Essay/Term paper: Existentialism in the early 19th century

Essay, term paper, research paper:  College Essays

Existentialism in the Early 19th Century

Major Themes

Because of the diversity of positions associated with existentialism, the term
is impossible to define precisely. Certain themes common to virtually all
existentialist writers can, however, be identified. The term itself suggests one
major theme: the stress on concrete individual existence and, consequently, on
subjectivity, individual freedom, and choice.

Moral Individualism

Most philosophers since Plato have held that the highest ethical good is the
same for everyone; insofar as one approaches moral perfection, one resembles
other morally perfect individuals. The 19th-century Danish philosopher Søren
Kierkegaard, who was the first writer to call himself existential, reacted
against this tradition by insisting that the highest good for the individual is
to find his or her own unique vocation. As he wrote in his journal, "I must find
a truth that is true for me . . . the idea for which I can live or die." Other
existentialist writers have echoed Kierkegaard's belief that one must choose
one's own way without the aid of universal, objective standards. Against the
traditional view that moral choice involves an objective judgment of right and
wrong, existentialists have argued that no objective, rational basis can be
found for moral decisions. The 19th-century German philosopher Friedrich
Nietzsche further contended that the individual must decide which situations are
to count asmoral situations.

Subjectivity

All existentialists have followed Kierkegaard in stressing the importance of
passionate individual action in deciding questions of both morality and truth.
They have insisted, accordingly, that personal experience and acting on one's
own convictions are essential in arriving at the truth. Thus, the understanding
of a situation by someone involved in that situation is superior to that of a
detached, objective observer. This emphasis on the perspective of the individual
agent has also made existentialists suspicious of systematic reasoning.
Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and other existentialist writers have been deliberately
unsystematic in the exposition of their philosophies, preferring to express
themselves in aphorisms, dialogues, parables, and other literary forms. Despite
their antirationalist position, however, most existentialists cannot be said to
be irrationalists in the sense of denying all validity to rational thought. They
have held that rational clarity is desirable wherever possible, but that the
most important questions in life are not accessible to reason or science.
Furthermore, they have argued that even science is not as rational as is
commonly supposed. Nietzsche, for instance, asserted that the scientific
assumption of an orderly universe is for the most part a useful fiction.

Choice and Commitment

Perhaps the most prominent theme in existentialist writing is that of choice.
Humanity's primary distinction, in the view of most existentialists, is the
freedom to choose. Existentialists have held that human beings do not have a
fixed nature, or essence, as other animals and plants do; each human being makes
choices that create his or her own nature. In the formulation of the 20th-
century French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre, existence precedes essence. Choice
is therefore central to human existence, and it is inescapable; even the refusal
to choose is a choice. Freedom of choice entails commitment and responsibility.
Because individuals are free to choose their own path, existentialists have
argued, they must accept the risk and responsibility of following their
commitment wherever it leads.

Dread and Anxiety

Kierkegaard held that it is spiritually crucial to recognize that one
experiences not only a fear of specific objects but also a feeling of general
apprehension, which he called dread. He interpreted it as God's way of calling
each individual to make a commitment to a personally valid way of life. The word
anxiety (German Angst) has a similarly crucial role in the work of the 20th-
century German philosopher Martin Heidegger; anxiety leads to the individual's
confrontation with nothingness and with the impossibility of finding ultimate
justification for the choices he or she must make. In the philosophy of Sartre,
the word nausea is used for the individual's recognition of the pure contingency
of the universe, and the word anguish is used for the recognition of the total
freedom of choice that confronts the individual at every moment.

History

Existentialism as a distinct philosophical and literary movement belongs to the
19th and 20th centuries, but elements of existentialism can be found in the
thought (and life) of Socrates, in the Bible, and in the work of many premodern
philosophers and writers.

Pascal

The first to anticipate the major concerns of modern existentialism was the
17th-century French philosopher Blaise Pascal. Pascal rejected the rigorous
rationalism of his contemporary René Descartes, asserting, in his Pensées (1670),
that a systematic philosophy that presumes to explain God and humanity is a form
of pride. Like later existentialist writers, he saw human life in terms of
paradoxes: The human self, which combines mind and body, is itself a paradox and
contradiction.

Kierkegaard

Kierkegaard, generally regarded as the founder of modern existentialism, reacted
against the systematic absolute idealism of the 19th-century German philosopher
G. W. F. Hegel, who claimed to have worked out a total rational understanding of
humanity and history. Kierkegaard, on the contrary, stressed the ambiguity and
absurdity of the human situation. The individual's response to this situation
must be to live a totally committed life, and this commitment can only be
understood by the individual who has made it. The individual therefore must
always be prepared to defy the norms of society for the sake of the higher
authority of a personally valid way of life. Kierkegaard ultimately advocated a "
leap of faith" into a Christian way of life, which, although incomprehensible
and full of risk, was the only commitment he believed could save the individual
from despair.

Nietzsche

Nietzsche, who was not acquainted with the work of Kierkegaard, influenced
subsequent existentialist thought through his criticism of traditional
metaphysical and moral assumptions and through his espousal of tragic pessimism
and the life-affirming individual will that opposes itself to the moral
conformity of the majority. In contrast to Kierkegaard, whose attack on
conventional morality led him to advocate a radically individualistic
Christianity, Nietzsche proclaimed the "death of God" and went on to reject the
entire Judeo-Christian moral tradition in favor of a heroic pagan ideal.

Heidegger

Heidegger, like Pascal and Kierkegaard, reacted against an attempt to put
philosophy on a conclusive rationalistic basis—in this case the phenomenology of
the 20th-century German philosopher Edmund Husserl. Heidegger argued that
humanity finds itself in an incomprehensible, indifferent world. Human beings
can never hope to understand why they are here; instead, each individual must
choose a goal and follow it with passionate conviction, aware of the certainty
of death and the ultimate meaninglessness of one's life. Heidegger contributed
to existentialist thought an original emphasis on being and ontology as well as
on language.

Sartre

Sartre first gave the term existentialism general currency by using it for his
own philosophy and by becoming the leading figure of a distinct movement in
France that became internationally influential after World War II. Sartre's
philosophy is explicitly atheistic and pessimistic; he declared that human
beings require a rational basis for their lives but are unable to achieve one,
and thus human life is a "futile passion." Sartre nevertheless insisted that his
existentialism is a form of humanism, and he strongly emphasized human freedom,
choice, and responsibility. He eventually tried to reconcile these
existentialist concepts with a Marxist analysis of society and history.

Existentialism and Theology

Although existentialist thought encompasses the uncompromising atheism of
Nietzsche and Sartre and the agnosticism of Heidegger, its origin in the
intensely religious philosophies of Pascal and Kierkegaard foreshadowed its
profound influence on 20th-century theology. The 20th-century German philosopher
Karl Jaspers, although he rejected explicit religious doctrines, influenced
contemporary theology through his preoccupation with transcendence and the
limits of human experience. The German Protestant theologians Paul Tillich and
Rudolf Bultmann, the French Roman Catholic theologian Gabriel Marcel, the
Russian Orthodox philosopher Nikolay Berdyayev, and the German Jewish
philosopher Martin Buber inherited many of Kierkegaard's concerns, especially
that a personal sense of authenticity and commitment is essential to religious
faith.

Existentialism and Literature

A number of existentialist philosophers used literary forms to convey their
thought, and existentialism has been as vital and as extensive a movement in
literature as in philosophy. The 19th-century Russian novelist Fyodor
Dostoyevsky is probably the greatest existentialist literary figure. In Notes
from the Underground (1864), the alienated antihero rages against the optimistic
assumptions of rationalist humanism. The view of human nature that emerges in
this and other novels of Dostoyevsky is that it is unpredictable and perversely
self-destructive; only Christian love can save humanity from itself, but such
love cannot be understood philosophically. As the character Alyosha says in The
Brothers Karamazov (1879-80), "We must love life more than the meaning of it."

In the 20th century, the novels of the Austrian Jewish writer Franz Kafka, such
as The Trial (1925; trans. 1937) and The Castle (1926; trans. 1930), present
isolated men confronting vast, elusive, menacing bureaucracies; Kafka's themes
of anxiety, guilt, and solitude reflect the influence of Kierkegaard,
Dostoyevsky, and Nietzsche. The influence of Nietzsche is also discernible in
the novels of the French writers André Malraux and in the plays of Sartre. The
work of the French writer Albert Camus is usually associated with existentialism
because of the prominence in it of such themes as the apparent absurdity and
futility of life, the indifference of the universe, and the necessity of
engagement in a just cause. Existentialist themes are also reflected in the
theater of the absurd, notably in the plays of Samuel Beckett and Eugène Ionesco.
In the United States, the influence of existentialism on literature has been
more indirect and diffuse, but traces of Kierkegaard's thought can be found in
the novels of Walker Percy and John Updike, and various existentialist themes
are apparent in the work of such diverse writers as Norman Mailer, John Barth,
and Arthur Miller.