Where to, humanity?

PW 101-108


1. What did Kierkegaard think is the purpose of existence? What philosophical movement did his view help to establish? What did he mean by "subjective truth"?

2. What did Feuerbach mean by "Man ist was Man isst"? Was he talking mainly about food?

3. What did Feuerbach and Marx do to Hegel's philosophy ("dialectic")?


4. "Man does not live for pleasure. Only the Englishman does." Which Englishmen in particular did Nietzsche probably have  in mind? What principle was at the heart of Mill's liberalism? How did Mill's empiricism impact biology and challenge Aristotle?

5. What theory, now famously associated with whom, did Alfred Russell Wallace nearly claim as his own? What momentous questions does it pose?

6. Nietzsche suggested that humans are a bridge from what to what? What did this throw into question? What did he mean by "the last man"? What ethical philosophy would "the last man" exemplify?

7. Why did Nietzsche like the ancient Greeks' view of suffering, and what did he like about Greek tragedy? What did he dislike about Christian redemption, Schopenhauer's pessimism, and scientific optimism? What was his view of technology? What did he consider the meaning of life?

8. How did Nietzsche think "eternal recurrence" might alter one's view of life? Why didn't he like Plato?