Existentialism is
the
title of the set of philosophical ideals that emphasizes the existence of
the
human being, the lack of meaning and purpose in life, and the solitude of
human
existence. Existentialism maintains existence precedes essence: This implies
that the human being has no essence, no essential self, and is no more that
what he is. He is only the sum of life is so far he has created and achieved
for himself. Existentialism acquires its name from insisting that existence
precedes essence.
Existentialist
thinkers are of the view that the metaphysical explanation of existence as
given by the traditional schools of philosophy fails to produce satisfactory
results. They also maintain that the problem of being ought to take
precedence
in all philosophical inquiry. Existence is always particular, unique and
individual. Existentialist are opposed to the view laws explaining human
freedom and activity can be formulated. Existence is essential and
fundamental:
Being cannot be made a topic of objective study. Being is revealed to and
felt
by the human being through his own experience and his situation. So it is
maintained existence is the first and central problem.
Existentialism
stresses the risk, the voidness of human reality and admits that the human
being is thrown into the world, the world in which pain, frustration,
sickness,
contempt, malaise and death dominates. It was during the Second World War,
when
Europe found itself in a crisis and faced with death and destruction, the
existentialist movement began to flourish. The dark portrait of such a
sickness
could be found even in the optimistic and confident nineteenth century in
the
works of authors as diverse as the communist German Karl Marx (1818-1883),
the
religious Dane Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), the German Fredich Nietzche
(1844-1900).
Existentialism as
a
contemporary philosophical trend reached the zenith of its popularity in the
years following the war, the time when Europe was in a despairing mood,
perhaps
not without the hope of social reconstruction but pessimistic and morbid
enough
to accept the existentialist outlook of the lack of design and intention in
the
universe and the nausea of human existence and its frustration. The most
important philosopher of existentialist in its celebrated form was the
French philosopher
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980), recognized as the most powerful intellectual
force in France in the mid-20th century.
Existentialism
originated from the works of Kierkegaard, Nietzche, and the Russian novelist
Fyodor Dostoyevoski (1821-1881). Kierkegaard had reacted against the
idealism
of G. F. W. Hegel (1770--1831), whose doctrines developed from the classical
idealism of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). The existentialist stand that is
opposed
to the view of reducing existence to reason can be seen in the polemic of
the
idealist F. W. J. von Schelling, a contemporary of Hegel. Nietzche was
influenced deeply by Arthur Schopenhauer (1778-1860), whose views were
strikingly pessimistic. The influence of Blaise Pascal (1632-1662) on the
existentialists should also not be overlooked.
In fact in very
much
diffused and different form this bleak view of human existence can be traced
back to St. Augustine (354-430) and Duns Scotus (1266-1308), both Catholic
philosophers. Perhaps the preoccupation with existence can be traced back
even
further to the works of the Pre-Socratics. In literary influence, both
Dostoyevoski and Franz Kafka (1883-1924) contributed significantly.
Dostoyevoski in his novels presented the defeat of man in the face of
choices
and the result of their consequences, and, finally, in the enigmas of
himself.
Kafka in his novels like The Castle and The Trial, presented the fate of
human
destiny graphically.
The development of
modern existentialism was preceded by the works of the German
phehomenologist
Frenz Brento (1838-1917), and Edmund Husserl (1859-1938). They were
immediately
followed by the modern existentialists. In this century, German
existentialism
was represented by Martin Heidegger (1889-1979) and Karl Jaspers
(1883-1969),
French existentialism by Jean-Paul Sartre; French phenomenology by Maurice
Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961); Spanish existentialism by Jose Ortego y Gasset
(1883-1955); and Italian existentialism by Nicola Abbagnano (b. 1910). An
important aspect of the existentialism movement was its popularization due
to
the ramification of existentialist philosophy in literature, psychology,
religion, politics, and culture. The most forceful voice of existentialist
thought were the works of the French existentialists: Sartre, Simone de
Beauvoir,
Albert Camus (1913-1960). No one has contributed more to the popularization
of
existentialism of this philosophical trend than Sartre. Gabriel Marcel, a
Christian existentialist, wrote plays. Camus' semi-philosophical essays won
sympathizers. In the arts, various schools of existentialism viewed the role
of
art not as reflection of objective and external reality to man but as the
free
projection of the human being. Through the works of Karl Jaspers and Luwid
Binswagner (1881-1966), a Swiss, existentialism diffused into the arena of
psychiatry. Christian existentialism, inspired by Kierkegaard, is a creed of
its own kind. Among its noteworthy exponents were Marcel Karl Bath
(1886-1968)
and Rudolf Bulymann (1884-1976). The leading Jewish existentialist was
Martin
Buber (1878-1965). Somewhat surprisingly there are also Islamic
existentialists; famous among its exponents are A. R. Badawi and Rene Hana
Chi.
The religious existentialist had some mark on theology and religion. Though
not
surprisingly Rome condemned existentialism as heresy.
The fundamental
problem of existentialism is concerned with ontology, the study of being.
The
human being's existence is the first and basic fact; the human being has no
essence that comes before his existence. The human being as a being is
nothing.
This nothingness and the non-existence of an essence is the central source
of
the freedom the human being faces in each and every moment. The human being
has
liberty in view of his situation, in decisions which makes himself and sets
himself to solves his problems and live in the world.
Thrown into the
world, the human being is condemned to be free. The human being must take
this
freedom of being and the responsibility and guilt of his actions. Each
action
negates the other possible courses of action and their consequences; so the
human being must be accountable without excuse. The human being must not
slip
away from his responsibilities. The human being must take decisions and
assume
responsibilities. There is no significance in this world, this universe. The
human being cannot find any purpose in life; his existence is only a
contingent
fact. His being does not emerge from necessity. If a human being rejects the
false pretensions, the illusions of his existence having a meaning, he
encounters the absurdity, the futility of life. The human being's role in
the
world is not predetermined or fixed; every person is compelled to make a
choice. Choice is one thing the human being must make. The trouble is that
most
often the human being refuses to choose. Hence, he cannot realize his
freedom
and the futility of his existence.
Basically
existence
is of two types: authentic and inauthentic forms of existence. Authentic
existence is contrasted with dynamic and is the being-for-itself, rising
from
the human being's bad faith, by which the human being moves away from the
burden of responsibility, through this beliefs in dogma and by regarding
himself as subject to outside influences and his actions to be
predetermined.
There is a
striking
contrast between the authentic and the inauthentic forms of being; the
authentic being is the being of the human being and the inauthentic being is
the being for things. Yet, authentic being is only rarely attained by the
human
being; still it is what the human being must strive to gain. The inauthentic
being-in-itself is characteristically distinctive of things; it is what the
human being is diseased with for his failure to see himself as and act
according as a free agent and his impotency to reject bad faith. Things are
only what they are. But the human being is what can be. Things are
determined,
fixed, and rigid; the human being is free; he can add essence to his life in
the course of his life and he is in a constant state of flux and is able to
comprehend his situation. The human being does not live in a pre-determined
world; the human being is free to realize his aims, to materialize his
dreams;
hence, he has only the destiny he forges for himself because in this world
nothing happens out of necessity.
The human being
hides
himself from freedom by self-deception, acting like a thing, as if he is a
passive subject, instead of realizing the authentic being for the human
being;
this is bad faith. In bad faith, the human being shelter himself from
responsibility by not noticing the dimensions of alternative courses of
action
facing him; in bad faith, the human being behaves as others demand of him by
conforming to the standards of accepted values and by adopting roles
designed
for him; in bad faith, the human being loses the autonomy of his moral will,
his freedom to decide; in bad faith, the human being imprisons himself
within
inauthenticity for he has refused to take the challenge of responsibility
and
the anxiety that comes along with his freedom.
Anxiety ascends
from
the human being's realization that the human being's destiny is not fixed
but
is open to an undetermined future of infinite possibilities and limitless
scope: The voidness of future destiny must be filled by making choices for
which he alone will assume responsibility and blame. This anxiety is present
at
every moment of the human being's existence; anxiety is part and parcel of
authentic existence. Anxiety leads the human being to take decisions and be
committed. The human being tries to avoid this anguish through bad faith.
But
the free human being, in his authenticity, must be involved; for his own
actions are only his, his responsibility is to himself, his being is his
own.
The human being must be committed. To be committed means not to support this
in
place of that, but to attach a human being's totality to a cause; it is the
human being's existential freedom that leads to total commitment.
Existentialist
thinkers begin from the human situation in the world; the condition of
despair,
the modes of existence, the human being's tendency to avoid authentic
existence, his relation to things, his own body, and to other beings, with
whom
he cannot come into genuine communication, and the sufferings of life.
Starting
from the study of being, each existentialist thinkers originate their own
doctrines, with their own emphasis on particular aspects. Very often their
viewpoints is conflicting and sometimes contradictory; yet this
philosophical
attitude of being, as a whole, can be described as the existentialist
movement,
which stresses upon the "being" of the human being.
Martin Heidegger
is
generally acknowledged as the leading existentialist thinker; despite that,
he
himself denied having anything to do with the existentialist movement.
Deeply
influenced by Husserl, whose pupil he was, his ideas constitute the basis of
existentialism. It is from the impact on Sartre that Heidegger contributes
to
this trend of though. For him the principal object of investigation is the
search for being (sein) and more particularly, man's being (dasein). His
main
work is Being and Time, a book no one completely understands (except,
perhaps,
Heidegger himself). Being, he says, is felt by the difference of non-being
and
being. Death is the ultimate of non-being. Death, serving as a limit, calls
for
authenticity in human existence. The human being for the most part
"falls" from the authentic way of being. The human being is
continually falling till his death. But in freedom there is dread and
anxiety
(angst) that compels the human being to select and take charge of his being.
Anxiety shows the light of dynamic existence. The whole of Heidegger is made
notoriously difficult by his indulgence in forming newer terminology; he
also
places considerable interest on language and stresses on the importance of
being silent. He hints that the study of being may be equally well carried
out
by the poet.
Karl Jaspers, a
leading founder of modern existentialism, also denies having anything to do
with this movement, perhaps, because of his dislike of the French
existentialists. He was influenced by his study of medicine and research in
clinical psychiatry; on the other hand, existentialist psychiatry was
definitely inspired by his remarkable book on the subject. He is more
concerned
with the sociopolitical problems than Heidegger. He applied his
philosophical
views to politics. For Jaspers, the human being's freedom of being is
existence, not man's being in the world. He laid two distinction of being:
Dasein is the ordinary being is open to the objective inquiry of science;
and
existenz is the mode of authentic existence of freedom, infinite
possibilities,
loneliness, and responsibilities. These are, what he describes,
"boundary
conditions" of human conditions in death, agony, and suffering. The
authentic self of the human being is outside the scope of science. Because
the
human being is open to boundless possibilities, the human being must take up
both credit and guilt of his actions. Jaspers views the communication with
others as promoting man's loneliness, the other remaining a distant being.
His
works, unlike most other existentialist, is systematic and pays attention to
science.
Gabriel Marcel was
a
French existentialist who preferred the name neo-Socratic. He was a
playwright
and critic. Philosophical problems for him originated first in his plays.
Later
he took to writing treatises.
The most famous
representative of existentialism is Jean-Paul Sartre. He had studied the
works
of Edmund Husserl and Heidegger; he was greatly influenced by their works.
In
his principal work, the voluminous Being and Nothingness, he investigates
the
nature of existence. He investigates the nature of existence. He
distinguishes
two type of being: En-soi and Pour-soi. En-soi is the being of an object:
Fixed
and static. Pour-soi is the being of the human being: Fluid and free. It is
open towards the future. The human being is nothing at birth and in life he
is
just the sum of life. To refuge in bad faith is to despair freedom. The
human
being, Sartre declares, is the maker of his destiny and is condemned to make
his own decision. The human being exists but is only a contingent matter of
fact, as there is no more reason for non-existence. He at times seems
desperate
about the contingency of human existence. Yet, in this hopeless world, the
human being can develop his own essence; for the human being is what he
projects himself as in actuality. Hence, the human being is responsible for
what he is. The human being uses his freedom to create and to be committed.
The
psychological problems of life are portrayed with an incomparable literary
brilliance, creativity, and imagination in Sartre's philosophical essays,
novels, short stories and plays. This made him one of the most influential
author of the contemporary times.
Sartre was
imprisoned
in Germany during the war; after his release he joined the Resistance to
take
an active part in it. The Nazi Occupation in France had profoundly effected
him. In 1946, he left his teaching position to edit the voice of the French
existentialist,
Les Temps Modernes, which he founded. He took a stand against the Algerian
War.
He was also opposed to the US War against Vietnam. In 1964, when he was
awarded
the Nobel Prize for Literature, Sartre made the existentialist choice of
declining it. Though there are no perfect causes, he believed, the human
being
must support the cause least undesirable in order to act. For him political
commitment meant taking the side of the proletariat and calling for
authentic
and free values. He never joined the Communist Party and denounced Soviet
intervention in Hungary. Marxism, he however declared, is the only
contemporary
philosophy; so Marxism must come to recognize the human being's
existentialist
freedom.
Standing very
close
to the philosophical outlook of Sartre is his life-long companion and
intellectual associate Simone de Beauvoir. But to suggest that because she
was
close to Sartre, her thoughts is a mere duplicate of Sartre would be a
mistake.
She giver an original and independent interpretation of existentialism,
though
not radically different from Sartre's. Unlike him, she chooses to
concentrate
on the personal and moral aspects of life. Sartre, it should be remembered,
failed to produce his promised work on ethics. Beauvoir treats
existentialism from
very much a feminist point of view. In her book, The Second Sex, she takes
the
position that the history of attitudes of women has determined her own
views.
In her novels, she illustrates her philosophy. She gives a full account of
her
life and intellectual development in several volumes of her autobiographies.
Another proponent
of
French existentialism was Albert Camus. He himself laid no claims to be an
existentialist. He played an active role in the Resistance. He won the Nobel
Prize for literature in 1957. For him, the absurdity of life is the first
concept. His famous novel, The Stranger, concentrates on the alienation of
the
human being in the midst of the silent universe, the failure of the human
being
to comprehend his situation and his inability to find values to shape his
life;
thus, the human being remains an outsider. The human being, he maintains
however, must not set out to destroy the absurdity, for there is no scope to
"leap" towards a God or optimism but face the absurd with courage.
Life,
Camus describes in The Myth of Sisyphus, is a kind o hopeless, endless,
uphill
labor. Hence, the only true problem is that of suicide. Yet, he rejects
nihilism; for the human being must fight and never accept defeat. The
problem
is to be saint without a God. The last judgment takes place everyday. The
human
being must do his best, try for what he can within the confinements of his
situation. Camus views had close affinity with Sartre's but they later broke
and were involved in a bitter controversy.
In their treatment
of
freedom, existentialists seem to imply that the human being is free to do
whatever he pleases. This is surely not the case; the human being's freedom
is
not only curtailed by the objective reality he confronts but also by his own
limitations
and inclinations. He is, to a large extent, the outcome of his own
situation.
His being in the world is something he had no choice over. Sartre argues
that
the freedom not to be free is not freedom. But only rarely in the world does
the human being choose the negative course of non-being through suicide. The
human being's freedom is based upon his political freedom; this is certainly
linked to his social status and class origin. The existentialists fail to
attach importance to the objective conditions that determine the human
being's
state of being. They only draw the picture of the human being's subjective
attitude toward freedom. The extent of the openness of futurity for the
human
being lies in his present position and the objective reality the human being
confronts.
Logical
positivists
rightly accuse the existentialists of treating nothingness as an entity.
Nothingness, for all that it is, is a non-entity; the treatment of
nothingness
as an entity is the beginning of folly. So muddled are the existentialists'
pronouncements about nothingness that it should be regarded as nothing else
other than nonsensical. To regard a non-entity as an entity is undoubtedly
an
elementary mistake, nonetheless a gross and fatal mistake. It is alleged
that
the logical positivist miss the point but no explanation is given for
endowing
the status of an entity to nothingness.
Pessimism towers
over
the works of the existentialists. Pessimism, taking the depressing view of
life, makes claim that the world is bad rather than good. Optimism, on the
other hand, views the world as ordered for the best. The world is the case
and
there is no more to it. The world does not exist either for good or evil.
Hence, both these outlooks are equally mistaken. There is no reason to
regret
the contingency of the human existence in the world, not would there be
anything to rejoice if the human being's existence in the world came from
necessity. Both pessimism and optimism deserves to be rejected. There is
nothing tragic in the human existence in the world without meaning, nor
would
there be much to cheer had human existence in the world been inherent with a
purpose.
Existentialists
make
endless claims. They never bother to show how they reached their claims or
if
these are, indeed, true. The existentialists when he pretends to present a
representation of reality provides no cognition; unverifiable assertions may
well express powerful and even necessary emotions and passions, but that's
best
left to the arts and literature. The existentialists, in the same strain of
vogue associated with Wittgenstein, make a hopeless effort to say what
cannot
be said, or pretend to say there are things of some importance which cannot
be
said. But what can be said, can be said and clearly too.
At any rate, as a
popular movement, existentialism lost its vogue. However, the rise and
ramification of this brand of philosophical thought should not be regarded
as
trivial; existentialism does deserve serious consideration. It is not, as
some
Marxists accuse, an effort, allegedly the last effort, to construct a
system.
Existentialism is a highly passionate philosophy and, from the outset, seems
to
aim at a dynamic and fashionable life-style. Also it is mostly unsystematic
and
pays little attention to logic or science. Whatever one makes of its
metaphysical claims, one cannot deny that existentialism was able to provide
a
moving account of the spirit of the contemporary world and the nausea and
frustration of survival. Indeed, it is basically for its richness in
psychological
insight and its impact on culture that existentialist philosophy will
continued
to be studied.
[The New Nation,
March 7 and 21, 1986]
Philosophy is used
in
many ways and somewhat loosely. However, in the final analysis, it is
traceable
to various world outlooks, the human being's conception of the external
world,
of himself, and of his position in it. The disparity in the use of the word
"philosophy" itself demonstrates the manner in which the numerous
schools
of philosophy understand what philosophy is and what it should aim to be.
Existentialism has been among the most influential philosophy on the
European
continent in the twentieth century. The strong appeal and popularity of
existentialism in the post-war era owes to the confusion, the crisis, and
the
feeling of rejection and rootlessness during the World War II and its
aftermath. At present, while existentialism has lost much of its former
glory,
its temperament is still rampant and wields powerful influence on writers
and
artists, especially the youth engaged in creative activities. Existentialism
provides a moving account of the agony of being thrown in the world. Those
who
think that logical analysis should be the cardinal business of philosophy
should not dismiss existentialist philosophy as trivial. On the contrary,
one
could profit by seriously examining its doctrines. The most prominent
exponent
of existentialism in the modern times is the French writer Jean-Paul Sartre
and
it is his philosophy that is considered in this essay with particular
attention
to his massive work, Being and Nothingness.
The edifice of
Sartre's work is vast, ranging from his early works of phenomenological
analysis of imagination and the emotions, to his mature works comprising of
many
philosophical treatises, short stories, novels, plays and criticisms, and
finally to his attempt to integrate the existentialist concern for freedom
and
human individuality with a form of radicalism. The overall complexity of
Sartre's writing gives the possibility of alternative interpretations of his
thought. His works are eloquent, no doubt, but hardly systematic. While his
writing never reach the obscurity of Heidegger, some of his terminology
defines
analysis. He writes with sophistic bias, although he denies being a sophist.
Pessimism towers over his work, because he believed, "Man is a useless
passion."
It is important to
realize the reciprocal relationship of philosophy and civilization. The
thoughts of the philosophers, and more so the speculative philosophers, are
shaped by their socio-cultural, economic and political circumstances.
Sartre's
philosophy is very much in the context of traditional French philosophy, as
well as the outcome of the prevailing sociopolitical situation. Sartre came
to
be thought of as the ablest French intellectual in mid-twentieth century.
Sartre was born in
Paris on June 21, 1905. He was the only son of Jean-Baptiste Sartre and
Anne-Marie Schweitzer. His father, a naval officer, died during his early
childhood. He wrote: "Jean-Baptiste's death was the greatest event in
my
life, it returned my mother to her chains and it gave me my freedom."
Anne-Marie, his mother, returned to her parent's home. His childhood was
spent
in the house of Charles Schweitzer, uncle of the famous missionary Albert
Schweitzer. His grandfather was a school teacher who taught German in a
school.
As a lonely child, he found his companion among books. Reading and writing
became his twin passions. He was educated in Paris. He entered the Ecole
Normale
Superieure in 1925. He failed his first attempt at aggregation completely,
but
when he tried for the second time the following year in 1929, he came out
first. In the same year, Simone de Beauvoir finished second. She was to
become
his intimate companion as well as intellectual associate. He discarded the
idea
of bourgeois marriage, but entered into a lasting union libre with Madame
Beauvoir.
He taught at Le
Harve, Loan, Nevilly. Between 1929-1934, he traveled and studied. In 1934,
he
spent a year in the French Institute in Berlin and the University of
Freiburg.
It was while in Germany he studied under the phenomenologist Edmund Husserl
and
the existentialist Martin Heidegger. After his return from Germany in 1935,
Sartre taught in Paris. He lived in a hotel on the Left Bank.
His first work
L'imagination was published in 1936 and his first novel Nausea was published
in
1938. In the novel, Sartre brings out the meaningless and futility of human
life. There the hero finds himself weighed down, sickened and alienated by
the
opposition between things and consciousness. Roquetin is dismayed by
discovering: "Everything is gratuitous, this garden, this city and
myself.
When you realize it, it makes you feel sick and everything begins to drift .
.
. that's nausea." The novel contains the philosophical themes that
Sartre
develops later.
Sartre joined the
French Army in 1939 as a private. He was taken prisoner on the Magionot line
and imprisoned in Germany in 1941. During the nine months of imprisonment,
he
wrote and directed plays for his fellow prisoners. He escaped and joined the
Resistance to take an active in it. He was among the key intellectuals in
the
Resistance. The Nazi Occupation of France was to effect him profoundly. He
wrote: "Because the Nazi venom worked its way even into our thoughts,
every accurate thought was a conquest; because an all-powerful police sought
to
force us into silence, every world became precious as a declaration of
principle; because we were persecuted, each of our gesture carried the
weight
of a commitment." During that period, Sartre produced a first-rate
volume
of short stories, The Wall. He also wrote two plays, No Exit and The Flies.
Sartre's major
work
Being and Nothingness was published in 1944. It brilliantly depicts the
feeling
of dissatisfaction and purposelessness. Being and Nothingness: An Essay in
Phenomenological Ontology was the result of his philosophical reflections on
the thoughts of Husserl. He sets himself to investigate the nature of
existence. The contradiction of two types of being is discovered: The being
of
objective things, called being-in-itself, and the being of consciousness,
titled being-for-itself. Being-in-itself is the fixed being for things and
is
static. Being-for-itself is the fluid being cherished for the human being.
The
human being must strive for it. The human being makes decisions and chooses.
His futurity is open toward infinite scopes.
The human being
exists but it only is a contingent fact, as there is no scope for his
non-existence. Sartre wrote: "The world could get along very well
without
literature. It could get along even without men. The question is, as
Heidegger
posses: Why is there anything at all and not rather nothing?" He seems
quite desperate about the contingency of human existence. For him, the human
being's presence in the world is irrational and absurd because the human
being
is unnecessary. But, as one would say, there is no reason to lament about
the
contingency of human existence as the existentialist do, just as there would
be
nothing to be jubilant about if the human being's existence in the world was
due to necessity.
Existentialism
badly
required a full-blooded ethical theory. In spite of being a prolific writer,
Sartre's promise to turn attention to the moral responsibilities that
freedom
implies remained unfulfilled. Though the treatise on ethics never saw the
light
of the day, the psychological problems of human freedom is portrayed
imaginatively in many of his novels, short stories, and plays. His style and
diction made Sartre one the most powerful authors of contemporary times.
Existentialists
understand that human existence is a contingent fact. Nevertheless, they
emphasize what is thought to be the unique character of human existence. The
human being's existence is radically different from things. At birth the
human
being is nothing and he can, unlike things, work out his destiny. It is
human
freedom that sets apart the human being from things. Unfortunately,
anthropomorphic illusions dominate the ideas of the existentialists.
Existentialism becomes obsessed with human beings and the happenings of the
third planet of the solar system. This excessive concern with human being is
pre-Copernican.
The confusing
pronouncement regarding freedom lead to erroneous positions. Sartre's notion
of
freedom typifies the existentialist view. His treatment of freedom is
confusing, but intoxicating. Its appeal owes entirely to the pervasive
subtlety
of his analysis of the human condition. True, he does not conclude the human
being is free to do whatever he fancies; he places the primacy of the will
at
the center of his thought. Freedom is assertion of is ego, unhampered by
external conditions, objective laws and limits, and necessity. Choice is at
the
core Sartrean philosophy. Free choice, according to him, is not determined
by
any existent fact because an action is projected towards the blank, the
future
which is non-existent. Freedom is outside the confinements of definition, or
limits. Ultimately nothing, it is said, can restrict freedom. For the
existentialist, the human being can alter the society from within himself.
The
human being must overcome obstacles by acts of conscious decision. All of
these
claims are erroneous because the human being does not have the external
world
he wishes to give to himself; perhaps, the human being does not even the
world
as he conceives it to be. Human life is conditioned by necessity and
material
situation. Without a proper appreciation of the circumstances, necessity,
and
objective laws, the human being cannot achieve any real freedom. The extent
of
the openness of futurity for the human being lies on his own position,
inclinations, capabilities, and his comprehension of the world, as well as
the
objective reality. Though the existentialist provides a captivating
narrative
of subjective freedom, the limitless freedom of choice associated with the
authentic human being, is entirely baseless. Fundamentally incorrect too is
the
intriguing concept of nothingness, about which the existentialist has much
to
say. However, nothingness, one cannot overemphasize, should be regarded as
no
more than a non-entity.
Immediately after
the
war, Sartre won recognition of the leader of the left-wing in Paris, with
Café
de Flore as their headquarters. He and his fellow intellectuals drew young
disciples among writers and artists, and also become something of a tourist
attraction. In 1945 he visited the United States and lectured at several
universities there. He left his teaching position to edit the avant-garde
journal Les Temps Moderns which he and other launched. It become the main
forum
of the French existentialist movement. In 1954, he visited the USSR,
Scandinavia, Africa, and Cuba. He extended his support for Algerian
independence. He was the leading figure in the creation of the short-lived
political party Rassemblement Democratique Revolutionaire (RDR). His
political
position led to quarrels with writers Albert Camus, Raymond Aron, and Arthur
Koestler.
1n 1956, Sartre
denounced the Soviet intervention in Hungary. He criticized the French
Communist Party for its submission to the dictates of Moscow. He himself had
never joined the Communist Party. But he supported its program and its trade
union when disagreeing with its ideological position and even when the party
had denounced him as a bourgeois ideologist.
In 1964, when
Sartre
was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, he refused to accept it. For
him,
acceptance of bourgeois honor would be an act of inauthenticity. He refused
official honors because he held that his writing must alone and must not
carry
the weight of prestige. The acceptance of honor would mean compromise and
surrender.
Sartre soon give
himself the task writing a "total biography" of the famous French
novelist Gustave Flaubert. It was meant to be a four volume definitive
study.
In the work, he combined Marxist analysis with Freudian psychoanalysis. The
massive two volumes appeared in 1971. He takes up the slightest Flaubertian
dictum to analysis in such a detailed and rigorous manner that the average
reader cannot but be bewildered. Sartre had read Flaubert's novel Madame
Bovary
in his childhood: It affected him profoundly.
Sartre believed
philosophy must not be divorced from literature and the arts. His theory
that
literature must take side is expounded in What is Literature. He skillfully
demonstrated how philosophical concepts and ideals can be dramatized in
literature. In his works, he portrayed how the individual must decide
between
the enigmas confronting him: What is true; what is right and what is wrong;
what to accept and what to reject; what to be and what not; and, even,
whether
to be, or not to be. His own answer was there are no objective values or
authorities to rely upon. The human being tries to avoid the anxiety of
freedom
by disowning liberty. But the human being must accept accountability without
subterfuge. In the plays, Dirty Hand and The Condemned of Altona, he once
more
looked at the problems of liberty, obligation, and the assignment of action.
Both the plays ends with the suicide of the main character. In his plays,
the
protagonist is called to create his own values.
Sartre wrote:
"One always dies too soon or too late. And yet one's whole life is
complete at that moment, with a line drawn neatly under it, ready for the
summing
up." He himself died on April 15, 1980. He was buried without any
official
recognition. His funeral ceremony was, however, attended by thousands of
ordinary people, whose cause he had always advocated.
The greatness of
Sartre lies not in his philosophy but in the type of being he chose to be.
Existentialism was more than a philosophical movement. It had tremendous
cultural significance. The theater of the absurd, to cite one example only,
is
an expression of existentialist themes. The plays of Beckett and Ionesco
were
inspired by existentialist doctrines. But its popularity owes more, one
would
now say, to the mistaken belief that existentialism prescribes a dynamic
life
style than to the acceptance of its principal ideals. At present,
existentialism has been replaced by structuralism and deconstruction as the
dominant and fashionable ideologies in the French philosophical scene. In
general, philosophy in France continues to influenced by the traditions of
idealism and romanticism. Sartre was a philosopher in line of French
thinkers
and writers, such as Rousseau, Voltaire and Zola. Like them, he was
passionately concerned about freedom. He was a writer with an international
following. His writings were very moving and profound.
Even though the
human
being feels lost in an alien and hostile world, he believed the human being
must act. As for his own work, he wrote: "For a long while I treated my
pen as sword; now I realize how helpless we are. It does not matter: I am
writing. I shall write books; they are needed; they have use all the same.
Culture saves nothing and nobody, nor does it justify. But it is a product
of
man; he projects himself through it and recognizes himself in it; this
critical
mirror alone shows him his images." He wanted to change the world and
establish justice. Even those who disagreed with Sartre's philosophical
ideals
will admire his moral honesty, integrity, his self-searching and his deep
sense
of commitment, which have few comparisons.
[The New Nation
,
July 17, 1987]
In Albert Camus's
philosophical and literary works the recognition of the absurdity of human
existence is a central principle. The realization of the absurdity of human
existence is a necessary condition for accomplishing anything in life. The
absurdity of existence is best exemplified in the myth of Sisyphus, in which
the gods have condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly roll a rock to the mountain
peak. Every time Sisyphus pushes the rock up the slopes it falls back;
nevertheless, he goes back to push it uphill. In spite of failing to reach
his
objective, he is resolutely committed to keep striving. The condition of
Sisyphus dramatizes the perpetual meaninglessness, futility, and absurdity
of
human existence. This emptiness of life's actions and endeavors poignantly
reveals the absurd.
In a world
stripped
of its illusions and false pretensions, the human being is an outside, who
lives without any meaning. The human being is placed in a hopeless and void
situation. This limiting reality leads the human being to encounter the
absurd
in every aspect of being, ranging from routine activities in life to unusual
and unconventional circumstances. The consequent problem of suicide, arising
from the absurd, is the core question in Camus' philosophy.
All human actions
and
thoughts develop in the void, in the midst of weariness and frustrations,
irrelevancies, the bizarre, unconformities, illusions, and evasions, which
make
those actions and thoughts absurd. The human attempt to grasp the mechanism
and
the dynamics of the universe also turns into an absurd confrontation between
the human being and his surroundings. Ironically the human being can only
realize the absurdity of the universe in his attempt to comprehend it. This
contradiction and this paradox of existence seem to be the sole reality that
develops as a result of the universe's indifference to human existence.
Camus does not
suggest that the universe is in itself hostile toward the human being.
Rather
the absurdity lies in the underlying discord in the relationship between the
human being and the universe. The silence of the universe creates an eerie
feeling in the human being which brings about a disappointing awareness that
there can be no salvation from the external world, that the human being is
alone and has been thrust into a universe where self-realization is the only
road to freedom. The absurdity of the universe is not a given phenomenon;
the
human being realizes the sweeping absurdity of his being in the universe
only
when he perceives the nature of his existence. Thus, the human being
discovers
the absurdity of existence when he correctly perceives the universe.
Absurdity is a
process which develops in the human being. It becomes a concrete attitude
towards the universe in which the human being recognizes that there is no
scope
for transcendence and the objective structure of the universe does not
accommodate an optimistic outlook. The human being encounters absurd walls
that
limit and trap him. Life always remains incomplete. This incompleteness of
life
makes it purposeless. In the routines and drills of life the human being is
drowned by the mundane and morbid repetition of living day in, day out. The
human being is totally estranged from everything else in the universe. This
estrangement expresses itself in the physiological nausea and the subjective
passion to be free. He is divorced from nature. He allows the flow of time,
over which he has no control, to determine his life. Death appears as a seal
in
this unintelligible universe. Yet, he yearns for a distant tomorrow because
he
is unable to realize any value in his current mode of existence, in which
everything has been reduced to mechanical functions that reproduce
themselves.
The universe is indifferent to the human efforts to be at home in the world.
Human life
consists
of its own absurdity and profound sickness. For the human being there is
neither a promised land nor a utopia where all problems are resolved and the
contradictions are harmonized. The human being is in a permanent exile and
can
never overcome his separation from the universe, and even from his own life,
personal events, and society.
According to
Camus,
the human being has to directly and readily encounter the absurdity of the
universe in all its aspects. For the human being the absurd is the real
relationship arising from the dialectic unity of his nostalgia and the
irrationality inherent in the universe. The absurdity of the human existence
lies in its insecurity, its rejections, its agony, and its disappointments.
There cannot be any escape to a transcendental level once the human being
has
realized the absurd. He cannot "leap" into the unknown, for there
is
nothing to rely and depend upon. He cannot transform the absurdity to
eliminate
its cardinal human dimension. He has no room for renunciations. For him any
attempt to retreat from the absurd is but philosophical suicide because it
seeks to impose a false purpose into the world that has no inherent meaning.
Thus, the absurd may make the human being vulnerable, but this does not
provide
a justification for denying, or disguising, the abysmal life. His authentic
consciousness of the presence of the absurd provides him with a lucid way to
absorb and understand the despair of the universe. Hence, it is the solitary
ability to heroically face the universe that entitle the human being, in
spite
of the absurdity of existence, to embrace life, instead of committing
suicide.
For Camus, the
consequences of the absurdity of human existence are clear. The human being
is
capable of knowing his situation. This self-knowledge does not mean that he
can
overcome the contradictions of the human situations. Rather his revolt does
not
seek to contradict or deny what he knows because he cannot escape from the
paradox of the absence of meaning. Ironically, life thus becomes fruitful
and
dynamic. In the final analysis, life itself is the source of his freedom of
being. Life's innumerable experiences provide the human being with
fulfillment
because he learns to live without pleas, hopes, or codes of behavior. By
acknowledging the absurd, the human being virtually defines the constraints
that threaten and entrap him. His admission of the absurdity of both
particular
and universal existence prepares him for assimilating, embracing, and
envisioning life.
Camus argues that
the
revolt against the absurdity of the universe provides the creative tension
and
serves as the fountainhead of the human being's pride, renewal, and the
capacity to struggle. The human being's consciousness enables him to cope
with
the despondency of existence, not through denial but through understanding.
Nevertheless, the nature of the universe remains as absurd and enigmatic as
ever because, for the human being, there are no rules, certainties, or rigid
implications in life. The absurdity of existence does not provide the human
being with a predetermined set of values and beliefs; it compels him to come
to
terms with the wide array of possibilities, and the conflicting demands that
life makes on him. The absurdity of the universe allows the human being to
affirm his knowledge and to gain control of his destiny. Like Sisyphus, the
human being, due to his self-realization and conscious, does not stop his
efforts because he faces an insurmountable challenge. According to the myth,
Sisyphus invalidates the fate condemned for him by the gods because he is
content to continue on with his eternal and exalted uphill situation,
because
he knows that his actions proceed from his own directions and freedom. Thus,
his actions and thoughts, in the midst of the limiting and engulfing human
situation, show his heroism, defiance, and courage.
[Holiday, January
18,
1991]