Existentialism

Existentialists seem to be arguing that philosophers and philosophical traditions so far have been
concentrating on what is common to all human beings. In other words, there is an overemphasis on
what constitutes the essence of man, which is understood in various ways. While the religious and
theological literature links it with God, the secular and rational traditions have been emphasizing on
human nature which was often identified with universal rationality. Opposing this prevailing trend the
existential philosophers stress on the problems concrete human beings encounter in their life. They
prefer to understand the concrete man and his problems, without isolating him/her from his/her social,
political and cultural contexts. They raise several issues pertaining to the concrete human existence.
In general most of them emphasize on the finiteness and situatedness of human existence .
Existentialism is characterized by a reaction of the philosophy of man against the excesses of the
philosophy of ideas and the philosophy of things. It attempts to understand existence in a concrete
sense of living or lived reality, by focusing on the individual and concrete manifestations of human
existence.
it tries to understand human existence not in terms of some fundamental rational concepts, as it was
done by many past masters like Plato, Descartes, Kant, Hegel etc. it shows no interest in an a priori
and impersonal conception of human
reality. Instead, it focuses on the concrete living individual in his actual preoccupation with himself
and the world. Existentialism broadly tries to derive the meaning of the individual man from living or
lived experiences of concrete individuals and their surroundings.
Most of the existentialist thinkers emphasize the importance of an individual man living his own life,
rather than just being a member in the crowd. They all consider existential questions like death,
meaning of human existence, God and man, values in life, nature of relationships etc., as important.
In their attempt to emphasize the concrete human reality, they suspend all
questions on the universal and objective values such as the essence of man, value and meaning
etc. They rather give importance to questions concerning human freedom and choices and other
issues related to this like dread, anxiety etc.

Kierkegaard
Man was "very much an individual [who had] ... the inalienable right to be himself."
Against rationalism/Hegel
He was against all abstract theorization and absolutism that abolished the concrete individual; he
opposed the rational explanations past philosophers had given in order to justify Gods existence.
Kierkegaard saw rationality as a mechanism humans use to counter their existential anxiety, their
fear of being in the world.
Kierkegaard also stressed that individuals must choose their own way without the aid of universal,
objective standards.
In an effort to move away from the highly objective approach of rationalism, toward a more
subjective, emotive view of life, Kierkegaard developed the argument that subjective feelings should
be considered to be deeper than mere momentary sensations. They should be taken seriously,
believed with conviction and accepted as truth. Kierkegaard believed that it was only when individuals
accepted their own feelings with a "passion", that they would be able to become "an authentic human
being." .
Kierkegaards existentialism provided a choice whereby individuals could be either objective in
their reasoning and therefore totally pessimistic about life, or subjective in their
assessments, and therefore emotionally positive, but with no hope.
Although he believed that individuals should take a more subjective approach to life, he did not
deny the possibility of the objective realm. He did however think of objective facts as
senseless unless they actually took on a meaning to the individual. This resulted in
Existentialism being a split worldview with faith and reason opposing each other. For Kierkegaard it

was only possible for an individual to believe in one or the other, but never both. A negative result of
Existentialism has been the willingness
Subjectivity and personal choice are central themes in his thought and subjective and personal things
are more important than objective and universal realities. Everything is subjective and personal and
objectivity is a myth. He repeatedly asserts that subjective and personal choice is the crux of human
existence. In this connection he talks about three major spheres of existence an individual can
chose to live in; aesthetic, ethical and religious. In the aesthetic sphere, one lives for physical or
intellectual pleasure and seeks the most immediately pleasing. In the ethical level, one accepts moral
responsibility and leads a life of duty to the moral law. The third stage is the highest one, where one
devotes ones life to God. Here one gives up everything; ethical standards and even the idea of
universal good.
Truth is subjectivity.
The concept of subjectivity is central to Kierkegaard, which led him to believe that while such a
thing as objective knowledge does exist, it is usually perceived subjectively by human beings. This
has the implication that most forms of communication, especially on subjects such as philosophy, is
indirect communication, where the recipient must experience for himself the thing being
communicated.
Rationality and knowledge are based on the premise that truth is objective, impersonal, a relationship
between a belief and the world. But the truth about human existence is not something about which
we are simply intellectually curious but is rather something about which we care deeply. Our caring
about it determines it as something different from other things; that is, what it is depends on how we
feel about it. Our existence and salvation are meaningful not because they correspond to some
objective fact but because our interest in them is unconditioned and passionate, without any inner
reservations or doubt. This entails:
The leap of faith: there is ultimately no justification for the belief in eternal life and God's existence;
the gap between the finiteness of our comprehension and the infinity of the justification is
incommensurable. Only a leap of faith can surmount the gap. Religious belief must be just that--a
belief for which one cannot give rational justification. Knowledge of moral directives is rationally
possible on a universal level but not on the personal level, and doing something because it is the
socially acceptable (or aesthetic) thing to do involves no faith at all. Moral knowledge is general, faith
in salvation is particular. The leap of faith is not irrational as much as beyond rationality.
Since there was no way of proving God's existence as an object, one can only accept a
belief, blindly and irrationally, that there is some agent called "God" who will effect one's
enlightenment. Thus, religion can only be determined for each individual by a "leap" of faith.
Choice
In order to define one's self, it is necessary to make a choice, which is another essential element of
Kierkegaard's philosophy.
This choice is one which must be made by the person himself, and which is ultimately unlimited by
anything external to him. While the choice may be influenced by such things as expectations of
others, peer pressure, or social norms, the decision on whether or not to follow such influences is
merely another choice that the individual must make.
The one thing that characterizes any important choice is that it will also carry certain consequences
with it, which may be irreversible once the choice is made, and which the individual will have to live
with. To take one example of Kierkegaard's, one may decide to marry or not to marry. If one decides to
marry, one voluntarily accepts to honor certain commitments and responsibilities, which may make
other choices in the future impossible. If one decides not to marry, on the other hand, the bride of
choice will probably eventually marry someone else, and the opportunity is gone. Either way, whether
one decides to marry or not to marry, there will be consequences and thus also potential for regrets.
Existence
"I reason from existence, not towards existence."
In an argument, one gives reasons, grounds, and evidence for the acceptance of a conclusion.
Existence must be assumed in the premises; it cannot be proved. Occasionally, this point is expressed
in Immanuel Kant's words as "Existence is not a predicate."

The conflict between the ethical and the religious

The conflict is shown in the "teleological suspension of the ethical" of Abraham's decision to sacrifice
his son in obedience to God's command. Abraham got his son back after proving his faith, showing
that with God anything is possible. Abraham showed that one can be forced to disregard ethics if God
commands it, which is the paradoxical nature of religion. Kierkegaard begins to see that there are
three spheres, though he doesn't state it explicitly; the third sphere is the "religious," higher than the
ethical. He also sees that God can accomplish what to the human mind is absurd, and by having faith
in the absurd, one can recover what was lost(Abraham got his son back).
Anxiety and Freedom
The Concept of Anxiety, considered in the context of Adam's original sin, describes anxiety as a stage
that is necessary before one makes the leap of faith into Christianity, the stage where one shudders
at one's freedom. Anxiety can lead to sin, sin compounds the anxiety of freedom, and freedom is lost
through sin; this cycle of sinfulness and anxiety can be broken only by faith.
Kierkegaard asserts that anxiety preceded Adam's sin. Anxiety is not itself sin, but is the natural
reaction of the soul when faced with the yawning abyss of freedom. When God commanded Adam not
to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the terms "good" and "evil", so says Kierkegaard,
would have had no significance for him. His ignorance was indeed bliss. But the awful predicament of
freedom, before and apart from sin, yielded anxiety. There is also an anxiety that is a manifestation of
sinfulness,

Sartre
He conceived freedom as an inevitable feature of human existence and asserts that, man is
condemned to be free,
There are various possibilities for man to cope up with his existential situation. He may either try to
escape from it taking recourse in religious or metaphysical doctrines about universal human nature,
or simply by running away from it and remaining unreflective about his life and his destiny. Or he may
face it and try to make sense of what he does with a conscious awareness about his limitations and
freedom. Hence, in a broad sense, there are authentic and inauthentic ways of existence. According to
Sartre, those men who refuse to take responsibility refuse to accept that they are free.
They wish to believe that they are conditioned by factors which are not under their control. Sartre
calls this bad faith. This is to exist inauthentically. One has to accept ones existential situation,
which consists in realizing ones finitude on the one hand and freedom on the other.
Living a life defined by one's occupation, social, racial, or economic class, is the very essence of "bad
faith", the condition in which people cannot transcend their situations in order to realize what they
must be (human) and what they are not (waiter, grocer, etc.). The great human stream arises from a
singular realization that nothingness is a state of mind in which we can become anything.
Very few philosophers other than Jean-Paul Sartre have emphasized as much that we are entirely
responsible for not only what we are but also what we will be.
If we look at ourselves and find that we are unhappy or we are in circumstances which limit us, then
Sartre states we have only ourselves to blame.
A. We cannot blame our parents or teachers or friends for their influence. For, if they have influenced
us, it is because we have allowed them to do so.
B. Insofar as we allow others to influence what we really want, we are inauthentic human beings living
in bad faith.
We usually become this way through "trying to get along." We do not have the moral courage to "lead
our own lives" and set up our own projects. Instead, we drift from thing to thing, being "controlled," so
we think, by external circumstances.
1. Explain what "existence precedes essence" means.

Existence: the fact of being, the presence of something, the "thisness," "that it is."
Essence: the kind of thing it is, the blueprint, plan, or description, the nature of the thing, "what it is."
A. Sartre wants to maintain that man intrinsically has no nature. That is, he is thrown into this world,
not of his own making, and is condemned to determine what he will be. In other words, our "existence
precedes our essence." We exist first and determine our essence by means of choice.
B. Contrast this view with mainstream Christianity. Man's nature comes first--man is a sinner.
Consequently, here, essence precedes existence, since man is entirely subject to God's plan or
blueprint.
c. Contrast Sartre's view with the construction of a table. The carpenter has in mind the nature of the
table and works from a plan. From sawing, sanding, nailing, and so on, the table comes into existence.
Hence, in this case, "essence precedes existence."
2. What is the significance of the statement, "Man is a being who hurls himself toward a
future"?
A. Essentially, this statement means what we will be is what we choose. As Ortega put it, "We are the
novelist of our lives." We can choose to be creative, dull, or a plagiarist.
B. As Sartre writes, we are a plan aware of itself. "Man is nothing else than his plan: he exists only to
the extent that he fulfills himself; he is therefore nothing else than the ensemble of his acts, nothing
else than his life."
3. Explain why existentialists believe that "in choosing myself, I choose man."
A. Through our choices, we determine or create what we will be. In those choices, we choose
according to what we believe we ought to be. (Compare this view to theSocratic Paradox that we are
unable to choose the bad.)
B. Consequently, we are creating ourselves according to what we think a person ought to be. This
image is, then, what we think man ought to be. You are responsible for what you are and, as well, you
are responsible for everyone since you choose for mankind.
c. You create an image of man as it ought to be, since we are unable to choose the worse. In a sense,
in deciding, I'm putting a universal value to my act by deciding in accordance with the belief that all
persons in this situation should act in this manner.
4. What causes anguish in humans? In what ways do we deny this anguish?
A. Our choices are a model for the way everyone should choose. If we deny this fact, we are in selfdeception. If we say, "Everyone will not act as I have done," then we are giving a universal value to
the denial.
B. How can we know what to do? How could Abraham know it was the voice of God who told him to
sacrifice his son Isaac? There are no omens; there are no signs by which to decide.
c. We are responsible for ourselves--we are the sole authority of our lives. We cannot give up this
responsibility except thought self-deception or bad faith.
d. The anguish results from the direct responsibility toward others who are affected by our
actions. (E.g., the military leader who chooses to advance, knowing full well that many will die. )
E. Sartre labels the experience of this extended responsibility (which he takes to be an
unavoidable aspect of the human condition) anguish, likening it to the feeling of responsibility
experienced by a military leader whose decisions have possibly grave consequences for the soldiers
under his command. Like Abraham whom God instructed to sacrifice his son, we are in a state of

anguish performing actions, the outcome of which we cannot ascertain, with a great weight of
responsibility: Everything happens to every man as though the whole human race had its eyes fixed
upon what he is doing and regulated its conduct accordingly
5. Why is forlornness a result of the human condition?
A. Forlornness or abandonment is the consequences of the belief that we are our only source of value.
We can't count on God's forgiveness or a pat on the shoulder. God is not the source of value; value
can't come from above.
B. Sometimes this point is put following Dostoevsky and Nietzsche: "If God did not exist, everything
would be permitted." The inauthentic rejoinder, in Sartre's view would be, "If God did not exist it
would be necessary to invent Him." We must take responsibility for our own choices.
c. What can we find to depend upon? There are no means of justification or excuse for our
actions. We do not have an external standard known to be right. None of the following are
excuses:
"I
"I
"I
"I

did
did
did
did

it
it
it
it

because
because
because
because

I'm a Christian"
God commands it."
to err is human."
I am only human."

6. In what sense is humanity "condemned to be free"?

A. We are condemned to be free because we are responsible for what we choose to be.
B. The following are not excuses for how we act: from passion, "That's the way I am," "I couldn't help
myself," "See what you made me do," and "I just had to do it." These all entail choices we have made.
c. We are condemned to be free because we read the signs as we choose. We are condemned to
establish our own values. As Margaret Anderson once wrote, "What an error it is to believe that
suffering alone is enough for self-development. If it were, our planet would already be covered with
saints and angels. Suffering kills some people; others are deformed by it; some become mad; only a
few improve or progress. One must have more knowledge to benefit by suffering."
7. How does Sartre define despair? Give an example showing this concept.
A. We act without hope because we cannot know in advance the consequences of our choices in the
world. To choose not to choose is a choice, so we must choose.
B. Despair results because there is no final authority but ourselves to help us choose
rightly. We must choose without ever knowing the consequences of the choice.
c. If I try to stop a robbery in progress, and the thief shoots someone, I'll never know whether I did the
right thing. I cannot predict the potential help or harm that result from my actions, yet I am fully
responsible for the consequences of my actions.

I am thus responsible for myself and for all men

1. Not only am I responsible for everything that I am, but also when choosing any particular action
I not only commit myself to it but am choosing as a legislator deciding for the whole of
mankind . So, to take an example Sartre uses, if I choose to marry and to have children I
thereby commit not only myself but the whole of humankind to the practice of this form of
monogamy.
2. in choosing himself, he is choosing for all men [universalizability]
choosing => creating/ fashioning an image of man as we think he ought to be,
choosing affirms the value of what we choose.

responsibility is greater because it is applying to all [in order to be consistent, I have to

accept that a person similarly placed to me should do as I do it would be inconsistent
to say that I should do this but others shouldnt, or that others should but I dont have to
choosing to act in a way that you dont think could be universalized is immoral like Kantian
ethics but with a relativist rider similarly placed to me]

Phenomenological Ontology
Phenomenology is the study of how phenomena present or appear in consciousness. Ontology is the
study of being. Thus, phenomenological ontology can be defined as the study of the nature of being of
phenomena as they present in consciousness.
Sartre distinguishes between two modes of being: Being-in-itself and Being-for-itself .
Being-in-itself is non-conscious Being, the Being of existing things or objects of
consciousness. It "is what it is".
Sartre describes this type of being as "opaque" and "solid", not simply because we apprehend
these objects "from without", or as they appear to consciousness, but because they in fact
have no "within" that could be distinguished from that "without"; that is, this type of being has
no self-reference or capacity for reflexivity (28).
Being-for-itself is conscious. Being-for-itself "is defined as being what it is not and not being
what it is.
Being-for-itself, by contrast, is the type of being had by consciousness. It is distinguished first
and foremost from being-in-itself because it is "transparent", which means that it is always
directed towards a transcendent object.
Being-for-itself is conscious of itself. Indeed, consciousness can exist only as engaged in a being
conscious of itself. Being-for-itself is consciousness of objects, and can be the object of its own
consciousness; i.e. it is conscious that it is conscious of objects. Consciousness also includes selfconsciousness.
Sartre emphasizes that all consciousness is consciousness of something. This is an ontological proof
of what appears in consciousness. If consciousness can only be consciousness of something other
than itself, then what appears in consciousness must already exist.

Heidegger
Martin Heideggers main interest was to raise the issue of Being, that is, to make sense of our
capacity to make sense of things.
Heideggers study, however, was of a specific type of Being, the human being, referred to by
Heidegger as Dasein, which literally means Being-there.
Heidegger was concerned that philosophy should be capable of telling us the meaning of Being,
of the where and what Dasein is.[ It is simply Being, and therefore, the most general
feature of everything that is. It is thus the most universal concept, which is
indefinable in terms of other concepts.]
In order to understand Being, one must first understand the being of man, the Dasein or the
being-in-the-world. This is because, Dasein is the kind of Being who raises the question of
Being.
There is a fundamental distinction between Being and entities, a fact which is not properly recognized
due to forgetfulness. Example. When I listen to music, read a book, perceive an object, I relate myself
to something and comport myself to it. In this context, it is the music or the object I perceive. I
comport myself to them as an entity. It is something that is there. Heidegger now says that, what it is
for something to be is not itself an entity. In other words, the Being of entities itself is not an entity.
But any form of comportment to anything presupposes an understanding of Being, as without such an
understanding there cannot be a comport to entities as entities. Before we raise the question of Being
we have an understanding of Being.

Ontological structure is the kind of structure that Heidegger wants to get at--he wants, in the Dasein
Analytic, to uncover the fundamental structures of Human existence.
Furthermore, in an example of Freedom, we can say that the structure of Freedom is peculiar to
human beings and not to things. This distinction between structures that pertain to Human
Being and not to other kinds of beings, this distinction is what lies behind a distinction
Heidegger will make between existentials and categories. Thus, in our example, 'Freedom'
would be and existential while, say, 'hardness' (which pertains to 'things') would be a category.
So we can say that Heidegger in the Dasein Analytic wants to uncover the existential structures of
Human existence.
The 'essence' of Dasein lies in its Existenz (Existenz here to be taken in a dynamic, active, future
oriented sense). Now these two characteristics of Dasein are unified in two modes of Existenz:
(a)authentic (eigentliche) existence
(b) inauthentic (uneigentliche) existence
This means that there are two ways in which human beings can 'take up' their existence (for in each
case it is their existence) viz. either as their own (authenticity) or, in some sense, as not their own
(inauthenticity).
For instance (i) a person who realizes that they are choosing their life style or (ii) a person who is
simply fulfilling a pre-designed role in their society, family, peer group etc.
Both people exist and both people have an existence that is theirs but the former involves an element
of choice that is not clearly present in the latter.
Temporality
On the one hand, Dasein, as mortal, is "stretched along" between birth and death, and thrown into its
world, that is, thrown into itspossibilities, possibilities which Dasein is charged with the task of
assuming. .On the other hand, Dasein's access to this world and these possibilities is always via a
history and a traditionthis is the question of "world historicality," and among its consequences is
Heidegger's argument that Dasein's potential for authenticity lies in the possibility of choosing a
"hero."
Firstly, he is trying to criticise the idea of time as a uniform, linear and infinite series of "now-points".
On this model, which derives ultimately from Aristotle's Physics, the future is the not-yet-now, the
past is the no-longer-now, and the present is the now that flows from future to past at each passing
moment. This is what Heidegger calls the "vulgar" or ordinary conception of time where priority is
always given to the present
Secondly, the idea of being-towards-death leads to the idea of anticipation( in anticipation, I project
towards the future, but what comes out of the future is my past, my personal and cultural baggage,
what Heidegger calls my "having-been-ness"), namely that the human being is always running ahead
towards its end. For Heidegger, the primary phenomenon of time is the future that is revealed to me
in my being-towards-death. Heidegger makes play of the link between the future (Zukunft) and to
come towards (zukommen). Insofar as Dasein anticipates, it comes towards itself. The human is not
confined in the present, but always projects towards the future.
The key to Heidegger's understanding of time is that it is neither simply reducible to the vulgar
experience of time, nor does it originate in distinction from eternity. Time should be grasped in and of
itself as the unity of the three dimensions what Heidegger calls "ecstases" of future, past and
present. This is what he calls "primordial" or "original" time and he insists that it is finite. It comes to
an end in death.