Existentialism

Existentialism Bircan Kaya Kocaeli University 1. Introduction With essence of being, existentialism is put forward as a philosophy of being. By having it own roots from ontology, Existentialism distinguishes itself from the more reasonable philosophies, which deal only with the knowledge or language. It suggests existence together with the providence of a moving account of the agony of being in the world. The spirit of existentialism has a long history in philosophy. However, it became a major movement in the second half of the 20th century. Since it gained currency at the end of the Second World War, the term “existentialism” has mostly been associated with a cultural movement that grew out of the wartime and spread through fiction and art as much as philosophy. The theoretical and other writings of this philosophy such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Søren Kierkegaard, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, are usually taken as central to this movement. In this article, I have attempted to provide a sense of rich variety of existentialist thought and writing by including many other figures. I have also underlined the themes which are necessarily belonging to Existentialism and many of which has been popularized and developed by Camus and Sartre. This study offers a descriptive analysis of Existentialism by referring to Sartre, together with detail portrayal of Camus and his work “The Stranger”. 2. The Main Aspects of Existentialism Existentialism, which takes its name from a philosophical reference to human existence, attempts to identify self-conscious and self-determining character of a human life. In order to show what it meant, I will refer mostly to Kierkegaard together with Camus. By bringing the features of existence into focus, existentialism became the label for a certain stream of thought within 20th century. Considering its influence upon many writers, existentialism recognized itself not merely as the philosophy of a thinking subject but also as a philosophy of acting, feeling and living individually. According to Barret (1964), “Existentialism is not a question of literary sensibility at all but of philosophy itself. The matters that concern the existentialists concern all men.” (p.9). Hence, it is possible to draw a portrayal of existentialism as a philosophy, which embraces every basic problem of human existence. Although commentators have attempted to define existentialism with a clear-cut definition, it contains different types of explanation. While Existentialism is a commonly accepted by some philosophers as a notion which is a revolt against traditional Western rationalistic philosophy at the same time it is demonstrably accepted by the others that existentialist philosophy is very much a continuation and logical expansion of themes and problems in Descartes, Kant, Hegel, and Marx. With these diverse aspects of theories, existentialism, which refers in the first instance to philosophical enquiry, is associated primarily with Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), who continued the school of phenomenology which was found by Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) in Germany and Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-80), together with Camus (1930-60), who have the perspective of existentialism as a unified movement having to do with important understanding of what it means to be a human, in France. In order to show what existentialist philosophy meant, I will refer to Kierkegaard and Camus. While critics have pointed to anticipations of existentialist philosophers are going as far back as the ancient Greeks, the fathers of existentialism are generally held to be Søren Kierkegaard (1813-55), who is regarded as a Christian existentialist, and Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), who is considered as an atheist, however these thinkers are united by their emphasis on the individual rather than society as a centre of concern and value. As a philosophy, existentialism came into fashion when it became the product of circumstances with the German occupation of Paris during the Second World War, the growth of the French Resistance, and the moral chaos that inevitably followed the end of the war. Out of the despair, which came with collapse of their nation, they found unexpected strength in the human by questioning his existence together with humanistic values. As a consequence, the term existentialism is philosophically applied to the position, in which man’s relationships with God and his function in the world are questioned. In speaking of existentialism, it is usual to think Sartre as the thinker who became interested in the new philosophy of existence and he made a definite attempt to introduce it into France. Dieckmann (1948) asserts “it is certain that Sartre has created a broader and more intensive interest in the philosophy of existence than any of its originators or modem exponents.” (p. 33). On this account, it is possible to talk about Sartre’s most original contributions which suggest that humans are condemned to be free as the basis of his philosophy. As a matter of fact, his theory leads us to the point that there is no fixed human nature because man is the inventor of the very idea of nature: “man makes himself.” This ability to make oneself is accompanied by a responsibility for what one makes and it leads to considerable anguish because one must choose what to be on one’s own. The living human being is always in a situation of varying degrees of difficulty from which there is no escape. From his initial atheist position, Sartre assumes that human beings have no essence before their existence because there is no Creator. Thus, "existence precedes essence". This forms , It says that a man lives (has existence) rather than is (has being or essence), and that every man's experience of life is unique, radically different from everyone else's and can be understood truly only in terms of his involvement in life or commitment to it. In other words it can be asserted that a man first exists and he defines himself afterwards with his own subjectivity. The strength of this philosophy lies in its power to reduce reason in it size. Hence, it contrasts and rejects the earlier arguments, which has the idea that there is only one particular essence, which can not be changed and it is called as “human nature”. This human nature holds humans essence at first and then assumes the existence, which ascribes a great importance to God’s existence rather than human. Thus, it can be point out that reinforcement of existentialist philosophy precisely bases on Kant’s refutation of god’s existence and his acceptance of subjectivity by holding human as main cause of his own action. So far I have referred mainly to the atheist existentialists Sartre, who shows no sign of feeling the problem of God in the way in which Nietzsche felt it. On the other hand, I would like to underline religious concept of existentialism which is held by a Danish philosopher Kierkegaard. Søren Kierkegaard was profoundly concerned with a number of ethical issues in an individual’s life. He was a deeply religious thinker, and his views on ethics are tightly bound up with his views on Christianity. Kierkegaard’s philosophy is developed over time and it is clear that it become rejection for philosophical answers given earlier periods. Thus, it would be a mistake to talk about a single theory in his existential philosophy. One dominant strain of Kierkegaard’s understanding of ethics is his rejection of all attempts to ground ethical action in rationality. For Kierkegaard, every attempt to justify a given action must necessarily fail since there is always a gap between the reasons and arguments given for an act, and the demands of morality. This gap can only be spanned by a free decision of the individual. Kierkegaard distinguishes between the realm of science, which is characterized by a concern for evidence, and reason, and the realm of religious belief and ethics, which is the sphere of individual choice. Solomon (2005) declared “In place of the search for science and objectivity that had motivated Kant and Hegel, Kierkegaard substitutes “subjective truth,” choice, personality, and passion, turning our attention back to the individual and away from the “collective idea” and philosophical systems.” (p. 1). All of this may be fine and good for these academic disciplines or for “the objective view,” however, for Kierkegaard has nothing to do with ethics or religious faith, which falls within the province of subjectivity. For Kierkegaard, the realm of objectivity is a realm of logic, whereas the realm of subjectivity is governed by its own laws. Regardless of how much objective knowledge one has, the individual will always be confronted by moral choice where knowledge and logic can offer no normative guidance. Kierkegaard presents three different conceptions of life, which he calls “the esthetic” and “the ethical” and “religious.” Esthete described as lived in the moment or dedicated to the satisfaction of desire. Criticism of Hegel’s doctrine of dialects has become Kierkegaard’s target. For Kierkegaard, this kind of dialects would seem to destroy both ethical decision and human freedom since there would be no positions which would call for a choice. Thus, for Kierkegaard, ethical life consists of a conscious interpretation and general Christian principle. Kierkegaard also develops a third category, “the religious,” which introduces a new aspect into his ethical thought. The religious is the third and highest category which is a stable place of certainty or rest. Kierkegaard also suggested that there was an absurdity involved in faith in God, given the between the arguments that try to demonstrate God’s existence and the individual’s eternal happiness since there is an eternal happiness in heaven that Christianity promises. What given is at stake, for Kierkegaard there will always be a gap between that merely knowledge of philological knowledge of the Bible, and the degree of one’s eternal happiness. For Kierkegaard this gap can only be filled by faith. This concept of absurdity establishes a ground for Camus’ philosophy. In the following part, I will demonstrate the aspects of absurd concept by referring his work of The Stranger. 3. Albert Camus We must think of existentialist philosophy as a result of a French movement from which Albert Camus came into being as one of the leading figures. Although Camus rejects to be an existentialist philosopher, his philosophy clearly becomes very similar to the Sartre’s existential philosophy. Marcuse stated that (1948) “Camus does not belong to the existentialist school, but the basic experience which permeates his thought is also at the root of Existentialism.” (p.309). In fact, it readily becomes apparent that in all his literary pieces Camus is centrally concerned with basic human conditions and that these constitute much of the force and attractiveness of his works. During a time of intense involvement with the French Resistance in the World War II, Camus worked as a journalist. Through his writings, Camus continually demonstrated practices to find the way the absurdity of everyday life. Referred to as “the heart of existentialism” (S. Bronner, 1999), Camus also wrote on the need for a particular type of solidarity and the need for a morality in a universe which Camus believed did not have a God. Whereas ambiguities, alienation, and anxiety, are central in other authors, the key concept in Camus’s philosophy is the absurd, the confrontation between rational man and the indifferent universe. For Camus there is no Kierkegaardian leap, which he degrades as philosophical suicide; there is no appeal to transcendence, which he dismisses as pointless hope; nor is there any role in Camus’s philosophy for Sartre’s notion of existential commitment. Rather, the point is to keep the absurd alive. He calls the dialectic between the being of man and the objective world around him the "absurd." The absurdity of man's situation is apparent to anyone who tries to exist as a subject in the world of objects. Thus, absurdist believe that it is pointless to examine the meaning of life, since live has no meaning. Another possible response to absurdity is suicide, which Camus likewise rejects. Camus takes up one of the aspects absurd theme in The Myth of Sisyphus. The question is whether suicide is the logical result of the realization and full comprehension of the meaninglessness of the world. Can a human being continue to live, knowing that his or her existence has no grounding or justification? In light of such questions, Camus inquires into the sources of the feeling of the absurd, and into the question of whether suicide is the reasonable thing to do, if life is indeed meaningless. For Camus, suicide cannot be regarded as a practical solution since it represents an admission of the inability to live in a world devoid of meaning. Camus tries to resolve the issue by an appeal to human dignity. The only truly human response for Camus is that of revolt against the universe and its meaninglessness. Only in revolt is the dignity of humanity preserved. Thus, as an allegory for his view he chooses the ancient Greek myth of Sisyphus. As a punishment for his crimes against the gods, Sisyphus is condemned to roll a boulder up a hill for all eternity. His useless labor is a metaphor for meaningless human striving since, despite all his efforts, in the end the boulder always rolls down to the bottom, and he must begin his bitter task again. Camus imagines that Sisyphus continues his task merely out of spite for all eternity, even though he knows it is doomed to failure. Sisyphus is, for Camus, a model for the human spirit which has the courage to carry on until he becomes happy with it however, after this happiness is fulfilled, and he sets targets to follow. Thus, human life gets its meaning from expectations. It can be deduced that human life is meaningless and he endeavors to attribute a meaning to it in an unyielding manner. The moment when human being gives up the thought of having a target, he fails in life. In second section I will put emphasize on the fact that how human becomes strange to his life and how the model of life turns into something of no significance when he does not adopt any target in his life. 4. Absurdism in Camus' The Stranger Since the life is absurd and meaningless, the belief in God has become problematic in terms of Camus’ philosophy. Human beings have the need for order or unity in the universe, an order which would lend our existence a meaning and value. Thus, Absurdity is, for Camus, the fundamental fact of human existence which poses the moral problem. According to Camus, we are confronted by a universe essentially devoid of meaning. Hence, says Camus, we experience as absurdity. The inconsistency between our hopes and desires, and the ultimate meaninglessness of our existence, leave us strangers in the world. Thus, in this section, my purpose is to take up aspects of The Stranger in terms of its character and the absurd situations by becoming strange to life itself. Although it is a work of fiction, Albert Camus’s The Stranger represents on of the key works of French existential literature. Most of the critical writing on the existentialism has been focused on the essential aspects of The Stranger which have been associated in particular with Camus’s philosophy of the absurdity. On the surface, Stranger gives the appearance of being an extremely simple though carefully planned and written book. In reality, it is a dense and rich creation, together with full of undiscovered meanings. The novel is a first person account of the life of Meursault from the time of his mother's death up to a time evidently just before his execution for the murder of an Arab. In other words, it can be asserted that Camus formally divided Stranger into two parts, the first ending with the shooting of the Arab, and the second with Meursault's tirade against the prison chaplain. One of the central themes of the work which is bound up with absurdity is that the significance of human life understood only in the life course of events, as Camus shows how facing the possibility of death does have an effect on one's perception of life. The novel begins with the death of Meursalt's mother. Although he attends the funeral, he does not request to see the body, though he finds it interesting to think about the effect of heat and humidity. It is evident that he is almost totally unaffected by his mother's death and it does not change anything in his life.  In other words, her death has little or no real significance for him. Precisely here, at the very core of the Stranger's strangeness introduces us. We can say that, unthinking reactions are rationalized and at the same time motivations foreign to Meursault's entirely non rational nature are introduced. Sebba (1972) acknowledge “he is alien to everything going on around him insofar as it is anything more than World pure and simple. Past and future are meaningless to him, as is everything that is not World.” (p. 335). We can say that he exists in a world which contradicts with his thinking and this contradiction comes from his lack of motivation or happiness unlike Sisyphus.  When Meursault hears Salamano, a neighbor, weeping over his lost dog, which has evidently died, Meursault thinks of his mother however he is even unaware of the association his mind has made.  In fact, he chooses not to dwell on the matter but goes to sleep. Thus, we can stat that Camus presents reader the dualism between life and death which is one of the great causes for him to explains the absurdity or the meaningless of life through concept of death. We can also witness the meaningless of life when Meursault is on the beach with Raymond Sintès and M. Masson and they confront two Arabs , who have given Raymond trouble, that Meursault first seems to think about not only the insignificance of any action but also  of human existence.  He has a gun and it occurs to him that he could shoot or not shoot and that it would come to the same thing. The loss of a life would have no significance no affect on life as a whole, and the universe itself is apparently totally indifferent to everything.  Here he implicitly denies the existence of God, and thus denies morality, as well as the "external" meaning of life and death. Meursault kills one of the Arabs in a moment of confusion, partially out of self-defense, but does not regret it even though it means going to prison and, ultimately, being executed.  Briefly, The Stranger illustrates the theme that life is absurd; that in an indifferent world, only the act of living gives life any meaning. Yet the character who relates a series of acts from a period in his own life only realizes that living has meaning when he faces a certain death. Camus seems to say that, like many of us, Meursault has lived only for the moment, neither thinking about the past nor planning for the future. Ultimately, the idea of death makes us aware of one's life, one's vital being by showing us the fact that we will one day end. Moreover, for Camus there is no urgency to perform some act that will cancel the possibility of death, seeing as though there is no such act.  In this sense, all human activity is absurd, and the reality is to be aware of the dualities of life.  5. Conclusion Considering steps of existentialism, it can be obvious to recognize it as a philosophy through the thoughts from Kierkegaard’s “faith” to Camus’ “absurdity” in its concept existentialism, which has given us explorations of personal experience through religion and at the same time the human nature. It may be of value to attempt some brief statement of the basic positions of the existentialist philosophy, and to draw some tentative conclusions on the existentialists’ place in the development of thought. First of all, it is clear that existentialism belongs to that category of philosophies which derive from a powerful moral impulse and are based on a distinctive individual experiences. In its concept, existentialism deals with specific individuals in problematic situations such as existing. It also rediscovers in its own way the idea that essence entails existence. Second of all, the originality of existentialist philosophy drives from Sartre’s thesis that existence comes before essence which is shaped by individual experiences. Since it rejects a planned system, there is no god can be hold responsible for the consequences of our actions. As we have created the world and also ourselves with our experiences it can be point out that conversely, we are the ones who are responsible for positive or negative choices. This fact leads us to shoulder heavy burden of life. Therefore, existentialism can be comprehended as the doctrine that man is free and that what he makes of himself depends on himself, on his free choices. One would doubtless have mentioned as a doctrine which is common to the existentialists and which they insist upon but one would at the same time be forced to include in the ranks of the existentialists philosophers whose inclusion would be manifestly absurd. In short, we have obtained a religious approach to existentialist attitude from Kierkegaard’s philosophy man's submissive choice of his God-relationship, man's defiance and sin, the aesthetic and moral planes of existence, and so on. Moving from Kierkegaard to I have referred mainly to the atheist existentialists, and I have suggested Camus as we witnessed to the absurd and the absurdity of life is illustrated or portrayed in the concrete by dramas such as stories like The Stranger. My final point is that existentialism is not a body of “results”. Every existentialist philosophy is necessarily a personal interpretation. Thus, it is limited by the limitations of its own subject. Furthermore, I find Camus’ practice of absurdity and Sartre’s arguments merely as remarks should be apply to whole existentialist philosophy. I should also say that existentialism, in spite of its important defects, is of value in that it draws attention to the human person as free and responsible. References Barrtet, W. (1964). What is Existentialism? (9th ed.). New York, ON: Grove Press. Bronner, S. (1999). Camus: Portrait of a moralist. Minneapolis, ON: University of Minnesota Press. Dieckmann, H. (1948). French Existentialism Before Sartre. Yale University Press, 1, 33. Solomon, R.C. (2005). Existentialism, (2nd ed.). United Sates of America ON: Oxford University Press. Marcuse, H. (1948). Existentialism: Remarks on Jean-Paul Sartre's L'btre Et Le Neant. Quarlerly Journal, 8(3), 309. Sebba, H. (1972). Stuart Gilbert's Meursault: A Strange "Stranger". University of Wisconsin Press Journals, 13(3), 335. Existentialism 10 Running head: Aspects of Existentialism 1