Existentialism

I have just read about ANXIETY in Chapter 8, “Feeling”, of Existentialism – an introduction, guide and assessment by John Macquarrie.

“Anxiety” is the author’s preferred translation of the German term Angst, favouring it over such alternatives as “dread” and “anguish”. So, what is anxiety – or rather, philosophical anxiety (to be distinghished from the “day-to-day anxieties of ordinary life”)? For Macquarrie, it is a “rare and subtle emotion”, having “a subtle and elusive character that thought can scarcely grasp”. The author analyses what three philosophers with an existentialist persuasion have to say on the subject. For Søren Kierkegaard, anxiety arises from having freewill: the potentially infinite choices that freewill opens up to the individual can have a dizzying effect. Martin Heidegger considers it as arising from a state of “falling” (Verfallen) in which the individual tries to run away from himself. It is like running away because we are afraid – but whereas fear always presupposes an object being feared, anxiety has no such intention (to use a term reintroduced from medieval philosophy by Franz Brentano in his philosophy of phenomenology).

Thus we do not know what makes us anxious and we cannot point to anything. That which arouses anxiety is nothing, and it is nowhere.

The individual, then, tries to run away from his authentic existence – and slips into what Jean-Paul Sartre calls “bad faith” (mauvaise foi). Sartre sees anxiety as a consequence of an ambiguity inherent in freedom. We are free agents, but we may not always want to be – for being free entails having to make choices and shouldering the responsibility for those choices we do make.

Existentialism is the area of philosophy I feel most attracted to and intrigued by. And I was really into it – and into philosophy in general – at this time two years ago. I was then working with the catering agency OMNI Facilities Management, and not really fully enjoying what I was doing. Perhaps my spirit guides were trying to tell me that being a Sartrean mauvaise foi part-time waiter was not exactly the life I was cut out for.

In discussing THE EXISTENT AS AGENT in Chapter 9, “Action”, Macquarrie criticizes the sociological notion of “functional man” (whatever that is) as

… hopelessly abstract.

“Man is more than the tasks he performs and the roles he plays,” says the author. “His actions are more than empirically observable deeds, for in them he is both projecting and realizing an image of personhood.”

“Action implies FREEDOM …. One does not first exist and then become free; rather, to be human is already to be free.” Atheist and Christian existentialists have different views on the consequence to which freedom may lead: for the former, it leads to “tragedy and even absurdity”; for the latter, “hope and creativity will prove stronger than the negative forces”.

Macquarrie concludes his chapter on action with a look at DECISION AND CHOICE. Making a decision involves “pathos”:

… for decision is never simply self-fulfilment. It is also self-renunciation. To decide for one possibility is ipso facto to renounce every other possibility that was open in the situation.

Making a choice between possibilities may be hard, particularly if one is unsure of what they are or entail, but what matters is not so much the decision one makes but how one makes it.

Not so much the content of the decision as simply its quality as a personal act, fully and intensely appropriated by the agent, is what matters.

This was especially important to Kierkegaard. For him, making a decision is binding himself to a commitment in life, involving a “leap of faith” that is not to be undertaken lightly.

Non-spiritualist existentialists simply do not know what they are missing – a direction Macqaurrie unfortunately appears to be heading when discussing THE FACTICITY OF EXISTENCE in Chapter 10, “Finitude and Guilt”.

No one has chosen to be. … We did not put ourselves in that world.

Yes, we have!

Where we have come from or where we are going remains a mystery.

No, it does not!

From the human point of view, it is rather like the throw of a dice. … There is no known reason why the throw should be one way rather than another.

Yes, there is! But:

(This is not to say that there may not be some reason; perhaps there is a divine providence that determines these matters, but this is an article of faith, not something that can be shown philosophically.)

Then so much the worse for philosophy for categorically excluding all considerations of karma and rebirth!

Indeed, one can keep searching for more and more Mersenne primes until one dies in this world – and then one will still carry on doing it in the spirit world. Till philosophers like Macquarrie accept that there is only physical death, not spiritual death, they will only spout rubbish when talking about DEATH – like the following:

Death is the last possibility of all, the possibility that makes impossible any further possibilities whatever.

All my life, I have tried to lead as existentialistically authentic an existence as possible – namely, to be as much myself as possible rather than what other people want me to be. I resent it very much whenever I have to assume any sort of mauvaise foi. Yet I have found that being in this world, it is practically impossible to totally avoid being in mauvaise foi – sometimes I just have to lapse into inauthenticity in order to continue living my earthly life.

Herein lies the perennial existentialist conflict: THE PROBLEM OF A TRUE HUMANITY (beginning Chapter 11, “In Quest of Authentic Existence”). Can this conflict between the individual and wider humanity be resolved? Sartre, the coiner of the “bad faith” phrase, while claiming that there is no God and therefore no absolute moral rules – the individual is free to choose his own pathway – also asserts that in choosing for himself the individual is also choosing for mankind as a whole! Now, how ridiculous is that?