Basic Existentialism

Restrain your biases and suppress your notions as to what existentialism is. I seldom encounter individuals without “rubber stamp” answers for what is existential, what constitutes existentialism, and who were/are the existentialists. If you wish to learn something about existentialism — read on. If you seek dark, depressing thoughts about alienation and hopelessness… watch 24-hour news channels.

Those most often associated with “existentialism” failed to form a cohesive philosophical discipline based on existential theories. Existentialism, while taught at universities, cannot point to leaders in the same way idealism or rationalism can.

Kierkegaard and Nietzsche are forerunners of existentialism. If we want to thank, or blame, two men for radical individualism, we could start with them. There were others before them, but most texts on existentialism seem to firmly place them at the the base. Radical individualism is not existentialism, however.

Sartre came to declare existentialism a minor footnote to Marxism, which illustrates Sartre’s interests were more in politics than pure philosophical theory. Camus remained an absurdist, suggesting existentialism was more methodology than philosophy. Camus called existentialism “philosophical suicide” if used to ponder life. Considering Camus’ fascination with death, that’s quite a statement.

I call the existential attitude philosophical suicide. How else to start from the world’s lack of meaning and end up by finding a meaning and a depth to it?
- Albert Camus as paraphrased; Introducing Existentialism; Appignanesi, p. 36

Husserl and Heidegger were not existential, though they contributed to the development of phenomenology and, therefore, existentialism. Jaspers suggests existentialism, but it would be mental gymnastics to call him existential.

I advise visitors to read the lexicon following this introduction. Existentialism, and philosophy in general, is infected with a variety of lexicons, unfortunately. Definitions of words vary by philosopher; no two seem to use a word to mean the same thing. I have done my best to assemble a basic lexicon. When thinkers differ in meanings, I attempt to explain when, how, and why — if we can ever understand why people change words. (Ah, through the looking glass we venture.)

Existentialism is Living

Mankind is the only known animal, according to earth-bound existentialists, that defines itself through the act of living. In other words, first a man or woman exists, then the individual spends a lifetime changing his or her essence. Without life there can be no meaning; the search for meaning in existentialism is the search for self… which is why there is existential psychotherapy. (Imagine a therapist telling people life has no meaning!) In other words, we define ourselves by living; suicide would indicate you have chosen to have no meaning.

Existentialism is about being a saint without God; being your own hero, without all the sanction and support of religion or society.
- Anita Brookner (b. 1938), British novelist, art historian. Interview in Writers at Work, Eighth Series, ed. George Plimpton (1988).

Existentialism is not dark. It is not depressing. Existentialism is about life. Existentialists believe in living — and in fighting for life. Camus, Sartre, and even Nietzsche were involved in various wars because they believed passionately in fighting for the survival of their nations and peoples. The politics of existentialists varies, but each seeks the most individual freedom for people within a society.

All too often people link a lack of faith or secular beliefs with existential ideals. Existentialism has little to do with faith or the lack thereof. To quote Walter Kaufmann, one of the leading existential scholars:

Certainly, existentialism is not a school of thought nor reducible to any set of tenets. The three writers who appear invariably on every list of existentialists — Jaspers, Heidegger, and Sartre — are not in agreement on essentials. By the time we consider adding Rilke, Kafka, and Camus, it becomes plain that one essential feature shared by all these men is their perfervid individualism.
- Existentialism; Kaufmann, p. 11

In order to understand the current meaning of existentialism, one must first understand that the American view of existentialism was derived from the writings of three political activists, not intellectual purists. Americans learned the term existential after World War II. The term was coined by Jean-Paul Sartre to describe his own philosophies. It was not until the late 1950s that the term was applied broadly to several divergent schools of thought.

Despite encompassing a staggering range of philosophical, religious, and political ideologies, the underlying concepts of existentialism are simple:

• Mankind has free will.
• Life is a series of choices, creating stress.
• Few decisions are without any negative consequences.
• Some things are irrational or absurd, without explanation.
• If one makes a decision, he or she must follow through.

Existentialism, broadly defined, is a set of philosophical systems concerned with free will, choice, and personal responsibility. Because we make choices based on our experiences, beliefs, and biases, those choices are unique to us — and made without an objective form of truth. There are no “universal” guidelines for most decisions, existentialists believe. Instead, even trusting science is often a “leap of faith.”

The existentialists conclude that human choice is subjective, because individuals finally must make their own choices without help from such external standards as laws, ethical rules, or traditions. Because individuals make their own choices, they are free; but because they freely choose, they are completely responsible for their choices. The existentialists emphasize that freedom is necessarily accompanied by responsibility. Furthermore, since individuals are forced to choose for themselves, they have their freedom — and therefore their responsibility — thrust upon them. They are “condemned to be free.”

For existentialism, responsibility is the dark side of freedom. When individuals realize that they are completely responsible for their decisions, actions, and beliefs, they are overcome by anxiety. They try to escape from this anxiety by ignoring or denying their freedom and their responsibility. But because this amounts to ignoring or denying their actual situation, they succeed only in deceiving themselves. The existentialists criticize this flight from freedom and responsibility into self-deception. They insist that individuals must accept full responsibility for their behavior, no matter how difficult. If an individual is to live meaningfully and authentically, he or she must become fully aware of the true character of the human situation and bravely accept it.
- World Book Multimedia Encyclopedia © 2001 by World Book, Inc.
Ivan Soll, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy, University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Beyond this short list of concepts, the label existentialist is applied broadly. Even these concepts are not universal within existentialist works, or at least the writings of people groups as the existentialists. There is no one or two sentence statement summarizing what more than a dozen famous and infamous people pondered. The only common factor seems to be despair. The accompanying grid illustrates the range of ideals expressed by the major existentialists. Not every existentialist follows a perfect row in the grid. In particular, their political theories are more varied than the three categories listed.

The first row might represent the writings of Blaise Pascal or Fyodor Dostoevsky, both of whom defended fundamentalist religious beliefs, including their inherent contradictions. The last row is representative of Jean-Paul Sartre’s writings, if not his own beliefs. As previously stated, uniting the men and women behind this matrix of concepts is futile. Their thoughts are linked by a belief that this life is a near-futile struggle against forces aligned in opposition to the individual.

EXISTENTIALISM

• The philosophy became prominent after World War II. It emphasizes the

importance of individual responsibility. The student should act in such a way that every act should be as if it is his/her last. The student must be "true to him/herself. This may require for the student to go against the crowd, the mainstream.

• The teacher must not exert his/her wishes on the members of the class. Each student is an individual. Each student has his/her own personality. For a teacher to try to determine what is best for students is effectively to impose his/her wishes on the students, to dominate them. This is destructive of individuality and personality and is wrong.
• The only certainty is death. Everyone, students and teachers will die at some point in time. Consequently, education for death remains as a most important part of the curricula. Nonetheless, the students must freely choose it, and all other parts of the curriculum. The teacher must not exert her influence on curricular selections, for if she does she is not being an authentic person; she is seeking to exert her power on other individuals.
• Unlike the pragmatists that stress reason alone, the existentialists argue that persons are not only mind, but also feeling -- emotions. Consequently, students must learn to feel, to become an "authenticated individual."
• "Becoming" requires conflict and frustration by which persons grow in their personality and understanding.
• The teacher should not seek to exert his/her personality, his/her ideas on her students. Rather, s/he is to act as a resource person, a helper to students when they need assistance in developing understanding of a subject or the solution of problems. The teacher must encourage their creativity, their discovery, their inventiveness, but he/she should not attempt to direct them or impose her will on them.
• You're OK and I'm OK. I will not tell you what you should do and you will not tell me what I should do. As long as you do not impose your values and believes on me, as long as you do not interfere with me, I will not interfere with you. I will not direct you and you will not direct me.
• Content is important in order for students to develop their potentials to the fullest. The type of content most important, however, is to be found in the humanities, because the humanities relate to life and to living. The sciences deal with material things; they can stifle the person. History, sociology, anthropology, music, and art relate to the uplifting of the person, the ennobling of individuals. Overspecialization destroys the personhood.

Criticisms:

Carried to extremes, existentialism is a companion of anarchy. Furthermore,

modern education is a mass enterprise. It is not possible to individualize

the work of the school to provide specifics for each student. Moreover, we

live in society. Students are living and will continue to live in society.

External controls must exist of necessity. They are part of the socializing

process through which all must go through.

Basic Tenets of Existentialism

• Movement of the 19th and 20th centuries
• Became prominent after World War II
• Existentialism is a philosophical perspective or inclination rather than a complete system of thought
• Existentialism is not a uniform body of philosophical thought
• Existentialists have raised similar questions but have differed on the answers to those questions.

How can Existentialism be defined?

• As a kind of philosophizing that emphasizes the uniqueness and freedom of the individual person against the herd, the crowd, or the mass society.
• Emphasizes individual responsibility, individual personality, individual existence, and individual freedom and choice.
• Existentialists hold the belief that life’s most important questions are not accessible to reason or science.
• The only certainty for existentialists is death.
• In the existentialist world, each person is born, lives, chooses his or her course, and creates the meaning of his or her own existence.
• The basic thrust of the existentialist philosophizing is to portray the human struggle to achieve self-definition through choice.
• All people are fully responsible for the meaning of their own existence and creating their own essence of self-definition.
• Existentialist involvement calls for individual philosophizing about the persistent human consensus of life, love, death, and meaning.
• Knowledge of existentialist originates in and is composed of what exists in an individual’s consciousness and feelings as a result of one’s experiences; the validity of knowledge is determined.

6 Basic Themes of Existentialism

1. Man is conscious subject rather than a thing to be predicted or manipulated.

2. Anxiety -- a generalized uneasiness. The dread of the nothingness of human existence. This dark picture of human life leads existentialists to reject ideas such as happiness and a sense of well being.

3. Absurdity -- Each of us is simply here, having been thrown into this time and place, but why now?

4. Nothingness -- "I am my own existence, but my existence is nothingness."

5. Death -- The only certainty of life which hangs over existentialist head at each moment of life.

6. Alienation -- apart from the existentialists own conscious being, everything else is "otherness", from which he or she estranged.

Tenets of Existentialism Education

• The quest of an existentialism education is to cultivate an authentic person who is aware of freedom and that every choice is an art of personal value creation.
• Students freely choose all parts of the curriculum.
• Existentialist are mind and feeling students because they must learn to feel to become an "authenticated individual."
• Existentialist teachers should not influence students; they are only a resource that the students may choose to use for assistance

Existential Values

Are there underlying values common to existentialists? Is there an ethical system, or at least a common foundation for the various values expressed by existentialists? These are the questions posed frequently by students searching for the unifying themes in existential works. Accepting life is a series of choices always resulting in anxiety or despair, the existentialists appear to have no reason for moral behavior as determined by society.

The existentialists for their part have very little to say about the methods whereby value judgments may properly be established, and at times one has the impression that they, too, are dubious about the possibility of establishing value judgments as objective or universal truths. Heidegger and Sartre have gone so far as to say that they make no value judgments, even though such terms as “authenticity” and “inauthenticity” constantly recur in their writings. These terms, they say, are being used descriptively, not evaluatively. No one, however, has been deceived. Almost to a man, interpreters of Sartre and Heidegger have pointed to these declarations as instances of bad faith.
- An Introduction to Existentialism; Olson, p. 26

Existentialism does have an ethical foundation, however; the difficulty lies in recognizing it. To recognize the foundations of existential ethics, one must recognize the “truths” behind the philosophy. The basis for most philosophical schools is a set of “universal truths” agreed upon by the proponents of the philosophy. The school can be simple, having just one rule: “There are no universal truths.” Of course, that rule is then a universal truth and a paradox. Existentialism’s basis is a simple set of truths relating to sentient life, as discussed in the opening paragraphs of this document:

• First, sentient beings exist, then they spend a lifetime defining an individual essence;
• All sentient life forms, namely humans, have free will;
• Every action, expression, or thought is the result of a decision;
• Decision making is a stressful, solitary act, even when part of a group; and
• Any decision can and usually does have negative aspects.

These “truths” form the foundation of existentialism. Existential values are those values recognizing the importance of free will, the anxiety experienced by others, and the potential consequences of decisions upon other beings, sentient and not. The foundations of any ethical system employed by existentialists can be reduced to the following statements:

1. Existentialism requires constant thought, expression, and action — the active development of one’s essence.
2. All decisions are individual, with each being responsible for his or her choices.
3. The most important decisions are those affecting the free will of other individuals, other matters are less important.
4. Some may be affected negatively, their choices reduced by a decision, so decisions must promote freedom among the greatest number of beings.
5. Limiting the number of options available to an individual in any situation reduces that being’s freedom to express a free will.
6. There is no such thing as a demand, since one can always accept death as a choice.

Notice the emphasis is upon freedom and free will. How existentialists understand freedom varies, so the implementation of these principles also varies. For example, Sartre viewed Soviet Communism as allowing men to be free from the basic pursuit of needs, such as food and shelter. Anarchists or democrats would argue the freedom to make mistakes and suffer is more important than a freedom from suffering. The implementation of existential ethics therefore depends upon one’s understanding of freedom, yet all existentialists have the same goal: beings must be free or they lack the essence of being.

The Individual Versus Society

Existentialists tend to depict life as a series of struggles between the individual and everything. The individual is forced to make decisions; often any choice is a bad choice. In the writings of some existentialists, it seems that freedom and personal choice are the seeds of misery. The curse of free will was of particular interest to the theological and Christian existentialists. By giving man free will, the Creator was punishing mankind in the worst possible way.

Societal structures are the result of men and women attempting to limit their own choices. This theory works like a 12-step recovery program: society exerts needed peer pressure to ease the decision-making process. Accordingly, the more structured a society, the more functional it should be. Adoption of this anthropological theory might explain why the existentialists tended to favor authoritarian or rigid forms of government, such as communism, socialism, and fascism. This possibility is discussed in more detail in the section regarding the political existentialists. Having one political party, one strong leader, one source of direction makes it easy to function.

Existentialists would explain why some people are attracted to military careers based on the challenge of making decisions. Following orders is easy; it requires little emotional effort to do as one is told. If the order is not logical, it is not for the soldier to question. In this way, wars can be explained, mass genocides understood. People were only doing as they were told.

How can a philosophy that focuses upon the individual embrace such anti-individual social theories? In effect, Sartre and Heidegger both believed that men freed from basic decisions, such as how to obtain food, shelter, and security, could concentrate on more important decisions. Heidegger, a supporter of Hitler, and Sartre, a supporter of the Soviet Union, both saw in authoritarian governments the promise of greater individual freedom to pursue the arts, science, et cetera. When utopia was achieved and people were doing what they did best, the individual would benefit and the society as a whole would benefit.

France

World War II is the defining event in the history of French existentialism. Before the second war, the French had prided their country as one of the world powers. With expansive colonies, a rich history, and a victorious end to World War I, the French dared to consider their country safe and secure.

A summary of French-German history is as follows: France invades Germany, Germany fights back, Germany attacks out of anger, the French public demands a tougher stance…. And this cycle continues for several hundred years. World War I was as much about Napoleon I as it was about Austria and Serbia.

When World War I ended, the French public demanded that Germany be punished severely. What the French governments and people did not comprehend was that they would be responsible for the instability in Germany that produced Adolf Hitler’s rise to power. In effect, the French demands in the Treaty of Versailles placed an unreasonable stress upon the German economy and newly-formed democracy. French hubris once again resulted in German rage.

German expenditures during World War I were ultimately responsible for a weak economy, but the French and allied demands affected German national pride as much as the economy. Germany’s instability was like that throughout European nations — workers were demanding more influence in German, and would later do so in France.

French existentialism was shaped by the experiences and emotions of the French Resistance. Jean- Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvoir, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and others were already socialists. Sartre, however, was not as politically active as other students and teachers he knew. Sartre's years as a student were not spent as an activist, by French standards. Camus was much more political and passionate than Sartre. In part, this might be due to their differing family backgrounds. The war temporarily made members of the French Resistance equal.

The war further aligned the famous French Existentialists with the Soviet Communist Party. While the Soviet Union was eventually seen as The Evil Empire in the United States, the French public never embraced the idea. The Russian army had held the German army in place; any enemy of Germany could not be all bad.

Existentialism, philosophical movement or tendency, emphasizing individual existence, freedom, and choice, that influenced many diverse writers in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Major Themes

Because of the diversity of positions associated with existentialism, the term is impossible to define precisely. Certain themes common to virtually all existentialist writers can, however, be identified. The term itself suggests one major theme: the stress on concrete individual existence and, consequently, on subjectivity, individual freedom, and choice.

Moral Individualism

Most philosophers since Plato have held that the highest ethical good is the same for everyone; insofar as one approaches moral perfection, one resembles other morally perfect individuals. The 19th-century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, who was the first writer to call himself existential, reacted against this tradition by insisting that the highest good for the individual is to find his or her own unique vocation. As he wrote in his journal, “I must find a truth that is true for me . . . the idea for which I can live or die.” Other existentialist writers have echoed Kierkegaard's belief that one must choose one's own way without the aid of universal, objective standards. Against the traditional view that moral choice involves an objective judgment of right and wrong, existentialists have argued that no objective, rational basis can be found for moral decisions. The 19th-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche further contended that the individual must decide which situations are to count as moral situations.

Subjectivity

All existentialists have followed Kierkegaard in stressing the importance of passionate individual action in deciding questions of both morality and truth. They have insisted, accordingly, that personal experience and acting on one's own convictions are essential in arriving at the truth. Thus, the understanding of a situation by someone involved in that situation is superior to that of a detached, objective observer. This emphasis on the perspective of the individual agent has also made existentialists suspicious of systematic reasoning. Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and other existentialist writers have been deliberately unsystematic in the exposition of their philosophies, preferring to express themselves in aphorisms, dialogues, parables, and other literary forms. Despite their antirationalist position, however, most existentialists cannot be said to be irrationalists in the sense of denying all validity to rational thought. They have held that rational clarity is desirable wherever possible, but that the most important questions in life are not accessible to reason or science. Furthermore, they have argued that even science is not as rational as is commonly supposed. Nietzsche, for instance, asserted that the scientific assumption of an orderly universe is for the most part a useful fiction.

Choice and Commitment

Perhaps the most prominent theme in existentialist writing is that of choice. Humanity's primary distinction, in the view of most existentialists, is the freedom to choose. Existentialists have held that human beings do not have a fixed nature, or essence, as other animals and plants do; each human being makes choices that create his or her own nature. In the formulation of the 20th-century French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre, existence precedes essence. Choice is therefore central to human existence, and it is inescapable; even the refusal to choose is a choice. Freedom of choice entails commitment and responsibility. Because individuals are free to choose their own path, existentialists have argued, they must accept the risk and responsibility of following their commitment wherever it leads.

Dread and Anxiety

Kierkegaard held that it is spiritually crucial to recognize that one experiences not only a fear of specific objects but also a feeling of general apprehension, which he called dread. He interpreted it as God's way of calling each individual to make a commitment to a personally valid way of life. The word anxiety (German Angst) has a similarly crucial role in the work of the 20th-century German philosopher Martin Heidegger; anxiety leads to the individual's confrontation with nothingness and with the impossibility of finding ultimate justification for the choices he or she must make. In the philosophy of Sartre, the word nausea is used for the individual's recognition of the pure contingency of the universe, and the word anguish is used for the recognition of the total freedom of choice that confronts the individual at every moment.

History

Existentialism as a distinct philosophical and literary movement belongs to the 19th and 20th centuries, but elements of existentialism can be found in the thought (and life) of Socrates, in the Bible, and in the work of many premodern philosophers and writers.

Pascal

The first to anticipate the major concerns of modern existentialism was the 17th-century French philosopher Blaise Pascal. Pascal rejected the rigorous rationalism of his contemporary René Descartes, asserting, in his Pensées (1670), that a systematic philosophy that presumes to explain God and humanity is a form of pride. Like later existentialist writers, he saw human life in terms of paradoxes: The human self, which combines mind and body, is itself a paradox and contradiction.

Kierkegaard

Kierkegaard, generally regarded as the founder of modern existentialism, reacted against the systematic absolute idealism of the 19th-century German philosopher G. W. F. Hegel, who claimed to have worked out a total rational understanding of humanity and history. Kierkegaard, on the contrary, stressed the ambiguity and absurdity of the human situation. The individual's response to this situation must be to live a totally committed life, and this commitment can only be understood by the individual who has made it. The individual therefore must always be prepared to defy the norms of society for the sake of the higher authority of a personally valid way of life. Kierkegaard ultimately advocated a “leap of faith” into a Christian way of life, which, although incomprehensible and full of risk, was the only commitment he believed could save the individual from despair.

Nietzsche

Nietzsche, who was not acquainted with the work of Kierkegaard, influenced subsequent existentialist thought through his criticism of traditional metaphysical and moral assumptions and through his espousal of tragic pessimism and the life-affirming individual will that opposes itself to the moral conformity of the majority. In contrast to Kierkegaard, whose attack on conventional morality led him to advocate a radically individualistic Christianity, Nietzsche proclaimed the “death of God” and went on to reject the entire Judeo-Christian moral tradition in favor of a heroic pagan ideal.

Heidegger

Heidegger, like Pascal and Kierkegaard, reacted against an attempt to put philosophy on a conclusive rationalistic basis—in this case the phenomenology of the 20th-century German philosopher Edmund Husserl. Heidegger argued that humanity finds itself in an incomprehensible, indifferent world. Human beings can never hope to understand why they are here; instead, each individual must choose a goal and follow it with passionate conviction, aware of the certainty of death and the ultimate meaninglessness of one's life. Heidegger contributed to existentialist thought an original emphasis on being and ontology as well as on language.

Sartre

Sartre first gave the term existentialism general currency by using it for his own philosophy and by becoming the leading figure of a distinct movement in France that became internationally influential after World War II. Sartre's philosophy is explicitly atheistic and pessimistic; he declared that human beings require a rational basis for their lives but are unable to achieve one, and thus human life is a “futile passion.” Sartre nevertheless insisted that his existentialism is a form of humanism, and he strongly emphasized human freedom, choice, and responsibility. He eventually tried to reconcile these existentialist concepts with a Marxist analysis of society and history.

Existentialism and Theology

Although existentialist thought encompasses the uncompromising atheism of Nietzsche and Sartre and the agnosticism of Heidegger, its origin in the intensely religious philosophies of Pascal and Kierkegaard foreshadowed its profound influence on 20th-century theology. The 20th-century German philosopher Karl Jaspers, although he rejected explicit religious doctrines, influenced contemporary theology through his preoccupation with transcendence and the limits of human experience. The German Protestant theologians Paul Tillich and Rudolf Bultmann, the French Roman Catholic theologian Gabriel Marcel, the Russian Orthodox philosopher Nikolay Berdyayev, and the German Jewish philosopher Martin Buber inherited many of Kierkegaard's concerns, especially that a personal sense of authenticity and commitment is essential to religious faith.

Existentialism and Literature

A number of existentialist philosophers used literary forms to convey their thought, and existentialism has been as vital and as extensive a movement in literature as in philosophy. The 19th-century Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky is probably the greatest existentialist literary figure. In Notes from the Underground (1864), the alienated antihero rages against the optimistic assumptions of rationalist humanism. The view of human nature that emerges in this and other novels of Dostoyevsky is that it is unpredictable and perversely self-destructive; only Christian love can save humanity from itself, but such love cannot be understood philosophically. As the character Alyosha says in The Brothers Karamazov (1879-80), “We must love life more than the meaning of it.”

In the 20th century, the novels of the Austrian Jewish writer Franz Kafka, such as The Trial (1925; trans. 1937) and The Castle (1926; trans. 1930), present isolated men confronting vast, elusive, menacing bureaucracies; Kafka's themes of anxiety, guilt, and solitude reflect the influence of Kierkegaard, Dostoyevsky, and Nietzsche. The influence of Nietzsche is also discernible in the novels of the French writers André Malraux and in the plays of Sartre. The work of the French writer Albert Camus is usually associated with existentialism because of the prominence in it of such themes as the apparent absurdity and futility of life, the indifference of the universe, and the necessity of engagement in a just cause. Existentialist themes are also reflected in the theater of the absurd, notably in the plays of Samuel Beckett and Eugène Ionesco. In the United States, the influence of existentialism on literature has been more indirect and diffuse, but traces of Kierkegaard's thought can be found in the novels of Walker Percy and John Updike, and various existentialist themes are apparent in the work of such diverse writers as Norman Mailer, John Barth, and Arthur Miller.