In our text, Sartre, in effect, provides three ways to understand Existentialism:
“Existentialism is nothing else than an attempt to draw all the consequences of a coherent atheistic position.”
· Atheism is Sartre’s starting point.
“There is no human nature. . . . Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself. Such is the first principle of existentialism.” Again, Sartre says about this claim, that it is a “given that . . . there is no human nature for me to depend on.”
· Atheism generates the claims that no human nature exists.
“Existential philosophy is above all a philosophy that asserts that existence precedes essence.”
· This third claims is probably the most well-known, and the most fundamental to Existentialism. Thus, let’s add a few points:
For Sartre, both “essence” and “existence” mean what they have always meant in philosophy: by essence, Sartre refers to the qualities that enable one to “define” a given X: “the ensemble of . . . the properties which enable it [the given X] to be defined.” By “existence” Sartre means that which is actually present in the world: existence is “presence . . . in front of me.”
So, what is so unique about Sartre’s formula: the uniqueness derives from Sartre’s way of relating these two traditional concepts: traditionally the formula was: “Essence precedes existence.” Hence, this formula radically converts the traditional formula, the result of which, transforms the traditional, philosophic view of the world.
To explicate his claim, Sartre introduces the manufacturing of a paper cutter: the maker of the tool knows in advance what he or she plans to make; he or she is aware of “what” a paper cutter is; he or she knows the “essence” of a paper cutter, thus, the “essence” of the paper cutter precedes its “existence.” Hence, the one who designs the object is the one who knows best the essence or nature of the thing being made.
Now, let’s relate this to the first two formulas above: the traditional religious view of the world posits God as the designer of the human being and, because there is a designer, the thing being designed must possess an “essence,” one that precedes its “existence.” Thus, note the following three points:
· “What is meant here by saying that existence precedes essence? It means that, first, man exists and only afterwards, defines himself.”
· “Man . . . is indefinable.” Thus, the definition of the person “remains forever open.”
· “There is no human nature.” Hence, the claim that no human nature exists follows from the rejection of God’s existence: “There is no human nature, since there is no God to conceive it.”
So, let’s now ask: What, then, is the human being? Sartre: “At first, he is nothing.” And, later? Later, the person is “nothing else but what he makes himself.” Hence, human beings invent themselves without the benefit of any pre-given design. And, here, we encounter a key notion in Sartre: freedom. Yet, this freedom is not the sort associated with liberal politics, but is, instead, a freedom “from” any sort of pre-determined essence, hence, Sartre’s freedom opens an abyss of nothingness out of which emerge the experiences of:
· Forlornness: “We are alone, with no excuses.” And “forlornness implies that we ourselves choose our being.”
· Anguish: “Forlornness and anguish go together.”
· Despair: “The term has a very simple meaning. It means that we shall confine ourselves to reckoning only with what depends on our will.” And, “to say that we invent values means nothing else but this: life has no meaning a priori.”
Now, with all of this in place, let’s step back and note a few additional points:
· The rejection of God is akin to a rejection of any sort of philosophical system. Why? Because philosophical systems are abstract, while existence is concrete. The horse I ride is the only real, existing horse, not the abstract, universal horse.
· Abstraction does not, as a rule, correspond to reality – abstraction “resides” in the other world. Yet, only in the abstract do concepts exist and philosophical systems are constituted by concepts which leads to the claim that Existentialism is tragic; it can’t make arguments; it must both be abstract and concrete. We reason with concepts, but concepts do not exist in reality.
· Philosophical systems, as a rule, generate truth in advance of the system. Hence, the choice of concepts utilized by a given system are not generated from an argument; they are chosen in advance: reasoning, then, serves only to justify a previous choice.
Three Fundamental Characteristics
· Self-Consciousness
· Self-Interpretation
· World-Interpretation
Chapter 1: Value Orientation
What is a value?
A value might also be called an “ideal.” An ideal or value is that which gives one’s life its model of success. It, therefore, provides the activities of a life with purpose, unity, truth, and hence meaning.
PUT in Triad
· As noted by our author, Aristotle long ago declared that the ordinary person considered the good life to consist of physical pleasure, wealth, or honor.
· Later, Spinoza reaffirmed Aristotle’s claim except he used the word “fame” in place of honor.
Many philosophers endorse this description of the ordinary person’s values. Yet, many have denounced these values and have sought to substitute for them a mode of life that overcomes the frustrations that tend to accompany the pursuit of such values.
· The Existentialists, generally, endorse the above. Yet, they tend to focus their attention upon certain values that both the ordinary person and the traditional philosophers overlook.
Traditional Philosophy
Within the framework of traditional, Western philosophy, the pursuit of the values of the ordinary person have been condemned in three ways:
· First is the claim that the values pursued: wealth, honor, fame depend too much on external circumstances beyond the reach of the individual’s will. These external circumstances might interfere at any moment with the individual’s pursuit of his or her ideals.
· Second is the claim that even if the individual does obtain these ideals, he or she can’t be secure that these values will remain.
· Third is the claim that even if the individual did obtain these values he or she would soon be dissatisfied and would then revert to a life of painful striving. The values of the ordinary person are values that bring brief satisfaction.
Within the framework of traditional, Western philosophy, the means to free oneself from the ordinary person’s values consists of the Stoics, the Enlightenment, the Eternal.
The Stoics
· The Stoics advocated, somewhat like Buddhists, a renunciation of the desires that move the ordinary person to pursue the values of wealth, honor, and fame.
Epictetus: “Seek not that the things which happen should happen as you wish; but wish the things which happen to be as they are, and you will have a tranquil flow of life” (p. 4).
· The Stoics were pessimistic about what a person could achieve in the world, but they were optimistic about what a person could achieve within himself or herself. Their aim was a radical mode of independence through the self-discipline of the will.
The Enlightenment
· The Enlightenment thinkers may have agreed with the Stoics that the individual can’t achieve and secure the ideals of wealth, honor, and fame. They, however, disagreed that the solution was then to renounce those desires.
· The Enlightenment thinkers, instead, advocated for a rational and concerted effort to reshape the very world that prohibits the ordinary person from fulfilling his or her desires. Hence, the aim should be to act to modify the world instead of acting to modify human desires. Read second paragraph on p. 6.
The Eternal
Many philosophers have taken this path: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Thomas, Spinoza, and Hegel.
· If, as noted above, the values pursued by the ordinary person are fleeting, then why not pursue a value that is not fleeting, that is, in fact eternal?
· Let’s abridge a great deal from this category: most of the philosophers in this category, following Plato, divided the “world” or “reality” into two categories: Being and becoming. In the realm of becoming things come and go; in the realm of Being belong those things that are immutable, self-sufficient, and eternal.
· Hence, for Plato the Ideas were the objects of greatest value; for Thomas it is God; for Spinoza it is “nature;” for Hegel it is “Absolute Spirit.”
Now, it is precisely the presumed failure of these “highest values” of the philosophers that led Nietzsche to announce the “death of god.” And it out of the “death of god” that the Existentialists generate their unique form of philosophy.
Existentialist Values
Now that we know the ordinary person’s values, the critique of those values, and the means to overcome those values, we can shift our attention to the values on which the Existentialists’ focus.
· The Existentialists consider life to be tragic. The ordinary person can’t refrain from pursuing the world’s values and can neither achieve the detachment advocated by the Stoics.
“Frustration, insecurity, and painful striving are the inescapable lot of humankind, and the only life worth living is one in which this fact is squarely faced” (p. 14).
· Now, if this is true, then this claim itself is one that generates its own values and hence these values are values that one might actualize.
Read second paragraph: p. 14
· The Existentialists’ critique of both the ordinary person and the traditional Philosopher is grounded in the Existentialists’ claim that both groups misunderstand the fundamental nature of reality: both groups desire some state of happiness or well-being that the world itself can’t deliver; if it could, it would reduce human beings to unconscious brutes.
· It is important to add: for the Existentialists, generally, it is not political circumstances, technology, nor lack of wisdom that prevents humankind from achieving its highest good: it is simply the human condition and the reality in which it is found that prevents the human being from achieving the happiness it seeks.
The happiness against which the Existentialists argue is the sort that the ordinary person pursues. This sort of happiness is the sort that recommends a state of being desirable for humankind. This sort of happiness emphasizes a sort of harmony, a sort of contentment.
Thus, the Existentialists embrace both anguish and suffering; and along with this an emphasis is placed on personal love, creative activity, freedom of choice, and individual dignity. These values lead the Existentialists to assert three claims:
· An acceptance of anguish and suffering is the condition within which the above values are experienced.
· For the ordinary person and the traditional Philosopher who reject or fail to take up the inevitability of anguish and suffering, this very anguish will still manifest itself in apathy, fear, and boredom.
· Existentialists, thus, value “intense consciousness,” aroused passions, and actions that will stimulate and engage a person’s total energy.
Hence, as noted on p. 18: The Existentialists value a common source: the inherent tragedy inherent in the human condition; a common function: the liberation of the tedium, fears and frustrations of daily life; and a common characteristic: intensity.
Defense of Existentialist Values
Note: Recommend the reading of the first paragraph p. 19.
Now that we know the values of the Existentialists, we need to consider the justification for these values. The justifications take two distinct forms:
· The argument that claims that both the values of the ordinary person and the traditional philosophers are impossible to realize.
· The argument that claims that even if the values of the ordinary person and the traditional philosophers were achievable, their realization would be at the expense of superior values.
Our author claims that the second argument is the more important because the Existentialists spend more time on it, and because if it is sound, it basically negates the first.
· The inability to achieve happiness is the key to the Existentialists’ tragic view of life and is the key reason for the claim that the supreme value in life is “intensity” without the promise of happiness.
· It is the Existentialists’ emphasis on this tragic condition that generates their elevation of individual freedom to its lofty status. Moreover, it is precisely this notion of freedom that reinforces their objection to the Enlightenment hope of remaking the world: read Dostoevsky quote on p. 21.
The Dostoevsky quote states well one of the key tenets of Existentialism: that if human beings are free, then their free choices will thwart the Reformers plans, and if freedom of choice is one of the highest human values, then its sacrifice would be unjustified, even if its sacrifice would lead to universal well-being.
Chapter Two: Human Condition
The concept and experience of anguish is central to Existentialism. The Existentialists’ approach to anguish begins with intuition: the claim is that the experience of anguish is direct and intuitive. Moreover, the experience is complex: it consists both of terror and exhilaration, resulting in an intense experience.
The Anguish of Being
Being = Existence.
The anguish generally associated to Being is the anguish of knowing that Being is contingent. That is, Being did not have to come into Existence; Nothingness could have prevailed. In fact, Nothingness might still prevail.
Moreover, this anguish is the result of the fact that you, me, and everyone else could have just as easily not have existed; and/or, that you, me, and everyone else just might go out of existence.
Read Unamuno quote: p. 31
The key here is the relation between “contingent” and “necessary.”
The human quest for the ground of reality has always been a search for some necessary mode of being. Here, necessary refers to a mode of being that is stable, enduring, beyond change, and unalterable. This sort of being, it has been claimed, is the only sort that is able to generate the stability of meaning desired by human beings.
“The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God remains forever.”
“The heavens will vanish like smoke; the earth will wear out like a garment. . .but my salvation shall last forever, and my justice have no end.”
“There was something formless and perfect before the universe was born. It is serene. Empty. Solitary. Unchanging.”
On the other hand, human beings exist in contingency. They do not have the power to create themselves, nor the power to assure their existence. Human beings participate in a temporal order whose law is that of coming-to-be and passing-away.
The Existentialists hold that a significant aspect of human beings’ response to the reality of “necessity” and “contingency” is anxiety or anguish: human beings are compelled to diminish the fragility of life, to seek a connection to a “necessary” mode of being, to gain a surer foothold in being.
Hence, it is this very problem that philosophers have sought to overcome. The Existentialists, however, hold that no solution to the conflict exists. Hence, they designate the existence of human beings as “radically contingent,” not just “contingent.”
Read paragraphs on p. 37.
Anguish Before the Here and Now
Our author argues that human beings have attempted to escape the “here and now” by two means: a special sort of knowledge and an identification with humankind (p. 46).
Knowledge as a Means of Escape
· Read Pascal quote: p. 41 (characterizes the anguish before the here and now)
We know that Plato and those who follow him have sought escape by redirecting themselves from the world of “becoming” to the world of “Being,” that is, to the world of eternal being known through the mind or intellect.
The Existential attack on this mode of escape: read quote: p. 43.
Our author claims that this quote generates a couple of arguments:
· First against Spinoza, Hegel, and Marx. The key to the argument against these thinkers is the notion of the “observer and the observed.”
· That is, this argument focuses on the fact that the observer, that is the person, is part of the observed, that is, nature, world, history. Thus, the observer is never able to extricate himself or herself from the observed, and this extrication is precisely required to obtain the view of eternity.
“The existentialists, on the contrary, say that the duality of man the viewer and man the observed cannot be overcome and that consequently man can never rise to a vision of things sub specie aeternitatis” (p. 44).
· The second argument that derives from Kierkegaard’s quote is based on the Ancient dictum that “only like could know like” (p. 44). This means, basically, that only an item like another item is able to know that item.
· For example: if Plato’s Ideas are eternal and therefore necessary, then the faculty by which the human being knows them must also be eternal and therefore necessary. From this assumption the human being was then defined as “a rational animal” and that the aspect that is “rational” is, like the Ideas, eternal, immaterial, and thus immortal.
· The existentialists attack this argument by pointing out that the human being nature includes not only his or her mind, but his or her body and passions.
Read Unamuno quote: p. 45
Read last paragraph: p. 45
· The third argument asserted by the Existentialists to show that the human being can’t escape its historical limitations is based on the idea of “free choice.”
· The Existentialists argue that if the human being possesses “free choice” then the future itself is undetermined. Thus, if this is so, then the human being can never rise to the level of “eternal vision” since the future would not be part of that vision because the future has yet to be determined.
Identification with Humanity as a Means of Escape
The second mode by which human beings have sought to escape their historical limitations has been to identify “with a race of mankind or a large social unit such as a nation” (p. 46).
· Examples: humanism and theoretical communism = humanity at large
· Examples: fascism and virulent patriotism = larger social units
Humanism has its roots in Aristotle. This is based on his conception of “matter and form.” Form is universal; hence, the form of the individual is that which defines the “essence” of every human being.
Yet, at a certain point, and for several reasons, this notion was rejected. In its place, thinkers argued that the identification of the human being with humanity took place by means of empathy and imagination. The singular being, in this context, is urged to suppress his or her own personal interests for the sake of humankind as such.
The Existentialists attack on this argument takes a couple of forms:
· If, as noted above, the human being is a being tied to his or her time and place, then he or she simply can’t identify with humankind at large. This notion generates a basic mistake called: Hypothesis Contrary to Fact.
· If the human being is free to choose, then the future, as noted above, is unknown, and hence, because one can’t identify with the unknown, one can’t identify with future generations.
· Both love and respect are generated within and out of specific relations. Human beings love individual beings; human beings respect individual beings.
· Nietzsche’s assertion regarding respect: p. 50
· Marcel/Jaspers assertions regarding love: p. 50
The Anguish of Freedom
Begin with the “in-itself” “for-itself” distinction: Sartre tells us that two sorts of Being exist:
· Being-in-itself, that is, the being of things. These things only point to themselves; they do not point to any value.
· Being-for-itself, that is, the being of things such as human beings. That is, being with consciousness, which always points to purpose.
Being-in-itself is the being of that which lacks consciousness: all non-human animals; lamps; cups; bottles; roaches and bees. A human being may exhibit the characteristic of being in itself: “He is as he is.” That is, he or she is fixed, reified, or at least his or her essential property is fixed.
Hence, for Sartre, the “in-itself” is “what it is;” the “for-itself” is what it is not and is not what it is” (p. 55).
Freedom, in this context, refers to the necessity that one must choose. The anguish of freedom refers to the anguish that accompanies this realization. This realization claims that the meaning of being is meaning that comes through individuals: a dying body is, from one perspective, a dying body; from another perspective, it is the dying body of one’s mother; a profound dying of a significant part of one’s world.
It is this realization of the necessity of freedom that brings to light “being-in-itself.” That is, one realizes that the world is, at its core, “being-in-itself.” At the same time, one realizes one’s own being is empty until one is choosing, that is, choosing value.
Hence, choosing is always choosing from within a given situation: choosing implies the recognition of a state of affairs in relation to what one perceives as a better state of affairs. These two components are always parts of choosing, and, hence always parts of one’s freedom.
So, the “in-itself” and “for-itself” plays a fundamental role in the Existentialists’ understanding of life. The human being is fated: it is both its “matter of fact” and its “ideals and values”: “it is man’s fate to be simultaneously both types of being” (p. 56).
Therefore, “man is both in-itself and for-itself, but the two dimensions of his being are radically different. There is a deep rent in his being, and it will never be closed” (p. 57).
We, then, have one aspect of the human being. A second aspect argues that the human being desires, as a value, the “in-itself.” This is another way of saying that the human being desires to annihilate the inherent conflict within itself, that is, to transcend the “rent in his being.”
And, this transcendence, then aims at “in-itself-for-itself without duality.” That is, the human being desires, above all, to be a “fact-sive-value.” She wants consciousness, but without risk; he desires the properties of God or Being: serenity, eternity, immutability (p. 58). The human being, then, wants to be Christ: the perfect synthesis of both God and Human being.
Read: p. 59: top. . . .
Sartre’s Salvation
pp. 60-61: The human being’s aim to be God is a necessary and universal aspect of her being, and hence, her highest motive. Yet, Sartre argues that it is not the exclusive aspect of her being; she is also capable of saying “no;” of defying her desire to be God. Here, Sartre says the internal being of a person might experience a “radical conversion.”
This radical conversion leads to the embrace of one’s dualism “and for them coincidence with self or fullness of being consists in joyfully accepting or assuming one’s finitude” (p. 63).
Ch. 3
Introduction
Chapter 3 shifts gears from a macro, world analysis to a more limited concept, the concept of “reason.” As noted, the Existentialists have been accused of lacking reason, first by liberals and then by Marxists. Both these “isms” based their judgment, to a degree, of the Existentialists’ general rejection of the behavioral sciences and of the idea of historical progress.
Our chapter will approach the question of reason by looking at three distinct philosophic schools: rationalism, empiricism, and existentialism. His approach is governed by three questions, each of which emerges from an aspect of philosophy:
1. The question of ontology: how much is it reasonable to claim that a human being can know?
2. The question of epistemology: what methods are necessary to acquire whatever knowledge is available?
3. The question of value: how valuable is this knowledge to the aim of living a good life?
The difference between rationalism and empiricism concerns the extent to which we are dependent upon sense experience to gain knowledge. Rationalists claim that significant ways exist by which concepts and knowledge are gained independently of sense experience. Empiricists claim that sense experience is the ultimate source of all concepts and knowledge.
Rationalists generally develop their view in two ways. First, they argue that cases exist that show that the content of our concepts or knowledge goes beyond the information that sense experience provides. Second, they construct accounts of how reason in some form or other provides that additional information.
Empiricists present complementary lines of thought. First, they develop accounts of how experience provides the information that rationalists cite. Second, empiricists attack the rationalists’ accounts of how reason is a source of concepts or knowledge.
Rationalism
Our author begins by providing brief answers to the above three questions:
1. The eternal: that which is necessary, immutable and universal.
2. Through the intellect.
3. Two-fold response: knowledge, for its own sake, is valuable; knowledge is essential to living a good life in the world of becoming.
Now, I’m going to deviate a bit from our text. To be a rationalist, one will hold to something like:
The Intuition/Deduction Thesis: Some propositions in a particular subject area, S, are knowable by us by intuition alone; still others are knowable by being deduced from intuited propositions.
Intuition is a form of rational insight. Intellectually grasping a proposition, we just “see” it to be true in such a way as to form a true, warranted belief. Deduction is a process in which we derive conclusions from intuited premises through valid arguments, ones in which the conclusion must be true if the premises are true. We intuit, for example, that the number three is prime and that it is greater than two. We then deduce from this knowledge that there is a prime number greater than two. Intuition and deduction thus provide us with knowledge a priori, which is to say knowledge gained independently of sense experience.
We can generate different versions of the Intuition/Deduction thesis by substituting different subject areas for the variable ‘S’. Some rationalists take mathematics to be knowable by intuition and deduction. Some place ethical truths in this category. Some include metaphysical claims, such as that God exists, we have free will, and our mind and body are distinct substances.
Thus, and here we return to our text (p. 68), the concepts grasped intuitively are located where? First, in the realm of Being which transcends becoming. Second, in the mind of God or in some universal consciousness. Third, in nature: not the nature that one’s grasps with one’s senses, but nature in the sense of Being, the realm that is accessible only by the intellect.
Now, to complete this section, our author offers a second argument employed by rationalists. It is the argument that is often called “the one and the many.” Our author employs words: consider a word, say, fruit. Then consider all the unique items that one places within this one term. Or, to be more provocative: consider “love” and all the varieties of actions that are placed beneath this singular concept.
For the rationalists, to achieve knowledge is to grasp the meaning of the singular concept, which is immutable, singular, and necessary. To only experience the myriad of items that are placed within the concept is called opinion (p. 71). Knowledge, or at least most of it, is “a priori” and opinion, or at least most of it, is “a posteriori” (p. 71).
Empiricism
Our author answers the above three questions this way:
1. Particular beings and the relationships that obtain between them.
2. Through the physical senses.
3. For the sake of power/control especially of both nature and society.
Our author refers to three of the key aspects of Empiricism, all generated from Hume:
a. Outside of mathematics and logic, no “a priori” knowledge exists. All knowledge is knowledge of particular things and the relationships between and amongst them.
b. Hume argued that all purported knowledge of fact is based on “induction” which is the observation of a repeated relationships between two or more entities.
c. Hume argued that all general knowledge is probable. No matter the number of times one observes a phenomenon to work in a particular way, one can never be certain it will work that way the next time.
Hence, Empiricists’ claim:
The Empiricism Thesis: We have no source of knowledge in S or for the concepts we use in S other than sense experience.
Now, regarding the Rationalists’ claim about mathematical and logical truths, the Empiricists claim that the Rationalists have misinterpreted the ground of those claims. The Empiricists’ argue that the “a priori” truths pointed out by the Rationalists, are truths, but not truths grounded in some suprasensory source; they are simply a result of a series of decisions to use terms in specific ways. That is, human beings are responsible for these truths, not God or Nature.
For the Empiricists, knowledge is valuable, primarily, because it equals power. This notion of power translates into two concrete claims: first, the power derived from knowledge facilitates greater acquisition of material goods; second, it facilitates “progress.”
The Existentialist Alternative
Our author answers the above three questions this way:
1. One can know the human condition.
2. Through intuitive insight.
3. To experience Existential values, the only values available to human beings.
Because Existentialism is a theory of value, many of its critiques of both Rationalism and Empiricism argue that their claims are insignificant. For example, the Rationalists claim that one can the eternal, but the Existentialists claim that even if one could know the eternal, that knowledge would have little if any significance. For, in the end, the Existentialists will claim that one still must choose one’s values and that this choice is one’s full responsibility.
The Existentialists make the same basic claim against knowledge of the laws of nature and against the claims of behavioral science. Knowledge of the laws of nature have not made human beings more responsible; happier; less anxious. Knowledge derived from the behavioral sciences has not brought a peace of mind to people; it has not increased one’s knowledge of the human condition.
The one and only thing one ought to know, and can know, is the human condition. And, knowledge of the human condition is knowledge of certain traits of human existence that are found in all cultures:
· Human contingency
· Human particularity
· Human freedom
· Human beings’ fundamental aspirations
· Basic modes of human relating to the world and to other human beings
These aspects are sometimes called “ontological necessities.” These “necessities” must be distinguished from “biological necessities.” The human being, for the Existentialists, is moved not by “biological necessities” but by his or her choices, choices that seek meaning.
More on Rationalism, Empiricism, and Existentialism
· The Existentialist is irrational but is one who attempts to describe everyday experiences closely.
· Yet, the Existentialist is not a rationalist. A rationalist, generally, holds that the intellect is inherently designed to apprehend certain sorts of truth about the world.
· Yet, the Existentialist is not an empiricist. An empiricist, generally, holds that knowledge is a product of experience.
· The Existentialists reject both schools of thought because both are based on the same assumption: the assumption, which the Existentialists, claim is false is that the mind and world are logically independent of one another, like a spectator observing the world before him or her.
For the Existentialists human beings are beings-in-a-world: this means that “being-in” is what it means to be a human being. Moreover, “world” here means the place where we live, the meaningful setting of our lives.
Thus, both Sartre and Heidegger generate new concepts to refer to human beings. For Sartre, as we have noted, human beings are referred to as “Being-for-itself,” for Heidegger, human beings are called “Da-Sein.”
Here, we might be helped by a return to the notion that “existence comes before essence.” Both the rationalists and the empiricists suppose “thick” elements of human being. We are, in essence, rational or sense-based beings. For the Existentialists we are “beings-in-the-world,” hence we lack a fixed character or nature.
Ortega: “the stone is given its existence: it need not fight for what it is. . . . Man has to make his own existence at every single moment.” Hence, I am neither rational nor empirical, but a constellation of the free choices I have made.
Ch. 4: Freedom
Let’s consider “freedom of choice/will” this way:
Suppose at time A, person X is faced with a moral choice: to commit murder or walk away. At this moment, assume person X is aware of the reason for deciding one way or the other and is mentally competent.
Ten seconds later, at time B, person X pulls the trigger and kills his victim. Assume that nothing interferes with his or her mental decision-making process between times A and B. The concern here is with person X’s “being” and the choice he or she makes.
If the sum of the contributions to person X’s decision at time A is sufficient to determine, at time B, that he or she commits murder, then “freedom of choice” does not exist. He or she can’t be blamed for his or her act. Why? Because the factors present at time A, determined his or her act at time B.
On the other hand, if the sum of the contributions to his or her choice at time A are not sufficient to explain his or her choice at time B, then it is possible, but not entirely certain, that he or she acted freely and is responsible for his or her choice.
So, this is how the problem of freedom of choice is being conceived. The only comment I need to add here pertains to “sum of the contributions” to a person’s choice. As a rule, most thinkers will note the one variable they are testing. For example, in place of “sum of the contributions,” they will insert “neurobiological interactions” to test whether or not that single variable might account for one’s actions. In our case, you can substitute any single variable, or simply think of many: one’s neurobiology, one’s society, one’s economic circumstances, etc.
Let us now turn to the notion of freedom in Existentialism:
We are told that two sorts of Being exist:
· Being-in-itself, that is, the being of things.
· Being-for-itself, that is, the being of things such as human beings.
Being-in-itself is the being of that which lacks consciousness: all non-human animals; lamps; cups; bottles; roaches and bees. A human being may exhibit the characteristic of being in itself: “He is as he is.” That is, he or she is fixed, reified, or at least his or her essential property is fixed.
Being for itself is, oddly, nothingness, formed in two parts which enable it to be conscious of itself as a being:
· The human being is, because of its body, a thing.
· The human being is a thing because he or she is a fact: one has one’s past, etc.
· The human being is a thing by his or her situation, which limits his or her freedom. The human being is always in a situation.
The human being is, thus, conceived as dual: his or her situation and the nothingness out of which his or her freedom emerges.
More on Freedom
What man wants is simply independent choice. . . . And choice of course, the devil only knows what choice. Dostoevsky
The most tremendous thing which has been granted to man is choice and freedom. Kierkegaard
At heart what existentialism shows is the connection between the absolute character of freedom, by virtue of which every man realizes himself. Sartre
At its core, this notion of freedom argues that human beings create their essence through our ongoing projects and choices. Our of one’s choices, one emerges: a student, a parent, a caring friend. And, these elements of one’s identity, are never secure; one must continue to choose.
Existentialist freedom consists of the following characteristics:
1. It rejects the psychological notion of freedom which associates freedom to a type of inner entity called “free will.” This notion of freedom assumes that the human being has transparent access to its own mind or will.
The Existentialist’s view of freedom does claim that a great deal of action is pre-reflective; that is, a great deal of human action is a result of “involuntary instincts” and “habits.”
2. Existential freedom is not the sort of freedom “to obtain what one has wished.” The notion that one can do whatever one wants to do is not freedom, but the lack of freedom: one would then be subservient to one’s desires; one would simply be responding to one’s wants, the strongest want governing one’s actions.
For Existentialists, freedom is best understood as freedom of “intention.” This derives from one’s capacity to “self-interpret” both one’s self and one’s world. That is, it derives from one’s ability to imbue one’s self and world with value.
Hence, freedom is an ontological condition of being human: even one decides to “go with the flow of my immediate desires, I am still making a choice by envisioning a certain kind of life, assigning meaning to a particular identity and making myself who I am.” (Sartre)
3. The Existential notion of freedom is not related to any sort of universal moral entity. It is, as noted above, a structure of being human: freedom cannot be preserved, diminished, or increased: it can only be accepted and faced as a given of the human condition.
No moral ideal or ethical measure, is responsible for one’s choices: “I continue to believe that this world has no higher meaning, but I know that the something in it has meaning and this is man; for he is the one being to insist on having a meaning.” (Camus)
Yet, this freedom is not the sort associated with liberal politics, but is, instead, a freedom “from” any sort of pre-determined essence, hence, Sartre’s freedom opens an abyss of nothingness out of which emerge the experiences of:
· Forlornness: “We are alone, with no excuses.” And “forlornness implies that we ourselves choose our being.”
· Anguish: “Forlornness and anguish go together.”
· Despair: “The term has a very simple meaning. It means that we shall confine ourselves to reckoning only with what depends on our will.” And, “to say that we invent values means nothing else but this: life has no meaning a priori.”
Non-Existentialist Theories of Freedom
In the first section of our text, two theories of freedom are introduced: “freedom of self-realization” and “freedom of indeterminism.” Each is briefly explained and then critiqued from the perspective of Existentialism:
1. Self-Realization: read paragraph on p. 101; belongs to Platonism; Eternal: p. 107
2. Indeterminism: read paragraphs on p. 103: We will not deal with the critique
The Existentialist responds to these two theories:
The key claim of the Existentialist is that the obtaining of particular goals is not particularly significant. And, this claim is based on three additional premises:
1. The human being is already the being who projects herself beyond the present. Existence is just this: the projection of goals; one fulfills one and then must generate another. Hence, Sartre defines reality: “That the human reality is lack, the existence of desire as a human fact could suffice as proof.” Thus, as we noted in an earlier chapter, the ordinary person defines freedom on the mistaken notion that a complete state of happiness is possible; yet, if existence is lack, then no such state exists.
2. As we have already noted, even if one is able to fulfill one’s desire, one would not enter a state of happiness.
3. As we have already noted, even if one is able to satisfy one’s desires, one would not be happy for one would have to forgo the intensity of the Existentialist values.
Hence, the Existentialist critique of “self-realization” is based on both its understanding of the human condition and the nature of the world: the human being lacks an essence which is to be realized.
Objections to the Standard Theory
The standard theory of human freedom consists of two components: the objective situation in which one finds oneself and the subjective motive of the one in the objective situation.
Here, Sartre objects, claiming that the objective situation motives acts only to the degree that one apprehends it; the subjective aspect only moves one to act in a secondary way based on the way one chooses to relate to the feelings.
For the Existentialist, the true motive of behavior is an “original project” freely chosen as the individual separates herself from the in-itself to the for-itself: “’Heredity, education, environment, physiological constitution are the great explanatory idols of our time’ but they explain very little. The only genuine cause of human behavior is the individual’s fundamental project of being (p. 119).
This fundamental project of being is a result of “nonreflective consciousness.” It is here that the person, not through deliberation, makes the fundamental choice out of which all deliberation emerges. Deliberation takes place on the “reflective” level: once deliberation begins one has already begun the move away from one’s original choice.
Three Further Objections
· p. 121 “overarching value”
· p. 121: “conversion”
· p. 122: “two-fold feeling”
Radical Freedom
To gain some understanding of Existential freedom, one needs to begin with intention:
· Human consciousness is intentional: this means that HC is always of something.
· HC, thus, is relational: it is a process, an activity.
· HC is always pointing beyond itself; HC is, thus, intentionality.
Next, one needs to understand the nature of the action of consciousness:
· HC is a meaning-giving-activity. Acts of consciousness are not passive; they are not simply representations of things in the world. They, instead, are the acts that endow objects with the meaning and significance that they have.
· HC “sees” things as “this” and “not that.” Hence, acts of HC inject a “not” or “nothingness” into the world. Hence, acts of consciousness make things meaningful.
· I see the tree as a source of shade, not a source of firewood. Hence, acts of consciousness carve up and order reality “for-us”.
· Thus, the “I” shapes the world around itself through its meaning-giving activities; “I” then am responsible for what matters to me and how things matter to me.
Finally, one needs to understand the relation of “facticity” and “transcendence”:
· Facticity refers to one’s situation; transcendence refers to one’s going beyond one’s facticity.
· One’s constraints, that is, one’s facticity is subject to an interpretation, one that could lead one to interpret it in a way that moves one to overcome it.
· Thus, a gap exists between one’s “in-itself” and one’s “for-itself.”
Situated Freedom
A few existentialists thinkers have modified the radical nature of freedom. They have done so by emphasizing that the meanings with which one endows things is meaning that is historically situated.
· To make a choice one must first be familiar with one’s historical situation.
· One’s historical situation is the location of the meanings from which one might choose. These meanings exist prior to any person’s choice.
· Ortega: “man lives in view of the past. Man, in a world, has no nature; what he has is history. Expressed differently: what nature is to things, history is to man.”
· Hence, one is both self-making and self-made. One makes oneself, yes, but out of the historical situation in which one finds oneself.
Ch. 5
The term “authentic” derives from a Greek word that means “original” or “genuine.” The notion, then, of an “authentic self” is one that is “one’s own” and not simply a reflection of the values and mores that govern one’s social situation.
The “authentic self” is one that comes to know itself not from abstract theorizing about something called the “self” but through moods and/or intense experiences that have real affects on one’s finite existence.
As we have seen, for most Existentialists, this confrontation emerges in the experience of “anxiety,” “dread,” “anguish.” For Nietzsche, this sort of experience affects us when both language and reason fail and our world reveals itself as finite, disordered, and unreliable. For Karl Jaspers, these experiences are called “limit” or “boundary” situations “when everything that is said to be valuable and true collapse before [one’s] eyes.”
It is important, before turning to our text, to head-off a common mistake. When the Existentialists talk about “authenticity” as “original,” they are not talking about notions such as “being true to one’s self” or “getting in touch with one’s feelings.” These popular claims suggest that somewhere within oneself lurks one’s “true self.” This true self is the essence of human nature, and, generally, it is assumed that this nature is good.
For the Existentialists, no “true self” exists. And, certainly, no “true self” that is essentially good. The Existentialists do not deny that humans express emotions such as love and compassion; unlike most modern claims, however, the Existentialists claim that human beings equally express such emotions as hatred, and as a result, derive profound pleasure from cruelty and terror.
One penetrating thinker here is Dostoevsky. Throughout his novels he depicts scenes of extreme violence and cruelty. He does so because he is intent on revealing the myriad “forces” that constitute the human being.
“There is, of course, a beast hidden in every man, a beast of rage, a beast of sensual inflammability at the cries of tormented victim, an unrestrained beast let off the chain.”
Thus, for the Existentialists, to be “original” is to experience and interact with both the tenderness and cruelty that percolate within us.