WHAT IS EXISTENTIALISM?
Representative Historical Responses
A. Introduction to the Question: What is Existentialism?
A sizable number of twentieth-century philosophers have warned about the
great difficulty—even the impossibility—of defining existentialism
adequately. Some have even criticized the mere attempt to do so as
inherently contradictory. Nevertheless, the very same philosophers have
advanced, from the 1940s to the present, a rich variety of very informative and
interesting answers to the question "What is Existentialism?". As the
representative responses to this question listed below illustrate, these answers
exhibit diverse approaches, strategies, and emphases. Moreover, some of them
directly contradict each other. However, more often than not, they contribute
partial yet complementary perspectives on existentialism as a complex cultural,
historical and philosophical phenomenon. As such, together they provide a
composite or multi-perspectival portrait. Consequently, adapting an innovative
concept of definition formulated by the prominent Austrian philosopher
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), we will primarily interpret these divergent
definitions as exhibiting a family resemblance. Like the facial features
of members of a family, for example, these definitions express a network or
fabric of overlapping yet discontinuous similarities. Therefore, in our
interpretation, existentialism cannot be reduced to a single set of essential
common characteristics shared by all existentialists. Rather, it will signify a
complex and dynamic network of distinct yet interrelated philosophical
orientations, attitudes, methods, and themes.
B. Representative Historical Responses to the Question
1. In any case, we can begin by saying that existentialism, in our sense of
the word, is a doctrine that does render human life possible: a doctrine, also,
which affirms that every truth and action imply both an environment and a human
subjectivity. The essential charge laid against us is, of course, that of
over-emphasis upon the evil side of human life. (p. 26)
For at bottom, what is alarming in the doctrine that I am about to explain to
you is—is it not?—that it confronts man with a possibility of choice. To
verify this, let us review the whole question upon the strictly philosophic
level. What, then, is this that we call existentialism?
Most of those who are making use of this word would be highly confused if
required to explain its meaning…. It would appear that, for the lack of any
novel doctrine such as that of surrealism, all those who are eager to join in
the latest scandal or movement now seize upon this philosophy in which, however,
they can find nothing to their purpose. For in truth this is of all teachings
the least scandalous and the most austere: it is intended strictly for
technicians and philosophers. All the same, it can easily be defined.
The question is only complicated because there are two kinds of
existentialists. There are, on the one hand, the Christians, amongst whom I
shall name Jaspers and Gabriel Marcel, both professed Catholics; and on the
other the existential atheists, amongst whom we must place Heidegger as well as
the French existentialists and myself. What they have in common is simply the
fact that they believe that existence comes before essence—or,
if you will, that we must begin from the subjective. What exactly do we mean by
that? (p. 27)
Atheistic existentialism, of which I am a representative, declares with
greater consistency that if God does not exist there is a least one being whose
existence comes before essence, a being which exists before it can be defined by
any conception of it. That being is man or, as Heidegger has it, the human
reality. What do we mean by saying that existence precedes essence? We mean that
man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world—and
defines himself afterwards. If man as the existentialist sees him is not
definable, it is because to begin with he is nothing. He will not be anything
until later, and then he will be what he makes of himself. Thus, there is no
human nature, because there is no God to have a conception of it. Man simply is.
Not that he is simply what he conceives himself to be, but he is what he wills,
and as he conceives himself after already existing—as he wills to be after
that leap towards existence. Man is nothing else but that which he makes of
himself. That is the first principle of existentialism. And this is what people
call its "subjectivity," using the word as a reproach against us. (pp.
28-29)
If, however, it is true that existence is prior to essence, man is responsible
for what he is. Thus, the first effect of existentialism is that it puts every
man in possession of himself as he is, and places the entire responsibility for
his existence squarely upon his own shoulders… Subjectivism means, on the one
hand, the freedom of the individual subject and, on the other, that man cannot
pass beyond human subjectivity. It is the latter which is the deeper meaning of
existentialism.
Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism (1945)
Stephen Priest, ed. Jean-Paul Sartre: Basic Writings. London and New
York: Routledge, 2001.
2. By way of contrast, Sartre expresses the basic tenet of existentialism in
this way: Existence precedes essence. In this statement he is taking existentia
and essentia according to their metaphysical meaning, which from
Plato’s time on has said that essentia precedes existentia.
Sartre reverses this statement. But the reversal of a metaphysical statement
remains a metaphysical statement. (p. 250)
Sartre’s key proposition about the priority of existentia over
essentia does, however, justify using the name "existentialism" as
an appropriate title for a philosophy of his sort. But the basic tenet of
"existentialism" has nothing at all in common with the statement from Being
and Time—apart from the fact that in Being and Time no statement
about the relation of essentia and existentia can yet be
expressed, since there it is still a question of preparing something precursory.
(pp. 250-251)
Martin Heidegger, Letter on Humanism (1946)
Martin Heidegger, Pathmarks. Ed. William McNeill. New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1998.
3. The expression "philosophy of existence" has a history that is
not wholly transparent. As far as I am aware it was first publicly used by Fritz
Heinemann in his Newe Wege der Philosophie [New Path of Philosophy](1929);
and he makes a claim to priority. By an anonymous process over the years since
then, it has come to be a catch-word for contemporary philosophizing. Heinemann’s
use of the word at that time did not strike me as strange, for I have been using
it in my lectures since the middle twenties and, because of Kierkegaard, did not
suspect it of being anything new. It was not my intention to teach a new
philosophy by using it, nor did I think that I was doing so. In my lectures I
used the phrase "elucidation of Existenz" for one part of philosophy.
I thus did not take Heinemann’s book as in effect creating a new modern
philosophy by giving it a name. But Heinemann carried the day as far as public
usage is concerned. The word Existenzphilosophie (especially in referring
to Heidegger as the originator of Existentialphilosophie) was seized upon
to stigmatize contemporary philosophizing in so far as it is not logistical and
traditional; and it is now ineradicable. Although all the authors who are
considered its inaugurators have repudiated it, it remains like a phantom under
whose name the most heterogeneous things are treated as identical. In my Man
in the Modern Age (1931), I used this word for a philosophical way of
thinking about man. My Philosophy, published at the same time, dealt with
the elucidation of Existenz in only one of its three volumes. I also spoke of
"the philosophy of existence," in the sense of these lectures,
according to which "for the moment Existenz is the key word" of
philosophy. Although I accepted the word as the title of these lectures, I
wanted to avoid the catch-word. At that time it was not yet misleading. Sartre’s
existentialism, which has conquered the world, did not yet exist. This has
sprung from an alien philosophical frame of mind. It was still possible to
designate something entirely different with the word. (pp. 95-96)
Karl Jaspers (1956)
Karl Jaspers, Philosophy of Existence. Trans. Richard F. Grabau.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971.
My book [three-volume Philosophy] was comprehensive in intent, guided
by the age-old philosophical idea. The world, the soul, and God became the
themes of its three parts, as world orientation, self-elucidation, and
metaphysics. Not for one moment did I regard self-elucidation, bringing lucidity
to Existenz, as philosophy’s only theme. It was an indispensable element of
the whole, but it was not the whole. In my book "Von der Wahrheit"
[On Truth]—written just before and during the second World War, but not
publishable, due to the political terror, until after the war—I discussed
instances of absolutizing and thought I was inventing a word,
"existentialism," to describe a possible decay of self-elucidation.
After the war I was surprised to see this realized in France. I did not pursue
or anticipate the road of this later existentialism. If it was timely, my
philosophy was untimely from the start, untimely in principle. A literary public
opinion turned this existentialism into the specter of a common modern
philosophy by that name. If your philosophizing attracted notice today, you
belonged to it and had to put up with the subsumption. For this philosophy was
said to be that of the times, the philosophy in keeping with the times, praised
or condemned for that reason. (pp. 11-12)
Karl Jaspers (1955)
Karl Jaspers, Philosophy, Volume One. Trans. E. B. Ashton. Chicago and
London: University of Chicago Press, 1969.
Existence-philosophy [Existenzphilosophie] is the way of thought by
means of which man seeks to become himself; it makes use of expert knowledge
while at the same time going beyond it. This way of thought does not cognise
objects, but elucidates and makes actual the being of the thinker…. This
existence-philosophy cannot be rounded off in any particular work, nor can it
acquire definitive perfectionment as the life of any particular thinker. It was,
in modern times, originated by Kierkegaard, and through him procured widespread
diffusion. (p. 175)
Existence-philosophy would be instantly lost if it were once more to imply a
belief that we know what man is…. It awakens what it does not itself know; it
elucidates and gives impetus, but it does not fixate…. But genuine
existence-philosophy is that appealing questioning in which, to-day, man is
again seeking to come to his true self. (pp. 176-177)
Karl Jaspers (1931)
Karl Jaspers, Man in the Modern Age. Trans. Eden and Cedar Paul.
Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1951.
4. I believe that it is in my essay entitled Existence et Objectivité
[Existence and Objectivity], published in the Revue de Métaphsique et
de Morale in 1925 that the main lines of this new development [contemporary
existentialist school] were first formulated in France. I had not then
read Kierkegaard, who was still almost unknown in France nor had Heidegger or
Jaspers as yet published their main works. (p. 5)
Hardly a day goes by without my being asked what is existentialism. (Usually
it is a society lady who ask for this information, but to-morrow it may be my
charwoman or the ticket-collector on the Underground.) It is perhaps hardly
surprising that my answers tend to be evasive: I should like to say, "It is
too difficult," or "It would take too long to explain": but I
realize that such answers are disappointing and should not be given too often.
What I propose to do now is not so much to define existentialism as to try to
throw some light on what seems to me its essence by bringing out its key notions—that
is, the notions which give the clue to it from my standpoint, which, I need
hardly add, is very different from that of Sartre. Sartre has himself admitted
that there is a Christian version of existentialism which is not to be confused
with his own; though, for my part, I think it is insufficient and even incorrect
to stress its Christian character, because I believe that many people are
liable to adhere to it who do not regard themselves as Christians. (p. 91)
To sum up our main points; my testimony bears on something independent from
me and objectively real; it has therefore an essentially objective end. At the
same time it commits my entire being as a person who is answerable for my
assertions and for myself. This tension between the inward commitment and the
objective end seems to me existential in the highest degree. (pp. 94-95)
This brings us to the distinction between the onlooker and the witness, and a
little reflection will show that it is a distinction between two opposite
metaphysical attitudes. There are modern philosophers who try to impale us on
the horns of a false dilemma by saying to us: "either you are only an
onlooker, in that case you are not involved in reality; or you are an active and
free being. You have nothing but the choice between these two ways, indeed you are
nothing but this choice, or rather this way which chooses itself." But it
must be asked: does not this dilemma leave out the essential factor? By adopting
this standpoint, do we not forfeit all chance of understanding the essential
point of our lives—the fact that we are witnesses and that this is the
expression of our mode of belonging to the world? (pp. 96-97)
Gabriel Marcel (1946)
Gabriel Marcel, The Philosophy of Existentialism. Trans. Manya Harari.
New York: Citadel Press, 1956.
5. During a discussion organized during the summer [of 1945]…Sartre had
refused to allow Gabriel Marcel to apply this adjective to him. ‘My philosophy
is a philosophy of existence; I don’t even know what Existentialism is.’ I
shared his irritation. I had written my novel [The Blood of Others]
before I had even encountered the term Existentialism; my inspiration came from
my own experience, not from a system. But our protests were in vain. In the end,
we took the epithet that everyone used for us and used it for our own purposes.
(p. 4)
Simone de Beauvoir (1960)
Simone de Beauvoir, The Force of Circumstance. Trans. Richard Howard.
New York: Penguin Books, 1968.
6. As to vocabulary, it is commonly known that it is chiefly owing to the
influence of Kierkegaard that the word ‘existential’ has become part of
current speech, particularly in Germany. Twenty years ago…many philosophers,
from Jaspers and Gabriel Marcel to Berdyaeff and Chestov, were already calling
themselves ‘existential’ philosophers. It was sometime later that the word
‘existentialism’ passed into common usage, and with such success indeed that
to-day, as M. Sartre remarked recently, ‘it no longer signifies anything at
all.’ Apart from this incidental disadvantage, it is in itself a useful, nay
an excellent word…. Let it be said right off that there are two fundamentally
different ways of interpreting the word existentialism. One way is to affirm the
primacy of existence, but as implying and preserving essences or natures and as
manifesting the supreme victory of the intellect and of intelligibility. This is
what I consider to be authentic existentialism. The other way is to affirm the
primacy of existence, but as destroying or abolishing essences or natures and as
manifesting the supreme defeat of the intellect and of intelligibility. This is
what I consider to be apocryphal existentialism, the current kind which ‘no
longer signifies anything at all’…. An existentialism of this sort is
self-destroying. (pp. 12-13)
Jacques Maritain
Jacques Maritain, Existence and Existent. Trans. Lewis Galantiere and
Gerald B. Phelan. Garden City, New York: Image Books, 1956.
7. Does existentialism have a character of its own with respect to
traditional philosophy? And does this character justify the interest it has
provoked even outside philosophy circles, and its claim to permeate literature,
art, and contemporary culture in general?
Let us begin to answer this question by considering the attitude of
existentialism with respect to the problem of philosophy. There has always been
a problem of philosophy. This discipline could never simply presuppose
its nature, its method and its objects, but has always had to begin with a
definition of itself…. (p. 276)
The fact that philosophy ought to wrestle ceaselessly for its life, that it
ought to begin by giving itself a form and a feature and then fight to defend
and maintain them—should this fact, or better, this destiny, rightly fall
outside of philosophy, or should philosophy make of it its very heart and soul?
Existentialism is born from this alternative, and on this very point marks a
definitive break with philosophic naiveté. Existentialism finds those positions
and systems of philosophy characterized by ignorance of this alternative
impossible…. (pp. 276-77)
Nicholas Abbagnano (1947)
Nicholas Abbagnano, "Existentialism Is a Positive Philosophy." In
Nino Langiulli, ed., The Existentialist Tradition: Selected Writings. Garden
City, New York: Anchor Books, 1971.
8. One day not long ago, as I was leaving a café in Paris, I passed a group
of students, one of whom stepped up to me and said: "Sûrement, Monsieur
est existentialiste!" [Surely, you are an existentialist!] I denied
that I was an existentialist. Why? I had not stopped to consider, but doubtless
I felt that terms suffixed by ist usually conceal vague generalities. The
subject of existentialism, or philosophy of existence, has begun to receive as
much attention in New York as in Paris. Sartre has written an article for Vogue;
a friend informs me that Mademoiselle, a magazine for teen-age young
ladies, has featured an article on existentialist literature; and Marvin Farber
has written in his periodical that Heidegger constitutes an international
menace. The philosophy of existence has become, not only a European problem, but
a world problem.
It is no less of a problem to define this philosophy satisfactorily. The word
"existence," in the philosophic connotation which it has today, was
first used by Kierkegaard. But may we call Kierkegaard an existentialist, or
even a philosopher of existence? He had no desire to be a philosopher, and least
of all, a philosopher with a fixed doctrine. In our own times, Heidegger has
opposed what he terms "existentialism," and Jaspers has asserted that
"existentialism" is the death of the philosophy of existence! So it
seems only right to restrict our application of the term
"existentialism" to those who willingly accept it, to those whom we
might call the Philosophical School of Paris, i.e., Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir,
Merleau-Ponty. But we still have not found a definition of the terms. (pp. 1-2)
At any rate, it is clear that one of the consequences of the existentialist
movement and the philosophies of existence is that we have to destroy the
majority of the ideas of so-called "philosophical common-sense," and
of what has often been called "the eternal philosophy." In particular,
we have to destroy the ideas of essence and substance. Philosophy—so goes the
new affirmation—must cease to be philosophy of essence and must become
philosophy of existence. We are observing a whole philosophical movement which
dislodges previous philosophical concepts, and which tends to make more acute
our subjective understanding at the same time as its makes us feel more strongly
than ever our union with the world. In this sense, we are witnessing and
participating in the beginning of a new mode of philosophizing. (pp. 33-34)
Jean Wahl (1946)
Jean Wahl, A Short History of Existentialism. Trans. Forrest Williams
and Stanley Maron. New York: Philosophical Library, 1949.
9. I write as someone who has experienced at first hand the rise of this
movement in Germany, its transplantation to France, and its recent reception in
the Anglo-Saxon world. In 1929 I published a book, Neue Wege der Philosophie
[New Path of Philosophy], in which I introduced the term Existenzphilosophie;
and to my knowledge I was the first to describe this phenomenon. (p.1)
But what is existentialism? Its representative or expressive value cannot be
doubted. It represents one of the essential forms of West European philosophy in
the age of European collapse. German Existenzphilosophie, French Existentialisme
and Italian Esistenzialismo, though profoundly differing in form and
content, have this in common—that they arise in the wake of national
catastrophes. (p. 3)
F. H. Heinemann (1953)
F. H. Heinemann, Existentialism and the Modern Predicament. New York:
Harper and Row, 1953.
10. In reply to all these misconstructions we emphasize that existentialist
philosophy is a technical philosophical position which first came to its full
development in our time and can be traced back no further than Kierkegaard, and
that it has articulated itself into doctrines which diverge very widely—only
those views which are held in common can be regarded as the
existentialist philosophy….Within the limits of the present account it seemed
convenient first to enumerate the philosophers who are regarded as members of
the school and then to bring out their common features. There are at least four
contemporary philosophers who should undoubtedly be labeled ‘existentialists,’
Gabriel Marcel, Karl Jaspers, Martin Heidegger, and Jean-Paul Sartre. (p. 156)
1) The commonest characteristic among the various existentialist philosophies
of the present is the fact that they all arise from a so-called existential experience
which assumes a different form in each one of them. (p.159)
2) The existentialists take so-called existence as the supreme object of
inquiry, but the meaning which they attach to the word is extremely difficult to
determine. However, in each case it signifies a peculiarly human mode of being.
(p.159)
3) Existence is conceived as absolutely actualistic; it never is
but freely creates itself, it becomes; it is a pro-jection…. (p.159)
4) Furthermore, subjectivity is understood in a creative sense; man creates
himself freely, and is his freedom. (pp. 159-160)
5) …man is an incomplete and open reality; thus his nature pins him tightly
and necessarily to the world, and to other men in particular. This double
dependence is assumed by all representatives of existentialism…. (p. 160)
6) All existentialists repudiate the distinction between subject and object,
thereby discounting the value of intellectual knowledge for philosophical
purposes. (p. 160)
I. M. Bocheński
(1947)
I. M. Bocheński, Contemporary
European Philosophy. Trans. Donald Nicholl and Karl Aschenbrenner. Berkeley
and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1964.
11. The more fashionable a philosophy becomes, the more elusive is its
definition. So the proponents of existentialism proclaim that, though many
attack, few understand them. They insist on the essential optimism of their
doctrine that "man makes himself," for there is always, until death,
another chance. Granted, they would say, that, in their wide humanity, they
explore the far corners of human life, the horrors and perversions uncharted by
timorous captives of gentility. Granted, too, that, with honest ruthlessness,
they expose the cant of a fraudulent, strictly bourgeois "human
dignity." But just because of this very humaneness, this very honesty, they
are decried as perverts and iconoclasts, as philosophic nihilists and artistic
freaks. So, finally, as the word goes around, every treatise that dooms man to
destruction, every novel whose characters are mad or bad, every play that
depresses without elevating, is labeled "so existential"; and hence
existentialism…comes to mean the shocking, the sordid, or the obscene. (p.1)
Marjorie Grene (1948)
Marjorie Grene, Dreadful Freedom: A Critique of Existentialism. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1948.
12. "Give me a one-sentence definition of existentialism." This
statement is often more a ritual defense against the insecurity aroused by not
being au courant than a genuine desire for knowledge. It typifies more
than any other the phenomenal popularization and distortion that the
movement called existentialism has undergone since Jean-Paul Sartre’s widely
publicized visit to the United States in 1946. The very notion that
existentialism is something that can be defined in a catch phrase, or that one
can merely know about it without understanding it from within, has made
it, for some people, into an intellectual fad and robbed it of its proper
seriousness. Yet existentialism is not merely a fad any more than it is a
single, well-defined movement within philosophy. It is a powerful stream,
welling up from underground sources, converging and diverging, but flowing
forward and carrying with it many of the most important intellectual tendencies
and literary and cultural manifestations of our day.
It is time, therefore, that a mature view of existentialism replace the easy
definitions and the popular oversimplifications. Such a view can only come from
looking at the existentialist writers themselves, understanding them in their
uniqueness, their similarities and differences concerning the issues they have
in common. (p. 3)
"Existentialism" is not a philosophy but a mood embracing a number
of disparate philosophies; the differences among them are more basic than the
temper which unites them. This temper can best be described as a reaction
against the static, the abstract, the purely rational, the merely irrational, in
favor of the dynamic and concrete personal involvement and
"engagement," action, choice, and commitment, the distinction between
"authentic" and "inauthentic" existence, and the actual
situation of the existential subject as the starting point of thought. Beyond
this the so-called existentialists divide according to their views on such
matters as phenomenological analysis, the existential subject, the
intersubjective relation between selves, religion, and the implications of
existentialism for psychotherapy. (pp. 3-4)
Insofar as one can define existentialism, it is a movement from the abstract
and general to the particular and the concrete…. Existentialism is a
direction of movement toward particulars, but it is not and can never be an
espousal of the particulars at the expense of all generality and abstraction.
Therefore, existentialism is actually a relative thing—a tendency rather than
a platform. (pp. 4-5)
Whether we like it or not, existentialism remains a complex converging and
diverging of streams. (p. 13)
Maurice Friedman (1964)
Maurice Friedman, ed. The Worlds of Existentialism: A Critical Reader. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1964.
13. Negative judgments about existentialism have been loudly voiced. These
criticisms have ranged from the belittling of existentialism as just another
version of nonconformity or a requiem to a dying European culture to the biting
condemnation of existentialism as a strange mixture of "Parisian
pornography and Teutonic brooding." On the other hand, existentialism has
also acquired serious and fervent adherents. One can safely say, however, that
the most common American reaction to existentialism has been a widespread
bewilderment.
Both opponents and advocates have had their share in bringing about this
bewilderment. But one of its more fundamental causes has been the philosophy of
existentialism itself with its peculiar structure. Nobody has yet or will ever
put down "the" tenets of existentialism in a systematic work of so
many volumes, nor will there at any time appear an "Existentialist
Manifesto" which would neatly spell out easy-to-grasp maxims. Even the word
existentialism itself must be used with great caution, since it refers not to a
rigid set of propositions but rather to a number of themes which recur in the
works of existentialist writers, themes which resemble neither prescriptions for
cure-alls nor ready-made explanations of all that puzzles man. Instead they
dwell on the eternal tensions present in the human condition and shared by men
of all ages. (p. 4)
Admittedly, so brief a glimpse of some of the major themes of existentialist
philosophy—life as an adventure, hostility against systems, authentic
existence, and man’s estrangement from his true self—adds still more
questions to those one already has. But it does reveal the tenor of this
philosophy. Existentialism emerges as a philosophy which demands a radical,
personal, and never-ceasing questioning of the purpose of human life…, a
questioning which is demanded in the interest of what can justifiably be called
the central existential concern, the actually existing individual. (p. 6)
Ernst Breisach (1962)
Ernst Breisach, Introduction to Modern Existentialism. New York: Grove
Press, 1962.
14. Existentialism is not a philosophy but a label for several widely
different revolts against traditional philosophy. Most of the living
"existentialists" have repudiated this label, and a bewildered
outsider might well conclude that the only thing they have in common is a marked
aversion for each other….
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. (p. 11)
The refusal to belong to any school of thought, the repudiation of the
adequacy of any body of beliefs whatever, and especially of systems, and a
marked dissatisfaction with traditional philosophy as superficial, academic, and
remote from life—that is the heart of existentialism.
Existentialism is a timeless sensibility that can be discerned here and there
in the past; but it is only in recent times that it has hardened into a
sustained protest and preoccupation. (p. 12)
Walter Kaufmann (1956)
Walter Kaufmann, ed. Existentialism From Dostoevsky to Sartre. New
York: Meridian, 1975.
15. Even the terminology of existentialism calls for brief notice here. For
it was not until 1944, i.e., one year after the appearance of Sartre’s L’Être
et le néant [Being and Nothingness], that the label
"existentialism" was officially accepted by him and by others of its
present protagonists, as well as, though only temporarily, by Gabriel Marcel.
Previously the word had turned up only sporadically since the late twenties in
France, Germany, and Italy (earliest known occurrence), and was in use mostly
among the opponents of the new way of thinking. It has been rejected
consistently by both Karl Jaspers and Martin Heidegger, supposedly its
initiators; instead, Jaspers speaks only of Existenzphilosophie,
Heidegger of existenziale Analytik [existential analytic] or Fundamentalontologie
[fundamental ontology]. (pp. 408-409)
Herbert Spiegelberg (1959)
Herbert Spiegelberg, The Phenomenological Movement: A Historical
Introduction, 2nd ed. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1978.
16. Nowadays, when existentialism is spoken of in philosophical circles, its
meaning is taken for granted. Yet, quite a few different types of things fall
under this heading, although they are certainly neither without a common
denominator nor lacking an internal coherence. With existentialism one thinks of
Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and Gabriel Marcel; of Martin Heidegger and Karl
Jaspers;…Actually, the word existentialism was a French creation. It
was introduced by Sartre in the 1940s—during the very period that Paris was
occupied by the Germans—as he was developing the philosophy that he later
presented in his voluminous book Being and Nothingness. He was acting on
the stimulus he had received from his studies in Germany during the 1930s. (p.
1)
But it must be made clear that the German stimulus standing behind this,
which is mainly associated with Heidegger’s name, was in essence completely
different from that which Sartre himself had produced from it. At that time one
referred to such things in Germany with the expression philosophy of
existence, and the word existential was quite in vogue during the
late 1920s. If it was not "existential," it simply did not count. It
was primarily Heidegger and Jaspers who were known as the representatives of
this movement, although neither of them met this characterization with real
conviction or approval. (pp. 1-2)
Hans-Georg Gadamer (1981)
Hans-Georg Gadamer, Heidegger’s Way. Trans. John W. Stanley. Albany,
NY: SUNY Press, 1994.
17. There have been enough popular accounts of the general ideas of
existentialists. It is time to discriminate between these thinkers; they are not
exponents of a school, and yet not the least impressive thing about their highly
individual thought, separated by age, nationality, and temperament, is the
interrelatedness of their family; each throws light on the others, and together
they develop the content of certain common themes. (p. 2)
H. J. Blackham
(1952)
H. J. Blackham, Six Existentialist Thinkers. New York: Harper and Row,
1959
18. In continental Europe, to some extent in England and America, and quite
markedly in Asia, existentialism has aroused the interests not merely of the
beatniks in the various cultures but also of the professional philosophers and
the serious students of ideas. (p. 97)
Whatever shortcomings we may find in these ideas when we view them in the
light of their contribution to the philosophical problems to which they address
themselves, we must also recognize that to evoke such an interested response on
the part of so many people they must in some way or other bear on matters of
very deep and widespread concern. To my mind, that is no small recommendation
for any philosophy: when a philosopher speaks only to other philosophers, it is
seldom that what he says is both philosophical and worth saying. Since this
quality of relevance is perhaps the greatest virtue that I will ascribe to
existentialism, I want to be sure that it is fully appreciated. (p. 98)
Existentialism, moreover, is a philosophy which does not content itself with
a mere description and evaluation. It returns to the classical philosophical
tradition in insisting that philosophy is quite different from other
intellectual pursits in a very fundamental way—namely, that its goal is not
merely to arrive at a certain system of propositions, however logical the system
and however true the propositions of which it is composed. A philosophy is not a
body of propositions but a way of life…. Because of this conception of
philosophy, existentialism sets itself quite firmly against any system or school—so
much so, indeed, that existentialists don’t like to be identified as
"existentialists." (p. 99)
Abraham Kaplan (1961)
Abraham Kaplan, The New World of Philosophy. New York: Vintage Books,
1961.
19. What is existentialism? The term is notoriously difficult to define, and
no single definition will be adequate to fit all the works usually labeled
"existentialist." But there are a number of features most
existentialists have in common. We might start by saying that existentialism
arises as a response to some of the major shifts that occurred with the
emergence in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries of what is called the
modern worldview. This modern outlook results in part from the radically new
view of reality created by the rise of modern science. The sociologist Max Weber
described this shift as the "disenchantment of the world." (p. XIV)
In attempting to understand our predicament in the modern age existentialists
have formulated an insightful new way of thinking about human existence. In
contrast to much of the philosophical tradition, which has sought to understand
a human as a thing or an object of a particular sort (whether a mind or a body
or some combination of the two), existentialists have characterized human
existence as involving a profound tension or conflict, an ongoing struggle
between opposing elements. (p. XVII)
Charles Guignon and Derk Pereboom (1995)
Charles Guignon, Derk Pereboom, eds. Existentialism: Basic Writings.
Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1995.
20. The word ‘existentialism’ has an additional and very important
source. For many philosophers, the word ‘existential’ is most at home in the
expression existential phenomenology. There is general agreement that the
most significant versions of twentieth-century existentialism are developments,
welcome or perverse, from phenomenology, the philosophy elaborated by Edmund
Husserl in the early years of the century. Heidegger describes Being and Time
as a work of phenomenology, while Merleau-Ponty and Sartre use the word in
the title or subtitle of their main works. (p. 5)
David E. Cooper (1990)
David E. Cooper, Existentialism: A Reconstruction, 2nd ed.
London: Blackwell, 1999.
21. Existentialism as a philosophical orientation can be difficult to define;
in fact, numerous attempts by commentators to proffer a comprehensive definition
often fall foul to one or another Existentialist writer who denies or in
some other way contradicts some components of the definition. It looks like a
grand name for a philosophical orientation or discipline that focuses on ‘existence’.
(p. 4)
Paul S. MacDonald
(2000)
Paul S. MacDonald, ed. The Existentialist Reader: An Anthology of Key
Texts. New York: Routledge, 2000.
22. The doctrine that existence takes precedence over essence and holding that
man is totally free and responsible for his acts. This responsibility is the
source of dread and anguish that encompass mankind.
Webster’s New World Dictionary,
Second College Edition. Cleveland: William Collins Publishers, 1979.
23. existentialism: a twentieth-century philosophical movement that
developed in France and Germany through the work of Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul
Sartre, and others. It’s basic theme is human freedom and responsibility, the
lack of any given rules and the need for us to be responsible for our actions.
(p. 211)
Robert C. Solomon (1977)
Robert C. Solomon, Introducing Philosophy: Problems and Perspectives,
2nd edition. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1981.
24. EXISTENTIALISM. Movement of philosophers, particularly in France
after World War II. Name derives from their claim that "existence precedes
essence," which is a way of saying that humans have no nature, are
absolutely free, and are blessed (or cursed) with "monstrous spontaneity of
consciousness." Existentialists hold that absolute freedom generates
free-floating anxiety and the need to create meaningfulness through arbitrary
commitment. (pp. 272-273)
William James Earle (1992)
William James Earle, Introduction to Philosophy. New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1992.
25. existentialism. ‘Existentialism’ is a loose term for the
reaction led by Kierkegaard, against the abstract rationalism of Hegel’s
philosophy. As against Hegel’s conception of ‘absolute consciousness’
within which all oppositions are supposedly reconciled, Kierkegaard insisted on
the irreducibility of the subjective, personal dimension of human life. He
characterized this in terms of the perspective of the ‘existing individual’,
and it is from this special use the term ‘existence’ (Existenz in
both Danish and German) to describe a distinctively human mode of being that
existentialism gets its name. Kierkegaard’s successors include the German
philosophers Heidegger and Jaspers and the French philosophers Sartre and Marcel
(who actually coined the term ‘existentialism’). (pp. 257-259)
Thomas Baldwin (1995)
Ted Honderich, ed. The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1995.
26. Existentialism The philosophical doctrine, associated originally
with Soren Kierkegaard, according to which our being as subjective individuals
(our existence) is more important than what we have in common objectively
with all other human beings (our essence). Of primary concern for
Kierkegaard was his relationship to God. Later existentialists emphasized the
individual’s creation of himself or herself through free individual choices.
(p. 447)
Robert Paul Wolff (1976)
Robert Paul Wolff, About Philosophy, 7th edition. Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1998.
27. The background reviewed in the two previous paragraphs facilitates a
quick appreciation of what is meant by Existentialism. This is not the
name for a system of doctrine in the way that Christianity and Marxism
are. Even the description Existentialist itself has apparently been
repudiated by most of the leading contemporary figures to whom it has been
applied. Nevertheless the term has been widely employed and, given a sensibly
limited interpretation, is useful. Crucially an existentialist is one who
insists upon and develops the notion that existence is prior to essence,
particularly with regard to man. This development brings it an enormous emphasis
on the scope and significance of human decision. It is presumably this which has
given existentialism its special appeal both for professional playwrights and
for all those who have a taste for—in a very broad sense—dramatics….
The best introductory source is a lecture given in 1946 by the French man of
letters J.-P. Sartre (1905-80). The original title was L’existentialisme
est un humanisme [Existentialism is a Humanism], but it is published in the
United States as Existentialism and Humanism and in England simply as Existentialism.
(p. 462)
Antony Flew (1971)
Antony Flew, An Introduction to Western Philosophy, Rev. ed. London:
Thames and Hudson, 1989.
|
