Existence precedes essence
The proposition that existence precedes essence (
The idea originates from a speech by
As a result, for Sartre, "existence precedes essence" not only defines and determines his own existential thinking or interpretation of existentialism, but also any thinking or philosophising that declares itself to be existential. Despite Sartre's later efforts to distance himself and his thinking from this remark and its consequences, it has become the most quoted, repeated, and cited description of existentialism and any non-theistic existential thought.[8]
Purpose and freedom
The
To Sartre, "existence precedes essence" means that a
To claim that existence precedes essence is to assert that there is no such predetermined essence to be found in humans, and that an individual's essence is defined by the individual through how that individual creates and lives his or her life. As Sartre puts it in his
Choice and sedimentation
Jonathan Webber interprets Sartre's usage of the term essence not in a modal fashion, i.e. as necessary features, but in a teleological fashion: "An essence is the relational property of having a set of parts ordered in such a way as to collectively perform some activity".[11]: 3 [12] For example, it belongs to the essence of a house to keep the bad weather out, which is why it has walls and a roof. Humans are different from houses because unlike houses they don't have an inbuilt purpose: they are free to choose their own purpose and thereby shape their essence, therefore their existence precedes their essence.
Sartre is committed to a radical conception of freedom: nothing fixes our purpose but we ourselves, our projects have no weight or inertia except for our endorsement of them.[13][14] Simone de Beauvoir, on the other hand, holds that there are various factors, grouped together under the term sedimentation, that offer resistance to attempts to change our direction in life. Sedimentations are themselves products of past choices and can be changed by choosing differently in the present, but such changes happen slowly. They are a force of inertia that shapes the agent's evaluative outlook on the world until the transition is complete.[11]: 5, 9, 66
Responsibility
When it is said that people define themselves, it is often perceived as stating that they can "wish" to be something – anything, a bird, for instance – and then be it. According to Sartre's account, however, this would be a kind of bad faith. What is meant by the statement is that people are (1) defined only insofar as they act and (2) that they are responsible for their actions. To clarify, it can be said that a person who acts cruelly towards other people is, by that act, defined as a cruel person and in that same instance, they (as opposed to their genes, for instance) are defined as being responsible for being this cruel person. Of course, the more positive therapeutic aspect of this is also implied: You can choose to act in a different way, and to be a good person instead of a cruel person. Here it is also clear that since people can choose to be either cruel or good, they are, in fact, neither of these things essentially.[15]
The Absurd
Existentialism tends to focus on the question of human existence and the conditions of this existence. What is meant by existence is the concrete life of each individual, and their concrete ways of being in the world. Even though this concrete individual existence must be the primary source of information in the study of people, certain conditions are commonly held to be "endemic" to human existence. These conditions are usually in some way related to the inherent meaninglessness or absurdity of the universe and its apparent contrast with our pre-reflexive lived lives which normally present themselves to us as meaningful. A central theme is that since the world "in-itself" is absurd, that is, not "fair", then a meaningful life can at any point suddenly lose all its meaning. The reasons why this happens are many, ranging from a tragedy that "tears a person's world apart", to the results of an honest inquiry into one's own existence. Such an encounter can make a person mentally unstable, and avoiding such instability by making people aware of their condition and ready to handle it is one of the central themes of existentialism. Albert Camus, for instance, famously claimed in Le Mythe de Sisyphe that "There is only one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide".[16]
Aside from these "psychological" issues, it is also claimed that these encounters with the absurd are where we are most in touch with our condition as humans. Such an encounter cannot be without philosophical significance, and existentialist philosophers derive many metaphysical theories from these encounters. These are often related to the self, consciousness and freedom as well as the nature of meaning.
In popular culture
Bilal Tanweer used existence precedes essence in his novel The Scatter Here Is Too Great (2013), his are engaged in a quest to discover and shape their essence. They exercise their capacity for free choice and bear responsibility for their actions.[17]
Criticism
Sartre's definition of existentialism was based on Heidegger's magnum opus Being and Time (1927). In the correspondence with Jean Beaufret later published as the Letter on Humanism, Heidegger implied that Sartre misunderstood him for his own purposes of subjectivism, and that he did not mean that actions take precedence over being so long as those actions were not reflected upon.[18] Heidegger commented that "the reversal of a metaphysical statement remains a metaphysical statement", meaning that he thought Sartre had simply switched the roles traditionally attributed to essence and existence without interrogating these concepts and their history.[19]
See also
Notes
- ^ Plato, Timaeus; Aristotle, Metaphysics; St Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles, Pars 3:1, Summa Theologiae, Pars 1:1, etc. Analysis of "existence before essence" in Etienne Gilson, The Christian Philosophy of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Introduction.
- ^ (Dictionary) "L'existencialisme" – see "l'identité de la personne" (in French).
- ^ Encyclopédie de la jeunesse, 1979, p. 567 (in French).
- ^ Engels, 1841.
- ^ Kierkegaard, Søren. Philosophical Fragments, 1844.
- ^ The lecture was delivered on Monday, October 29, 1945, although not published until 1946. "Existentialism is a Humanism." trans. Carol Macomber, preface by Arlene Elkaïm-Sartre, ed. John Kulka (New Haven: Yale, 2007), p. vii.
- ^ Sartre, in Being and Nothingness (1943), credits a slightly longer version of the claim to Heidegger: "Now freedom has no essence. It is not subject to any logical necessity; we must say of it what Heidegger said of the Dasein in general: 'In it existence precedes and commands essence.'" However, Sartre gives no page reference for this citation. In Being and Time, Heidegger writes: "The 'essence' of human-being lies in its existence." ("Das 'Wesen' des Daseins liegt in seiner Existenz", Sein und Zeit, p. 42.)
- ^ "Explaining Sartre's "Existence Precedes Essence" | that-which". that-which | Philosophy | Philosophemes | Philosophers. Retrieved 2023-10-27.
- ^ Notions de philosophie, L'existencialisme: Jean-Paul Sartre[permanent dead link] (in French).
- ^ Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism.
- ^ a b Webber, Jonathan (2018). Rethinking Existentialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- ^ Crowell, Steven (2020). "Existentialism". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. Retrieved 16 November 2020.
- ^ Burnham, Douglas. "Existentialism". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 16 November 2020.
- ^ Cox, Gary (2008). The Sartre Dictionary. Continuum. pp. 41–42.
- ^ Catalano p. 81.
- ^ Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus.
- S2CID 250712415.
- OCLC 26355951.
- OCLC 26355951.
References
- Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus, 1948.
- Joseph S. Catalano, A Commentary on Jean-Paul Sartre's Being and Nothingness, University of Chicago Press 1985.
- Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism (L'existentialisme est un humanisme) 1946 lecture
- Engels, Schelling's Revelation, 1841, in MECW Volume 2, p. 181ff
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, article Existentialism
- Wilhelmsen, Frederick (1970). The Paradoxical Structure of Existence. Irving, Texas; University of Dallas Press.