistic. But the normies think if you repudiate life then you probaly just repudiate the very concept of "value" because you are 2edgy. They wont bother understanding that you are actually concerned about ameliorating the circumstances which characterize "life", the needs and attendant wants that stand in the way of our equanimity.

>>8796710

good post anon

probably still going to go with 1 (well, 2 is just a deleted version of 1) but i appreciate you taking the time to write your thoughts about 3. this is one of the rare posts on /lit/ that i have seen that genuinely made me think. i know maybe you're wondering why having said that i would still pick 1. i'm not sure myself really. just feels like the way to go. i sincerely don't want to stick around

don't want to be a cunt about it tho. thanks for taking time to write this anon

>>8795844
there's something really nice about this picture. makes me feel all warm inside

>>8796998
>Prrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

>>8797785
good post

>>8796710
Right:
I ought to go to bed. But I can't now, so thank you.
This misses the point. Permanence and meaning are not mutually exclusive. To say that we require something to be permanent to have meaning misses the point of meaning in the first place.

>>8796672
But this is just pragmatic and it doesn't solve the problem. Say, "Making this my mindset will make life easier for me," but the problem is still there and you're just running away from it, covering your eyes and ears until the relief of oblivion comes. What I want is not a relief pill, I want an answer, a meaningful conclusion.

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>>8795170


>>8795289

+

Journey to the end of the night

>>8796672

No, you are wrong Sisyphus doesn't choose anything.

>>8796672
Sisyphus is in the afterlife and damned to keep pushing the rock eternally. He can't die, nor quit. Thats the point.

>>8795312
get the fuck out