Enjoying the view from Limbo
The essential philosophic question, according to existentialism — whether it declares itself openly or not — is “Why bother to live?” Or stated more positively, “Why not choose to die?” This question, the existentialists suggest, inevitably arises from history’s revelation that all meaning is illusory, and therefore all answers futile, all purposes contradictory — all life “absurd,” to use the term identified most...
I love and cherish freedom — not the word, not a particular material advantage that I associate with some byproduct of freedom, but the thing itself. This is a testament to the power of imagination, and to love’s natural capacity for clinging to ideals; for I have never seen real freedom in my midst, let alone experienced it with any fullness in my...
There is no existing political arrangement which is not essentially in conflict — often mortal conflict — with the philosophic life. This means mankind has never found its way to a social structure that is inherently accommodating to the fulfillment of man’s nature. That monumental failure of the species is not as implausible as it first seems, given that the philosopher is by...
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