Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2018 July 2

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July 2

"How do you justify your existence?"

I've long enjoyed the Black Widowers stories, written by Isaac Asimov beginning in 1971. At the end of a dinner, the members of a dining club ask the invited external guest to justify his (it's always a man - or at least that's the rule) existence. I've now started reading L. Sprague de Camp's The Bronze God of Rhodes (with a listed copyright of 1960), set in early hellenistic Rhodes, where the author describes a dining society of the Seven Strangers, also inviting guests and asking them to justify their existence. Apparently both Asimov and de Camp were members of the Trap Door Spiders, a literary dining club, which follows a similar tradition. Does anybody know if that particular format (asking a guest to justify his existence) was invented by the Trap Door Spiders and borrowed by both Asimov and de Camp, or if it has an older root, possibly going back to ancient symposia? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:41, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

The issue here is what exactly is meant by "justify." It could be "Why do you exist?" It could be "Prove that you exist." If it is a request to prove that you exist, that concept can be easily traced back to the earliest forms of philosophy, a specialty for Aristotle. If it is a request to explain "why" you exist, it goes more into religion, which again is easily traced back to early discussions about God (or gods) and the immortal soul. Contemporary with Aristotle, Plato wrote a lot about that, such as his Phaedo. Plato and Aristotle are considered the fathers of Western philosophy. So, either way you work it, you can trace it back to the beginnings of philosophy. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 12:17, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

209.149, if you read Asimov, you will see that it is neither. It is more: what value do you, a specific individual, bring to this specific world we all live in? That is: tell us why is the world better with you in it rather than without.

Sorry Mr Schultz, I don't know the answer on whether the spiders where the first to formally setup a regular session with this question.--Lgriot (talk) 14:08, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

To me it sounds like a demand to justify their right to exist. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:09, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

That is certainly not what was meant by its use in the Black Widower stories (my copies of Tales . . . and More Tales . . . happen to reside a dozen steps from my desk). Lgriot's summing-up is as good as any, and each of the interrogated guests understand the intended meaning because the member who invited him has explained the procedure beforehand. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.0.113 (talk) 16:50, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

And if someone can't provide a satisfactory answer, what happens to him? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:13, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

The inimitable waiter Henry solves their problem. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:48, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for clearing that up. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:24, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

Rather unfortunately, the "Right to exist" is an attribute of nation-states and searching for those terms gets you into a ton of Arab/Israeli dead-ends. The "Right to life" is the proper philosophical term, but has been extensively used by the anti-abortion movement and likewise leads to a lot of dead-ends. In other words, this is going to be a very sticky topic to search for using search engines; we may need to rely on someone knowing the answer (or at least part of it). The closest I can get to is the concept of an "apology" (in the sense of a defense), with the apology of Socrates being the most famous. From there you get into Apologetics, but that's the defense of a belief, rather than the defense of a person's right to exist. Matt Deres (talk) 13:35, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

The formula from the US Declaration of Indepdendence was inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Jefferson in turn drew from Locke's Two Treatises of Government. I don't know what influences Locke drew on but I think the earlier presumption was basically that everyone was supposed to serve the monarch, who ruled by divine right and could shout "off with their heads!" if he or she was having a bad hair day. Locke's book tried to establish natural rights from first principles and it had a lot of influence, though when I had to read it in school I thought it was wretched. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 06:58, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

The "divine right of Kings" is a medieval idea, and has no tradition in the Greek polis. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:46, 5 July 2018 (UTC)