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Existentialism, philosophical
movement or tendency, emphasizing individual existence, freedom, and choice,
that influenced many diverse writers in the 19th and 20th centuries.
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Major Themes
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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.
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Moral Individualism
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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 as moral situations.
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Subjectivity
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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.
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Choice and Commitment
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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.
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Dread and Anxiety
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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.
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History
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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.
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Pascal
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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.
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Kierkegaard
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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.
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Nietzsche
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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.
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Heidegger
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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.
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Sartre
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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.
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Existentialism and Theology
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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.
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Existentialism and Literature
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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.”
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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.
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