Session Information
13 SES 07 B, Adult Education and the Communicative Ethos
Paper Session
Contribution
For Sartre, there is no escape from existential freedom. A human is abandoned to the world, and there is no determinism which would limit human freedom. A human is determined by the concrete situation, but he still has existential freedom: “Totally determined and totally free” . A human cannot find anything to depend on, neither within nor outside of himself. The only thing a human can find out is that he is without any excuses. “Man is free, man is freedom”. A human is condemned to be free. Sartre declares that a human is free to define himself and that he is defined only insofar as he acts. No other than he himself is responsible for his own actions. What is morality like then? How do I know which actions are right and which are wrong? Sartre’s answer is: “You are free, therefore choose—that is to say, invent. No rule of general morality can show you what you ought to do: no signs are vouchsafed in this world”. Values do not exist a priori to human action. Values do not exist before humans create them.
In the philosophy of adult education Sartre’s existentialism has influenced at least Paolo Freire’s and Peter Jarvis’s thinking. This is understandable because these existential themes that Sartre deals with are relevant for every adult person. We can safely assume that every person in some point of her life encounter so called existential moment when person seriously asks form herself following type of questions: What is the meaning of life? What am I going to do with my life or how do I spend the remaining years? These existential questions are also reason to start studying in adult age. These existential questions could cause serious existential anxiety. Sartre could bring us into the edge. Sartre’s existential philosophy is helpful to the certain point, but in the edge Sartre’s existentialism is futile. Sartre’s existentialism can free us from the burden of any predetermined or predefined meanings, but then we are abandoned in world without any signs or roadmaps. What then? Create your own roadmaps, urge Sartre. But how?
Here Viktor Emil Frankl’s existential philosophy and his existential therapy i.e. logotherapy could be useful keeping in mind adult education context where persons want to discuss existential question. Logotherapy is a kind of philosophy therapy but it was invented much earlier than philosophy therapy came around. Frankl was psychiatrist, neurologist and philosopher (Ph.D.) whose own existential moment happened when he was in Nazi concentration camp. He finds his meaning in helping others in concentration camp. In helping others he help and saved himself.
The aim of the logotherapy is first of all the moral and spiritual growth toward the meaningful life. According to Frankl search for meaning for life is of utmost importance to human being. Frankl called logotherapy “education towards responsibility”, that is the responsibility for living one’s life meaningfully . Logotherapy is lifelong proses to grow, to learn, and to find meaning of life, to be a human being. This meaning of life and to be a human being is “to serve a cause or love a person” . This love a person is connected human being´s ability to self-transcendence: “What I see as self-transcendence is that being human always means related to or pointing to something or someone other than oneself”. Frankl adopts this idea of self-transcendence from Sartre’s existentialism.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Frankl, V. (1945). Ärtzliche Seelsorge - Grundlagen der Logotherapie und Existenzanalyse. Frankl, V. (1966). The will to Meaning - Foundation and Application of Logotherapy. Frankl, V. (1986). The Doctor and the Soul - From Psychotherapy to Logotherapy. Frankl, V. (2006). Gesammelte Werke, Teilband 2: Psychologie des Konzentrationslagers. Vienna. Frankl, V. (2010). Feeling of Meaninglessness - A Challenge to Psychotherapy and Philosophy. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press. Kakkori, L. & Huttunen, R. (2014). The Sartre-Heidegger Controversy on Humanism and Education. Educational Philosophy and Theory, Vol. 44, No. 4, 351-365. Kakkori, L. & Huttunen, R. (2014). The Sartre-Heidegger Controversy on Humanism and Education. Educational Philosophy and Theory, Vol. 44, No. 4, 351-365. Sartre, J-P. (1996). Existentialism and Humanism. London: Methuen. Sartre, J-P. (1948). The Wall, and Other Stories. New York: New Directions. Sartre, J-P. (1966) Being and Nothingness—A Phenomenological Essay on Ontology. NewYork: WSP. Sartre, J-P. (1989). No Exit and Three Other Plays. New York: Vintage Books.
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