Existentialism..

1. Existential
ETHICS

2. Six Basic Themes of Existentialism
--by T. Z. Lavine
I. First, there is the basic existentialist
standpoint, that existence precedes essence,
has primacy over essence. Man is a
conscious subject, rather than a thing to be
predicted or manipulated; he exists as a
conscious being, and not in accordance with
any definition, essence, generalization, or
system. Existentialism says I am nothing else
but my own conscious existence. --by T. Z. Lavine

3. II. A second existentialist theme is that of
anxiety, or the sense of anguish, a
generalized uneasiness, a fear or dread which
is not directed to any specific object. Anguish
is the dread of the nothingness of human
existence. This theme is as old
as Kierkegaard within existentialism; it is the
claim that anguish is the underlying, all-
pervasive, universal condition of human
existence.

4. Existentialism agrees with certain streams of
thought in Judaism and Christianity which see
human existence as fallen, and human life as
lived in suffering and sin, guilt and anxiety.
This dark and forboding picture of human life
leads existentialists to reject ideas such as
happiness, enlightenment optimism, a sense
of well-being, the serenity of Stoicism, since
these can only reflect a superficial
understanding of life, or a naive and foolish
way of denying the despairing, tragic aspect of
human existence.

5. III. A third existentialist theme is that of absurdity. Granted,
says the existentialist, I am my own existence, but this
existence is absurd. To exist as a human being is
inexplicable, and wholly absurd. Each of us is simply here,
thrown into this time and place---but why now? Why
here? Kierkegaard asked. For no reason, without necessary
connection, only contingently, and so my life is an absurd
contingent fact. Expressive of absurdity are these words
by Blaise Pascal, a French mathematician and philosopher
of Descarte's time, who was also an early forerunner of
existentialism. Pascal says:
"When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in the
eternity before and after, and the little space I fill, and even can see,
engulfed in the infinite immensity of space of which I am ignorant, and
which knows me not, I am frightened, and am astonished at being here
rather than there, why now rather than then." --by T. Z. Lavine

6. IV. The fourth theme which pervades existentialism is that of
nothingness or the void. If no essences define me, and if,
then, as an existentialist, I reject all of the philosophies,
sciences, political theories, and religions which fail to
reflect my existence as conscious being and attempt to
impose a specific essentialist structure upon me and my
world, then there is nothing that structures my world. I
have followed Kierkegaard's lead. I have stripped myself
of all unacceptable structure, the structures of
knowledge, moral value, and human relationship, and I
stand in anguish at the edge of the abyss. I am my own
existence, but my existence is a nothingness. I live then
without anything to structure my being and my world,
and I am looking into emptiness and the void, hovering
over the abyss in fear and trembling and living the life of
dread.----by T. Z. Lavine

7. V. Related to the theme of nothingness is the existentialist
theme of death. Nothingness, in the form of death, which
is my final nothingness, hangs over me like a sword of
Damocles at each moment of my life. I am filled with
anxiety at times when I permit myself to be aware of this.
At those moments, says Martin Heidegger, the most
influential of the German existentialist philosophers, the
whole of my being seems to drift away into nothing. The
unaware person tries to live as if death is not actual, he
tries to escape its reality. But Heidegger says that my death
is my most authentic, significant moment, my personal
potentiality, which I alone must suffer. And if I take death
into my life, acknowledge it, and face it squarely, I will free
myself from the anxiety of death and the pettiness of life--
and only then will I be free to become myself. But here the
French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre begs to differ.

8. What is death, he asks? Death is my total
nonexistence. Death is as absurd as birth-- it is
no ultimate, authentic moment of my life, it is
nothing but the wiping out of my existence as
conscious being. Death is only another
witness to the absurdity of human existence. ---
-by T. Z. Lavine

9. VI. Alienation or estrangement is a sixth theme which
characterizes existentialism. Alienation is a theme
which Hegel opened up for the modern world on
many levels and in many subtle forms. Thus the
Absolute is estranged from itself as it exists only in the
development of finite spirit in historical time. But
finite spirit also lives in alienation from its true
consciousness of its own freedom, which it gains only
slowly in the dialectic of history. There is also the
alienation that exists in society: the alienation of
individual human beings who pursue their own desires
in estrangement from the actual institutional workings
of their society, which are controlled by the Cunning of
Reason.

10. Alienated from the social system, they do not know that
their desires are system-determined and system-
determining. And there is the alienation of those who
do not identify with the institutions of their own
society, who find their society empty and meaningless.
And there is also for Hegel the alienation which
develops in civil society between the small class of the
wealthy and the growing discontent of the large class
of impoverished workers. The most profound alienation
of all in Hegel's thought is the alienation or
estrangement between my consciousness and its
objects, in which I am aware of the otherness of the
object and seek in a variety of ways to overcome its
alienation by mastering it, by bringing it back into
myself in some way.

11. • As for Marx, we have seen that in the split
between the two Marxisms, the young Marx is
focused upon the concept of economic alienation.
As a worker I am alienated from myself, from the
product of my labor, from the money-worshipping
society, from all those social institutions-- family,
morality, law, government-- which coerce me into
the service of the money-God and keep me from
realizing my human creative potentiality. In
mature Marxism, alienation is expressed through
the division of labor and its many ramifications.

12. • How, then, do existentialists use the concept of
alienation? Apart from my own conscious being, all
else, they say, is otherness, from which I am estranged.
We are hemmed in by a world of things which are
opaque to us and which we cannot understand.
Moreover, science itself has alienated us from nature,
by its outpouring of highly specialized and
mathematicized concepts, laws, theories, and
technologies which are unintelligible to the
nonspecialist and layman; these products of science
now stand between us and nature. And the Industrial
Revolution has alienated the worker from the product
of his own labor, and has made him into a mechanical
component in the productive system, as Marx has
taught us.

13. • We are also estranged, say the existentialists, from
human institutions-- bureaucratized government on
the federal, state, and local levels, national political
parties, giant business corporations, national religious
organizations -- all of these appear to be vast,
impersonal sources of power which have a life of their
own. As individuals we neither feel that we are part of
them nor can we understand their workings. We live
in alienation from our own institutions. Moreover, say
the existentialists, we are shut out of history. We no
longer have a sense of having roots in a meaningful
past nor do we see ourselves as moving toward a
meaningful future. As a result, we do not belong to
the past, to the present, or to the future.

14. • And lastly, and perhaps most painfully, the
existentialists point out that all of our
personal human relationships are poisoned
by feelings of alienation from any "other."
Alienation and hostility arise within the family
between parents and children, between the
husband and the wife, between the children.
Alienation affects all social and work
relations, and most cruelly, alienation
dominates the relationship of love.

15. • These are the disturbing, provocative themes which can
be found in contemporary existentialism. But now we
must ask: If this is indeed the human condition, if this is
a true picture of the world in which the human subject
absurdly finds himself, how is it possible to go on living
in it? Is there no exit from this anxiety and despair, this
nothingness and absurdity, this fixation upon
alienation, this hovering on the edge of the abyss? Is
there any existentialist who can tell us how to live in
such an absurd and hopeless world? Is there an
existentialist ethics, a moral philosophy to tell us what
is good, what can be said to be right or wrong, in such a
meaningless world? --by T. Z. Lavine

16. THANK YOU!!!
GOD BLESS!!!
Cruz, S.