Who is existentialism

Entities of the first sort, exemplified by tools as they present themselves in use, are defined by the social practices in which they are employed, and their properties are established in relation to the norms of those practices. A saw is sharp, for instance, in relation to what counts as successful cutting. Entities of the second sort, exemplified by objects of perceptual contemplation or scientific investigation, are defined by the norms governing perceptual givenness or scientific theory-construction.

An available or occurrent entity instantiates some property if that property is truly predicated of it. Human beings can be considered in this way as well.

However, in contrast to the previous cases, the fact that natural and social properties can truly be predicated of human beings is not sufficient to determine what it is for me to be a human being. This, the existentialists argue, is because such properties are never merely brute determinations of who I am but are always in question.

It is what it is not and is not what it is Sartre [, ]. Human existence, then, cannot be thought through categories appropriate to things: substance, event, process. In this sense, human beings make themselves in situation: what I am cannot be separated from what I take myself to be. If such a view is not to collapse into contradiction, the notions of facticity and transcendence must be elucidated.

Risking some oversimplification, they can be approached as the correlates of the two attitudes I can take toward myself: the attitude of third-person theoretical observer and the attitude of first-person practical agent. Facticity includes all those properties that third-person investigation can establish about me: natural properties such as weight, height, and skin color; social facts such as race, class, and nationality; psychological properties such as my web of belief, desires, and character traits; historical facts such as my past actions, my family background, and my broader historical milieu; and so on.

From an existential point of view, however, this would be an error— not because these aspects of my being are not real or factual, but because the kind of being that I am cannot be defined in factual, or third-person, terms. Though third-person observation can identify skin color, class, or ethnicity, the minute it seeks to identify them as mine it must contend with the distinctive character of the existence I possess.

There is no sense in which facticity is both mine and merely a matter of fact, since my existence—the kind of being I am—is also defined by the stance I take toward my facticity. An agent is oriented by the task at hand as something to be brought about through its own will or agency. Such orientation does not take itself as a theme but loses itself in what is to be done.

Thereby, things present themselves not as indifferent givens, facts, but as meaningful: salient, expedient, obstructive, and so on. It may be—the argument runs—that I can be said to choose a course of action at the conclusion of a process of deliberation, but there seems to be no choice involved when, in the heat of the moment, I toss the useless pen aside in frustration. But the point in using such language is simply to insist that in the first-person perspective of agency I cannot conceive myself as determined by anything that is available to me only in third-person terms.

Because existence is co-constituted by facticity and transcendence, the self cannot be conceived as a Cartesian ego but is embodied being-in-the-world, a self-making in situation.

Because my projects are who I am in the mode of engaged agency unlike plans that I merely represent to myself in reflective deliberation , the world in a certain sense reveals to me who I am. For reasons to be explored in the next section, the meaning of my choice is not always transparent to me.

Existential psychoanalysis represents a kind of compromise between the first- and third-person perspectives: like the latter, it objectifies the person and treats its open-ended practical horizons as in a certain sense closed; like the former, however, it seeks to understand the choices from the inside, to grasp the identity of the individual as a matter of the first-person meaning that haunts him, rather than as a function of inert psychic mechanisms with which the individual has no acquaintance.

In the first place, while it is through my projects that the world takes on meaning, the world itself is not brought into being through my projects; it retains its otherness and thus can come forth as utterly alien, as unheimlich. This experience, basic to existential thought, contrasts most sharply with the ancient notion of a kosmos in which human beings have a well-ordered place, and it connects existential thought tightly to the modern experience of a meaningless universe.

In the second place, the world includes other people, and as a consequence I am not merely the revealer of the world but something revealed in the projects of those others. I am not merely looking through a keyhole; I am a voyeur. I cannot originally experience myself as something—a voyeur, for instance.

It is because there are others in the world that I can take a third-person perspective on myself, but this reveals the extent to which I am alienated from a dimension of my being: who I am in an objective sense can be originally revealed only by the Other.

This has implications for existential social theory see the section on Sartre: Existentialism and Marxism below. Finally, the self-understanding, or project, thanks to which the world is there for me in a meaningful way, already belongs to that world, derives from it, from the tradition or society in which I find myself. This theme is brought out most clearly by Heidegger: the anti-Cartesian idea that the self is defined first of all by its practical engagement entails that this self is not properly individual but rather indisinguishable from anyone else das Man who engages in such practices.

The idea is something like this: Practices can allow things to show up as meaningful—as hammers, dollar bills, or artworks—because practices involve aims that carry with them norms, satisfaction conditions, for what shows up in them. But norms and rules, as Wittgenstein has shown, are essentially public, and that means that when I engage in a practice I must be essentially interchangeable with anyone else who does: I eat as one eats, I drive as one drives, I even protest as one protests.

To the extent that my activity is to be an instance of such a practice, I must do it in the normal way. If such standards traditionally derive from the essence that a particular thing instantiates—this hammer is a good one if it instantiates what a hammer is supposed to be—and if there is nothing that a human being is, by its essence, supposed to be, can the meaning of existence at all be thought? Existentialism arises with the collapse of the idea that philosophy can provide substantive norms for existing, ones that specify particular ways of life.

Authenticity—in German, Eigentlichkeit —names that attitude in which I engage in my projects as my own eigen. What this means can perhaps be brought out by considering moral evaluations. In keeping my promise, I act in accord with duty; and if I keep it because it is my duty, I also act morally according to Kant because I am acting for the sake of duty.

But existentially there is still a further evaluation to be made. But I can do the same thing authentically if, in keeping my promise for the sake of duty, acting this way is something I choose as my own , something to which, apart from its social sanction, I commit myself. But such character might also be a reflection of my choice of myself, a commitment I make to be a person of this sort. In both cases I have succeeded in being good; only in the latter case, however, have I succeeded in being myself.

Some writers have taken this notion a step further, arguing that the measure of an authentic life lies in the integrity of a narrative , that to be a self is to constitute a story in which a kind of wholeness prevails, to be the author of oneself as a unique individual Nehamas ; Ricoeur In contrast, the inauthentic life would be one without such integrity, one in which I allow my life-story to be dictated by the world.

Even interpreted narratively, then, the norm of authenticity remains a formal one. Authenticity defines a condition on self-making: do I succeed in making myself , or will who I am merely be a function of the roles I find myself in? Thus to be authentic can also be thought as a way of being autonomous. Being a father in an authentic way does not necessarily make me a better father, but what it means to be a father has become explicitly my concern. It is here that existentialism locates the singularity of existence and identifies what is irreducible in the first-person stance.

At the same time, authenticity does not hold out some specific way of life as a norm; that is, it does not distinguish between the projects that I might choose. The possibility of authenticity is a mark of my freedom , and it is through freedom that existentialism approaches questions of value, leading to many of its most recognizable doctrines.

Existentialism did not develop much in the way of a normative ethics; however, a certain approach to the theory of value and to moral psychology, deriving from the idea of existence as self-making in situation, is a distinctive mark of the existentialist tradition.

Existential moral psychology emphasizes human freedom and focuses on the sources of mendacity, self-deception, and hypocrisy in moral consciousness. The familiar existential themes of anxiety, nothingness, and the absurd must be understood in this context.

As a predicate of existence, the concept of freedom is not initially established on the basis of arguments against determinism; nor is it taken, in Kantian fashion, simply as a given of practical self-consciousness. Rather, it is located in the breakdown of direct practical activity. Both Heidegger and Sartre believe that phenomenological analysis of the kind of intentionality that belongs to moods does not merely register a passing modification of the psyche but reveals fundamental aspects of the self.

Fear, for instance, reveals some region of the world as threatening, some element in it as a threat, and myself as vulnerable. In anxiety, as in fear, I grasp myself as threatened or as vulnerable; but unlike fear, anxiety has no direct object, there is nothing in the world that is threatening. And with this collapse of my practical immersion in roles and projects, I also lose the basic sense of who I am that is provided by these roles.

In thus robbing me of the possibility of practical self-identification, anxiety teaches me that I do not coincide with anything that I factically am. Further, since the identity bound up with such roles and practices is always typical and public, the collapse of this identity reveals an ultimately first-personal aspect of myself that is irreducible to das Man.

The experience of anxiety also yields the existential theme of the absurd , a version of what was previously introduced as alienation from the world see the section on Alienation above. So long as I am gearing into the world practically, in a seamless and absorbed way, things present themselves as meaningfully co-ordinated with the projects in which I am engaged; they show me the face that is relevant to what I am doing.

But the connection between these meanings and my projects is not itself something that I experience. So long as I am practically engaged, in short, all things appear to have reasons for being, and I, correlatively, experience myself as fully at home in the world.

In the mood of anxiety, however, it is just this character that fades from the world. As when one repeats a word until it loses meaning, anxiety undermines the taken-for-granted sense of things. They become absurd. As Roquentin sits in a park, the root of a tree loses its character of familiarity until he is overcome by nausea at its utterly alien character, its being en soi. While such an experience is no more genuine than my practical, engaged experience of a world of meaning, it is no less genuine either.

An existential account of meaning and value must recognize both possibilities and their intermediaries. To do so is to acknowledge a certain absurdity to existence: though reason and value have a foothold in the world they are not, after all, my arbitrary invention , they nevertheless lack any ultimate foundation.

Values are not intrinsic to being, and at some point reasons give out. In commiting myself in the face of death—that is, aware of the nothingness of my identity if not supported by me right up to the end—the roles that I have hitherto thoughtlessly engaged in as one does now become something that I myself own up to, become responsible for.

Sartre [, 70] argues that anxiety provides a lucid experience of that freedom which, though often concealed, characterizes human existence as such. For instance, because it is not thing-like, consciousness is free with regard to its own prior states. Motives, instincts, psychic forces, and the like cannot be understood as inhabitants of consciousness that might infect freedom from within, inducing one to act in ways for which one is not responsible; rather, they can exist only for consciousness as matters of choice.

I must either reject their claims or avow them. For Sartre, the ontological freedom of existence entails that determinism is an excuse before it is a theory: though through its structure of nihilation consciousness escapes that which would define it—including its own past choices and behavior—there are times when I may wish to deny my freedom.

This is to adopt the third-person stance in which what is originally structured in terms of freedom appears as a causal property of myself. I can try to look upon myself as the Other does, but as an excuse this flight from freedom is shown to fail, according to Sartre, in the experience of anguish. For instance, Sartre writes of a gambler who, after losing all and fearing for himself and his family, retreats to the reflective behavior of resolving never to gamble again. This motive thus enters into his facticity as a choice he has made; and, as long as he retains his fear, his living sense of himself as being threatened, it may appear to him that this resolve actually has causal force in keeping him from gambling.

In order for it to influence his behavior he must avow it afresh, but this is just what he cannot do; indeed, just this is what he hoped the original resolve would spare him from having to do. As Sartre points out in great detail, anguish, as the consciousness of freedom, is not something that human beings welcome; rather, we seek stability, identity, and adopt the language of freedom only when it suits us: those acts are considered by me to be my free acts which exactly match the self I want others to take me to be.

Meanwhile, existentialist ideas about freedom and youthful rebellion have become so much a part of popular culture that we hardly remember how scandalous they once were. I am convinced that existentialism should be seen as more than a fad, however, and that it still has something to offer us today.

In a spirit of experiment, here are 10 possible reasons to be an existentialist — or at least to read their books with a fresh sense of curiosity. Sartre was so excited when he heard this that he literally turned pale, according to De Beauvoir. He went to study philosophy in Berlin for a year, then came back to work out a philosophy based on his own very Parisian experiences. He created a philosophy not just of cocktails but of cafes and jazz songs; of the movements of waiters as they glided across the floor to top up his glass; of sleazy hotels and public gardens; of the passion for a desired lover or the revulsion from an unwanted one; of tiredness, apprehensiveness, excitement, vertigo, shame, war, revolution, music and sex.

Especially sex. He emphasised the importance of action in living out his philosophy, which accordingly inspired readers to struggle against colonialism, racism, sexism and all kinds of social evils on existentialist grounds. Martin Luther King Jr was among those who read both him and Martin Heidegger , the German phenomenologist who had most influenced Sartre. Sartre observed that the 68ers wanted everything and nothing — meaning that they wanted freedom.

Existentialists think that what makes humans different from all other beings is the fact that we can choose what to do. In fact, we must choose: the only thing we are not free to do is not to be free. Other entities have some predefined nature: a rock, a penknife or even a beetle just is what it is. But as a human, there is no blueprint for producing me.

I may be influenced by biology, culture and personal background, but at each moment I am making myself up as I go along, depending on what I choose to do next. But, to invent it, he is free, responsible, without excuse, and every hope lies within him. What would it mean for us today, if we truly believed this idea?

For a start, we might be more sceptical about the simplified popular-science arguments suggesting that we are out of control of ourselves — that, when we speak, click on a button, or vote, we are only following unconscious and statistically predictable forces rather than deciding freely. What intrigues me is the eagerness with which we seem to seize on this idea; it is as though we find it more comforting than disturbing.

It lets us off the hook, taking away the existential anxiety that comes with making a genuine choice. It may be dangerous: other research suggests that people who have been convinced that they are not free tend to make less ethical choices.

Then there is the question of social freedom. After the s, the battle for personal liberty seemed to be mostly won. The achievements have been great — and yet, in the 21st century, we find ourselves less sure than ever about how far our freedom includes the right to offend or transgress, and how much of it we want to compromise in return for convenience, entertainment or an illusion of total security.

This did lead to some unpalatable behaviour, as when De Beauvoir became involved with her own young students before apparently passing them on to Sartre. He was a serial seducer: one scurrilous journalist in chortled over rumours of him tempting women up to his bedroom by offering them a sniff of his Camembert cheese well, good cheese was hard to get in Sartre and De Beauvoir instead chose to live by their own philosophy of honesty and free choice.

She marshalled evidence to show, on an epic scale, how women grow up to be more hesitant and self-doubting than men, and less inclined to pursue the basic existentialist goal of taking responsibility for their lives.

Many women, reading the book, decided to shake off their inhibitions and have a go after all. We have so many options. How do we pick the right ones to create a meaningful and fulfilling life? To fully comprehend your freedom you have to accept only you are responsible for creating, or failing to create, your personal purpose. Without rules or order to guide you, you have so much choice that freedom is overwhelming. Life can be silly. They define absurdity as the search for answers in an answerless world.

The absurd posits there is no one truth, no inherent rules or guidelines. This means you have to develop your own moral code to live by. Sartre cautioned looking to authority for guidance and answers because no one has them and there is no one truth. Any purpose or meaning in your life is created by you. You have the answer, you just have to own it. By signing up you agree to our privacy policy. Article Being Human. I agree with a lot of the existentialist theory. However, what do they believe with regard to illnesses eg cancer or natural disasters?

They emphasise that once we are born, we are responsible for everything, however, if we live a healthy lifestyle no smoking etc how can we be responsible for getting cancer?? Sartre is perhaps the most well-known , as well as one of the few to have actually accepted being called an "existentialist". In "The Myth of Sisyphus" , Albert Camus uses the analogy of the Greek myth of Sisyphus who is condemned for eternity to roll a rock up a hill, only to have it roll to the bottom again each time to exemplify the pointlessness of existence, but shows that Sisyphus ultimately finds meaning and purpose in his task, simply by continually applying himself to it.

Simone de Beauvoir, an important existentialist who spent much of her life alongside Sartre , wrote about feminist and existential ethics in her works, including "The Second Sex" and "The Ethics of Ambiguity" Although Sartre is considered by most to be the pre-eminent Existentialist, and by many to be an important and innovative philosopher in his own right, others are much less impressed by his contributions.

Heidegger himself thought that Sartre had merely taken his own work and regressed it back to the subject-object orientated philosophy of Descartes and Husserl , which is exactly what Heidegger had been trying to free philosophy from. Some see Maurice Merleau-Ponty - as a better Existentialist philosopher, particular for his incorporation of the body as our way of being in the world, and for his more complete analysis of perception two areas in which Heidegger 's work is often seen as deficient.

Herbert Marcuse - has criticized Existentialism, especially Sartre 's "Being and Nothingness", for projecting some features of living in a modern oppressive society features such as anxiety and meaninglessness onto the nature of existence itself.

Roger Scruton - has claimed that both Heidegger 's concept of inauthenticity and Sartre 's concept of bad faith are both self-inconsistent , in that they deny any universal moral creed, yet speak of these concepts as if everyone is bound to abide by them. Logical Positivists , such as A. Ayer and Rudolf Carnap - , claim that existentialists frequently become confused over the verb "to be" which is meaningless if used without a predicate and by the word "nothing" which is the negation of existence and therefore cannot be assumed to refer to something.

Marxists , especially in post-War France, found Existentialism to run counter to their emphasis on the solidarity of human beings and their theory of economic determinism. They further argued that Existentialism's emphasis on individual choice leads to contemplation rather than to action, and that only the bourgeoisie has the luxury to make themselves what they are through their choices, so they considered Existentialism to be a bourgeois philosophy.

Christian critics complain that Existentialism portrays humanity in the worst possible light , overlooking the dignity and grace that comes from being made in the image of God. Also, according to Christian critics, Existentialists are unable to account for the moral dimension of human life, and have no basis for an ethical theory if they deny that humans are bound by the commands of God.

On the other hand, some commentators have objected to Kierkegaard 's continued espousal of Christianity , despite his inability to effectively justify it.