Eternalised

Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment first published during 1866, remains the most widely known Russian novel as well as one of the greatest achievements in world literature.  

The book is disguised as a murder mystery, in which the reader knows from the start who has committed the crime. This in-depth exploration of the psychology of a criminal is at the heart of the novel, delving deeply into psychological punishment.  

The main themes include alienation, suffering, morality, faith (or the God-man, Jesus Christ) and the “extraordinary man” (or the man-God), as well as the philosophical themes of nihilism and utilitarianism.  

The protagonist Raskolnikov, is an alienated materialistic rationalist, as well as an atheist and nihilist, taken by the idea that God is dead, believing himself to be an extraordinary man allowed to transgress accepted moral standards for the common good, with a clean conscience.

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Existentialism is a philosophy that explores the problem of human existence, with an emphasis on the individual who starts in an apparently meaningless world, and who seeks to create meaning in a world without inherent meaning.  

Existentialism is most commonly associated with several 19th and 20th century philosophers: Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Martin Heidegger, Jean Paul Sartre, and Albert Camus.  

Many of these thinkers never used the term “existentialist” to describe themselves, some of them even rejected the label, while others accepted it. What they did share is a common template. Many of them regarded traditional systematic or academic philosophies too abstract and remote from concrete human experience and focused on the authenticity of the individual.  Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard is regarded as the father of existentialism, who along with Nietzsche, provided the basic foundations of 19th century Existentialism.   

Core ideas to Existentialism include authenticity, individuality, subjectivity, freedom, and responsibility, in order to understand and pursue the meaning of your life.

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Sigmund Freud was a neurologist most popularly known as the founding father of psychoanalysis. He popularised and structured the concept of “the unconscious”.  Some of his most popular concepts include: id, ego and super ego, Oedipus complex, free association, repression, libido and the psychosexual stages of development.

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Jacques Lacan was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist sometimes referred to as “the French Freud” and is regarded as an important figure in the history of psychoanalysis. The Imaginary, the Symbolic, the Real and the Mirror Stage are some of Lacan’s most notable ideas.  His teachings explore the significance of Freud’s discovery of the unconscious, proposing a “return to Freud”

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Martin Heidegger is known as one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century. He is best known for his work in existentialism and phenomenology.   

His early work as a phenomenologist and university professor culminated in his masterpiece and one of the most significant works of contemporary European philosophy: Being and Time.  The fundamental concept of Being and Time is the idea of Dasein, which simply means existence, it is the experience of the human being.   

This episode explores many of his key terms for an introduction to Heidegger’s thought. Most importantly: Being-in-the-world, ready to hand and present-at hand, facticity, thrownness, existentiality, fallenness, Das Man, temporality, being-toward-death and the fourfold.   

The later Heidegger reorients his philosophical concerns towards poetry, language, and technology.

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Kierkegaard and Nietzsche provided the basic foundations of 19th century Existentialism. It is a philosophy that emphasises the existence of the individual as a free and responsible agent determining their own development.   

They both ended up savagely criticising Christianity, recognising that God no longer exists in the minds of most people. People live falsely religious lives and follow a herd mentality.  In much Kierkegaard and Nietzsche are alike, in the moral decline of society and the corruption of religion, in their existential orientation and in their psychological interests, however they were absolutely opposed on what it means to live a human life to the fullest.  This is largely precipitated by Nietzsche’s complete disillusionment with religion in contrast to Kierkegaard’s continued faith in the existence of God.  Almost one hundred years before it became a historic fact, 

Kierkegaard had prophesised nothing less than the total bankruptcy toward which the whole of Europe seems to be heading. Nietzsche, similarly, predicted the death of God, with nihilism looming dangerously.  Nietzsche urges us to create new values through a Revaluation of All Values, giving way to the figure of the ubermensch, thus man becomes god.   

Kierkegaard tells us that man cannot in any way become God, and a central feature of despair is the inability of a person to manufacture his own identity, something essential is missing, something that would prevent you from simply demolishing the ideal and beginning all over again with a new ideal, such a person lacks something “eternally firm”, God.  

Kierkegaard saw the problem of religious downfall as an opportunity for renewal in Christian beliefs, a chance to embrace Christianity’s original teachings and return to a dynamic and living faith, emphasising the subjective truth of the individual.

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Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book For All and None was Nietzsche’s favourite of his creations. It is indeed one of the most fascinating and creative pieces of work in western philosophy.   

It presents the journey of Persian prophet Zarathustra, who spends his time in solitude in the mountains for ten years and grows weary of his wisdom, beginning his down-going to humanity to teach them what he has learned.   Zarathustra's principal teachings are: the Übermensch (Overman), the Eternal Recurrence and the Will to Power.   

The God is dead theme is most famously expressed in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, although it first appeared in The Gay Science. It is commonly misinterpreted. It refers to a historical event in response to the decline of Christianity with the Enlightenment bringing about scientific rationality, representing a crisis in the existing moral values opening the possibility for nihilism. The death of god theme is prevalent throughout the book.

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H.P. Lovecraft was an American writer who is known for his creation of what became the Cthulhu Mythos and the creator of the literary philosophy known as Cosmicism, emphasising the Cosmic Horror of the unknown and the insignificance of human beings in the vast realms of space and time.  This episode explores the peculiar philosophy of Cosmicism and its similarities with absurdism, existentialism, and nihilism, three movements that arose from the human experience of anguish and confusion stemming from the Absurd, ultimately diverging to different perspectives on life.  

Channel of Nihilist Enigma

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⌛ Timestamps

0:00 Introduction Lovecraft & Cosmicism1:08 Nihilist Engima: Existentialism, Absurdism, Nihilism2:09 Absurdism3:26 Existentialism4:34 Nihilism6:00 Cosmicism12:29 Cosmicism Vs God

Soren Kierkegaard wrote one of the most remarkable theistic existentialist works of the 19th century, The Sickness unto Death is famed for the depth and acuity of its psychological insights.  

Writing under the pseudonym Anti-Climacus, Kierkegaard explores the concept of ‘despair’. Despair is a deeper expression for anxiety which is a not-wanting-to-be-oneself. It is a "misrelation" that arises in the self when once cannot balance the eternal (God).  The book is a psychological exposition with Christianity as its background and as intended for “edification and awakening”.  

The sickness which is the topic of Kierkegaard’s work is mental, he describes it as a “sickness of the spirit”.  The book presents a step-by-step progression towards this crisis from a state in which the sufferer is not even aware of this sickness. The principal focus is the raising of the level of a person’s awareness of the urgency of the choice.  

This despair, however, is not something that should be rooted out. From the point of spiritual development, there is actually something healthy about it. Spiritual development is bound to progress through a state of sickness.   The only way out of escaping despair, therefore, seems to be to go through with it.

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The Myth of Sisyphus is a philosophical essay by Albert Camus and is considered as one of the most popular existentialist works of the 20th century. It gave rise to the philosophy of Absurdism, sharing some concepts with Existentialism and Nihilism.  

The fundamental concern of the book is the notion of the Absurd, which is best described as “the conflict between the human tendency to seek inherent value and meaning in life, and the human inability to find any in a purposeless, meaningless, and irrational universe.”   

Camus draws from the absurd three consequences: revolt (we must not accept any answer or reconciliation in our struggle), freedom (we are absolutely free to think and behave as we choose), and passion (we must pursue a life of rich and diverse experiences).  

The Myth of Sisyphus explores the value of life in a world devoid of religious meaning. His work can be seen as a reply to Dostoevsky and Kierkegaard.

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