Introduction to Existentialism

Walking Man I (1960) by Alberto Giacometti

(Notes from the graduate seminar: Existential Literature and the Ethics of Engagement, with Professor Kirill Ole Thompson)
Week 1

Course Introduction
We will screen Night Train to Lisbon (2013) and Mulholland Drive (2001) in class. Other recommended screenings include Woody Allen’s movies and the Before Sunset trilogy. 

Textbooks: 

Gordon Marino, Basic Writings of Existentialism (Modern Library Classics); 

Robert Solomon, Existentialism, 2 Ed.
Recommended books: 

Kevin Aho, Existentialism: An Introduction;

 Beauvoir, The Second Sex (2nd Ed); 

Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist’s Café. 

The Starting Point

The recent situations of human beings can’t be reasonably represented by an abstract system. 

Kierkegaard thinks that in the beginning, man is quite empty. When he makes his first decisions, his character starts to take shape, but this character is always changing. 

Sartre emphasizes that all the other things in Nature are already well defined, their essence is unchanging. Human beings are the opposite. We are foremostly undefined. The self is both the tension and the process of self-making. 

For Kierkegaard, ego floats amongst different dimensions, life moves through stages. His famous book Fear and Trembling considers when God asks human to prove their faith by breaking with ethics. 

For Sartre, humans are not trapped in their facticity. Unlike traditional philosophy, where facticity is determined and absolute, Sartre believes that man can push through different levels of facticity.

Existentialists stress the view from inside, as opposed to the sociological and scientific empirical view. Existentialists are the first to emphasize mood in literature. Humans are rooted in their emotions first, before reason. 

In Sartre's novel Nausea (1938), when you see the whole of the ecosystem, it just doesn’t seem right. When you look at the people, you see the preposterousness. 

According to Kierkegaard, Guilt is a primordial human condition. However, it’s very individualizing. If you embrace it, it can feed into your religion. Nowadays, there are false information everywhere. People are losing their ability to distinguish truth. This seems to be something that Kierkegaard anticipated.

Heidegger believes that human beings have the capability of authenticity. He is a provincial philosopher.

Nietzsche’s idea Übermensch.

Existentialists think traditional philosophies give too official answers. Instead, they ask certain questions, and each person in their situation can find their own answer.

Sartre thinks there is no absolute answer. Your answer depends on your bias. Whatever decision you make, you understand it and carry it with you forward.  

Existential in a Nutshell

Existentialism takes the human situation itself as the basic problem. It is not so compartmentalized as traditional philosophy. 

Basic themes of Existentialism include:

a. Philosophy as a Way of Life: 

Existentialists are reacting against the 19th century Positivist thinking. 

Existentialism is not an abstraction way of thinking; it should be integrated into real life. The ancient Greeks, espescially Socrates and the Stoics and Epicureans heralded this way of thinking. The Existentialists try to preserve this personalized, committed spirit against rising industrialization and urbanization, which alienate the human beings. 

Some ways that the existentialists practice their thought: they criticize the specialized labor and work in modern society, which is why they try their hands at different styles and genres of writing. 

Immanence: philosophy studies life from the inside. For Heideggar, when people realize their mortality, it’s a shock and a key turn of events; it’s the moment of individualization.

b. Anxiety and Authenticity: 

Since human existence is on its own, ultimately, we’re all alone, being thrown out into this world. We are all totally responsible for our decisions: this produces anxiety. Existentialists stress the importance of emotions and feelings, which are pre-cultural, kind of the “raw you” (like Munch's paintings).

• Anxiety is one’s reaction to “Being on one’s own”, which has 3 meanings: 

• The irrelevance (or negative influence) of reason, moral values, or empirical evidence, in making life decisions regarding one’s existence. Kierkegaard thinks Hegel’s account of religion in terms of the history of absolute spirit is deeply confused regarding faith and reason. God is a paradox; He is immoral. And for Sartre and Nietzsche, theologically, the existence of a transcendental God is not relevant to our existential decisions.

• It points to the uniqueness of human existence. For Nietzsche and Heidegger, the philosopher is an existing human, not a God looking down at human beings.

• Life itself is a core existentialist concern.

• The concept of "authenticity" is the Existentialist’s positive spin on the old Greek notion of “the good life”. To be authentic means to recognize and affirm the nature of existence. It is not just an intellectual fact, it’s a full-bodied kind of recognition that engages with life. 

• The notion of authenticity is linked to individualism – in contrast with the unreflective “crowd”. 

• On Individualism: Nietzsche views individualism as a historical trend. At first, in a class society, people or unified by a single culture; and now, people are more diverse. Camus views it as a dubious political value. Neither think it is a necessary part of authentic existence. 

• To the Existentialists, some sort of a collectivity is important. The conditions of modern world make authenticity important. In Sartre’s early philosophy, he was looking at how people develop their definitions through interactions with other people. Later, he finds that people are defined by their own personal project. 

• The monetary society is very corrupting; it deviates people from the best way of living their life. Economics, business and social science evaluate the outcomes of production. For Existentialists, this secularizes political, social and economic life; and encourages abandonment of the spiritual dimension. Emerson, Thoreau, and Kierkegaard all anticipated this developement. Dostoevski (who also anticipated many things in Existentialism), Heidegaar, and Marcuse (One Dimensional Man) sees that this narrows the possibilities of human thought. People come to think of the world as only resources to exploit, and human perform only machine-like function.

c. Freedom: 

Freedom is linked with anguish, since my freedom is in part defined by the isolation of my decision from any determination by God, or by traditional values. 

The modernization of society in the 19th and 20th centuries broke down traditional values, which is caused by rising secular society (Darwinism, Marxism) and devastating world events (World Wars, mass genocides).

To Sartre, since I’m a being-on-its-own (recognized via anxiety), this means that my freedom and my responsibility is absolute. Nothing acts through me. No one else shoulders my responsibility. Furthermore, this freedom and responsibility stretch through time. Therefore, when I exist as an authentic free being, I am responsible for my whole life, for a “project”or a “commitment”. 

Existentialists often refer to a Kantian notion of freedom: freedom as autonomy. When you take a stance, it becomes a model you’re setting up, then you have to consider if it can be applied to everyone.

d. Situatedness (related to Facticity): 

While my freedom is absolute, it takes place in a context. For example, my body, my circumstances in a historic world, and my past are all conditions of my freedom. These conditions make my freedom special and extra meaningful. 

Without Situatedness, freedom is naïve or illusory. For example, some 19th century intellectuals might yearn for the ancient Greece, Rome, or the East as a less spoiled, more integrated form of life. Nietszsche argues that we can’t turn back the clock or be other than who we are. 

Heidegaar argues thast human existence cannot be abstractd from its world because being-in-the-world is part of the ontological structure of our existence. Many existentialists take my lived experience has the essence of “me”. Heidegaar theorizes a kind of ethics of each other (?)

e. Existence: 

The concept of “existence” means human existence. Traditional philosophy might theorize a lot about ontology. But for Existentialists, we are here and we exist, the point is to figure out what to do with it. The practical is more important than the theoretical. Kant also stressed the primacy of the practical. 

We are free to act, but never free to not act. 19th and 20th century saw the human sciences, e.g., psychology, sociology, and economy, start being viewed as powerful and legitimate sciences. But existentialists criticizes that the free, situated human being is not an object of knowledge in that the human always exists as the possibility of transcending any knowledge of it. Levinas’ phenomenology: “transcendence of the other”(?).

f. Irrationality/Absurdity: 

Human existence is absurd, in that 

1. Nature has no design, no reason for existing. The achievements of the natural sciences has an empty nature in meaning;
2. from the point of view of reason, my freedom appears absurd;
3. human existence as free action is doomed to always destroy itself. 

The absurdity of human existence ultimately lies in that – in becoming myself (a free?). In transcendence, I strive to be what I’m not. But in reality, I’m never what I think I am. It’s like a hamster in a wheel.

g. The Crowd: 

Nietzsche - ?

Heidegger stresses an authentic mode of being-with others. 

Kierkegaard speaks of the “crowd”, where no one takes responsibility. Nietzsche speakes of the “the herd”. Here, inauthenticity manifests itself as de-individualized thinking. 

These terms carry an historical resonance, a critique of modern modes of human existence. The mass generalized society, newspapers, empty religious rites, over specialization of labor roles, urbanizaiton, etc. Great imposing political ideologies in the 19th and 20th century threatens authentic and free existence, such as Nationalism, the Communist party, and the Soviet Union. American and French concepts of “democracy” are ochlocracy (a term defined by Aristotle as the rule by people incapable of ruling even themselves). 

Kierkegaard (1813-1855)

Born in Copenhagen. He is considered the father of existentialism. 

All of his important works are written under pseudonyms. 

In Either/Or, a literary masterpiece, the theoretical reflections are followed by reflections of how to seduce girls. The point is to stress the distance between the anonymously produced truths and logicians reasoning.

In the next class Mar. 8, we will continue with Kierkegaard.

Transcribed on Feb. 22, 2019.