Existentialism

Mr. Joel Arman C. Francisco

June 2010

Objectives

• Identify Historical Situations inspiring Existentialism as philosophical approach.

• List the characteristics and themes of Existentialism.

• Enumerate Great Existentialist Thinkers.• Examine the Introduction of Existentialism

to Philippine academic institutions. • Determine the Impact of Existentialism to

the Filipino Philosophy of Education.

Historical Situations Inspiring Existentialism

• The situation in Philosophy following Kant and Hegel and the advance of the sciences.

• The situation for Christianity after the Enlightenment

• The situation of the person lost in the masses of a progressive society, one among many and organized

Blackham, H. J.. Ed. Reality, Man, and Existence: Essential Works of Existentialism.

New York: Bantam Books, 1965, pp. 2 - 3.

Characteristics and Themes of Existentialism

• Man as embodied subjectivity and as Being - in - the – world

• Man as Being – with: the Interhuman and the Social

• Man as Person and his crowning activity is Love which presupposes Justice

Blackham, H. J.. Ed. Reality, Man, and Existence: Essential Works of Existentialism.

New York: Bantam Books, 1965, pp. 4 - 7.

Dy, Manuel, Jr.. Ed. Philosophy of Man: Selected Readings. Makati, Philippines:

Goodwill Bookstore, 2001, pp. vi - ix.

Great Existentialist Thinkers

• Sören Kierkegaard• Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche• Karl Jaspers• Gabriel Marcel• Martin Buber• Martin Heidegger• Jean Paul Sartre• Maurice Merleau - Ponty

Blackham, H. J.. Ed. Reality, Man, and Existence: Essential Works of Existentialism.

New York: Bantam Books, 1965.

Introduction of Existentialism to Philippine Academic Institutions

• Spanish Period: Scholasticism

• American Period: Pragmatism

• Contemporary Period: Existentialism

Dy, Manuel, Jr.. Ed. Philosophy of Man: Selected Readings. Makati, Philippines:

Goodwill Bookstore, 2001, p. v.

The Impact of Existentialism to the Filipino Philosophy of Education

• Self – realization is no longer possible apart from socialization

• Educational policies must aim at specific and personal social values: of justice love and honesty

• Total development is not just the education of the mind but also of the heart

Dy, Manuel, Jr.. Ed. Philosophy of Man: Selected Readings. Makati, Philippines:

Goodwill Bookstore, 2001, p. ix.

Reference

• Blackham, H. J.. Ed. Reality, Man, and Existence: Essential Works of Existentialism. New York: Bantam Books, 1965.

• Dy, Manuel, Jr.. Ed. Philosophy of Man: Selected Readings. Makati, Philippines: Goodwill Bookstore, 2001.

QUESTIONS

Sören Kierkegaard

• Two ways are open for an existing individual: Either he can do his utmost to forget that he is existing individual, by which he becomes a comic figure, since his existence has the remarkable trait of compelling an existing individual to exist or not… or he can concentrate his energy upon the fact that he is an existing individual.Blackham, H. J.. Ed. Reality, Man, and Existence: Essential Works of Existentialism.

New York: Bantam Books, 1965, p. 18.

• The ideal of persistent striving is the only view of life that does not carry with it an inevitable disillusionment.

• The systematic idea is the identity of the subject and object, the unity of thought and being. Existence, on the other hand, is their separation. It does not by means follow that existence is thoughtless, but it has brought about and brings about separation between subject and object, thought and being.

Sören Kierkegaard

Blackham, H. J.. Ed. Reality, Man, and Existence: Essential Works of Existentialism.

New York: Bantam Books, 1965, p. 19, 20.

• When the question of truth is raised in an objective manner, reflection is directed objectively to the truth, as an object to which the knower is related. Reflection is not focused upon the relationship, however, but upon the question of whether it is the truth to which the knower is related. If only the object to which he is related is the truth, the subject is accounted to be truth.

• When the question of the truth is raised subjectively, reflection is directed to the nature of the individual’s relationship; if only the mode of this relationship is in the truth, the individual is in the truth even if it should happen to be thus related to what is not true.

Sören Kierkegaard

Blackham, H. J.. Ed. Reality, Man, and Existence: Essential Works of Existentialism.

New York: Bantam Books, 1965, p. 22.

• An objective uncertainty held fast in an appropriation process of the most passionate inwardness is the truth, the highest truth attainable for an existing individual.

• The truth is precisely the venture which chooses an objective uncertainty with the hope of the infinite.

Sören Kierkegaard

Blackham, H. J.. Ed. Reality, Man, and Existence: Essential Works of Existentialism.

New York: Bantam Books, 1965, pp. 23 - 24.

• There can be no stronger expression for inwardness other than when we retreat out of existence into the external by way of recollection is impossible; and when with truth confronting the individual as a paradox, gripped in anguish, and pain of sin, facing the tremendous risk of the objective insecurity, the individual believes.

Sören Kierkegaard

Blackham, H. J.. Ed. Reality, Man, and Existence: Essential Works of Existentialism.

New York: Bantam Books, 1965, p. 29.

• Only when the individual turns to his inner self, and hence only in the inwardness of self activity, does he have his attention aroused, and is enabled to see God.

• The observer of nature does not have a result immediately set before him , but must by himself be at pains to find it, and thereby the direct relationship is broken. But this breach is precisely the act of self activity, the irruption of inwardness, the first determination of the truth as inwardness.

Sören Kierkegaard

Blackham, H. J.. Ed. Reality, Man, and Existence: Essential Works of Existentialism.

New York: Bantam Books, 1965, p. 34.

• Existence constitutes the highest interest of the existing individual and his interest in his existence constitutes his reality

• Abstract thought can get hold of reality only by nullifying it, and this nullification of reality consists in transforming it into possibility

Sören Kierkegaard

Blackham, H. J.. Ed. Reality, Man, and Existence: Essential Works of Existentialism.

New York: Bantam Books, 1965, pp. 36 - 37.

• The ethical reality is the only reality which does not become a mere possibility through being known, and which can be known only through being thought; for it is the individual’s own reality. Before it became a reality it was known by him in the form of a conceived reality, and hence as a possibility. But in the case of another person’s reality he could have no knowledge about it until he conceived it in coming to know it, which means he transformed it from reality into.

Sören Kierkegaard

Blackham, H. J.. Ed. Reality, Man, and Existence: Essential Works of Existentialism.

New York: Bantam Books, 1965, p. 41.

• What is a concrete thought? It is a thought with a relation to a thinker, and to a definite particular something which is thought, existence giving to the existing thinker thought, time, and place.

Sören Kierkegaard

Blackham, H. J.. Ed. Reality, Man, and Existence: Essential Works of Existentialism.

New York: Bantam Books, 1965, p. 48.

Friedrich Nietzsche

• All actions may be referred back to valuations, and all valuations are either one’s own or adopted, the latter being by far the more numerous.

• A queer world of phantoms which manages to give itself a rational appearance

Blackham, H. J.. Ed. Reality, Man, and Existence: Essential Works of Existentialism.

New York: Bantam Books, 1965, pp. 56 -57.

Friedrich Nietzsche

• We can understand nothing of him (neighbor) except the changes that takes place upon our own person and of which he is the cause.

• Are we not then, then, with gigantic intention of ours of smoothing down every sharp edge and corner of life , utilising the best means turning mankind into sand!

Blackham, H. J.. Ed. Reality, Man, and Existence: Essential Works of Existentialism.

New York: Bantam Books, 1965, pp. 58 - 59.

Friedrich Nietzsche

• God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed Him!

• I see no one who has ventured to criticise the estimates of moral worth.

• One could imagine a delight and a power of self determining, and a freedom of will whereby the spirit could bid farewell to every belief, to every wish for certainty, accustomed as it would be to support itself on slender cords and possibilities, and to dance even on the verge of abysses. Such a spirit would be the free spirit par excellence.

Blackham, H. J.. Ed. Reality, Man, and Existence: Essential Works of Existentialism.

New York: Bantam Books, 1965, pp. 66, 69,72-73.

Friedrich Nietzsche

• Virtues as dangerous as vices, in so far as they are allowed to rule over one as authorities and laws coming from outside, and not qualities one develops oneself.

• Truth is therefore more fatal than error and ignorance because it paralyzes the forces which lead to enlightenment and knowledge.

Blackham, H. J.. Ed. Reality, Man, and Existence: Essential Works of Existentialism.

New York: Bantam Books, 1965, pp. 96, 105.

Friedrich Nietzsche

• All that exists consists of interpretations. We cannot establish any fact in itself: it may even be nonsense to desire to do such a thing. Everything is subjective: but that in itself is interpretation.

• Knowing is always a process of coming into relation with something.

Blackham, H. J.. Ed. Reality, Man, and Existence: Essential Works of Existentialism.

New York: Bantam Books, 1965, pp. 106, 110.