Existentialism

2190 Words5 Pages

Existentialism

Existentialism is a philosophical movement that stresses individual existence. Human beings are totally free and responsible for their own acts. Another main idea of existentialism is the limitation of reason and the irreducibility of experience to any system. Man is not a detached observer of the world; rather, he "exists" in a special sense - he is "in the world." Stones, trees, and other objects do not share this existence, and man is open to the world and the objects in it. There is no set limit to how many choices man must make, and no particular set of rules or values one must follow. Rather, there is simply a framework in which action and choice are to be viewed, implying that there are right and wrong ways of choosing, although the individual is still completely free.

First, it has been charged with inviting people to remain in a kind of desperate quietism because, since no solutions are possible, existentialists should have to consider action in this world as quite impossible. Existentialists should then end up in a philosophy of contemplation; and since contemplation is a luxury, it must evolve into a bourgeois philosophy. The communists in particular have made these charges.

On the other hand, existentialists have been charged with 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; for example, with forgetting the smile of the child. Both sides charge them with having ignored human solidarity, with considering man as an isolated being. The communists say that the main reason for this is that existentialists take pure subjectivity, the Cartesian I think, as their starting point; i...

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... time, the image is valid for everybody and for our whole age. Thus, our responsibility is much greater than we might have supposed, because it involves all mankind. If I am a workingman and choose to join a Christian trade-union rather than be a communist, and if by being a member I want to show that the best thing for man is resignation, that the kingdom of man is not of this world, I am not only involving my own case-I want to be resigned for everyone. As a result, my action has involved all humanity. To take a more individual matter, if I want to marry, to have children; even if this marriage depends solely on my own circumstances or passion or wish, I am involving all humanity in monogamy and not merely myself. Therefore, I am responsible for myself and for everyone else. I am creating a certain image of man of my own choosing. In choosing myself, I choose man.

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