Exam 1 Response for PHL3090 Existentialism, taught by Dr. Donovan Miyasaki
Exam 1 Response for PHL3090 Existentialism, taught by Dr. Donovan Miyasaki
Andrew Correll
3/9/2019
PHL 3090 Existentialism: Exam 1 Rewrite
1A. The Inquisitor thinks humans are despicable creatures. He thinks they are “weaker and baser by nature than Thou [the prisoner] hast believed.”1 However, the prisoner, Jesus, believes man’s nature contains enough good to warrant the “burden” (243) of having the “freedom of choice in the knowledge of good and evil” (241). The Inquisitor thinks freedom of choice has always led to debauchery and pain for man because humanity was made too corrupt. In creating an impossible challenge, the prisoner has acted toward humanity “as though [he] didst not love them at all” (242), giving “weak and vile” (243) people free choice to be bad or good, the first of which they will mostly choose. This, unfortunately, means that “thousands and tens of thousands” of the “ever sinful and ignoble race of man” (240) will strive for the “bread of heaven” while “millions and tens of millions…will not have the strength to forego the earthly bread” (240). To fix this, the Inquisitor and the church decided to create as much conformity (via punishments, like burnings, and incentives, like miracles) as possible “in order to make men happy” (237), standing in complete contrast to the prisoner’s idea that “free love” is what makes men happy (242). Having the option to choose the “bread of heaven” or of earth (the way the prisoner thinks the world should be) is freer because the Inquisitor is specifically trying to eliminate the choice to do right or wrong. If you do the Inquisitor’s rules, then people with power over you (the church) burn you at the stake. You must obey in his world, which is a world that is not free.
The “bread” is a fascinating metaphor because it can mean multiple things. Part of the prisoner’s idea of freedom is that man doesn’t know for certain God exists, so in several passages “bread” likely refers to knowledge of God. For example, the Inquisitor says the prisoner “didst reject the offer, thinking, what is that freedom worth, if obedience is bought with bread?” (239). However, the Inquisitor thinks this kind of freedom has failed, saying, “But does Thou know that for the sake of that earthly bread the spirit of the earth…will strive with Thee and overcome Thee…[and] proclaim…that there is no crime, and therefore no sin; only hunger” (239). Considering enlightenment ideals that prompted Nietzsche’s famous “God is dead,” the “bread” in that quote is knowledge and that people “strive with” God and “overcome” him by seeking out answers to the world around them that don’t involve God. This interpretation of “bread” further clarifies the larger message because the Inquisitor is saying that this freedom doesn’t work because, if one does not provide the answers, men will search out their own explanations, coming to conclusions like nihilism. Nihilism’s tenets “there is no crime…and therefore no sin” are explicitly used in conjunction with the “bread” in the Inquisitor’s statement. In the prisoner’s view, the Inquisitor’s world is not a free world because it is like a state of personal negligence on taking positions on things (and is not freedom to take the positions one chooses).
Another meaning for “bread” is possible, though. Bread is something that provides nourishment and satisfaction, so, in this sense, the “bread of heaven” (240) may be meaning and satisfaction that only God can give us while the “bread of earth” is the meaning earthly, non-spiritual things provide. So, in the last quotation, the Inquisitor may be saying that “for the sake of that earthly” satisfaction people will reject God and come up with their own “sin,” morality, and meaning. Another example of “bread” meaning nourishment and satisfaction is when the Inquisitor says, “no science will give them bread so long as they remain free” (239). Here, “bread” is not referring to knowledge, since science can provide this, but likely to a source of meaning, which science cannot as easily provide. In this unique and masterful way, Dostoyevsky adds depth and richness to the story by making both the “knowledge” and “meaning” readings make sense in other quotations. For example, the Inquisitor says, “Choosing ‘bread,’ Thou wouldst have satisfied the universal and everlasting craving of humanity—to find someone to worship” (240). Here, the meanings for “bread” seem to be interchangeable, which add to the Inquisitor’s message that God chose not to buy people with bread (or knowledge that he exists) and thus form a relationship of coercive love but instead chose to give people the freedom to choose not the earthly bread (earthly meaning and satisfaction) but the “bread of Heaven” (239)—purpose in relation to God.
2A. The CEO of Netflix when Kevin Spacey’s sexual assaults were being uncovered is the perfect example of a Kierkegaardian “tragic hero.”2 Kierkegaard defines the tragic hero as someone who is “within the ethical” (14), where the ethical is philosophical jargon for serving humanity rather than the individual. So, in striving to prevent the hidden abuse of more women in their company, the CEO of Netflix would have a logical explanation for why he made the tough decision to fire one of their best actors (and have his company suffer the loss). The tragic hero has to undergo “struggles” (35), like the decision between two poor options: fire your best actor or risk emotional and physical harm to more victims. Firing the actor to prevent more pain is what the CEO eventually did, in essence sacrificing one person for the sake of many potential victims, so this is an example of a tragic hero. The firing was applauded by the general American public, so the CEO’s decision was “secure in the universal” (35) and justifiable to others (the ethical realm).
While “the observer’s eye views [the tragic hero] with confidence” (15), the knight of faith’s “observer cannot understand him at all” (15). The CEO likely had a logical reason for firing the actor, so he was not a knight of faith. A person “becomes the knight of faith by accepting the paradox” (29) of his actions that he passionately does. In this way, the knight “gives up the universal…to grasp something even higher” (15); in other words, he disregards his duty to humanity (the ethical) to pursue God’s will as an individual. Therefore, a knight is basically saying, “I have a higher calling and, though this doesn’t make sense to me and I can’t point to any outcome that betters humanity, I am having faith.” Abraham is judged a “murderer” (11) in the ethical realm by even just intending to kill his son, but to Kierkegaard he is a “man of faith” (11), not basing his decisions at all on what others think (good or bad) but instead relying on the passion that he can’t necessarily prove to anyone is logically based.
Kierkegaard calls this being in “an absolute relation to the absolute” (10); in other words, striving toward God and being obedient by having faith. In the same sense that a fugitive, like Han Solo in Star Wars, would have to be constantly alert for people coming after him, the knight of faith is in a “state of sleeplessness” trying to prevent him “returning…to the universal” (36) or to the logical. It is for this reason the knight of faith’s path is a “lonesome trail, steep and narrow” (39). The adjectives “steep” and “narrow” are used because it is difficult to walk the tightrope of having passionate faith while being tempted to align one’s actions so they make sense in regards to your duty to humanity. Kierkegaard describes the path as “lonesome” because the only example of a knight of faith has been Abraham, the father of faith, since “no dearth of keen minds and careful scholars…have found analogies to” his particular situation (10).
1. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, in Basic Writings of Existentialism, ed. Gordon Marino (New York: Modern Library), p. 243.
2. Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, in Basic Writings of Existentialism, ed. Gordon Marino (New York: Modern Library), p. 11.