Mark and Rex get philosophical for an episode covering the powerful but tricky arena of existential philosophy. Questions of humanness and existence are covered, as well as a quick primer on key thinkers in existentialism.

TRANSCRIPT

0:00

Hey, welcome to Jessup Think. I'm your host Mark Moore and your co host Rex Gurney. And today we're going to talk about existentialism, existentialism, that's how many syllables is that? Yeah, it's a lot. It's a good Scrabble word. I think we're gonna be using a lot of multisyllabic words, we are you prepared? Yeah, buckle up, get your dictionary out. The Saurus. Get Google ready, because this is just a thanks, you understand is we're trying to make you think. But now really excited because I think that existentialist thought raises some really good questions that Christians and non Christians wrestle with everybody, Russ? Yeah, everyone wrestled with. And so we're excited to kind of explore and maybe learn a little bit about existentialism sounds good to me.

0:53

Rex, we're gonna be looking at a topic that I really enjoy, and I think you enjoy talking about and we'll see, we'll see if the listeners enjoy this topic. But it might be a topic. It's a, it's definitely gonna be a term that people have heard. But it often goes undefined. And there's often some

1:09

misunderstandings. Yeah, exactly. People are talking about when they talk about it,

1:13

right. Yeah. So we're going to talk about existentialism, that's the term with baggage. That's right, definitely has a lot of baggage in it. But it also this way, I like to think about it as it has a lot of potential. And it has a lot of potential because I think there's a lot happening within existential philosophy, that that bled into some existential theology and right, we'll get there.

1:36

But in existential philosophy, it kind of highlights a little bit of the human condition. These are questions, mark that, you know, not just eggheads in exalted institutions, each other, or in a cafe in Paris, in a cafe in Paris, while you're sipping your cappuccino, exactly. But they are questions that everybody if they live, perhaps they don't articulate it using some of the philosophical language that writers will use. But these are questions that are are human questions that? Yeah, I would say everybody in some way, Russell's with at some point in their lives,

2:10

right. Yeah. And so I want to kind of start with just throwing out a definition of existentialism because it's a, it's a term that once you know the definition of him, you can use it a lot. And then I noticed sometimes people look at me, they're like, wait, what, what does existentialism mean? And and so you can think of it this way is of a philosophical theory or approach. JOHN mcqueary, who was a Christian theologian, existential theologian, he calls it a style of philosophizing. So it's not just one school of philosophy. But it's a it's a philosophical approach different iterations, yeah. iterations, which emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent, determining their own development through acts of the will. So this idea of of existentialism is really focused on our What does it mean to exist, right? And what does it mean to be a person who has freedom who has responsibility? And who is a decision maker? That that is one one line that I think you will really see. And we see kind of existentialism beginning with Kierkegaard. He's often called the father of centrism, although he probably be like, What? But as he kind of started these, these themes that are then more fully developed, kind of in Germany, and France and France, yeah, the 20th century, and, and this idea of the person as a decision maker, one way that I,

3:48

when I'm trying to kind of have a pithy phrase to try to, you know, articulate, existential isn't to my students, I'll use the phrase existence precedes essence. Yeah. And and if folks