Week 15 · Readings & resources

Week 15 — Readings & Resources

Introduction to Philosophy Free sample edition

Your primary reading is Chapter 15 (in this module). Everything below is the optional, go-deeper layer — pick what helps, skip the rest.

How to use this page

This page has 9 items (4 readings and 5 videos). Allow 58–74 minutes for everything. Each group points back to the matching chapter section and class-session segment, so use the full menu when you want more depth, or take the quick path below.

Every video here has captions: turn them on with the CC button in the player. The chapter covers the same ideas in text.

Pick-one quick path (20–23 min total)

① Existence before essence

Chapter 15, Section “Exist first, then choose: Sartre on essence” · Session 1, Segment 1, “Sartre, essence, and the situation objection” · Remember: for a made thing the purpose comes first, and for a person, on Sartre's view, existence comes first.

Existentialism Explained — Philosophy Vibe — a three-minute dialogue that defines an essence with the example of a chair, contrasts it with the older view that each person is born with a fixed essence, and explains existence precedes essence as we exist first and then make who we are through our choices. It reads out a translated passage from Sartre without naming the translator; the course pins no Sartre quotation, so put his claim in your own words. Use it while working through the Week-15 module overview. (video, 3 min) (captions: automatic)
Existentialism Is a Humanism by Jean-Paul Sartre — Feeling Philosophical — an eleven-minute walk through the lecture: it says the lecture was given in Paris in 1945 and printed in 1946, explains existence precedes essence, and then takes the objections Sartre answers one at a time, that existentialism leads to passive withdrawal, makes human affairs unserious, dwells on the bad side of life, and has no morality, ending on his comparison of choosing values to painting a picture. Its opening biography and the translated lines it reads aloud are the video's own and not pinned in this course. (video, 11 min) (captions: automatic)
Existentialism, section 3: Existence Precedes Essence — online Encyclopedia of Philosophy (reference entry) — a reference entry's short section on the slogan. It traces the idea to Heidegger, credits the pithy wording to Sartre, and explains it as the claim that no pre-given nature settles who we are, so we make ourselves through the choices we make as our lives unfold. It separates the facts that limit us, such as our bodies and the society we are born into, which it calls facticity, from our power to question those facts and give them meaning. It quotes Sartre and others in translations the course does not pin, so put the ideas in your own words. The entry's other sections go beyond this week. (reading, 5–8 min)

② The absurd, Sisyphus, and the rock

Chapter 15, Section “Push the rock: Camus, the absurd, and Sisyphus” · Session 1, Segment 2, “Camus, the absurd, and the brave-face objection” · Remember: the absurd is a clash between our demand for meaning and a world that offers none, not a feeling of despair.

The Myth of Sisyphus and the Absurdist Hero (Absurdism - Albert Camus) — Philosophy Vibe — a four-minute dialogue that retells how Sisyphus, in the Greek myth, ends up pushing a rock up a hill forever, then explains why Camus makes him the hero of the absurd: on the walk back down, Sisyphus sees his situation as it is, stops hoping for something better, and can be imagined happy. One speaker says there is no meaning at all; read that as the clash the chapter calls the absurd, not as despair. It quotes Camus' famous closing line in an unnamed translation, which the course does not pin. (video, 4 min) (captions: automatic)
One Must Imagine Sisyphus Happy — vlogbrothers — a five-minute personal reflection on The Myth of Sisyphus while signing a name thousands of times for a book: repetition can feel like Sisyphus's rock, quiet routine can bring something like happiness, and the speaker adds that, unlike Sisyphus, our work can ease the burden of others. That last point is a version of meaning found in valuable activities and relationships, so test it as the brave-face objection would. Its opening lists prayer beside reading tea leaves and astrology as older answers to the search for meaning; that framing is the speaker's, and the course weighs meaning given from outside on its merits. The lines it quotes are not pinned in this course. (video, 5 min) (captions: automatic)
One Must Imagine Sisyphus Important — vlogbrothers — a five-minute reply to the video above that asks important to whom, argues that nothing could matter until there were beings who could care, and ends on the thought that Sisyphus's story still shapes how we feel and think. Its side trip into consciousness goes beyond this week; the question of who does the caring is a good warm-up for the 3 answers in the next group. (video, 5 min) (captions: automatic)

③ Freedom in a situation, and three answers to meaning

Chapter 15, Section “Choose inside a situation: Beauvoir on freedom” · Session 2, Segment 3, “Beauvoir's situation and the three answers” · Remember: freedom is exercised in a situation that can widen or narrow a person's real choices, and the situation never cancels freedom.

The Ethics of Ambiguity, section: Ambiguity and the human condition — Wikipedia — a reference article on Beauvoir's book of ethics. Read the Themes sections Ambiguity and the human condition and Ontological and ethical freedom: each of us is both a free subject and someone limited by physical, social, and political facts, and she separates the bare capacity to choose from freedom taken up responsibly, together with concern for other people's freedom. That is the chapter's freedom-and-situation point at more depth. The article's summary of the book's later sections goes beyond this week. (reading, 5–10 min)
Existentialism, section 4.2: Mediated Freedom — online Encyclopedia of Philosophy (reference entry) — a short section on freedom in a situation. It describes how Sartre came to see freedom as always shaped by a person's social and historical situation, notes that Beauvoir had already worked out that view in The Second Sex and in her novels, and adds Merleau-Ponty's view that we both make ourselves and are already made by our situation. That is the chapter's point that a situation widens or narrows the choices really open without cancelling freedom. Its quotations are in translations the course does not pin, and its pointer to a later section on oppression goes beyond this week. (reading, 5–8 min)

Optional one-stop reference (free online reference)

The Meaning of Life: Contemporary Analytic Perspectives, section 3: Theories of Meaning in Life — Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy — read section 3 for a map of the answers: a God-centered view, which is the chapter's meaning given from outside; subjective naturalism, close to meaning created by the individual; and objective and hybrid views, close to meaning found in valuable activities and relationships, each with the objection it faces. The article's labels are its own, and the course keys no answer. This builds on Week 9's arguments about God, which the God-centered view leans on. Skip the long opening on the meanings of the word meaning. (reading, 15–20 min)

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