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A-Z of Thought: Existentialism
In the history of philosophy, existentialism is a rather unusual movement. Its members are disparately spread from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth, and most of them were either unaware of their membership, or denied it. However, they include such famous figures as Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, and Camus.
Despite the diversity of these philosophers, existentialism’s central theme concerns the rejection of ‘objective’, abstract systems of knowledge. But what, exactly, does this mean? Following the enlightenment, philosophy’s optimism reached its height in Hegel, who argued that all existence – every aspect of human life – could be understood and explained systematically. Against this, Kierkegaard (existentialism’s founding father) replied that ‘truth’ is far beyond the limits of the human mind. Consequently, all such systems of knowledge are nothing but manmade abstractions that cannot take into account the ambiguities and contradictions of real life. Kierkegaard’s point is that ‘truth’ cannot simply be taught as a rational system, handed to one on a plate. Rather, it can only be learnt along life’s journey, when we take responsibility for our lives and act decisively within the ambiguities and contradictions that we inevitably encounter. For existentialism, truth is never something ‘objective’, removed from the particularities of life, but ‘subjective’, understood and embraced by individuals in their unique existences.
Existentialism’s claims, therefore, concern not just the nature of knowledge and ‘truth’, but human existence itself. As Sartre put it, ‘existence precedes essence’. Individuals are not defined by a preordained nature (their ‘essence’) but by how they act (their ‘existence’) – we are only what we make of ourselves. Individuals must therefore take full responsibility for their present and future, regardless of their past and where they find themselves in life (what Heidegger termed the individual’s ‘thrownness’). To do so, they need to be freed from these objective, abstract systems, to come to terms with the reality of their existence. Despite this positive statement of freedom, existentialism is also associated with the term ‘anxiety’ (or ‘angst’), since the burden of existentialist responsibility – that you alone are responsible for your fate – is enormous.
For many existentialists, God does not exist, and consequently religion and ethics are examples of the objective, abstract systems that need to be overcome. Such ideas are most heavily emphasized by Nietzsche, who declared that ‘God is dead’ and that Christianity is the most dehumanising system of them all. However, since its inception existentialism has always had a strong Christian contingent. For the Christian existentialist, faith permeates existence – it is the deciding, risking, willing action of the individual for God at every moment, rather than the simple adoption of doctrine, ethics, or religious sentiment. It is, as it were, the faith of Job, rather than that of his friends.
Matthew D. Kirkpatrick
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