The big question: Why the world Exists
Jim Holt likes asking questions, rather big ones. In the book, 'Why does the world exist?', he takes on one of the biggest questions in his conversation with scientists and theologists. Jim Holt raises the central question Why is there something rather than nothing. He questions the origin of everything in this book. In the book, Jim Holt, himself wants to know how nothingness, a state in which nothing exists, gives rise to the universe in which all things exist. The book goes into detail about the mystery of existence. Not just our existence, but everyones and everything. To come up with an answer to this perplexing question, Holt interviews various people. Holt travels across the world, to England, France and United States to find answers to the mystery of existence. He interviews religious people as well as atheists, physicists and philosophers and Platonist. Holt visits each of these people posing the question, Why does the world exist? And Why is there something rather than nothing? He writes about their responses to this question. The answers the various theologists and philosophers give us a vivid glimpse of the speaker, but do not solve the riddle of the existence.
In the book, Jim Holt interviews people from theologists like Richard Swinburne, to philosophers of science such as Adolf Grunbaum, from theoretical physicists like David Deutsch, Regular physicists such as Steven Weinberg, to Platonist’s like Roger Penrose. In my essay, I have chosen to look at the ideas established by the philosopher Adolf Grunbaum as well as the theologist of Swinburne. Jim Holt describes the exchanges between them as an 'intricate metaphysical ping pong match.' Both of these theologists are very ...
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Bakewell, Sarah. ""Why Does the World Exist"" Review. n.d.: n. pag. The New York Times. The New York Times, 04 Aug. 2012. Web. 21 Apr. 2014.
Dyson, Freeman. "What Can You Really Know? by Freeman Dyson." What Can You Really Know? by Freeman Dyson. The New York Review, 10 Nov. 201110. Web. 21 Apr. 2014.
Holt, Jim. "Chapter 4/the Great Rejectionist." Why Does the World Exist?: An Existential Detective Story. New York: Liveright Pub., 2012. N. pag. Print.
Holt, Jim. "Chapter 6: The Inductive Theist of North Oxford." Why Does the World Exist?: An Existential Detective Story. New York: Liveright Pub., 2012. N. pag. Print.
Myers, Jenn. ""The Pain Scale"- A Distinctive Writing Style." Jenmyers93. N.p., 20 Feb. 2012. Web. 21 Apr. 2014.
Roth, Michael. "Review of Jim Holt's Why Does the World Exist?" The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 11 Feb. 2013. Web. 22 Apr. 2014.
One of H.P. Lovecraft’s many short stories, “The Outsider” has been praised since its publication as his most profound and meaningful. This story has been interpreted many different ways, varying from an autobiography of Lovecraft himself to several different philosophical analyses. One such interpretation, by Dirk Mosig compares the plot and settings of “The Outsider” to Lovecraft’s own doubtful views of religion and an afterlife. Mosig supports his interpretation with many facts from the story, I believe he pinpoints one very possible meaning of the story. His argument successfully uses the plot and details to convince the reader that his hypothesis is correct.
Firchow, Peter. The End of Utopia: A Study of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1984.
The controversial topic involving the existence of God has been the pinnacle of endless discourse surrounding the concept of religion in the field of philosophy. However, two arguments proclaim themselves to be the “better” way of justifying the existence of God: The Cosmological Argument and the Mystical Argument. While both arguments attempt to enforce strict modus operandi of solidified reasoning, neither prove to be a better way of explaining the existence of God. The downfall of both these arguments rests on commitment of fallacies and lack of sufficient evidence, as a result sabotaging their validity in the field of philosophy and faith.
But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious.” This build on the essential idea of existentialism being in “a world that is stripped of all comforting illusions, explanations, and guidelines, and an existence that is essentially solitary and personally challenging. The absurdity arises in the paradoxical confrontation between the human hunger and yearning for meaning, purpose, and explanation and an awareness of the meaninglessness or the meaning-neutrality of a universe that cannot provide a grand design or a set of directions for living.” Albert Camus, defends his theory and writings by accepting the fact that many of existentialism questions are unable to be answered due to the nature of the philosophy understanding that it’s not comprehendible through reason. He even argues towards other existentialist who seek to answer the questions proposed by using transcendence through God as a cure for
We may nevertheless say that existentialism is a form of phenomenological philosophy that relies on certain reflective methods of studying human consciousness instantiated in the individual, society, and culture, which emerged as a popular general movement characteristic of 20 century European thought represented thought represented across many disciplines including literature, the humanities, and the social sciences. Existential psychology rejects the mechanistic views of the Freudians and instead sees people as engaged in a search for meaning (Trull & Prinstein, 2013, p. 382), therefore an existential psychotherapist may attribute the cause of the person’s anxiety to lost meaning of life. As Trull and Prinstein (2013) stated, the ultimate goal of existential psychotherapy is "to help the individual reach a point at which awareness and decision making can be exercised responsibly" (p. 383). The role of an existential psychotherapist is to enable the client to come closer to experience. By experiencing self, the client can learn to attach meaning and value to life. Sometimes the therapist will confront the client with questions “that force the client to examine the reasons for failure to search for meaning in life” (Trull & Prinstein, 2013, p.
Finding the underlying values common to existentialists allows an understanding of the basic substructure of existential philosophy. There is a se...
The Question Behind the Question is a book that begs the question of personal accountability. Too often we go through life without power because when things happen we look to point the finger. This book empowers the individual by seeking to change the way that we respond. When we take matters into our own hands we can determine our own reality.
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Bigelow, Gordon E. "A Primer of Existentialism." JSTOR. National Council of Teachers of English, n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2014.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig; G. E. M. Anscombe, P.M.S. Hacker and Joachim Schulte (eds. and trans.). Philosophical Investigations. 4th edition, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. Print.
Allison, Dorothy. “This Is Our World.” Seeing and Writing. Ed. D. McQuade & C. McQuade. 1st ed. vol. 1 Boston: Bedford St. Martins, 2000. 155-60.
1) Barnes, Wesley. "Is Existentialism Definable?" The Philosophy and Literature of Existentialism. Woodbury: Barron's Educational Series, Inc., 1968
Existentialism is a term associated with intellectual history. Through propagation of postwar literary concepts and philosophical works, existentialism became part of a cultural drift that prospered in the 1940’s and 50’s, especially in Europe. This concept points out unique groups of philosophical quandaries and now identifies with distinct twentieth and twenty-first century inquiries. It is not so much concerned with “existence” indefinitely, but more precisely the assertion that human existence requires new classifications that are not found in the theoretical range of neither ancient or modern thought. Human beings as a whole can be established neither as beings with set attributes, nor as beings interacting with an abundance of objects. From an existentialist view, to know the truths of science is not enough to understand what exactly a human being is. Human beings cannot possibly be completely understood in terms of basic sciences, such as biology, psychology, physics, etc. They also cannot be understood in just a dualist, “mind and body” view. Existentialism does not reject the cogency of these categories, it just simply states that these cannot be the only traits examined, when trying to understand what it is to be a human. Neither moral theory nor scientific thinking is sufficient. Therefore, existentialism can be defined as “a 20th century philosophical movement embracing diverse doctrines but centering on analysis of individual existence in an unfathomable universe and the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or wrong or good or bad” (Merriam-Webster).
Existentialism considers that any external existences, ranging from material existence, to spiritual existence, such as religion, morality, and ideology are meaningless because the existences of these issues could not be established without the identification of people’s will (Webber, 2012, 3). As indicated by Sartre (1943, 310), “Each existence and external power does not exist originally”. The statement of Sartre shows that the existentialism denies original being of any external existence. Reversely, the existentialism believes that what exists originally in the universe is our “being”, which actually highlights the existing value of human’s “being”. Based on this illustration, existentialists argue that since human is the only original “being” in the world, any other existences are factually constructed by human’s creativity activities and the being of external existences is relied on the identification of human on them. Therefore, in the view of existentialism, any external existences are nothingness because their beings are decided and depended on consciousness of human. Furthermore, the existentialists deem that although there are not any other external existences in the world except for human, human should exercise its irrational instinct to create values, which is because people’s rational thinking is relied on external
Existentialism can be defined as a philosophy that a person is responsible for their choices and the purpose of their existence changes with the decisio...