additional, more optimistic flavors of existentialism?

for example, the idea that you help one person, help the world. And maybe, maybe pay attention to one or two of the immediately obvious secondary effects in how you help. But most of the other ripples from the pebble in the lake, we probably aren't going to be able to predict, and that is okay.

More broadly, what if there had been Jean Paul Sartre plus two or three other big prominent writers who could bounce ideas around and develop various intellectual threads?
 
what I remember about Jean Paul Sartre is an example he gave of a young man living in occupied France.

The young man wanted to take help care of his mother, especially since he was the only surviving child.

He also wanted to join the resistance.

And there was no 'logical' way, no decision procedure, no great chapter in a philosophy book, perhaps even no informed way of using your gut so that you make the decision with your whole person.

You simply make the decision.

You then embrace the decision, you ride the zen waves so to speak, and that's the important part. (part about the zen waves is my own addition)
 
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I'm not entirely sure existentialism has to be pessimistic or optimistic, really, but just depends on how one chooses to interpret things at an emotional level. Emotions are just chemicals firing off inside of us.
 
Maybe during the Vietnam War, to the effect: Hey, you're assuming that we're preventing greater harm, when in fact we're not all sure of that. And you're assuming that communism is a uniquely bad outcome, when in point of fact there are plenty of things in the world approximately just as bad.

Existentialism might have added a whole new strain of anti-war activism.

And to a large extent, anti-war activists in the U.S. were viewed as immature young people, who just selfishly objected to paying the current cost, and who seemingly couldn't see past their own noses that we were trying to prevent a greater harm. Of course, this wasn't true. There was plenty of older people in the anti-war movement, perhaps most notable Catholics, but plenty of other older people as well. And of course, the idealism of the young should not be so readily dismissed. Young persons often think very clearly and see through much of the hypocrisy we as older persons have gotten used to.

We can perhaps date the time the anti-war movement went mainstream in the U.S. as when Martin Luther King, Jr., gave his speech "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence" at the Riverside Church, New York City, on April 4, 1967. And yes, this was exactly one year before his tragic assassination. Maybe if existentialism had gotten some major traction in the United States—and people do like exploring new ideas—maybe this level of activism would have been present one year earlier in April '66. And then we can talk about what kind of difference this would have made.
 
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for example, the idea that you help one person, help the world. And maybe, maybe pay attention to one or two of the immediately obvious secondary effects in how you help. But most of the other ripples from the pebble in the lake, we probably aren't going to be able to predict, and that is okay.

More broadly, what if there had been Jean Paul Sartre plus two or three other big prominent writers who could bounce ideas around and develop various intellectual threads?

The essay that example is taken from, Is Existentialism A Humanism(there are other translations of the title), is actually fairly optimistic in tone. At times, it almost kinda slides into the realm of a self-help pep talk. I think at one poin Sartre even says that existentialism is an optimistic philosophy, and blames popularizers(my word) for the reputation it had gotten as dark and brooding.

I think Kierkegaard and Nietzsche might also have had something to do with the philosophy's image as a refuge for alienated misanthropes.
 
I'm not entirely sure existentialism has to be pessimistic or optimistic, really, but just depends on how one chooses to interpret things at an emotional level. Emotions are just chemicals firing off inside of us.
one thing I've thought about a little is emergent properties. For example, the idea of a mathematical proof existed no where in the universe 5 billions years ago (perhaps!) but now it does. Similar with concepts and (?)realities in music.

Now, I take it that you're asking about the link, emotions-->how solid our theories are, and I'm not sure I can help there. as much as I enjoy good philosophy, that's approaching the deep water which exceeds my swimming ability
 
As for the Challenge, well, it's been a while(decades actually) since I read them, but the Twentieth Century Christian existentialists were in general more overtly optimistic than their atheistic counterparts, if for no other reason than they had the Resurrection at the centre of their philosophy. Maybe if a) their ideas had been more actively embraced by mainstream churches, and b) those churches had maintained more of a following than in OTL, Christian Existnetialism could have had more of a public presence.

Or, maybe people would just continue to go to church, and not worry too much about the ideas underlying the theology.
 
I though existentialism was already a form of positive nihilism?

'if nothing we do matters...* , then all that matters is what we do^'

*in the grand, universal, objective scale
^on the human, local, subjective scale
 
That's kind of it.

And the idea that instead of lambasting ourselves for our theories not working out better, more the idea, yes, a theory is useful, but other things are useful, too.

And the idea that, like with a baseball season, you just kind of hang in there, work on what you can effect, and hopefully good things will happen.
 
Existentialism talks about the gulf between theory and practice, which is powerful stuff all on its own. In addition, it talks about some of the reasons why and also some of the potential remedies.

As part of a high trajectory, if it had gotten more buzz in the years immediately following World War II, John Foster Dulles would not have been in the political mainstream and Eisenhower most probably would have picked someone else as Secretary of State. And we would not have majorly committed to overthrowing Iran and Guatemala.
 
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