Summary
Existentialism is a philosophy of living that places an
individual’s existence, subjectivity, and choice at the center of the human experience.
This highly personalized philosophy, which uses introspection as the primary means of
inquiry, allows each of us to participate in the discussion of what it means to be in the world.
Although few philosophers have called themselves Existentialists—Sartre being the exception,
a number of writers have been categorized in this way, including Dostoyevsky, Nietzsche,
Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre, and Camus. While these writers are both religious and non-religious,
the common thread is the importance of subjective truth and subjective experience.
The Individual
The belief that each of us has the opportunity to create a unique life comes to fullness
in the Renaissance with the humanist belief that we can be the authors of our lives.
However, by the nineteenth-century science began to challenge this individual autonomy
by arguing that humans are part of the natural world and since every action has a
rational cause, our choices, far from being free, are determined by events of the past.
We are not ‘prime movers unmoved’ who can alter the causal nature of the world by thought
alone, but rather machines that are predictable and determined. Deeply troubled by this
attack against free will, Dostoyevsky in Notes from Underground writes about a hyperconscious
person struggling to demonstrate his freedom and autonomy by acting irrationally in order to
defy causal, scientific explanation.
Philosophers from Aristotle to Kant tried to describe the basic elements of human nature
the way one might describe the nature of a particular animal. Existentialists, however,
argued that a person’s nature or essence, the who-we-are-in-the-world, is something chosen
not something science can discover. There is no necessity to be and to act in any particular
manner. There are no uniquely human behaviors. We can live as nomads in the desert or artists
in Paris, seek money and power or God and solitude, hold radical political views and completely
ignore the social milieu. The meaning of an individual’s life does not come from finding an
objective truth in the world but from our subjective choices and experience. Sartre sums this
up by saying that for human beings existence precedes essence.
Existentialism remains compelling as we are continually confronted with the need to make
choices and be responsible, regardless of the scientific arguments that this is illusory.
As long as we live in a society that focuses on the importance of the individual experience,
Existentialism will remain a useful and compelling way of exploring our individual, subjective lives.
Concerns of Existentialism
Death
We often live as though death is an intellectual abstraction until confronted with its
inevitability. Heidegger argues that this confrontation with mortality changes our attitude
toward the world. We become beings-toward-death who are full able to embrace and care for our
world. For Sartre, this frame of mind is one of the differences between living an authentic and inauthentic life.
Freedom
In a world devoid of meaning, we are not rationally or normatively compelled to choose any particular path.
Within the constraints of the time and place of our birth, every possibility is open to us. We must take on
the responsibility to create who we will become. This radical subjective freedom, a freedom vastly greater
than that offered through any political structure, can be terrifying and cause us to make no choice at all
rather than accept complete responsibility for ourselves.
See comments on free-will and existentialism.
Subjective Meaning
There is neither an objective method for finding meaning nor a logical or rational choice that will lead to
an understanding of the world. If the world is no more than what we create, life may seem absurd and capricious.
Meaning in the world is of little importance compared to the meaning of our lives.
Despair and Care
Realizing our vast freedom and responsibility to create meaning from a meaningless world, we may
fall into a state of anxiety, hopelessness, and alienation; we may despair when confronted with the
blank canvas of our lives. Alternatively, however, we may choose to accept responsibility for ourselves,
care for others, and dwell in the world.
Selected Primary Figures
Dostoyevsky (Russian writer and journalist) 1821
– 1881. "One can say many things about the history of the world—except that it
is rational. Give man every earthly blessing, satisfy his every desire, quench
his slightest thirst, and he would still destroy what he has—just to prove his
freedom." Notes from Underground
Kierkegaard (Danish philosopher) 1813 – 1855.
"How dreadful boredom is … I lie prostrate, inert; the only thing I see is
emptiness. If I were offered all the glories of the world or all the torments of
the world, one would move me no more than the other; I would not turn over to
attain or avoid" Either/Or • "What I seek is a truth for which I can live and
die." Journals
Heidegger (German philosopher) 1889 – 1976.
"Every man is born as many men and dies as a single one" • "If I take death into
my life, acknowledge it, and face it squarely, I will free myself from the
anxiety of death and the pettiness of life–and only then will I be free to
become myself."
Camus (French–Algerian writer) 1913 – 1960. "If
something worth living for is worth dying for, what about something not worth
dying for?" Myth of Sisyphus
Buber (Jewish writer and philosopher) 1878 –
1965. "When one says You, the I of the world pair I-You is said too. When one
says It, the I of the world pair I-it is said, too." I and Thou
Sartre (French philosopher) 1905 – 1980. "I await
myself in the future. Anguish is the fear of not finding myself there."
