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MARCH 2013
PRABUDDHA JIVAN
33
Thus HE Was, Thus HE Spoke :
EXISTENTIALIST
David Banache's synopsis on Existentialism
control and didn't choose. 1. Absolute Individuality and Absolute Freedom. 2. Anxiety: We are faced with the lack of any external The Existentialist conceptions of freedom and value source of value and determination. We are faced arise from their view of the individual. Since we are all
with the responsibility of choosing our own nature ultimately alone, isolated islands of subjectivity in an
and values, and, in doing so, we are faced we must objective world, we have absolute freedom over our face the awesome responsibility of choosing human internal nature, and the source of our value can only
nature and values for all men in our free choices. be internal.
3. Despair: In seeing the contrast between the world II. The Existentialist View of Human Nature.
we re thrown into and which we cannot control and
the absolute freedom we have to create ourselves, Existentialism is defined by the slogan Existence precedes Essence. This means:
we must despair of any hope of external value or
determination and restrict ourselves to what is under 1. We have no predetermined nature or essence that
our own control. controls what we are, what we do, or what is valuable for us.
III. Objections and Replies: 2. We are radically free to act independently of A. What is Freedom? determination by outside influences.
1. The problem: How can we be free if our bodies, our 3. We create our own human nature through these free abilities, and our environment are determined? choices.
2. The solution: 4. We also create our values through these choices. (a) Even though all these factors may be determined, The Existentialist View (We create our own nature.):
we are more than simply these things. Our real self We are thrown into existence first without a lies beyond the reach of external determination in predetermined nature and only later do we construct
virtue of its absolute individuality. our nature or essence through our actions.
(b) Our freedom is a freedom of synthesis: even though EXISTENCE PRECEDES ESSENCE
the many factors that go into making us and our This slogan is opposed to the traditional view that
experience are determined, we can arrange them
as we like. We are free to make of them, and Essence precedes Existence, according to which we are seen as having a given nature that determines what
ourselves, whatever we will. we are and what our ultimate purpose or value is. We B. What is Happiness? are understood by analogy to artifacts which are made 1. The problem: How can man be happy in a world with a pre-existing idea or concept of what they will be devoid of external significance and meaning? and what they will be good for.
2. The solution: The loss of external value allows us The Traditional View (which Sartre argues against): to get value from within ourselves, a value that is ESSENCE PRECEDES EXISTENCE
greater because it cannot be taken away by external The human situation for the Existentialist is thus
forces. characterized by:
C. How ought we to act? 1. Facticity (throwness): We find ourselves existing in 1. The problem:
a world not of our own making and indifferent to our If our only moral rule is to act authentically, to choose concerns. We are not the source of our existence, our own values instead of taking them from external but find ourselves thrown into a world we don't sources, can't we really do anything we want, no matter
