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Existentialism Philosophy
Discussion of the Philosophy / Metaphysics of Existentialism
Jean Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus Quotes / Quotations
/ Pictures
Existence precedes and commands Essence. (Jean
Paul Sartre)
We regarded any situation as raw material for our joint efforts and not
as a factor conditioning them: we imagined ourselves to be wholly independent
agents. ... We had no external limitations, no overriding authority, no
imposed pattern of existence, We created our own links with the world,
and freedom was the very essence of our existence. (Simone de Beauvoir,
1963)
Introduction to Existentialism Philosophy
Existentialism liberates us from the customs of the past founded on myth. The quote from Jean Paul Sartre, Existence precedes and commands Essence, can be seen as the foundation for existentialism. I exist as a human. In my existence, I define myself and the world around me. The ongoing popularity of existentialism philosophy (particularly amongst young people) can be understood by its freedom of personal choice and individualism within a post modern context of no absolute truth.
The problem with Existentialism is that it leaves us without absolute foundations, encourages a separate / individual sense of self and gives too much power to our imagination and how we may choose to live. While this may be liberating, it unfortunately offers little guidance and does not abide by the fact that humans are constructed of matter, interact with all other matter in the universe and have evolved certain genetic traits as part of their evolutionary ancestry. Thus there are certain absolute truths that humans (all things) must abide by if they are to live by the truth and the wisdom this attains. As Gottfried Leibniz wrote;
A distinction must be made between true and false ideas, and that too much rein must not be given to a man's imagination under pretext of its being a clear and distinct intellection. (Leibniz, 1670)
The purpose of this website is to explain the metaphysical foundations of existence / existentialism which requires understanding how humans exist as matter in space. i.e. True Knowledge of Physical Reality (see links on the side of the page)
We hope you enjoy the following quotes on existentialism - and that you
also think carefully about how you exist in the universe. There is a simple
sensible solution.
Geoff Haselhurst
Existentialism
The general concern of existentialism is to give an account of what it
is like to exist as a human being in the world. Epistemologically, it is
denied that there can be an absolutely objective description of the world
as it is without the intervention of human interests and actions. The world
is a 'given' and there is no epistemological scepticism about its existence;
it has to be described in relation to ourselves. There is no fixed essence
to which beings have to conform in order to qualify as human beings; we
are what we decide to be .. The issue of freedom and choice are of crucial
importance in existentialism. Sartre thinks that authentic choices are completely
undetermined. ... If we make our decisions merely by reference to an external
moral code or set of procedures, then we are, similarly, not arriving at
authentic choices. Buber disagrees with Sartre over what it is to choose:
he maintains that values which have been discovered, not invented, can be
adopted for one's life.
Heidegger, Sartre, Kierkegaard, Jaspers, Marcel, early Simone de Beauvoir.
One Hundred Twentieth Century Philosophers, Stewart Brown, Diane Collinson, Robert Wilkinson, Routledge 1998
Sartre, Jean-Paul (1905-1980)
Existential Quotes from an Existentialist Philosopher
Being and Nothingness (1943) is a major document of existentialism. Its primary question is: 'What is it like to be a human being?'
Sartre's answer is that human reality consists of two modes of existence:
of being and of nothingness. The human being exists both as an in-itself
(ensoi), an object or thing, and as a for-itself (pour-soi), a consciousness.
The existence of an in-itself is 'opaque to itself .. because it is filled
with itself.' In contrast, the for-itself, or consciousness, has no such
fullness of existence, because it is no-thing.
Sartre sometimes describes consciousness of things as a kind of nausea produced
by a recognition of the contingency of their existence and the realization
that this constitutes Absurdity.
.. consciousness because it is nothingness, makes us aware of the possibility
of choosing what we will be. This is the condition of human freedom. To
perform an action a person must be able to stand back from participation
in the world of existing things and so contemplate what does not exist.
The choice of action is also a choice of oneself. In choosing oneself
one does not choose to exist: existence is given and one has to exist in
order to choose. From this analysis Sartre derives a famous slogan
of existentialism: 'existence precedes and commands essence'. He maintains
there is no reason for choosing as one does. The choice
is unjustified, groundless. This is the perpetual human reality.
'Bad faith' is an important concept in Sartrean existentialism. To act in bad faith is to turn away from the authentic choosing of oneself and to act in conformity with a stereotype or role. Sartre's most famous example is that of a waiter:
'Let us consider this waiter in the cafe. His movement is quick and forward, a little too precise, a little too rapid. He comes towards the patrons with a step a little too quick .. his voice, his eyes express an interest a little too solicitous for the order of the customer .. he gives himself the quickness and pitiless rapidity of things .. the waiter in the cafe plays with his condition in order to realize it.' (Sartre, 1943)
One Hundred Twentieth Century Philosophers, Stewart Brown, Diane Collinson, Robert Wilkinson, Routledge 1998
Camus, Albert (1913- 1960)
Quotations from Camus, Philosopher of the Absurd
Albert Camus could never cease to be one of the principle figures in our cultural domain, nor to represent, in his own way, the history of France and of this century. (Jean Paul Sartre)
This work is an attempt to understand the time I live in. (Albert Camus on 'The Rebel')
One might think, that a period which, within fifty years, uproots, enslaves
or kills seventy million human beings, should only, and forthwith, be condemned.
But also its guilt must be understood.
Slave camps under the flag of freedom, massacres justified by philanthropy
or the taste of the superhuman, cripple judgment. On the day when crime
puts on the apparel of innocence, through a curious reversal peculiar to
our age, it is innocence that is called on to justify itself. The purpose
of this essay is to accept and study that strange challenge. (Albert
Camus on 'The Rebel')
Albert Camus is not an academic philosopher but rather an existential
thinker concerned to work out a way of making sense of a life threatened
with meaninglessness.
Common to each phase are the presuppositions of atheism, the mortality
of the soul and the indifference of the universe to human aspirations.
The concept central to the early phase of Albert Camus's thought is the
Absurd. Absurdity is a feeling which arises from the confrontation
of the world, which is irrational, with the hopeless but profound human
desire to make sense of our condition. The appropriate response to this
situation is to live in full consciousness of it.
From a lucid appreciation of the absurdity of our life three consequences
flow, which Camus calls revolt, freedom and passion.
By 'revolt' (in the early phase of his thought) Camus means defiance in
the face of the bleak truth about the human condition, hopeless but not
resigned, lending to life a certain grandeur. Again, recognition of the
absurdity frees us from habit and convention: we see all things anew, and
are inwardly liberated. By 'passion' Camus means the resolve to live as
intensely as possible, not so as to escape the sense of absurdity but so
as to face it with absolute lucidity. The way to do this is to maximise
not the quality but the quantity of one's experiences ..
The major philosophical change, a marked break with Sartrean existentialism,
is the view that there is such thing as human nature,
the conclusion Camus draws from his analysis of the concept of the revolt
in life and art. In the concept of human nature he finds a reason and cause
for union between human beings. The detachment of the absurdity is replaced
by a ethic of sympathy, community and service to others.
One Hundred Twentieth Century Philosophers, Stewart Brown, Diane Collinson, Robert Wilkinson, Routledge 1998, p 26-7
Simone de Beauvoir
Quotations from an Existentialist Philosopher
We regarded any situation as raw material for our joint efforts and not as a factor conditioning them: we imagined ourselves to be wholly independent agents. ... We had no external limitations, no overriding authority, no imposed pattern of existence, We created our own links with the world, and freedom was the very essence of our existence. (Simone de Beauvoir, 1963)
I also regarded my day to day activities - among others, my job as a teacher - in the light of a masquerade. By releasing the pressure of reality upon our lives, fantasy convinced us that life itself had no hold upon us. We belonged to no place or country, no class, profession, or generation. Our truth lay elsewhere. (Simone de Beauvoir, The Prime of Life, 1963)
Karl Jaspers (1883-1969)
Existentialist, Psychologist, Philosopher
The central theme of Karl Jaspers' thought may be described as the finitude of human existence and the limits of human experience.
Jaspers contrasts the truths of philosophy with those of science and religion.
The truths of philosophy are truths of faith; the truths of natural science
are alone objectively true, and are characterised by their 'compelling certainty'
and their 'universal validity'; the truths of religion are symbolic. Philosophy
has many possible starting-points; the starting point of Jasper's own philosophy
is the ultimate experience of knowing (erkennen), and the fundamental question
arising therefrom: How does Being manifest itself?
All knowing is referential and intentional. As such it involves the fissuring
of subject and object. This fissure is the locus of all beings, all objects,
all knowing. It both marks the limits of objectivity and points beyond itself
to the transcendent, to the Unfissured, the Encompassing.
Jaspers distinguishes two senses of this last term:
(i) The Encompassing as such or Being in itself;
(ii) the Encompassing which we ourselves are, this latter splintering into
a diversity of ways in which we are (as existence (Dasein), existenz (Existenz),
understanding, reason, consciousness).
The Encompassing as such transcends the subject-object fissure, and is
thus not a possible object of knowledge. Being in itself is absolutely inaccessible
to thought; ontology is, accordingly, impossible. Only the modes of Being,
which mark the limits and the horizon of our experience, can be illuminated
and clarified but not explained.
Karl Jaspers emphasizes the antinomial character of our Being, which is
rooted in our striving to transcend the limits of our Being and in attempting
to penetrate the inaccessible realm of the Encompassing. The self transcending
tendency of our finite Being towards the infinite manifests itself in universal
symbolic forms (chiffres), man's attempt to express the inexpressible and
the unknowable, finite 'expressions' of the infinite.
One Hundred Twentieth Century Philosophers, Stewart Brown, Diane Collinson, Robert Wilkinson, Routledge 1998, p 97 - 100
Gabriel Marcel (1889-1973)
Neo-Socratic, Theist Existentialist, Playwright & Musician
Gabriel Marcel's intention was to reveal a metaphysical reality and his starting-point is the human situation, the experience of being-in-the-world. The mainspring of his thought is the claim that the human person is, au fond, a participant in, rather than a spectator of, reality and the life of the world; a being that ultimately cannot be encompassed to become an object of thought.
Marcel repuditated idealism because of the 'way in which [it] overates
the part of construction in sensual perception', (Marcel)
and he was repelled by philosophies that employed special terminologies
or proceeded by assuming that reason, properly exerted, could achieve a
total grasp of reality. 'Reality cannot be summed up.' (Marcel)
For Gabriel Marcel, immediate, personal experience was the touchstone of
all enquiries.
Marcel distinguished two kinds of consciousness, 'first reflection' and
'second reflection'.
In first reflection a person might mentally stand back from, say, a direct
relationship or friendship, in order to describe and objectify it. This,
according to Marcel, is to separate oneself from the relationship and treat
it as a 'problem' in need of explanation. In 'second reflection' the immediacy
of the relationship is restored, but additionally there is an awareness
of participation in Being: the recognition that we inhabit a 'mystery';
that it is not our prime task to separate ourselves and objectify this
condition and that 'Having', that sense of owning one's body, talents,
abilities, must be transformed into 'Being'.
One Hundred Twentieth Century Philosophers, Stewart Brown, Diane Collinson, Robert Wilkinson, Routledge 1998, p 125-6
Phenomenology & Edmund Husserl (1859-1938)
Edmund Husserl is the founder of Phenomenology, who first
came to prominence through the publication of his Logical Investigations
(1900-1).
The early phenomenologists were most impressed by the call to a return to
the things themselves ('Zu den Sachen selbst!') in the sense of giving precedence
to how things (material objects but also numbers, institutions, works of
art, persons, etc) present themselves in actual experience over the dictates
of some theory or system as to how they must be.
It came as something of a shock when Edmund Husserl published his next main
work, Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological
Philosophy (1913), for it seemed to represent a reversal of all phenomenology
had come to stand for. .. what was found objectionable was the idea that
everything else constituted in pure consciousness. This seemed like a capitulation
to the neo-Kantians.
Consciousness in its various modes had the property of being 'of' something
or being directed towards something. For example, in thinking something
is thought about, in perception something is perceived ... Husserl calls
these various modes of consciousness intentional experiences or acts. Unlike
his teacher Brentano he does not regard the object of consciousness as being
in all cases an inner mental entity. .. for example, I see this book on
my desk this intentional experience, the seeing, is directed towards a material
object. What I am conscious of is not an inner mental picture of a book
but, precisely, a book. .. Each intentional experience, and not just those
which essentially involve the use of language, contains something Husserl
calls a sense or meaning (Sinn), and it is this which is responsible for
the experience's directedness towards its object.
The various modes of consciousness, as well as having the fundamental essential
feature of intentionality, also have more specific essential features: for
example, perception essentially involves sensation. The sense or meaning
of the experience 'animates' sensation in such a way that it becomes an
appearance of an object. .. It is possible to describe intentional experiences
independently of the question of the real existence and real being-thus
of their object.
However, even if we disregard the question of the reality of the object
of an experience we still regard the experience itself as an event of the
world, as belonging to a psycho-physical reality, the human being, which
is one item among others in the world. And even when we disregard the question
of the reality of a particular object we still take for granted the existence
of the world as a whole. This taking for granted, which Husserl calls the
general thesis of the natural attitude, can be suspended or 'put out of
action' in an operation he calls the transcendental reduction. Consciousness
on which this operation has been carried out is not itself an item in the
world but rather that for which there is a world.
Phenomenology as the mature Husserl understands it is
the description of the essential structures of this transcendental consciousness
or subjectivity. These structures are not inferred by any kind of Kantian
transcendental argument but are 'seen' by the phenomenological 'observer'
in the phenomenological, as opposed to the natural, attitude.
.. In abstraction from questions of real existence and real nature one considers
the entity simply as it shows itself to consciousness. Phenomenology also
describes the world, as the universal horizon of all that shows itself.
The world is not just the totality of objects of consciousness, not just
one big object, but that from within which entities show themselves.
It is supposed by Husserl to yield ultimate understanding of things.
In his final phase of his phenomenology Husserl introduces the notion of
the life world (Lebenswelt), the world of lived experience. What he calls
objectivism seeks to eliminate everything subjective from our representation
of the world by allowing as real only those aspects of experience which
can be represented by means of the concepts of the mathematical natural
sciences. Such objectivism dismisses the lifeworld as mere appearance. But
this is to call into question the lifeworld from the stand point of what
is itself a construction formed on the basis of the lifeworld. The properties
and structures attributed by the objectifying sciences to the 'objective'
world are themselves the product of a process of idealization and mathematization
of 'lifeworldy' structures.
..the lifeworld does not represent the ultimate foundation, for it is itself
constituted in transcendental subjectivity.
One Hundred Twentieth Century Philosophers, Stewart Brown, Diane Collinson, Robert Wilkinson, Routledge 1998, p 89-92
Martin Heidegger (1889-1976)
In the early 1930's, having previously been unpolitical, Martin Heidegger
began to be attracted by the National Socialist movement and its charismatic
leader, Adolf Hitler. Like many German intellectuals of the time he saw
in the movement a force for renewal and regeneration. .. Although Heidegger
did some shameful things in the early days of the Third Reich it must be
acknowledged that he was deeply critical of what passed in Nazi circles
as 'philosophy' (racism and biologism).
For Heidegger there was only one question, die Seinsfrage
(the question of being). .. adherence to the maxim made
famous by Husserl and his followers: 'To the things themselves!'
It is the letting be seen of that which shows itself.
Under the influence of Husserl, but also drawing on such figures as Kierkegaard
and Dilthey, Heidegger began to develop his own brand of phenomenology which
focuses on the facticity of lived existence rather than transcendental consciousness
and its pure ego. Being and Time, his major work.
Being (Sein) is not something laid up in some realm to
which the phenomenologist has some mysterious access. It is what is understood
in the always understanding of being which already belongs to the being
of Dasein (Heidegger's term for the being which we ourselves are).
Phenomenology, as the letting be seen of being, is the laying bare of the
conditions of the possibility of entities showing themselves or of our comportment
to entities. Phenomenology, as understood by Heidegger, is phenomenology
of Dasein. The absolute prerequisite for doing philosophy, in Heidegger's'
view, is recognition of what he calls the ontological difference (being
is not a being). ..The being of Dasein, what Heidegger calls existence,
is such that Dasein understands its own being, but in understanding its
own being it at the same time understands the being of entities other than
itself.
The complete work (Being and Time) was to have shown how time is the 'horizon'
by reference to which being is understood.
One Hundred Twentieth Century Philosophers, Stewart Brown, Diane Collinson, Robert Wilkinson, Routledge 1998, p 83-7
Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961)
Maurice Merleau Ponty argues that experience is shot through with pre-existent
meanings, largely derived from language and experienced in perception.
He denied that there is a causal relationship between the physical and
the mental, and he therefore finds the behaviourist account of perception,
entirely in terms of causation, unacceptable. Gestalt theory he finds not
false but not developed sufficiently to do justice to the facts of perception.
His general conclusion is that a new approach is needed if perception is
to be properly understood.
This new approach is his version of phenomenology, and its application
to perception is the subject of his second and most important work, Phenomenologie
de la perception (1945). The fundamental premise is that of the primacy
of perception: our perceptual relation to the world is sui generis, and
logically prior to the subject-object distinction.
One of the most original features of this phenomenology is his theory of
the role of the body in the world as perceived ... Merleau-Ponty contends
that a number of the most fundamental features of perception are a result
of out physical incarnation: our perception of space is conditioned by our
bodily mode of existence; or again, we regard perceived things as constant
because our body remains constant. Further, Merleau-Ponty contends that
perception is a committed (engage) or existential act, not one which we
are merely passive.
Merleau Ponty argues that the notions of time and subjectivity are mutually
constitutive. Time is not a feature of the objective world but a dimension
of subjectivity: past and future appear in our present and can only occur
in a temporal being.
Experience comes ready furnished with meanings, and so although we are
free to make choices the field of freedom is accordingly circumscribed.
These meanings are conveyed by a number of social institutions, but above
all by language.
One Hundred Twentieth Century Philosophers, Stewart Brown, Diane Collinson, Robert Wilkinson, Routledge 1998, p 133-5
Links / Existentialism Philosophy
Philosophy -
On Philosophy as Love (Philo) of Wisdom (Sophy), and that we must know the
Truth to be Wise. Most importantly, all Truth comes from Reality thus we
must know Reality to be Wise. Quotes on Philosophy, Truth, Reality by Famous
Philosophers Plato, Aristotle, Montaigne, Leibniz, Berkeley, Hume,
Kant, Einstein, et al. 'Philosophy being nothing
else but the study of wisdom and truth,..' (Berkeley)
Philosophy:
Free Will Vs Determinism - Wave Structure of Matter explains Limited
Free Will in a Necessarily Connected (Logical) Universe.
Philosophy:
Postmodernism - On Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Popper Kuhn.
The End of Postmodernism Relativism & the Rise of Realism.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exist/sartre.htm - Lecture by Jean-Paul Sartre 1946, On Existentialism is a Humanism.
Help Humanity
"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."
(Mohandas Gandhi)
"When forced to summarize the general theory of relativity in one sentence:
Time and space and gravitation have no separate existence from matter. ... Physical objects are not in space, but these objects are spatially extended. In this way the concept 'empty space' loses its meaning. ... The particle can only appear as a limited region in space in which
the field strength or the energy density are particularly high. ...
The free, unhampered exchange of ideas and scientific conclusions is necessary for the sound development of science, as it is in all spheres
of cultural life. ... We must not conceal from ourselves that no improvement in the present depressing situation is possible without
a severe struggle; for the handful of those who are really determined to do something is minute in comparison with the mass of the lukewarm
and the misguided. ...
Humanity is going to need a substantially new way of thinking if it is to survive!" (Albert Einstein)
Our world is in great trouble due to human behaviour founded on myths and customs that are causing the destruction of Nature and climate change. We can now deduce the most simple science theory of reality - the wave structure of matter in space. By understanding how we and everything around us are interconnected
in Space we can then deduce solutions to the fundamental problems of human knowledge in physics, philosophy, metaphysics, theology, education, health, evolution and ecology, politics and society.
This is the profound new way of thinking that Einstein
realised, that we exist as spatially extended structures of the universe - the discrete and separate body an illusion. This simply confirms the
intuitions of the ancient philosophers and mystics.
Given the current censorship in physics / philosophy of science journals (based on the standard model of particle physics / big bang cosmology) the internet is the best hope for getting new knowledge
known to the world. But that depends on you, the people who care about science and society, realise the importance of truth and reality.
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A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. (Max Planck, 1920)
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