MAN IN EXISTENTIALISM Over the centuries, man has been pushed into the background, because systems of thought,

historical events and technological forces rarely gave attention to this uniquely personal concerns, feelings and aspirations of the individual. Thus man lost his peculiar human qualities and began to exhibit all the symptoms of dehumanization. Even religion, the traditional source of mans worth, suffered from the critical impact of rational and scientific thought. Amidst these conditions, Existentialism was born to overcome this debilitating human status. What is Existentialism? It is a movement in the 20th century, influenced by the thoughts of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and popularized in France by Sartre. Emphasized is the active participation of the will, rather than reason in confronting the problem of non-moral or absurb universe. It is also a mode of philosophy which focuses upon the existing individual person, instead of searching for truth in the distant universal concepts, it is concerned with concrete existing individuals as they face choices and decisions in daily life. Man is the sum total of his acts rather than his intentions or potentialities and exists in order to will himself to act. Basic Ideas of Existentialism Human life is basically a series of decisions; the individual must decide which standards to accept and which to reject. Human choice is subjective because the individual makes his own choice without help of external standards. He free to choose and is completely responsible for it. Since the individual is forced to choose, he is condemned to be free. Realizing his complete responsibility, the individual is overcome by anxiety. He tries to escape but succeeds only on selfdeception. He must accept full responsibility for his behavior. The individual must be willing to live and die in choosing the eternity of time. Knowledge and faith are two separate things. Knowledge is objectively certain while faith is highly certain. Only by taking the leap and exercising it does one come in contact with actuality the actuality of ones being. What Existentialists Say about Man Existentialism has many forms and even among its philosophers both similarities and differences are evident. Nevertheless, basic themes can be discerned from each representative thinkers. Soren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813-1855) He is considered as the founder of existentialism since he was the first to express in writing many of the themes in contemporary existentialism. His philosophy starts and finishes with the individual, not a universal idea. The individual must act and choose. Truth is subjective not axioms or systems.

What does it mean to think existentially? The individual recognizes that he is faced with personal choices. Existence is a quality in the individual, he is conscious of the participation of the individual who is conscious of his act. Even when he has knowledge, the individual is still in a predicament of having to make a decision. An example was Gods command that Abraham sacrifice his son, Isaac. Truth is subjective for the existing, striving and deciding person, there is no pre-fabricated truth available. Since out there is objective uncertainty which held fast to the most passionate personal experience. What is important is the development and maturity of personality. The Existentialist Situation In describing mans situation, Kierkegaard distinguished between mans present state like what he is now is what he ought to be or what he is essentially. There is a movement in the life of man from the essential to his existential condition. The Doctrine of Sin and Fall Man isolates his anxiety over his own finitude by doing something about it but which added guilt and despair to his anxiety. His essential nature entails relation with God, the Infinite. If his actions drive him away from God, his alienation is compounded. Until, he actualizes his essential self in God, his life is full of anxiety caused by his awareness of a deep alienation of his existential from essential self. This alienation creates in him a drive to recover his essential life. Three Stages of the Existential Situation a) Aesthetic Stage The person behaves according to his impulse and emotions. He has neither the knowledge of any universal moral nor specific religious beliefs. His chief motivation is the enjoyment of the widest variety of sensual pressure. At this stage, he can exist in as much as he has chosen to be an aesthetic man. The individual faced with either-or, cannot just think about it but he must make a decision, an act of will by commitment. b) Ethical Stage Man recognizes and accepts rules of conduct that reason formulates; moral rules which give his life the element of moral responsibility. Ethical man considers moral evil as being a product either of ignorance or weakness of the will. Sin becomes the antithesis which places man in a new either-or. The ethical level is the respond to the awareness of mans own finitude and estrangement from God. This movement cannot be done by thinking nor commitment but by leap of faith. c) Religious Stage This leap of faith brings man to the presence of the subject God, since He is the subject. He, therefore, exists only for subjective awareness. This relation between God and the individual is a unique subjective experience. Only an act of faith can assure the existing individual of his personal relations with God. Summary of Kierkegaards Existentialism Every human being can be assumed in essential possession of what essentially belong to being a man. Every person possesses an essential faith which he ought to actualize. This essential faith is fixed by the very fact that man must be inescapably related to God.

To be sure, man can exist at any one of the three stages along lifes way. Arriving at an authentic existence is a matter of faith and commitment, a continuous process of choice by existing individual in the presence of varieties of either-or. Frank Bretano (1838-1917) He greatly influenced Husserls philosophical development. With his Descriptive Psychology, he is seen as the Father if the Phenomenological School. He stated that man must look precisely at his own mental process and all assumptions about causes and consequences should be eliminated or bracketed out. Phenomenology is the general doctrine of phenomena which seeks to uncover the pure essences of things as they appear within human consciousness, employing a modified form of Cartesian Cogita. Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) He invented Phenomenology because of his deep conviction that the culture of Western Europe had lost its direction and purpose. He is acknowledged as the Father of Phenomenology. His method is merely descriptive. Its sole intent is not to explain but merely to relate or describe the immediately given. This basic method of phenomenology in contained in his treatise, Logical Investigations. He cautioned that man that man must stick to the first person knowledge of his (own) experience or consciousness and must work out exactly what is intrinsic to mental processes. To arrive at the essence of experience, man must focus on the experience itself by a process of reduction to what is virtually clear. He must look at the objective function of the mind, the logical structures that led to the essence. For Husserl, transcendental subjectivity means that mans essence and meanings can be shown by analogy to resemble that of the other. Karl Jaspers (1883-1969) Jaspers considered that task of philosophy to deal with existence which is the creative source of experience. It cannot become a mere object and not a source of thinking and acting. His philosophy is concerned with being which raises its problems and awakens mans mind to the idea of Being which transcends by illuminating existence. Being free, man is a self-transcending subject and cannot be explained in any particular science. Coming from the past going into indefinite future, he is alienated from his world. Since existence is mysterious, it co-exists with independence, communicates with solitude, experience good with evil, truth with falsehood, happiness with grief, life with death and progress with destruction. Two states of being are Existence and Dasein Existence Human experience is what defines man according to his total experience of his infinity and richness of authentic being. An authentic self means an experience of total freedom which is covered by reasons and endless searching. The intellectual self, being practical is concerned with pragmatic management of existence.

The limitation of existence is caused by the existential formulation of the problem of evil. Man as a finite being contributes to his limitations. Death which is considered as the most important source of mans anxiety, emphasizes the urgency of living authentically without postponement. Because of the totality of mans freedom, guilt is another source of anxiety. It demonstrates the power of freedom over our destiny. In his choices, this guilt can be removed by accepting it, otherwise, it can be destructive. Experience with such boundary situations forces man to the shallowness of Dasein. Dasein Dasein refers to existence in an ordinary and minimal sense. It is concerned with practical management of everyday life. It is an aspect of man which his describable characteristics are accessible in to theoretical reflection. It follows the existence of Transcendence to attain his scientific assurance. Philosophic faith can affirm the relationship of oneself and the transcendence. Transcendence is dreadful paradox between the finite existence, a striving for infinity. One can also deny transcendence by remaining immersed in unauthentic existence, man is purely attached to the world as object. Man can search for transcendence in various means: He can explore the world as what science does, to achieve worlds point of view and examine the relationship between himself and the world and through God, follow what God has done for man. This leads to Kierkegaards philosophic faith which is conviction that man is open to transcendence and consequently wills infinity. Transcendence is present in our ordinary world where personal freedom is maintained and respected. Man should rely on the help of transcendence which grounded and supported the world. To reject faith means to recognize that the world is all that there is and man is perfectible because destiny is fully determined. Gabriel Marcel (1889-1973) Like Jasper, Marcel centers his existentialism upon the problem of Being. He answers the question, what am I? There is in his work the basic distinction between problem and mystery. What am I? This question cannot be reduced to a problem because I is not an object of it. Since I have a body, my being is a combination of subject and object because my subjective part cannot be eliminated. I cannot be reduced to mere object. Therefore, the question about my existence is a mystery. A mystery means a certain kind of experience that is permanently incapable of being translated into objects. This experience always includes the subject matter of mystery. The essence of man is to be in a situation. The moral dimension of existence led Marcel to believe that the ultimate character of mans relationship involves the element of fidelity.

Fidelity is the major clue to the nature of ones own existence through fidelity a person continuous to shape his life. In expressing fidelity, a person achieves a responsible and authentic continuity. The belief is the thou is an essential part of his philosophy. The element of mystery is irreducible because human existence is a combination of being and having. In the end, human existence derives its deepest meaning from subjective affirmation of being through fidelity. Christian Existentialism Marcel found in the Christian faith the basic spirit of his philosophy. In his Mystery of Being, he epitomized his concept of man: Man is fragmented because he appears to himself and others as an agglomeration of functions, vital and social. He has to be medically overhauled from time to time as he were a machine; death is written off as total loss. His relation to the world cannot be explained in abstract term since it is a mystery; but it is by no means unknowable. He finds meaning in life subjectivity through his experience in participating in the world. It is not a scientific problem to be solved but a mystery to be experienced. His experience offers presentiments, if not proofs of transcendent being of awareness of God. Man is a pilgrim, a homo viator and the absolute as personal loving being. His relation of the body is stated as condition of being incarnate, the body is a manifestation of the nexus which unites me within the world and I can say, I am my body. Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) Heidegger started Existential Phenomenology and transformed the concept of Being into a subject of intense concern to every human being. From this concept, he produced a new conception and understanding of mean: Only man can raise the question about his being and about being itself. Man is aware of his possibility of being or not. Being his own self in the awareness that he must make decisions, he becomes aware not only of his own being but being itself. Only man, in relation to his own being, can choose how to be. It is man, alone, who has the urgent experiences of anxiety, fear, care and a concern about death. Man as Dasein Dasein means being there in the world. Only a continuous being can think about the meaning of everything that is because he is a thinking and musing being. The basic condition or state of man is Dasein, his being in the world. Mans daily experience averages everydayness. Dwelling in the world, he becomes familiar with objects related upon a world of understanding. Being able to describe the structure of his experience, he is able to think meaningfully is the world which is a characteristic of Dasein.

Dasein possesses three-fold structure which makes possible the projection of the world. a) Understanding is Dasein projecting on the context of purposes and their interrelation within which any particular thing derives its meaning. b) Mood has a bearing upon how we will encounter our environment; joyful or despairing. c) Discourse is only something formulated in speech and can be understood and become subject to our mood. Together, their interrelationship represents the essential structure of Daseins existence. Heidegger emphasized the element of time in human experience. Man knows time because he is going to die. Man realizes that his existence is temporary. As Desein, each person is situated here and now in the present, facing future possibilities. Mans fundamental mood is anxiety, arising out of his awareness of the precarious future of his being. Not only is man thrown into this world without asking to be there but he must constantly become his true self by making appropriate decisions. Dasein experiences thrown-ness, being knocked backwards on discovering its existence messed up by others. This produces the fall in inauthenticity or absurdity. Anxiety and meaninglessness now set in and Dasein only knows itself through anxiety. However, there is a resolution, it comes when Dasein exercises care towards the world. Jean Paul Sartre (1905-1980) His name has been strongly identified with Existentialism primarily because he took the most technical writings of contemporary German philosopher, especially Heidegger who probed into the meaning of Being through the deep recesses of mans anxious and restless soul. Existence Precedes Essence Sartre denies the existence of God since the human mind cannot form a concept of God. The first man exists and confronts himself, he simply emerges from the world which he makes of himself. Man is being in himself and being for himself because he is and is a conscious subject. To be a conscious subject is to stand constantly before the future. Man is creating himself becomes responsible for his own existence. Individual Responsibility Man chooses to create himself NOT only for himself but for all men. Thus he is responsible not only for himself but for all men. As he creates himself as well as his own values, nevertheless he creates at the same time an image of his human nature as he believes it ought to be. At times, he cannot escape the disturbing thought that he does not want others to act as he does. But to prevent himself and others from acting is self deception. The act of choice is one that all men must accomplish with a deep sense of anguish for man is responsible for himself and others. Whoever evades his responsibility through self-deception will not be at ease his conscience.

Atheism and Gods Abandonment Sartre accepts Nietzsche that God is dead; this caused Dosteousky to claim that if God did not exist, everything would be permitted. It means that with the dismissal of God, there also disappears every possibility of finding values in some sort of intelligible heaven. Mans sense of abandonment is a curious consequence of the fact that everything is permitted which makes man forlorn. He cannot find anything which he can rely either within or outside himself. Apart from his existence, there is nothingness, only the present. In his book Nausea, Sartre wrote that things are entirely what they appear to be apart from them, there is nothing, no God, no objective system of values, no built-in essence and no determinism. Man is free, is freedom and is condemned to be free. Condemned because he is thrown into the world, yet free because as soon as he is conscious of himself, he is responsible for everything he does. Man is responsible even for his passion because even his feelings are formed by his deeds. He is all free, therefore, he must choose that is inert because there is no rule of morality, no guidelines. There is an element of despair in human existence limited to what is within the scope of his own will. Sartre emphasizes mans finitude and his relation to nothingness. Only in action is there any reality. Man is only the sum total of his actions and purposes, besides his actual daily life, he is nothing. Although, there is no proper essence in all men, there is a universal human condition. Man is always obliged to act in a situation that is in relation to other persons and consequences of his action cannot and must not be capricious since he takes responsibility for all his actions. To invent values means there is no meaning or sense in life prior to acts of will. Life cannot be anything unless it Is lived. The values of life is the sense each person fashions into. All human beings are guilty on principle of inauthenticity, of bad faith, playing rules of trying to disguise their actual personality behind a faade. Conclusion: If man expresses his genuine humanity in all his behavior, he will never deceive himself and honesty will then become not his ideal but his being. Summary of Sartres Philosophy Sartre does not believe that God exists; for him there is no Supreme Being who dedicates the meaning of life or determines the nature of things. He rejects the idea that either natural evolutionary forces or inner psychological forces set any direction for human life. Without these forces, absolute freedom is all that is left. For him, freedom is simply a basic fact of human existence. He denies that essence precedes existence; philosophy had traditionally held that nature determines what it is able to do, its limitations, defining characteristics and its existence. Sartre claims that existence precedes essence. Our choice determine out nature. What we choose to do, determines our nature.