In his 1946 essay Existentialism, Jean-Paul Sartre undertakes the task of defending existentialism against what he defines as “charges” (341) brought against it. Sartre begins to outline the “charges” brought against existentialism and further, existentialists. Following the medieval quaestio-form, Sartre begins with the statement of the objection, a short discussion, and then his reply to each.
The first of the charges is that of quietism. “First, it has been charged with inviting people to remain in a kind of desperate quietism because, since no solutions are possible, we should have to consider action in this world as quite impossible” (341). Historically, quietism was a Christian philosophy that advocated withdrawal from worldly activities for passive and constant contemplation of God. The Roman Catholic Church officially decreed quietism to be heresy. The Christians then raise the objection that existentialism focuses on the hopelessness of the human situation and as a result, the philosophy leaves little ambition for action.
The next of these objections is that of “…dwelling on human degradation, with pointing up everywhere the sordid, shady, and slimy, and neglecting the gracious and beautiful, the bright side of human nature…” (341) As Sartre explains, the objection is essentially that existentialisms focuses on the “evil” or dreary side of life.
The third charge made against existentialism is that of isolation. “(FINISH QUOTE)…having ignored human solidarity, with considering man as an isolated being.” (341) The objection is that existentialism ignores human solidarity and examines human beings as individuals.
The fourth and final charge laid against existentialism is that of arbitrariness. “…we are charged w...
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...o pass judgment on others, because there’s no reason to prefer one configuration to another’” (360). “…one can still pass judgment, for, as I have said, one makes a choice in relationship to others. First, one can judge (and this is perhaps not a judgment of value, but logical judgment) that certain choices are based on error and others on truth” (362).
The final “sub charge” is that “‘everything is arbitrary in this choosing of yours. You take something from one pocket and pretend you’re putting it into the other.’” (360) Sartre explains, “…if I’ve discarded God the Father, there has to be someone to invent values,” (365) and that “…to say that we invent values means nothing else but this: life has no meaning a priori. Before you come alive, life is nothing; it’s up to you to give it a meaning and value is nothing else but the meaning that you choose” (365).
Sartre describes anguish as what someone experiences when they realize the profound and full responsibility of their choices to themselves and humanity (25). Sartre explains anguish by describing the responsibility a military officer faces. A military leader gets a vage order from a higher up that he must use his own knowledge of his troops and location to choose how to go about fulfilling the order (27). This situation depicts the anguish described by existentialism because the military officer has to realize his decision will directly affect his troops, himself and the greater effort of the army. Additionally, free will results in the feeling of abandonment. Sartre describes abandonment as the understanding that we are alone and “cannot find anything to rely on”(29). This means there is no one that can validate a person’s actions and they must take full responsibility for what they do. Sartre describes abandonment through the dilemma one of his students faced. His student came to him for advice because he had to choose between staying home and taking care of his heartbroken mother or leaving to fight evil and avenge his brothers death (30). Sartre told him that he and he alone could make the choice (33). If if he tried to avoid deciding by seeking the advice of someone else, he would still be making a decision. Who he would chose to consult would depend on the advice he wants to receive; if he chose to go to go someone whos supported the war effort, he would be making the choice he wants to go and fight and vice a versa (33). Sartre wants to illustrate that even if you think you are choosing not to chose or deciding based on someone else, you are still making a decision and are still responsible for that action. Finally, Sartre believes that our freedom results in despair. Sartre describes despair as the idea that “we must limit ourselves
Addressing the critics of Existentialism was a necessity for both Sartre and de Beauvoir, as it was initially dismissed by many critics, such as the Communists and the Christians, as nihilistic or overly pessimistic. While understandable at a superficial level, Sartre and de Beauvoir challenged these critics to rethink their idea of existentialism and foster a deeper meaning of the philosophy of existentialism.
Existentialism is a philosophical movement rooted in the work of the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, who lived in the mid-1800s. The movement gained popularity in the mid-1900s thanks to the work of the French intellectuals Jean-Paul Sartre, and Albert Camus, including Sartre’s Being and Nothingness (1943). According to existentialists, life has no purpose, the universe is indifferent to human beings, and humans must look to their own actions to create meaning, if it is possible to create meaning at all. Existentialists consider questions of personal freedom and responsibility.Existentialism, better classified as a movement rather than a doctrine of philosophy, emerged in the mid to
We choose, act, and take responsibility for everything, and thus we live, and exist. Life cannot be anything until it is lived, but each individual must make sense of it. The value of life is nothing else but the sense each person fashions into it. To argue that we are the victims of fate, of mysterious forces within us, of some grand passion, or heredity, is to be guilty of bad faith. Sartre says that we can overcome the adversity presented by our facticity, a term he designs to represent the external factors that we have no control over, such as the details of our birth, our race, and so on, by inserting nothingness into it.
Guignon, B. C. and Pereboom, D. (eds). (2001). Existentialism: Basic Writings. Indianapolis, IN: Hacket Publishing.
classicmoviescripts/script/seventhseal.txt. Internet. 4 May 2004. Blackham, H. J. Six Existentialist Thinkers. New York: Harper, 1952. Choron, Jacques. Death and Western Thought. New York: Collier Books, 1963.
1) Barnes, Wesley. "Is Existentialism Definable?" The Philosophy and Literature of Existentialism. Woodbury: Barron's Educational Series, Inc., 1968
...vious objections. In this paper argued that man creates their own essence through their choices and that our values and choices are important because they allow man to be free and create their own existence. I did this first by explaining Jean-Paul Sartre’s quote, then by thoroughly stating Sartre’s theory, and then by opposing objections raised against Sartre’s theory.
Ross, Kelly L. "Existentialism." The Proceedings of the Friesian School, Fourth Series. Kelly L. Ross, Ph.D., 2013. Web. 25 Nov. 2013.
The Merriam – Webster Dictionary defines existentialism as a chiefly 20th century philosophical movement embracing diverse doctrines but centering on analysis of individual existence in an unfathomable universe and the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or wrong or good or bad (Merriam, 2011). In other words, an existentialist believes that our natures are the natures we make for ourselves, the meaning of our existence is that we just exist and there may or may not be a meaning for the existence, and we have to individually decide what is right or wrong and good or bad for ourselves. No one can answer any of those things for us. A good example of existentialism is Woody Allen’s movie, Deconstructing Harry. A man is haunted by his past and his past has followed him into the present. He is a wreck not because of the things that happened to him, but because of the choices he made. He is consumed by regret and insecurity and he tries to find blame in his situation with someone other than himself, however he cannot (Barnes, 2011). Throughout the rest of this paper I will be discussing two of the most prominent existentialists, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche.
Schlipp, Paul Arthur ed. The Philosophy Of Jean-Paul Sartre. The Library of Living Philosophers Vol. XVI, La Salle, Ill: Open Court 1981.
The Existential Approach stands for respect for the person, for exploring new aspects of human behavior, and for divergent methods of understanding people (Corey, 2013). Existentialists do not focus on instinctive drives or internalized others but on the person's unavoidable confrontation with the givens of the human condition. Yalom (1980) described those givens as death, freedom, isolation, and meaninglessness. (Bauman, & Waldo, 1998).
Man goes through life, waking each day and participating in his own existence without truly existing. He is always in search of a greater meaning, and in the process fails to find one as he is on a constant search for something that cannot be grasped by the normality that is the human psyche. A similar example can be found in the capitalistic work force of modern day. Man works the majority of his life, always training and aiming for more, only to retire and live on a portion of what he was making. During his time working he lost out on his family, his sleep, often times his own enjoyment, for an ideal that often times is never achieved. This is a trivial situation, yet it is painted in a rather angelic light in our society. Why is it, then, that Sartre can be dismissed as trivial when trivialities exist in nearly every day to day life? Quite likely, this is because Existentialism is an “on-paper theory” so to speak, and in theory is looks quite differently than in reality. Man, as in this case, does not realise that he often follows the rules which he opposes. In addition, much of today’s society exists under a form of organized religion, a society with which Existentialism exists in
In my opinion, much of Sartre’s ideas stemmed from his atheism. With the absence of a divine creator, he concluded that humans in themselves must be the start of all things. He rejected the idea that God could coincide with free will. While existentialism does raise some important and relevant points, its core that existence precedes essence is not a valid one, nor does a different view eliminate the possibility of free will.
In existentialism one’s mind and body are ultimately free, they have nothing controlling their actions; that freedom is in the way one communicates, one’s actions, one’s choices, one’s