Group Presentations on ‘The Other Existentialists’

As I’ve already noted, the course will focus on three figures: Heidegger, Sartre, and Beauvoir. In order to ensure that you are exposed to other philosophers who are commonly referred to as existentialists, I’m having you give group presentations on Tuesday, September 18^th. The group presentations are also intended to help you meet the other students in the class and to encourage active participation in class discussions.

The main question I want each group to answer is why the philosopher they were assigned is considered to be an existentialist? Does this philosopher attempt to reveal the concreteness of human existence, and if so how? Is their a conception of inauthenticity (and similar notions like anxiety or the absurdity of life) present in this philosopher’s central concepts? Is there a conception of authenticity? Does this philosopher have any ideas that conflict with existentialism? You can use Heidegger and Sartre as points of comparison if this is helpful.

The presentations will be brief (8-12 minutes), so stay focused and avoid extraneous information and tangential issues. You will probably want to start with a little biographical information, but limit it to one or two sentences. Make sure to that you stick to the time limit so that other groups have sufficient time.

You will need to communicate with your other group members and probably meet with them, in order to divide the work and ensure that the presentation is a well-formed whole. Each of the members needs to read a portion of the presentation to the class.

Sources – You will need to look at some secondary sources, but are not expected to do any more than that. Keep in mind that many secondary sources in philosophy are simplistic, inaccurate, or vague, so be careful selecting them since they can generate more obscurity and confusion than clarity. Secondary sources on the internet and very brief sources are especially unreliable. I recommend the following sources: The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (accessible online through the SCSU Library website, password required).

Each group needs to turn in a bibliography with all the sources that influenced your presentation, using any standard citation method that includes all of the relevant information (including exact page numbers if it is a printed source).