Ethics and Philosophy

A philosophy is a closed system which aspires to explain all elements of life  and the universe, or at least to provide some kind of ideology which helps the  follower to understand what is happening in the present and predict what is  likely to happen in the future. In this sense, then, a philosophy such as  Buddhism, Marxism or existentialism, provides a more or less comprehensive and  coherent framework with which to make sense of the world.

Read the full article here.

Poems of Auden: The More Loving One

In his poem ‘The More Loving One,’ originally included in the collection Homage to Clio, W.H. Auden tackles one of the biggest subjects of all in deceptively simple terms and words. In form, the poem is composes of four quatrains (four-line stanzas or verses) with a metre of iambic tetrameter and a rhyme scheme of aabb.

Read the full article here.

Sartre: What Is an Intellectual?

According to French philosopher and novelist Jean-Paul Sartre, an intellectual is a person who recognizes the contradictions that govern her or his life. An intellectual cannot be a member of the proletariat because such a person would find it impossible to gain access to the kind of education required by an intellectual.

Read the full article here.

Review of Sartre’s Between Existentialism and Marxism

Whereas Marxism locates the individual within an overarching class struggle that defines her consciousness, existentialism locates individuals as specific people who experience being-in-the-universe. This tension (one might be tempted to say ‘contradiction’) informed much of Sartre’s thought and is occasionally touched upon in the essays and interviews collected together in this book. At one stage, the Marxist element takes centre stage and, at others, the existentialist replaces it.

Read the full review here.

What Is Existentialism?

Existentialism is a form of philosophy that was originated in or around the 1930s and is perhaps most closely associated with the thought of Jean-Paul Sartre. In fact, existentialism has developed in a wide range of divergent directions to the extent that it is hard to determine what is the core of the philosophy and what is the superstructure that has grown up on top and around that core. Further, a lot of the terminology and means of argument connected with existentialism is complex, dense and, generally, difficult to penetrate.

Read the full article here.