PHIL 1100 Lecture Notes - Viktor Frankl, Dian Fossey, Reciprocal Altruism
Document Summary
Key features: subjective outlook, the universe is absurd, atheism. Stamos (sometimes fideism), our lives are fundamentally meaningless, free will, we are free to choose our meaning (otherwise, bad faith), there is no human nature. Evidence of an instinctual need to find the meaning of life (or of our lives) Ubiquity of the question; evidence of purpose on the brain; small children; tragedies; viktor frankl (existential frustration, existential vacuum, logotherapy) Our evolution in two environments: (i) natural and (ii) social. Binding relations: (i) environmental knowledge and (ii) group cohesion (including love sympathy, empathy, kin altruism, reciprocal altruism, fairness, in-group/out-group distinction) Evidence of finding meaning in (ii) plenty of extreme examples. Gandhi, schweitzer, m theresa, mlk jr, dian fossey. Evidence of finding meaning in (ii) plenty of extreme examples = scientists. : scientists: (i) pursuit of knowledge (external) and (ii) group oriented (research teams) Existentialists: (i) don"t care about knowledge (external) and (ii) are defiantly individualistic (contra groups, herds)