Existentialism

Existentialism

1. Existence Precedes Essence

   • Most important consideration for individuals is that they are individuals
   • Independently acting and responsible, conscious beings ("existence")—rather than what labels, roles, stereotypes, definitions, or other preconceived categories the individuals fit ("essence")
   • The actual life of the individuals is what constitutes what could be called their "true essence" instead of there being an arbitrarily attributed essence others use to define them

2. The Absurd

   • The notion of the Absurd contains the idea that there is no meaning in the world beyond what meaning we give it
     • This meaninglessness also encompasses the amorality or "unfairness" of the world
       • This contrasts with the notion that "bad things don't happen to good people"; to the world, metaphorically speaking, there is no such thing as a good person or a bad person; what happens happens, and it may just as well happen to a "good" person as to a "bad" person
   • Because of the world's absurdity, at any point in time, anything can happen to anyone, and a tragic event could plummet someone into direct confrontation with the Absurd
     • It is in relation to the concept of the devastating awareness of meaninglessness that Albert Camus claimed that "there is only one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide" in his The Myth of Sisyphus

3. Facticity

   • Facticity is a concept defined by Sartre in Being and Nothingness as the in-itself, of which humans are in the mode of not being
     • This can be more easily understood when considering it in relation to the temporal dimension of past: one's past is what one is, in the sense that it co-constitutes oneself
       • However, to say that one is only one's past would be to ignore a significant part of reality (the present and the future), while saying that one's past is only what one was, would entirely detach it from oneself now
         • A denial of one's own concrete past constitutes an inauthentic lifestyle, and the same goes for all other kinds of facticity (having a body—e.g. one that doesn't allow a person to run faster than the speed of sound—identity, values, etc.)
   • Facticity is both a limitation and a condition of freedom. It is a limitation in that a large part of one's facticity consists of things one couldn't have chosen (birthplace, etc.), but a condition in the sense that one's values most likely depend on it.
     • However, even though one's facticity is "set in stone" (as being past, for instance), it cannot determine a person: The value ascribed to one's facticity is still ascribed to it freely by that person
       • As an example, consider two men, one of whom has no memory of his past and the other remembers everything. They have both committed many crimes, but the first man, knowing nothing about this, leads a rather normal life while the second man, feeling trapped by his own past, continues a life of crime, blaming his own past for "trapping" him in this life

4. It is often claimed in this context that people define themselves, which is often perceived as stating that they can wish to be something—anything, a bird, for instance—and then be it

   • According to most existentialist philosophers, however, this would constitute an inauthentic existence. Instead, the phrase should be taken to say that people are (1) defined only insofar as they act and (2) that they are responsible for their actions
     • As Sartre writes in his work Existentialism is a Humanism: "... man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world—and defines himself afterwards."
       • It is also clear that since humans can choose to be either cruel or good, they are, in fact, neither of these things essentially