Existentialism

I was debating about what to write on next. Should it be about existentialism or natural law. Then I thought, perhaps I should combine the two. I have the habit of combining odd things. (One odd combination was Hegel and thermodynamics.) Do they have anything in common? I'm not quite sure but let’s give it a try.

I became intrigued in existentialism after I heard one of our public figures refer to himself as an existentialist. The idea stayed with me and I couldn’t shake it off because, as I discover, I am also one. However, it is only until recently that I started delving deeper into the subject. I was reminded of it again by the recent 100th birthday of Jean-Paul Sartre, another self-professed existentialist.

There is a debate about whether Sartre coined the term existentialism. I was reading an article about existentialism and it said that it isn’t an easy philosophy to define or explain. There are all sorts of variables and varieties involved. One thing is certain, the individual is the central feature. I imagine existentialism comes from the idea of extension, the extension of oneself. Existentialism is about how one views oneself in the context of the world. In other words, the way I see the world is an extension of myself. If I imagine it to be flat and backwards, it is. If I imagine it to be round and progressive, it is. One conducts his/her life according to how they see it. Now, since everybody who is an existentialists is cognitively different, each extension of oneself is different. No wonder, then, the difficulty there is in defining what an existentialist is. I know that I am a different existentialist from the public figure I heard say he is. However, one thing that most existentialist believe is that the world is improvable.

One thing that is common to all existentialists is the idea of responsibility, that we are responsible for our lives and if we cause any wrong we should take responsibility for it. We are never victims. We are reflective but not to the point of undermining ourselves. Another thing I understand we have in common is that we are our own best friend. We have no heroes because we are our own hero.

Sartre said that “existence precedes and rules essence”. That sounds existentialist; saying that the individual is not born with an essence but creates its own essence as it goes along. In other words, we are what we make ourselves. Our nature is our nature, not one the world has imprinted on us.

However, I think there is a kind of arrogance in thinking existentially. There is an enlightened conceit about it. There is the believe that one is the product of oneself. I find that hard to believe in its totality because a lot of it has to do with circumstance, mainly with what kind of environment one is brought up in and what opportunities one has. I think one’s essence also has to do a lot with what preceded one. For instance, whether one comes from a bourgeois background or not has a bearing on it.

Kierkergaard (1813-1855), a Danish philosopher, was the founder of the idea of existentialism. I think he developed it to counter Hegel’s universal outlook, that the essence and being of human existence is derived from the collective. Kierkergaard believed this essence initially and fundamentally is derived from the individual, that the individual is the starting point from which ideas and existence flows, just like an atom is the first principle of existence. I tend to agree but I also believe that neither institution, individual or collective, can exist without the other. They feed off and help define the other.

My connecting existentialism and natural law will have to wait because I am still pondering it. I have a feeling, though, that existentialists draw from natural law to form their world view.