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Existentialism
 

Existentialism is a philosophical movement that is generally considered a study that pursues meaning in existence and seeks value for the existing individual. Existentialism, unlike other fields of philosophy, does not treat the individual as a concept, and values individual subjectivity over objectivity. As a result, questions regarding the meaning of life and subjective experience are seen as being of paramount importance, above all other scientific and philosophical pursuits. Existentialism often is associated with anxiety, dread, awareness of death, and freedom. Famous existentialists include Sartre, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Camus, and Heidegger.

Existentialism emphasizes action, freedom, and decision as fundamental to human existence and is fundamentally opposed to the rationalist tradition and to positivism. That is, it argues against definitions of human beings either as primarily rational, knowing beings who relate to reality primarily as an object of knowledge, or for whom action can or ought to be regulated by rational principles, or as beings who can be defined in terms of their behavior as it looks to or is studied by others. More generally it rejects all of the Western rationalist definitions of being in terms of a rational principle or essence or as the most general feature that all existing things share in common. Existentialism tends to view human beings as subjects in an indifferent, objective, often ambiguous, and "absurd" universe in which meaning is not provided by the natural order, but rather can be created, however provisionally and unstably, by human beings' actions and interpretations.

Although there are certain common tendencies among existentialist thinkers, there are major differences and disagreements among them, and not all of them even affiliate themselves with or accept the validity of the term "existentialism". In German, the phrase Existenzphilosophie (philosophy of existence) is also used.

Historical background

Existential themes have been hinted at throughout the history of western philosophy, including Socrates and his life, the Bible in the Book of Ecclesiastes and the Book of Job, Saint Augustine in his Confessions, and Descartes' Meditations. Individualist politics, such as those advanced by John Locke, advocated individual autonomy and self-determination rather that the state ruling over the individual. Certain essentialist theologists have been shown to have existential philosophical ideals (Saint Thomas, etc...). This kind of political philosophy, although not existential in nature, provides a welcoming climate for existentialism.

In 1670, Blaise Pascal published his book Pensées. In the work, he described many fundamental themes of existentialism. Pascal argued that without a God, life would be meaningless and miserable. People would only be able to create obstacles and overcome them in an attempt to escape boredom. These token-victories would ultimately become meaningless, since people would eventually die. This was good enough reason not to choose to become an atheist according to Pascal.

Existentialism, in its currently recognizable 20th century form, was inspired by Søren Kierkegaard, Fyodor Dostoevsky and the German philosophers Friedrich Nietzsche, Edmund Husserl, and Martin Heidegger. It became popular in the mid-20th century through the works of the French writer-philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir whose versions of existentialism are set out in a popular form in Sartre's 1946 L'Existentialisme est un humanisme, translated as Existentialism is a Humanism.

Gabriel Marcel pursued theological versions of existentialism, most notably Christian existentialism. Other theological existentialists include Paul Tillich, Miguel de Unamuno, and Martin Buber. Moreover, one-time Marxist Nikolai Berdyaev developed a philosophy of Christian existentialism in his native Russia, and later in France, in the decades preceding World War II.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Arthur Schopenhauer are also important influences on the development of existentialism (although not direct precursors) because the philosophies of Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche were written in response or opposition to Hegel and Schopenhauer, respectively.

Kierkegaard and Nietzsche

The first philosophers considered fundamental to the existentialist movement are Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche, even though neither used the term 'existentialism'. Like Pascal, they were interested in people's concealment of the meaninglessness of life and their use of diversion to escape from boredom. However, what Pascal did not write about was that people can create and change their fundamental values and beliefs. Kierkegaard and Nietzsche realized that human nature and human identity vary depending on what values and beliefs humans hold. Luper, Steven. "Existing". Mayfield Publishing, 2000, p.4-5 Kierkegaard argued that "truth is subjectivity", meaning that what is most important to an existing being are questions dealing with an individual's inner relationship to existence. Ibid, p. 11 Objective truths (e.g. mathematical truths) are important, but detached or observational modes of thought can never truly comprehend human experience. Nietzsche argued that human existence is the "will to power", a desire to create and destroy as we please, in an artistic sense. Great individuals invent their own values and create the very terms under which they excel. Kierkegaard's knight of faith and Nietzsche's Übermensch are examples of those who define the nature of their own existence. In contrast, Pascal did not reason that human nature and identity are constituted by the free decisions and choices of people.

Kierkegaard and Nietzsche died too soon to be a part of the 20th century existentialist movement. They were unique philosophers and their works and influence are not limited to existentialism. They have been appropriated and seen as precursors to many other intellectual movements, including postmodernism and various strands of psychology. Thus, it is unknown whether they would have supported the existentialism of the 20th century or accepted tenets of Jean-Paul Sartre's version of it. Nevertheless, their works are precursors to many later developments in existentialist thought.

Heidegger and the German existentialists

In Germany, one of the first German existentialists was Karl Jaspers. Jaspers recognized the importance of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche and attempted to build an "existenz" philosophy around the two. Heidegger, who was influenced by Jaspers and the phenomenologist Edmund Husserl, wrote his most influential work Being and Time which postulates Dasein, literally being there, a being that is constituted by its temporality, illuminates and interprets the meaning of being in time. Dasein is sometimes considered the human subject, but Heidegger denies the Cartesian dualism of subject-object/mind-body.

Although existentialists view Heidegger to be an important philosopher in the movement, he vehemently denied being an "existentialist" in the Sartrean sense, and responded to Sartre in "A Letter about Humanism" denying his philosophy was existentialism.

Sartre and the French existentialists

Jean-Paul Sartre is perhaps the most well-known existentialist and is one of the few to have accepted being called an "existentialist". Sartre developed his version of existentialist philosophy under the influence of Husserl and Heidegger and Being and Nothingness is perhaps his most important work about existentialism. Sartre was also talented in his ability to espouse his ideas in different mediums, including philosophical essays, novels, plays and the theatre. No Exit and Nausea are two of his celebrated works. In the 1960s, he attempted to reconcile Existentialism and Marxism in his work the Critique of Dialectical Reason.

Albert Camus was a friend of Sartre, until their falling-out, and wrote several works with existential themes including The Rebel, The Stranger and The Myth of Sisyphus. He, like many others, rejected the existentialist label, and considered his works to be absurdist. In the Myth of Sisyphus, Camus uses the analogy of the Greek myth to demonstrate the futility of existence. Sisyphus is condemned to roll a rock up a hill for eternity. When he reached the summit the rock would roll back to the bottom again. Camus believes that while this existence constituted a pointless task, Sisyphus ultmately finds meaning and purpose in his task just by the very act of continually applying himself to it.

Simone de Beauvoir, who was a long time companion to Sartre, wrote about feminist and existential ethics in her works, including The Second Sex and Ethics of Ambiguity.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty an often overlooked existentialist was a companion or Sartre's. His understanding of Husserls phenomenology was far vaster than that of his fellow existentialist. He is extremely influential on Sartre due to his Humanism and Terror.

Dostoevsky, Kafka, and the literary existentialists

Writers not usually considered philosophers have also had a major influence on existentialism. Fyodor Dostoevsky is a Russian literary writer who wrote novels such as Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov. Notes from Underground details the story of a man unable to fit into society and is unhappy with identities he creates for himself. Franz Kafka created characters who struggle with hopelessness and absurdity.

In the 1950s and 1960s, existentialism experienced a resurgence of interest in popular artforms. In fiction, Jack Kerouac and the Beat poets adopted existentialist themes. Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf, based on an idea in Kierkegaard's Either/Or (1843), sold well in the West, and "arthouse" films began quoting and alluding to existentialist thought and thinkers. Existentialist novelists were generally seen as a mid-1950s phenomenon that continued until the mid- to late 1970s. Most of the major writers were either French or from French African colonies. Small circles of other Europeans were seen as literary existential precursors by the existentialists themselves, however, literary history increasingly has questioned the accuracy of this idealism for earlier models.

There is overlap between the expatriate American beat generation writers who found Paris their spiritual home, and writers of road novels; as well as the delayed action of the French discovery of American film noir, in the 1950s, after a decade of Nazi-Fascist censorship, which, as Truffaut and others in the Cahiers du Cinéma indicated, influenced novels and plays; to some extent, as well, the surrealist movement of Andre Breton and others, which questioned the established reality, made possible the isolation of non-academic novels protagonised by amoral anti-heroes.

The Belmondo school of existentialism, inspired by Genet, the criminal world, and French society's underclasses are seen now as a detective fiction sub-genre.

Existentialism since 1970

Although postmodernist thought became the focus of many intellectuals in the 1970s and thereafter (whether the movement is strong today, and what, if anything, has replaced it, still is debated), much postmodern writing considers similar themes as does existentialism.

One should, however, not confuse postmodernism with existentialism. Existential cinema deals more with the themes of:

  1. Retaining authenticity in an apathetic, mechanical world, something post-modernism would staunchly reject--as authenticity is related to a non-existent "reality".
  2. The consciousness of death; e.g. Heidegger's 'being towards death', exemplified in Ingmar Bergman's film "The Seventh Seal" (1957).
  3. The feelings of alienation and loneliness consequent to being unique in a world of indifferent others, or, in Kierkegaard phrase, "the crowd" or Nietzsche's "the herd"
  4. The concept Alltägliche selbstsein ("Everyday-ness," or ennui) which Heidegger explicated in his book Sein und Zeit (1927), (English translation Being and Time).

Since 1970, much cultural activity in art, cinema, and literature contains postmodern and existential elements, which, ironically, would support the postmodern thesis of "borderlessness between concepts". Books such as Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, by Philip K. Dick, and The Novel, by Michael Szymczyk all distort the line between reality and appearance while simultaneously espousing strong existential themes.

In cinema, postmodern editing techniques (showing the displacement, discontinuity, and temporal perspective of postmodernism) can go hand-in-hand with a purely existential story, thus synthesizing technique and function to give meaning. Moreover, this has created the neologism "Neo-Existentialism"--combining postmodernism's epistemology with the reflective ontological belief of existentialism.

Major concepts in existentialism

Existentialism differentiates itself from the modern Western rationalist tradition from Descartes to Husserl in rejecting the idea that the most certain and primary reality is rational consciousness. Descartes believed humans could doubt all existence, but could not will away or doubt the thinking consciousness, whose reality is therefore more certain than any other reality. Existentialism decisively rejects this argument, asserting instead that as conscious beings, humans always find themselves already in a world, a prior context and history that is given to consciousness and in which it is situated, and that humans cannot think away that world. It is inherent and indubitably linked to consciousness. In other words, the ultimate, certain, indubitable reality is not thinking consciousness but, according to Heidegger, "being in the world". This is a radicalization of the notion of intentionality that comes from Brentano and Husserl, which asserts that, even in its barest form, consciousness is always conscious of something.

On the existence of God, Sartre, unlike Kierkegaard, denies the existence of God. Sartre argues that without God, there is no higher power to define man. However, there are versions of existentialism that are religious. Theological existentialism as advocated by philosophers and theologians like Paul Tillich, Gabriel Marcel, and Martin Buber posits God's existence, as well as accepting many tenets of atheistic existentialism. Belief in God is a personal choice made on the basis of a passion, of faith, an observation or experience. Just as atheistic existentialists can freely choose not to believe, theistic existentialists can freely choose to believe in God and could, despite one's doubt, have faith that God exists and that God is good.

A third type of existentialism is agnostic. Again, it is a matter of choice to be agnostic. The agnostic existentialist makes no claim to know, or not know, if there is a "greater picture" in play; rather, he simply recognizes that the greatest truth is that which he chooses to act upon. The agnostic existentialist feels that to know the "greater picture", whether there is one or not, is impossible for human minds--or if it is not impossible, that at least he/she has not found it yet. Like Christian existentialists, the agnostic believes existence is subjective. However one feels about the issue, the act of finding knowledge of the existence of God often has little value because he/she feels it to be impossible, and to pretend to know is useless.

As mentioned above, philosophers associated with existentialism vary, sometimes greatly, over what "existentialism" is, and even if there is such a thing as "existentialism". One version, Sartrean existentialism, is elaborated below.

Sartrean existentialism

Some of the tenets associated with the existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre include:

  • existence precedes essence: This is a reversal of the Aristotlean premise that essence precedes existence, where man is created to fulfil some telos and life consists of fulfilling that goal. Unlike tools that are created to fulfill a purpose (e.g. a scissor is created for the express purpose to cut things), Sartrean existentialism argues man exists without purpose, finds himself in the world and defines the meaning of his existence.

  • Identities are constructed by the individual consciousness only: As an extension of the first tenet, the individual consciousness constructs a "self" or "identity" for itself. An "identity" can include beliefs, projects, and various other things of value. Sartre argues that no one else, including God if He existed, can choose your "identity" for you. Kierkegaard's knight of faith and Nietzsche's Übermensch are some such examples of those who create their own "identity".

  • Values are subjective: Sartre accepts the premise that something is valuable because the individual consciousness chooses to value it. Sartre denies there are any objective standards on which to base values.

  • Responsiblity for choices: The individual consciousness is responsible for all the choices he/she makes, regardless of the consequences. Sartre claims that to deny the responsibility is to be in bad faith. Here, existentialists draw on psychological concepts to investigate feelings such as angst and despair that arise by being in bad faith. Kierkegaard's works The Concept of Anxiety and The Sickness Unto Death are works that deal with such feelings.

  • condemned to be free: Because our actions and choices are ours and ours alone, we are condemned to be responsible for our free choices.

There are several terms Sartre uses in his works. Being in-itself are objects that are not free and cannot change its essence. Being for-itself are free: it does not need to be what it is and can change into what it is not. Consciousness is usually considered being for-itself. Sartre distinguishes between positional and non-positional consciousness. Non-positional consciousness is being merely conscious of one's surroundings. Positional consciousness puts consciousness into relation of one's surroundings. This entails an explicit awareness of being conscious of one's surroundings. Sartre argues identity is constructed by this explicit awareness of consciousness.

In Repetition, Kierkegaard wrote:

How did I get into the world? Why was I not asked about it, why was I not informed of the rules and regulations but just thrust into the ranks as if I had been bought by a peddling shanghaier of human beings? How did I get involved in this big enterprise called actuality? Why should I be involved? Isn't it a matter of choice? And if I am compelled to be involved, where is the manager—I have something to say about this. Is there no manager? To whom shall I make my complaint? Kierkegaard, Søren. Repetition in Kierkegaard's Writings, vol. 6, Princeton University Press, 1983
Building on this, Heidegger, and later Sartre, dubbed the term "throwness" to describe this idea that human beings are exposed to or "thrown" into, existence - in that we have no choice to come into existence. Existentialists consider being thrown into existence as prior to, and the horizon or context of, any other thoughts or ideas that humans have or definitions of themselves that they create.

Criticisms of existentialism

Herbert Marcuse criticized existentialism, especially in Sartre's Being and Nothingness, for projecting certain features, such as anxiety and meaninglessness, of the modern experience of living in an oppressive society, onto the nature of existence itself: "In so far as Existentialism is a philosophical doctrine, it remains an idealistic doctrine: it hypothesizes specific historical conditions of human existence into ontological and metaphysical characteristics. Existentialism thus becomes part of the very ideology which it attacks, and its radicalism is illusory" Marcuse, Herbert. "Sartre's Existentialism". Printed in Studies in Critical Philosophy. Translated by Joris De Bres. London: NLB, 1972. p. 161.

Theodor Adorno, in his Jargon of Authenticity, criticized Heidegger's philosophy, with special attention to his use of language, as a mystifying ideology of advanced industrial society and its power structure.

Roger Scruton claimed, in his book From Descartes to Wittgenstein, that both Heidegger's concept of inauthenticity and Sartre's concept of bad faith were incoherent; both deny any universal moral creed, yet speak of these concepts as if everyone were bound to abide them. In chapter 18, he writes,"In what sense Sartre is able to 'recommend' the authenticity which consists in the purely self-made morality is unclear. He does recommend it, but, by his own argument, his recommendation can have no objective force." Familiar with this sort of argument, Sartre claimed that bad and good faith do not represent moral ideas, rather, they are ways of being.

Logical positivists, such as Carnap and Ayer, claim that existentialists frequently become confused over the verb "to be" in their analyses of "being". The verb is prefixed to a predicate and to use the word without any predicate is meaningless. Borrowing Kant's argument against the ontological argument for the existence of God, they argue that existence is not a property.

Existentialism in psychotherapy

Sigmund Freud, whom we know Sartre refuted systematically, was very much affected in so many of his theories by Nietzsche. Some have supposed that Thanatos and Eros were closely related to Dionysian and Apollonian aspects of Nietzsche philosophy.

One of the major offshoots of Existentialism as a philosophy, is existential psychology. Sometimes termed the Third Force Psychology, this branch of psychology was initated by Rollo May and Carl Ransom Rogers, both of whom were influenced by Kierkegaard.

With complete freedom to decide and being responsible for the outcome of said decisions comes anxiety--or angst--about the choices made. Anxiety's importance in existentialism makes it a popular topic in psychotherapy. Therapists often use existential philosophy to explain the patient's anxiety. Psychotherapists using an existential approach believe that the patient can harness his or her anxiety and use it constructively. Instead of suppressing anxiety, patients are advised to use it as grounds for change. By embracing anxiety as inevitable, a person can use it to achieve his or her full potential in life.

Humanistic psychology also had major impetus from existential psychology. Logotherapy asserts that all human beings have a will to find meaning, and that serious behavioral problems develop when they cannot find it. The therapy helps patients handle the responsibility of choices and the pain of unavoidable suffering by helping them decide to give life meaning.

Existentialism in popular culture

  • The burlesque existentialist is a stock character of the popular imagination, dressed in black and uttering gnomic assertions about life and the universe.

  • During the witty introduction sequence of the 1957 film Love in the Afternoon it is said that "even existentialists" make love in Paris.

  • The 2004 film I Heart Huckabees revolved around two existential detectives, who aimed to help people solve their personal existential crises.

  • Straylight Run has a song called "Existentialism On Prom Night"

See also

References

Further reading

  • David E. Cooper, "Existentialism: A Reconstruction" (Blackwell, 1999)
  • Steven Luper, "Existing" (Mayfield Publishing, 2000)
  • Gordon Marino, "Basic Writings of Existentialism" (Modern Library Classics, 2004)
  • Robert Solomon, "Existentialism" (Oxford, 2004)
  • Richard Appignanesi, "Introducing Existentialism" (Icon Books, 2001)

External links

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