Philosophy and Literature Flashcards
Grade 12 · English · Flashcards
Essential philosophical concepts, thinkers, and literary connections for advanced analysis.
Flashcards
- Existentialism
- Philosophical movement (Sartre, Camus, de Beauvoir) holding that humans have no fixed essence and must create meaning through free, authentic choices.
- Absurdism (Camus)
- The philosophy that the human need for meaning meets the universe's silence, producing 'the absurd'; one must revolt by living fully despite this.
- Nihilism
- The view that life has no inherent meaning or moral truth; explored critically (not endorsed) by Dostoevsky through characters like Raskolnikov and Ivan Karamazov.
- Bad Faith (Sartre)
- Self-deception in which a person denies their freedom by pretending they are forced to act by circumstance, role, or nature ('I had no choice').
- The Absurd Hero
- Camus's model of the person who acknowledges life's meaninglessness yet revolts by living passionately; Sisyphus is the archetypal example.
- Nietzsche — God Is Dead
- From *The Gay Science*: the Enlightenment has undermined the foundations of religious morality; humanity must now create its own values.
- Übermensch (Overman)
- Nietzsche's concept of a self-overcoming individual who creates new values beyond conventional morality; often misappropriated but central to Nietzsche's philosophy.
- Alienation (Marx/Kafka)
- A condition of estrangement from one's work, society, or self; Kafka dramatizes alienation through protagonists crushed by opaque bureaucratic systems.
- Dostoevsky — The Grand Inquisitor
- A chapter in *The Brothers Karamazov* where Ivan argues humans prefer comfort and authority to genuine freedom—a critique of institutional religion.
- Stoicism in Literature
- Philosophy of reason, acceptance, and virtue; present in Marcus Aurelius's *Meditations* and echoed in characters who endure hardship with equanimity.
- Phenomenology
- Philosophical method (Husserl, Heidegger) studying the structure of conscious experience; influenced existentialist literature's focus on subjective perception of reality.
- Platonic Idealism in Literature
- The idea that the physical world is a shadow of perfect eternal Forms; echoed in literature through characters pursuing ideal beauty, truth, or justice.
- No Exit (Sartre)
- 1944 play in which three dead characters trapped in a room torture each other with judgment—dramatizing the existentialist claim that consciousness is defined by others' gaze.
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