What I'm Getting Out of Existentialism
I've been reading Rilke and Gabriel Marcel and Shestov.
So far, what I'm getting is:
They have nothing against systems and objectivity and analytic philosophy, BUT....suggest that perhaps what one misses if one only pursues systems and objectivity and analytic philosophy, is the human dimension. People are beings who experience the world. We have emotions and a history. We even have the freedom to pursue (or reject) whatever system we desire.
They also warn against scientism and egoism, and focus on relationships.
They believe that what one pursues and rejects is in many cases arbitrary. They ask: Why not find reasons to criticize whatever system you hold dear, and consider those that seem off-putting? We have that freedom.
And yet existentialists can have these thoughts and be existentialists without becoming relativists.
So far, what I'm getting is:
They have nothing against systems and objectivity and analytic philosophy, BUT....suggest that perhaps what one misses if one only pursues systems and objectivity and analytic philosophy, is the human dimension. People are beings who experience the world. We have emotions and a history. We even have the freedom to pursue (or reject) whatever system we desire.
They also warn against scientism and egoism, and focus on relationships.
They believe that what one pursues and rejects is in many cases arbitrary. They ask: Why not find reasons to criticize whatever system you hold dear, and consider those that seem off-putting? We have that freedom.
And yet existentialists can have these thoughts and be existentialists without becoming relativists.
Comments (37)
I am not nearly as familiar with the thinkers you cited as I am with Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, & Sartre. I find it very, very hard to lump all of the existentialists into one particular camp because they disagree on many, many points.
But yes, I think it's fair to say that all of them think that philosophy has left out what I think you'd call the actual lived, human experience of the world. Instead, philosophy has traditionally emphasized highly theoretical or abstract interpretations of what human experience is like. If I had to pick one dominant theme in existentialism, it would probably be that one.
They also, I think, have a tendency to emphasize the negative sides of the human experience. Negative emotions like dread, anxiety, despair, etc. And phenomena that are traditionally conceived of as negative, especially the concept of death and human finitude as well as the idea of "the nothing" and nihilism in general.
Most of my academic studies were focused on Martin Heidegger. Undoubtedly the Heidegger of the early period, when he wrote Being & Time, is extremely considered with what he considered to be actual human experience, or what he called being-in-the-world.
He also certainly rejected scientism and egoism. Science, after all, only studies beings or entities. It never studies being itself, which is the task of philosophy as ontology as Heidegger sees it. And Heidegger's chapter devoted to the "who" of being-in-the-world with its conception of "das man" is a direct argument against the concept that we are isolated, egoistic selves primarily rather than social beings that are thrust into a world of other people, or other Dasein.
Heidegger would also agree with your last point that are choices, in terms of over-arching life project - the things that we most care about - being a mother, being an artist, being a factory worker, being a good friend - are somewhat arbitrary.
It's harder to say what Heidegger thinks about authenticity. To my knowledge he never explicitly argues, at least in Being & Time, that the authentic life is *better* than the inauthentic life. But he certainly seems to imply it with just the word choice alone.
Does Marcel have anything to say about being authentic? I would imagine he does as it's a pretty common existentialist theme.
Love existentialism. Always very happy to discuss!
I did generalize in regards to the 3 I mentioned in my OP (I'm most familiar with Gabriel Marcel). I can't think of any points on which the 3 disagree, however. I think it's more the case that each of the 3 I mentioned pursues his own existentialist philosophy in a slightly different way.
Sartre and Marcel knew each other and each responded to and mentioned the other by name in their writings (most notably in Sartre's Existentialism is a Humanism and Marcel's Existence and Human Freedom).
Quoting Brian
One of the criticisms that Marcel made of Sartre's views was his negativism. Marcel was of the opinion that Sartre made judgments he didn't have to (we are condemned to be free). It's interesting that Marcel was raised in a non-religious home and was an agnostic, but his writings explored the themes of fidelity, faith, hope and charity. A Christian Catholic writer (Francois Muriac) wrote to him and pointed out that those themes required the existence of God. Marcel agreed and converted to Catholicism.
Another point of contention between Marcel and Sartre was that Marcel was all about openness, and he pointed out that Sartre was not open to some ideas and concepts (God, seeing the positive aspects of freedom).
Marcel did also have some positive things to say about Sartre's writing, and there were points upon which they agreed.
Quoting Brian
I don't know that Marcel used the term, "authentic", but I've read several of his plays, and his characters display authenticity. Marcel approaches the topic from the viewpoint of materialism. He suggests that the modern world is one in which people are often treated like mechanical objects, instead of beings who are experiencing the world. He explored the themes of openness and availability, and I'd argue that those require authenticity.
This I am afraid flies in the face of everyday experience. We do make choices but so does everyone else and we are constrained by the choices we make. The best we can do is to try to make movement in the direction of our choices. Outcomes are always unknown.
This. There are limitations and constraints.
What? I AM getting out of existentialism.
I can make Choices (in which direction), which are constrained, and I have Will to attempt to effect those choices. The results are never known until after they occur. It's all about learning to be a skilled seafar.
Using your reasoning, isn't it also the case that one can only "try to buy groceries"?
Quoting blogger
But, the context of my post is that we're all free to pursue the lives we like. Someone who owns a business and is making a lot of money, for example, is free to walk away from his business and huge house, forsake the life of luxury and hitchhike to South America with the intent to live out his life helping the poor. The people in his life may not like it, the public is bound to criticize him, and he may not actually survive the trip.. but he is free to pursue that lifestyle.
And someone who has been living with the conviction that some system of thought has all the answers, is free to start questioning that system, and/or take seriously the criticisms of that system.
To me this is the essence. This is true adulthood or spiritual maturity. That (to me) is why atheism is central. If I have a God, then my justification and dignity lies outside me. I am a child or a slave. I'm neither free nor responsible. To be fair, theologians try to squeeze adulthood back into the system with free will. But this is only the freedom to rebel against rightful authority. It is certainly not freedom to become one's own rightful authority. For what it's worth, this essence of existentialism is significantly older than existentialism proper. It's a subversive fragment in/of Hegel, for instance.
As far as responsibility goes, we are responsible to an (ideally) freely chosen (by us) vision of "duty." It's not exactly duty when we have a say in our notion of right and wrong, beautiful and ugly. "My" ideal existentialist takes responsibility by not thinking very highly of excuses.
A last point is that I view existentialism as an ideal to strive toward. Are we truly and totally radically free? Or do we strive to live as if we are free? Do we move toward political and ideological systems that "stoke" this fragile sense of freedom? In short, this Freedom is (perhaps) something a or even THE noble lie through which we attain some dignity. "Treat me as if I'm free and adult and I'll do the same for you." The alternative is the endless attempt to embed the individual in forces beyond his or her control, to humiliate the nail that sticks out, arrogant enough to be a king without subjects and priest without a external god (or a priest of Freedom with only one real customer).
That's a good point. Outcomes are unknown. But we can more or less choose our movements toward these outcomes, uncertain of the success of these movements. Beyond the attainment of our goals (always tricky), there is the fundamental way we view ourselves. Do we have a "right" to be here, even if we don't have a God-given reason? Do we experience ourselves as puppets? As sinners in the hands of some angry stand-in for God (a god-object that might be an abstract principle that has us wringing our hands like naughty children)?
Have you ever read any of the Christian Existentialists?
Not much. A little Kierkegaard. I do the find the idea of a "leap of faith" believable. For instance, I think atheism involves a leap of faith. Sartre writes of a basic choice that structures personality. In my view, there's something like a basic choice on the God issue. Arguments can be made on both sides, so either side can find reasons after the fact of this basic choice. But I should point out that there are evangelical atheists who are in some sense quasi-theists merely replacing God with an authoritative abstraction. For instance, the evangelical atheist might want to "cure" the world of religious illusions. Spreading this cure or dispelling this illusion becomes a "holy" one-size-fits-all mission. I mention this to emphasize that the
"real" distinction might that between the personal ("pure" atheism) and the trans-personal (religion in both traditional and abstract terms.)
Anon, did you ever delve into Berdyaev?
I probably already said this, but The Meaning of the Creative Act is a good place to start, if you can make it through the more esoteric elements. Divine and the Human is also good for later work, and more explicitly existentially Christian in scope.
I like the way he thinks. I just ordered The Meaning of the Creative Act.
K was never a live option for me either. Sartre I've studied pretty closely. At his best, he is the thing itself. I've never felt seduced by righteous political poses, though, so I just tolerate these in Sartre. Being and Nothingness can be bloated and tedious, perhaps because the amphetamines give him verbal diarrhea. Even so, it's full of killer passages. Hegel's Phenomenology is the same way though. I'm reading Sartre's The Words (autobiography) and it's pretty great. Similarly Hegel's Philosophy of History is more enjoyable than the Phen. In theory, the tech-jargon more difficult books are more "serious," but there's a passage of Hegel's famous preface in Dissemination (another tedious or too-patient book at times) that demolishes this illusion pretty well. The difficult/serious passages depend upon the more accessible as a foundation. This is sort of a digression, but it ties into your "role model" thing:
I think that's the essence of what we do when we read the most exciting philosophy. We are constructing ourselves , figuring out who we shall become. I like Sartre & Hegel and others for become aware of and describing this process. Man is a essencelessness sniffing out essence. Sartre at his best takes his coffee black. Man is a futile passion. Life is absurd. There's a divine laughter around these grim propositions. Man's passion is paradoxically satisfied in making peace with the impossibility of its satisfaction otherwise. That life is absurd only enhances the stature of the protagonist at first stumbling and eventually standing serene within its fog and noise. A nothingness that recognizes itself as such loses its hurried awkwardness. In my view, we search through various father figures. Absurdity and/or alienation is the hollowness or the emptiness of all of them. The wise-man-supposed-to-know is a carrot on a stick, a chased projection. Carrot chasers seduce and intimidate one another with hints that they are at least almost enlightened. But everything must remain impersonal and distant. It's impious to speak from the nothingness at one's own center. Even absurdity and freedom must (for some) be mediated by the famous sages, as if the nullity of the famous sages wasn't almost the essence of absurdity. Similarly, the "masters of suspicion" are treated with reverence as authorities, and the gods slap their knees. (A figure of speech, these gods.)
His concept of the creative act is admittedly hard to understand, but I get a sense of it on an intuitive level, which is why I'm a proponent of it. The arts are only one aspect of creativity for him. The creative act is a fundamentally spiritual action; it's a component of man's relationship with God. Philosophy, for instance, should be a creative act. Happy reading!
LOL! I've been meaning for several days to say the same thing, but thought that I'm the only one >:O
Considering the fact that we are talking about Christian Existentialists in this thread, it's obvious that existentialists can work within existing systems.
I experienced a lot of rigid dogma and egoism (in Christianity and among atheists- I explored atheism for a while). Egoism to me is the belief that if one could just have complete control over one's environment (including outcomes and the responses of others) then one would be living the best life possible.