Summary
Summary Philosophy 324 existentialism
- Course
- Philosophy 324
- Institution
- Stellenbosch University (SUN)
comprehensive notes on existentialism
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ExistentialismEmphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining their
own development through acts of the will
Chapter 3: the idea of existence
Essence & existence
Distinction between existence & essence:
Existence: ‘that it is’
as characterized by concreteness and particularity and also its sheer given-ness.
The coin on the table exists – its existence is presented to me as a fact to be
accepted. I cannot wish it into existence nor can I wish it away – but I can change the form in
which it exists.
TALKING ABOUT THE FORM IN WHICH IT EXISTS MOVES AWAY FROM EXISTENCE – ESSENCE
Essence: ‘what it is’
The essence of an object is constituted by those basic characteristics that make it one kind of object
rather than another. Thus essence is characterized by abstractness & universalities
The essence of the coin would be described in terms of – its colour, metallic luster,
composition, shape & weight
Etymology – to exist or ex-sist: to stand out or emerge
To exist was to emerge or stand out from the background as something that is there.
to exist is to stand out from nothing: standing out & lying around
thus to say that something exists, whether it stands out or lies around, alludes to the fact that you
will come across it somewhere in the world:
the fact that unicorns exists means that if you search far and wide – you might come across a
unicorn somewhere in the world:
thus: to exists is to have a time & place in the real world
SIDE NOTE - the problem surrounding the necessary claim that the world itself exists – that
the world itself is not an illusion but that it is in fact real.
Thus you cannot say that the world exists based on the fact that it is something
you’ll come across in the world – due to the fact that the world is not itself something in the
world.
The existence of God raises another problem
Whatever or whoever God is – he is not an object within the world.
We will never come across him: similar to the concept world
The logic surrounding the concept God alludes to the same argument surrounding the world
If we can say that the world exists, could be attributed to the existence of God
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,However: the use of the word exist would be used differently to the one it bears when we assert
the existence of anything in the world.
What about the existence of a soul? Or numbers?
This asserts another mode of existence appropriate to souls & selves, in a formal rather than
substantial way.
thus
it is important to understand the way existentialists use the word existence:
in a more confined & restricted sense:
existence is that which they confine to
the kind of being that belongs to man
How existentialists understand the world existence:
Existence is restricted to the kind of being exemplified in man
Other things (trees, mountains, God & factories) ‘are’ – but they do not ‘exist’.
a. Kierkegaard: limiting the denotation
The existent is the contingent, the particular, that which refuses to fit into some system
construct to rational thought.
Existentialism
Tried to bring men and al things into an organic structure within which contradictions would be
overcome.
the real (the existent) refuses to conform itself to the pattern laid down by rational
thought
man paradoxically joins in himself the: temporal & the eternal, the finite & infinite:
thought will never make sense of this or combine two sides of man’s being in a unitary whole
existence is not an idea or an essence that can be intellectually manipulated.
Man fulfils his being precisely by existing:
by standing out as the unique individual that he is
and stubbornly refusing to be absorbed into the system.
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, b. Heidegger: existential phenomenology
Focused on renewing ontology (the theory of reality)
Subjectivist: focused on the concrete life problem of seeking a meaningful existence:
seeking the essence of reality in the occurrences of temporary phenomena
Trying to understand being comes forth in everyday experiences.
Threefold terminology:
To avoid confusion over the word existence
1. Dasein: the being exemplified by man
the ontological term: designates man in respect of his being.
Dasein: existence or determinate being – human existence
2. Vorhandenheit: presence-at-hand
The passive kind of existence – the lying around:
it is something that one may come across in the world
3. Existenz: allocated solely to Dasein
Existence as a designation of being will solely be allocated to Dasein
Thus the essence of Dasein lies in its existence & that Dasein’s essence is constituted not by
properties but by possible ways of being.
Man has an essence such that he is the “there”; that is to sat, the clearing of being.
The essence of Dasein lies in its existence – by possible ways of being
c. Sartre: ‘existence precedes essence’
Existence: concrete individual being here and now.
1. pour-soi: for-itself
corresponds with Heidegger’s Dasein & Existenz
pour-soi defined in terms of negation (denial) and freedom
the pour-soi comes into being (exists, emerges) by separating itself from the en-soi (in-self)
en-soi: has its being in itself, and this is essential being
pour-soi: is free to choose its essence – its being is its FREEDOM
yet, paradoxically, its freedom is also its lack of being.
For Sartre & Kierkegaard there is an inner contradiction in existence
For Sartre – this might be expressed by saying that:
freedom and being stand in inverse relation to each other
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, d. Jasper: we never get over the fact that we exist
Find another way of looking at existence
Uses Dasein or existence simply to refer to the fact that we find ourselves in the world.
We find existence as the unreflecting experience of our life in the world.
We never get over the awe of the ‘I exist”
Existence:
1. Existenz as potential being
Existence is not a kind of being – it is a potential being: I am not Existenz but possible
Existenz
I do not have myself – I become myself.
Thus existence becomes the fulfilment of mere existence
Like Kierkegaard’s existence which can mean the fulfilment of man’s being.
2. Existenz is freedom …
Existenz is freedom … a freedom not of its own making, which may fail to appear.
Existence is freedom only as the gift of transcendence – knowing its donor:
Thus there is no freedom without transcendence
This idea of freedom sharply contrast’s Sartre’s
3. Existenz is the
a. ever-individual self,
b. irreplaceable
c. & never interchangeable.
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