The Metaphysical Basis of Existential Thought

I think what you're not seeing is that the kind of nihilism that you're advocating, is a reaction against something. It's part of the centuries-long reaction against religious authority in Western thinking.

And if you think that the notion that life is absurd, and that humans are alone in the Universe, is something to be aspired to, or a real good, then you have some things seriously backwards. Albert Camus, for example, who was an heroic existentialist atheist, was committed to understanding the implications of that kind of world-view and working out what it takes to live in the face of it. Whereas most modern atheism doesn't even realise that it's a problem! 'To be, or not to be. What was the question?'

Consider theism and atheism as two poles in an Hegelian dialectic. The 'thesis' was orthodox theology grounded in Classical philosophy. The anti-thesis is materialism, positivism and the 'death of God'. The synthesis is post-secularism, the emerging global culture which is pluralistic, environmentally and spiritually aware, but not bound by or beholden to dogmatic authority structures. That is concerned with the 're-enchantment of the world', which means, among other things, realizing that h. sapiens actually does have a place in the scheme of things, as s/he is part of it - that part of it that is wondering what the f*** it all means. And that's an important part!

Reply to Wayfarer That's kind of what I was thinking, that existentialism is more of a reaction to the religious dogma of the past. But it still begs the question of whether or not the existential dilemma is even a dilemma to begin with, or if it's just meaningless sophistry.

For example, take Sartre's famous words "existence precedes essence". Now this goes against centuries of philosophical metaphysics. Does Sartre actually have any professional metaphysics to back this claim up?

Quite honestly, the only basis that I can come to for existentialist thought is that of dealing with disillusionment with the world. The breaking of our constructions, such as having a soul or there being a god. But there isn't any logical proof of existentialist metaphysics. Existentialism is just a way of coping and re-assessing everything you thought you knew. But I still do not see how one would go about proving, for example, that there are no values or that the universe is uncaring. They seem to be taken as the granted, null position. Not sure why.

Well, as I said already, I have been investigating such issues through Buddhist meditation. If you're a Gen X or Gen Y, you might find something of interest in the books of Brad Warner.

I don't think there is a single existential metaphysics. There are some broad themes which group existentialists together, but I wouldn't say they agree on metaphysical propositions.

Heidegger, for instance, took the approach that all metaphysical philosophy prior to him had made the same "move", and that move concealed the meaning of the question of being -- that metaphysicians had all focused on the present-at-hand rather than the ready-to-hand.

Sartre focuses on consciousness, and specifically the unity of consciousness and the problems of dualisms past.

Camus, by my reading at least, doesn't seem to think that the absurd needs demonstration -- he notes early on in the myth of sisyphus how his writing may no longer make sense in some other future that differs from his time, but that his time took on the character of the absurd, and then he just tries to work out what the logical consequences of the absurd would entail (suicide, or no?)


I'm certain there are other ways to read these authors. I'm just presenting them to demonstrate the point that existentialism is not uni-vocal in this way. And since it is not uni-vocal in this way, I don't think it would be possible to pin down existentialism as a whole. I think, rather, that you'd have to take up particular theses that happen to fall into what is a broad category. Indeed, of the three, Sartre was the only one who self-identified as an existentialist! :D

But then, on proof -- which is, I think, where you're really aiming at, I just wanted to note a danger in the generalization -- I think it might depend on what we accept as proof.

I don't know if you could prove that the universe has no intrinsic meaning in some apodeictic or mathematical sense. You can make arguments, but I don't know about proofs -- at least not without some sort of understood (if not necessarily accepted or believed) frame for working through proofs, similar to how mathematics does it by way of axioms and rules of inference.

darthbarracuda:But how do I actually formulate a logical argument about this? How do I distinguish this kind of (emotional) thinking from the (emotional) thinking of people who think miracles exist? If I cannot come to a justification for my beliefs on this, then they are no different from any other emotional claim. They are superficial, unanalytic, and ultimately meaningless because they have no substance to back them up.

I'd say you can't. Both those instances of thinking share the same form: trying to define the world in terms of some imagined logical notion, rather than recognising in-itself. Each approach takes an idea, for example, "God" and "meaningless" and supposes it fills the empty vessel of the world with significance.

darthbarracuda:If I can't come up with arguments in favor of absurdism except for "GOD IS DEAD ? NO MEANING checkmate" or "look at all the suffering, it must be for no reason!", then it's ironically absurd to hold such a position. I feel like the absurd is taken for granted to be true, as an axiom, without actually proving it.

I'd say it's worse than that: a contradiction. If the absurd is axiomatic, why are you suggesting it must be on the grounds of something else (i.e." it's proven" by "GOD IS DEAD" or "suffering" )? You clearly don't think it is axiomatic at all. You are proposing reasons for the world, for its (supposed) existence for no reason. You are still working on the premise the world needs some reason, that it "needs" to make sense. At a deep level, you are refusing to accept it is absurd.

(I also should point out that this is a logic error, not whether or not someone is "emotional").

Quick question. I am thinking about this and I have some ideas but in the meanwhile, I must work. Here is question:

Isn't Sisyphus a true Stoic?

Reply to darthbarracuda one comment about the approach you seem to want to take to reach a conclusion about the various "isms", Existentialism in particular, is that the analytical approach is ill-suited to those "isms". An analytical contemplation of the nature of being confines being to an object, whereas Existentialism is an inquiry about the subject. To investigate the subject, a phenomenological approach is better suited. Go out in the world. Interact with people and objects. Don't build a philosophy about the subject by analysing the terms. You might develop a reasonable enough argument at the end of the day by sitting about and thinking about "the subject", but in doing so you've missed out on one of the fundamental aspects of subjectivity, (i.e., living a life).

Quoting Cavacava

Isn't Sisyphus a true Stoic?

He's at least a fine one :) We embrace the predicament, and reinvent it as pleasure.

I too think, a propos the op, you can't prove a negative. But who would want to? Consider how equations for fluid dynamics pop up in so many other places, or how there is music and language and dance and poetry and love in every known human society, or the immense self-organisation of living things, or... - to me we are awash with meanings, explanations, and this is a joy - I for one find great pleasure in analysing the apparent patterns of the worlds about me and in me where I find them -

But a plethora of meanings doesn't make any particular sense for the individual when they contemplate the abyss.

I think it's a Derrida idea that the world of decisions is a world of madness. It seems to me to be so. We go on. Why? There is only the existential leap, (I'm stuck on Sartre as I was a fan of his when I was a lad) the leap that will make meaning of my life by my expressing myself, instead of the (inauthentic) mere living out of a life as others might expect it of me.

If you're up for a Big Read, the late John Haugeland ('Having thought') was both existentialist and analytic philosopher. His view of the prevalence of a scientific world-view, for instance (to caricature in summary), was that it requires the existential commitment of a substantial community of scientists to sustain itself.

If you drill down through any notion of meaning, the bedrock is some sort of set of intuitions. Are these 'emotions'? I don't know what they are. To rebuild from there, there will always be acts of faith of one kind or another, or so it seems to me - as a firm, non-Dawkins atheist,

Reply to Soylent But much of existentialism (not counting Christian existentialism) rests upon the assertion that there is no god, the universe is uncaring, unnecessary suffering exists, etc and therefore there is no meaning and therefore there is an existential crisis. But if the only thing that backs up these assertions are just vague feelings without any analytical thought behind it...that's kind of pathetic. It's as if there's an entire philosophy grounded upon nothing. No arguments.

Reply to darthbarracuda it doesn't rest on the assertion that there is no God, but rather that God offers no insight into subjectivity (i.e., God stands opposed as an Other). If you appeal to God as a source of meaning or responsibility for action, you are denying your own subjectivity. When you draw into yourself, you don't find God, you find yourself as the author of your subjective existence. It doesn't follow from this that there is no meaning, but that you must supply the meaning from Your own being. The foundation of Existentialism rests on a shared experience of Subjectivity, and from that experience arguments are built upon to develop an entire system of belief.

Reply to Soylent I see. I suppose I just had a wrong understanding of the existentialist perspective. I thought it was just dealing with angst at the loss of objective meaning.

Reply to darthbarracuda

Darth, I don't think it is possible to "prove" that the world has no meaning, because any such "proof" would, contradictorily, be meaningful.

The world is always replete with meaning for us. We cannot say what the world is 'in itself', except that it cannot be what it is 'for us'. So the meaning of a sheep in itself could not be that it provides sustenance for us, unless the world were created just for us. How could we ever know that to be the case? That the world was not created just for us equally cannot be known to be the case, but is assumed on the grounds that we have no reason to think it was. The world, for the most part, just doesn't seem like it has been created for us.

Seeing the world as either caring for us, or being indifferent to us, are both anthropomorphic projections, because these are both really only understandable or meaningful to us as human dispositions.

Actually, I think the 'loss of meaning' is ah historically traceable phenomenon in Western thinking. It is explored in books like Max Horkheimer's The Eclipse of Reason. This book argues that individuals in contemporary industrial culture experience a universal feeling of fear and disillusionment, which can be traced back to the impact of ideas that originate in the Enlightenment conception of reason, as well as the historical development of industrial society. Before the Enlightenment, reason was seen as an objective force in the world. Now, it is seen as a subjective faculty of the mind. In the process, the philosophers of the Enlightenment destroyed metaphysics and the objective concept of reason itself. Reason no longer determines the "guiding principles of our own lives", but is subordinated to the ends it can achieve. In other words, reason is instumentalized.

The effects of this shift are devaluing. There is little love for things in themselves. Philosophies, such as pragmatism and positivism, "aim at mastering reality, not at criticizing it." Man comes to dominate nature, but in the process dominates other men by dehumanizing them. He forgets the unrepeatable and unique nature of every human life and instead sees all living things as fields of means. His inner life is rationalized and planned. "On the one hand, nature has been stripped of all intrinsic value or meaning. On the other, man has been stripped of all aims except self-preservation." Popular Darwinism teaches only a "coldness and blindness toward nature."

According to Horkheimer, the individual in mass society is a cynical conformist. Ironically, the 'idolization of progress' leads to the decline of the individual.

Speaks directly to the kinds of points the OP raises and that you see every day on philosophy forums.

Quoting darthbarracuda

If I can't come up with arguments in favor of absurdism except for "GOD IS DEAD ? NO MEANING checkmate" or "look at all the suffering, it must be for no reason!", then it's ironically absurd to hold such a position. I feel like the absurd is taken for granted to be true, as an axiom, without actually proving it.

Well, we can insist that transcendental meaning has been handed to us on a silver platter. We can also throw a bitch fit because it hasn't. I think that an existentialist could use a false dichotomy here and insist that we have to do the latter because the former is false. I don't think that's true, though.

Quoting darthbarracuda

Existentialism, Nihilism, Absurdism, etc. I've taken it for granted that the superficial way I see the world is the way it actually is. But I actually struggle to provide actual logical arguments that prove that the world is meaningless, or essence-less, or absurd. This kind of philosophy is beginning to look more and more emotionally-based and less analytically-based.

You're probably expecting too much from analytical thinking, logic, proof, and all that, and underestimating the grounding that can be had from thinking directed by good old emotions, which are just about as old as dirt. And certainly, one may stake his position in nihilism and all the fecal ideas that follow, like antinatalism because there is suffering in the world, but it smells of the manure pile.

What should you do? I don't know. Don't worry, be happy maybe?

It takes some courage to let existence (in all its ghastly glorious grittiness) precede (and lead to) essence. You are awakened by the alarm clock of existence every morning and have to drag yourself through another damned day. But we do, every one of us. Do we ever get to the essence? Sure we do. I hope you weren't expecting excessively exalted results. There's no reason to suppose that the essence of existence is like a terrific movie that concludes with our happy death in the last few feet of film. Like as not it isn't a great movie (full of exciting action and gauzy love scenes). We generally have frustrating lives, die inconveniently, or somebody else dies and we are left behind. And so on and so forth...

We have some choice about how to spend our days. For many people the slog through marriage and raising their family requires all the courage they can muster and more. It takes courage to make decisions for your own good, and follow through. It takes courage to commit to love. It take courage to assert that "this is the essence of my life" and stick with it.

If we are going to trash our lives, it will probably be through a failure of courage. "No. I'm not going to do (whatever) because, even though it would make my life more meaningful, it might harm my pension." Or "I want to become a medical missionary but this isn't a good time to sell the house." Or "I want to go to college and study Medieval French Poetry, but I can make more money at the auto body shop."

We opt for quiet desperation too often.