Assignment
Task: The Exercise for Your Imagination
Sartre introduces the reader to several concepts fundamental to existentialism: anguish; forlornness; and despair. Each is explained by the author, who provides Biblical, literary, philosophic, and personal references to help the reader better understand the ideas. Spending a bit more time with forlornness as he does, this is the idea I would have you think about for your exercise:
"When we speak of forlornness, a term Heidegger was fond of, we mean only that God does not exist and that we have to face all the consequences of this" (Pojman 564, Rt). As an exercise of the imagination, you are asked to start from another direction. Imagine that God does not exist to see if "forlornness" is the result. Discover for yourself if there is such a thing, a real feeling that arises from imagining this most subjective sense of non-being. (If you are an agnostic or atheist, substitute "nothing of compelling value exists" for "God does not exist," or, imagine this in relation to a believer, perhaps a relative or friend, and discover if the feeling of forlornness can arise empathetically out of concern.) Second Task: The Writing Assignment
Number your responses:
A. Describe your experience. Take the time to do so as completely as you are able.
B. How did this exercise affect your understanding of the section regarding forlornness, if not the entire article? Justify your response with direct reference to your own experience of imagining and reading, not to general ideas about what you think is the case gathered from any other source.
C. Relate your experience to the content of Sartre's article, especially concerning, first, his specific reference to Dostoevsky, and, second, his discussion of the case of one of his students. Be as descriptive as you are able, using direct quotations as support.
D. What is your opinion of Sartre's sense of what this means to morality? Use quotations to help explain your view.