in response to existentialism: possibility vs. laws of nature

[tommylanders]

I just saw a show on a public access channel about existentialism, mainly about Jean-Paul Sartre. And I thought the following distinction might be a good starting point to illustrate my recent thoughts on philosophy, science, etc.: the universe as a realm of pure possibility (for instance, as described in Sartre's book Nausea), vs. the universe as

Comments

[tommylanders]

I don't doubt that I misrepresent the existentialists, as I haven't read much of them.

I don't really understand a couple things you said:

"there are scientific theories and metaphysical interpretations of them that are always underdetermined by the scientific theories themselves"

"In science we have what you want but only at the level of bare uninterpreted data and the most minimal summary statements." (what I want?)

So, what's universal about their work is characterizing a situation? But where is this supposed to take us? How is anyone expected to continue their work? Shall we just keep characterizing particular situations ad nauseam? What general principles are we to discover and even live by?

What appealed to me once about "philosophy" was the possibility of capturing something universal about "the human condition" without it having to be scientific. Something ethical, perhaps. But I don't like how the existentialists even intimate that their own sentiments of anxiety, etc., are necessarily shared by anybody else, just by virtue of being human. Many people are reasonably happy most of the time and at ease with, or probably ignorant of, "being."

I like a lot of the existential sentiments, from my limited knowledge of them. But I think those sentiments are most honestly expressed, not in "philosophy," but in straight literature, as is done in Nausea, which I've read and enjoyed.