Existentialism
Sociologyindex, Sociology Books 2011, Society and Atheism, Phenomenology, Existentialism
Existentialism posits that as conscious beings, humans always find themselves already in a world and that humans cannot think away that world.
Existentialism in modern philosophical trend is that a person, unlike a thing, has
no predetermined essence but forms his or her essence by acts of pure will.
Existentialism was inspired by Søren Kierkegaard, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Friedrich Nietzsche,
Edmund Husserl, and Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.
Phenomenology
and Existentialism in the Twentieth Century: Book II. Fruition Cross-Pollination
Dissemination (Analecta Husserliana)
Our world's cultural circles are permeated by the philosophical influences of
existentialism and phenomenology. Two contemporary quests to elucidate rationality - took
their inspirations from Kierkegaard's existentialism plumbing the subterranean source of
subjective experience and Husserl's phenomenology focusing on the constitutive aspect of
rationality. Yet, both contrary directions mingled readily in common vindication of full
reality. In the inquisitive minds (Scheler, Heidegger, Sartre, Stein, Merleau-Ponty, et
al.), a fruitful cross-pollination of insights, ideas, approaches, fused in one powerful
wave disseminating throughout all domains of thought. Existentialist rejection of
ratiocination and speculation together with Husserl's shift to the genesis of rapproches
philosophy and literature (Wahl, Marcel, Berdyaev, Wojtyla, Tischner, etc.), while the
foundational underpinnings of language (Wittengenstein, Derrida, etc.) opened the 'hidden'
behind the 'veils' (Sezgin and Dominguez-Rey).
It would be apt to quote Jean Paul Sartre here: "To be there, without rhyme
or reason, necessity or justification; it is to exist without the right to exist".
Sartrean existentialism argues man exists without purpose, finds himself in the world
and defines the meaning of his existence. Sartre is the most well-known existentialist and
accepted being called an "existentialist".
Being and Nothingness was Jean-Paul Sartre's most important work about existentialism.
Sartre was influenced by Husserl and Heidegger.
Heidegger and Sartre believed that human beings are exposed to or "thrown" into,
existence - in that we have no choice to come into existence. Existentialists consider
being thrown into existence as prior to any other thoughts or ideas that humans have or
definitions of themselves that they create.
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Kierkegaard and Nietzsche held the view that human nature and human identity vary
depending on what values and beliefs they hold.
Kierkegaard's literary character Young Man laments:
How did I get into the world? Why was I not asked about it, why was I not informed of the
rules and regulations but just thrust into the ranks as if I had been bought by a peddling
shanghaier of human beings? How did I get involved in this big enterprise called
actuality? Why should I be involved? Isn't it a matter of choice? And if I am compelled to
be involved, where is the manager—I have something to say about this. Is there no
manager? To whom shall I make my complaint?
Nietzsche's writings had contempt for Christianity, with its compassion for the weak, and
exaltation of the 'will to power' and of the Ubermensch (superman), superior to ordinary
morality, who will replace the Christian ideal. He divided humankind into a small,
dominant 'master-class' and a large, dominated 'herd' -- a thesis which was taken up in a
debased form by the Nazis after Nietzsche's death.