Existentialism is a Humanism.
Elephants cry at bones!
Bah! No they don't, you're just putting anthropic characteristics on them 'cos you're sad and lonely.
Grief is universal, this is obvious. Don't get all Nagel.
So if we take your wild accusations to another stage - does a lion (for example) misinterpret human activities with it's own species bias? HUH?
Possessive apostrophes are your friends.
And yes, I'd imagine that a lion believes that humans are competition for the deer or whatever that it wants to eat etc.
Grief is clearly not universal, does a stone feel sad when its partner is erased? Of course not.
So if yes, then there is a universal, right? So there is no need to accuse me of anthropic attributions. Why is grief one, and not empathy (since empathy is what is involved in the imagination and speculation of the other creature's motives)?
And I'd say that yes, a stone would feel sad if it was particularly fond of the erased stone. I can't imagine spending millennia with another stone in a river bed and then not feeling loss if it was erased.
What does your conversation have to do with M&B?
Err... no. Empathy != false attribution of motivation. I would argue that these lions lack Philosophy of Mind and therefore see not others as separate beings from themselves. Therefore others in their view must share their motivations etc.
Also, your lack of imagination is not my issue to address.
What does your conversation have to do with M&B?
Is it biological, or?
What is the essence of this bump?
Existentialism is a humanism, but that doesn't mean that other animals cannot have emotions such as empathy. Elephants do experience empathy, and yet they are not existentialists, the terms are not exclusive. To make it more clear, you don't have to know why you are experiencing an emotion in order to experience it, neither do elephants.
Also, I would love a philosophical-type board.
Existentialism is a humanism, but that doesn't mean that other animals cannot have emotions such as empathy. Elephants do experience empathy, and yet they are not existentialists, the terms are not exclusive. To make it more clear, you don't have to know why you are experiencing an emotion in order to experience it, neither do elephants.
Also, I would love a philosophical-type board.
Existentialism is most easily defined as a philosophical movement concerning the individual, and individual freedom or lack thereof. It's also deeply concerned (particularly 20th Century onwards) with experience, and the nature of it.
This doesn't rule out animals at all! Not a humanism.
Also, I'd like you to demonstrate that there exists no elephant who could be described as an existentialist. What else is there to do in the African grasslands or Indian forests except ponder existence? Other than eat, of course.
As for emotions, which is a different issue: I think you always know why you are experiencing an emotion. If you didn't know why, you wouldn't be able to experience it. Have you ever experienced an emotion but not know why? I can't think of an example of this being the case, personally.
Errr... existentialism being a humanism would actually kinda imply that it is ultimately concerned with humanity's existence. Thereby also rather suggesting that the essence of an elephant precedes its existence, giving an elephant little more dignity than a paper-knife.
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Plus, I'm pretty sure this elephant's an existentialist:(click to show/hide)
Not really, an incapability to ponder one's existence doesn't degrade one into an inanimate object.
Of course it does, by attempting to view them as lacking the liberty and dignity of humans, you're making them into deterministic machines, beings for which their essence precedes their existence.
I'll just use your own words against you... You are prescribing anthropic characteristics to animals.
To make it clear for you: non-humans are not humans, they do not possess qualities which we attribute exclusively (you said it yourself in the bolded) to humans.
I have experienced many emotions for reasons I was not aware of, or more precisely, I can't always pin-point exact answers to all dilemmas in my life. I have to ponder them, and even then an answer might take days, weeks, months, or even years for the most complex (emotionally zerged) "problems". Also emotions are based on the current neurons that are being fired off in your brain, you don't always have an exact count of every single sub-type during every millisecond. You also can't predict the way you will respond to every single situation.