Editing Existentialism (section)

== Concepts ==

=== Existence precedes essence ===
{{Main|Existence precedes essence}}

Sartre argued that a central proposition of existentialism is that existence precedes essence, which is to say that individuals shape themselves by existing and cannot be perceived through preconceived and ''a priori'' categories, an "essence". The actual life of the individual is what constitutes what could be called their "true essence" instead of an arbitrarily attributed essence others use to define them. Human beings, through their own [[consciousness]], create their own values and determine a meaning to their life.<ref>(Dictionary) "L'existencialisme" – see "l'identité de la personne" {{in lang|fr}}.</ref> This view is in contradiction to [[Aristotle]] and [[Aquinas]], who taught that essence precedes individual existence.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Aquinas: Metaphysics {{!}} Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |url=https://iep.utm.edu/thomas-aquinas-metaphysics/ |access-date=2022-11-10 |language=en-US}}</ref> Although it was Sartre who explicitly coined the phrase, similar notions can be found in the thought of existentialist philosophers such as Heidegger, and Kierkegaard:

{{Blockquote|The subjective ''thinker's form'', the form of his communication, is his ''style''. His form must be just as manifold as are the opposites that he holds together. The systematic ''eins, zwei, drei'' is an abstract form that also must inevitably run into trouble whenever it is to be applied to the concrete. To the same degree as the subjective thinker is concrete, to that same degree his form must also be concretely dialectical. But just as he himself is not a poet, not an ethicist, not a dialectician, so also his form is none of these directly. His form must first and last be related to existence, and in this regard he must have at his disposal the poetic, the ethical, the dialectical, the religious. Subordinate character, setting, etc., which belong to the well-balanced character of the esthetic production, are in themselves breadth; the subjective thinker has only one setting—existence—and has nothing to do with localities and such things. The setting is not the fairyland of the imagination, where poetry produces consummation, nor is the setting laid in England, and historical accuracy is not a concern. The setting is inwardness in existing as a human being; the concretion is the relation of the existence-categories to one another. Historical accuracy and historical actuality are breadth.|source=Søren Kierkegaard (''Concluding Postscript'', Hong pp. 357–358.)}}

Some interpret the imperative to define oneself as meaning that anyone can wish to be anything. However, an existentialist philosopher would say such a wish constitutes an inauthentic existence – what Sartre would call "[[bad faith (existentialism)|bad faith]]". Instead, the phrase should be taken to say that people are defined only insofar as they act and that they are responsible for their actions. Someone who acts cruelly towards other people is, by that act, defined as a cruel person. Such persons are themselves responsible for their new identity (cruel persons). This is opposed to their genes, or ''human nature'', bearing the blame.

As Sartre said in his lecture ''[[Existentialism is a Humanism]]'': "Man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world—and defines himself afterwards." The more positive, therapeutic aspect of this is also implied: a person can choose to act in a different way, and to be a good person instead of a cruel person.<ref>{{cite book |last=Baird |first=Forrest E. |author2=Walter Kaufmann |title=From Plato to Derrida |publisher=Pearson Prentice Hall |year=2008 |location=Upper Saddle River, New Jersey |isbn=978-0-13-158591-1}}</ref>

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".<ref name="Webber">{{cite book |last1=Webber |first1=Jonathan |title=Rethinking Existentialism |date=2018 |publisher=Oxford: Oxford University Press |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/WEBRE-3}}</ref>{{rp|3}}{{sfn|Crowell|2020}} 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 do not have an inbuilt purpose: they are free to ''choose'' their own purpose and thereby shape their essence; thus, ''their existence precedes their essence''.<ref name="Webber"/>{{rp|1–4}}

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.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Burnham |first1=Douglas |title=Existentialism |url=https://iep.utm.edu/existent/ |website=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |access-date=16 November 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Cox |first1=Gary |title=The Sartre Dictionary |date=2008 |publisher=[[Continuum International Publishing Group|Continuum]] |pages=41–42 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/COXTSD}}</ref> 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.<ref name="Webber"/>{{rp|5,9,66}}

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.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Basic Writings: From Being and Time (1927) to The Task of Thinking (1964) |last=Heidegger |first=Martin |publisher=Harper San Francisco |editor=David Farrell Krell |year=1993 |isbn=0-06-063763-3 |edition=Revised and expanded |location=San Francisco, California |oclc=26355951}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Basic Writings: From Being and Time (1927) to The Task of thinking (1964) |url=https://archive.org/details/basicwritings00heid |url-access=limited |last=Heidegger |first=Martin |publisher=Harper San Francisco |editor=David Farrell Krell |year=1993 |isbn=0-06-063763-3 |edition=Revised and expanded |location=San Francisco, California |pages=[https://archive.org/details/basicwritings00heid/page/n128 243] |oclc=26355951}}</ref>

=== The absurd ===
{{Main|Absurdism}}
[[File:Sisyphus by von Stuck.jpg|thumb|[[Sisyphus]], the symbol of the absurdity of existence, painting by [[Franz Stuck]] (1920)]]

The notion of the absurd contains the idea that there is no meaning in the world beyond what meaning we give it. This meaninglessness also encompasses the amorality or "unfairness" of the world. This can be highlighted in the way it opposes the traditional [[Abrahamic religions|Abrahamic religious]] perspective, which establishes that life's purpose is the fulfillment of God's commandments.{{sfn|Wartenberg|2008}} This is what gives meaning to people's lives. To live the life of the absurd means rejecting a life that finds or pursues specific meaning for man's existence since there is nothing to be discovered. According to Albert Camus, the world or the human being is not in itself absurd. The concept only emerges through the [[juxtaposition]] of the two; life becomes absurd due to the incompatibility between human beings and the world they inhabit.{{sfn|Wartenberg|2008}} This view constitutes one of the two interpretations of the absurd in existentialist literature. The second view, first elaborated by [[Søren Kierkegaard]], holds that absurdity is limited to actions and choices of human beings. These are considered absurd since they issue from human freedom, undermining their foundation outside of themselves.<ref>{{Cite book |title=The A to Z of Existentialism |last=Michelman |first=Stephen |publisher=The [[Scarecrow Press]], Inc. |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-8108-7589-0 |location=Lanham, Maryland |page=27}}</ref>

The absurd contrasts with the claim that "bad things don't happen to good people"; to the world, metaphorically speaking, there is no such thing as a good person or a bad person; what happens happens, and it may just as well happen to a "good" person as to a "bad" person.{{sfn|Crowell|2020|loc=3.1 Anxiety, Nothingness, the Absurd}} Because of the world's absurdity, anything can happen to anyone at any time and a tragic event could plummet someone into direct confrontation with the absurd. Many of the literary works of [[Søren Kierkegaard|Kierkegaard]], [[Samuel Beckett|Beckett]], [[Franz Kafka|Kafka]], [[Fyodor Dostoevsky|Dostoevsky]], [[Eugène Ionesco|Ionesco]], [[Miguel de Unamuno]], [[Luigi Pirandello]],<ref name=luigitheatre>{{cite book |last1=Bassnett |first1=Susan |last2=Lorch |first2=Jennifer |title=Luigi Pirandello in the Theatre |date=March 18, 2014 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FpwiAwAAQBAJ&q=existentialist&pg=PA182 |access-date=26 March 2015 |isbn=978-1-134-35114-5 |via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref><ref name=understandex>{{cite book |last1=Thompson |first1=Mel |last2=Rodgers |first2=Nigel |title=Understanding Existentialism: Teach Yourself |date=2010 |publisher=[[Hodder & Stoughton]] |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vfczAgAAQBAJ&q=pirandello+existentialism&pg=PT105 |isbn=978-1-4441-3421-6 |via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref><ref name=crisisconsciousness>{{cite book |last1=Caputi |first1=Anthony Francis |title=Pirandello and the Crisis of Modern Consciousness |date=1988 |publisher=[[University of Illinois Press]] |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0Qv2nuJF7yYC&q=pirandello+existentialist+absurdity&pg=PA80 |isbn=978-0-252-01468-0 |via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref><ref name=masks>{{cite book |last1=Mariani |first1=Umberto |title=Living Masks: The Achievement of Pirandello |date=2010 |publisher=[[University of Toronto Press]] |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vBviYn43H34C&q=pirandello+existential+absurd&pg=PT178 |access-date=26 March 2015 |isbn=978-1-4426-9314-2 |via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref> [[Jean-Paul Sartre|Sartre]], [[Joseph Heller]], and [[Albert Camus|Camus]] contain descriptions of people who encounter the absurdity of the world.

It is because of the devastating awareness of meaninglessness that Camus claimed in ''[[The Myth of Sisyphus]]'' that "There is only one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide." Although "prescriptions" against the possible deleterious consequences of these kinds of encounters vary, from Kierkegaard's religious "stage" to Camus' insistence on persevering in spite of absurdity, the concern with helping people avoid living their lives in ways that put them in the perpetual danger of having everything meaningful break down is common to most existentialist philosophers. The possibility of having everything meaningful break down poses a threat of [[Quietism (philosophy)|quietism]], which is inherently against the existentialist philosophy.<ref>{{cite book |first=Jean-Paul |last=Sartre |author-link=Jean-Paul Sartre |url=http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exist/sartre.htm |title=Existentialism is a Humanism |date=1946 |via=[[Marxists Internet Archive]] |access-date=2010-03-08}}</ref> It has been said that the possibility of [[suicide]] makes all humans existentialists. The ultimate hero of absurdism lives without meaning and faces suicide without succumbing to it.<ref>{{Cite journal |title=Suicide and Self-Deception |first=E. |last=Keen |journal=[[Psychoanalytic Review]] |year=1973 |volume=60 |issue=4 |pages=575–85 |pmid=4772778 |url=http://www.pep-web.org/document.php?id=PSAR.060.0575A}}</ref>

=== Facticity ===
{{main|Facticity}}
{{Technical|section|date=November 2020}}

Facticity is defined by Sartre in ''[[Being and Nothingness]]'' (1943) as the ''[[being-in-itself|in-itself]]'', which for humans takes the form of being and not being. It is the facts of one's personal life and as per Heidegger, it is "[[Thrownness|the way in which we are thrown into the world]]." This can be more easily understood when considering facticity in relation to a person's past: one's past forms the person who exists in the present. However, to reduce a person to their past would ignore the change a person undergoes in the present and future, while saying that one's past is only what one was, would entirely detach it from the present self. A denial of one's concrete past constitutes an inauthentic lifestyle, and also applies to other kinds of facticity (having a human body with all its limitations, identity, values, etc.).{{sfn|Crowell|2020|loc=2.1 Facticity and Transcendence}}

Facticity is a limitation and a condition of freedom. It is a limitation in that a large part of a person's facticity consists of things they did not choose (birthplace, etc.), but a condition of freedom in the sense that one's values most likely depend on these factors. However, even though one's facticity is fixed, it cannot determine a person: they may choose to assign as much value to their facticity as they choose. As an example, consider two men, one of whom has no memory of his past and the other who remembers everything. Both have committed many crimes, but the first man, remembering nothing, leads a rather normal life while the second man, feeling trapped by his past, continues a life of crime, blaming his own past. There is nothing essential about his committing crimes, but he ascribes this meaning to his past.

However, to disregard one's facticity during the evolution of one's sense of self would be a denial of the conditions shaping the present self and would be inauthentic. An example of the focus solely on possible projects without reflecting on one's current facticity would be continually thinking about future possibilities related to being rich (e.g. a better car, bigger house, better quality of life, etc.) without acknowledging the facticity of ''not currently having the financial means to do so''. In this example, considering both facticity and transcendence, an authentic mode of being would be considering future projects that might improve one's current finances (e.g. putting in extra hours, or investing savings) in order to arrive at a real future, or ''future-facticity'' of a modest pay rise, further leading to purchase of an affordable car.

Another aspect of facticity is that it entails [[angst]]. Freedom "produces" angst when limited by facticity and the lack of the possibility of having facticity to "step in" and take responsibility for something one has done also produces angst.

Another aspect of existential freedom is that one can change one's values. One is responsible for one's values, regardless of society's values. The focus on [[freedom]] in existentialism is related to the limits of responsibility one bears, as a result of one's freedom. The relationship between freedom and responsibility is one of interdependency and a clarification of freedom also clarifies that for which one is responsible.{{sfn|Crowell|2020|loc=3. Freedom and Value}}{{sfn|Crowell|2020|loc=3.2 The Ideality of Values}}

=== Authenticity ===
{{main|Authenticity (philosophy)|l1=Authenticity}}

Many noted existentialists consider the theme of authentic existence important. [[Authenticity (philosophy)|Authenticity]] involves the idea that one has to "create oneself" and live in accordance with this self. For an authentic existence, one should act as oneself, not as "one's acts" or as "one's genes" or as any other essence requires. The authentic act is one in accordance with one's freedom. A component of freedom is facticity, but not to the degree that this facticity determines one's transcendent choices (one could then blame one's background for making the choice one made [chosen project, from one's transcendence]). Facticity, in relation to authenticity, involves acting on one's actual values when making a choice (instead of, like Kierkegaard's Aesthete, "choosing" randomly), so that one takes responsibility for the act instead of choosing either-or without allowing the options to have different values.{{sfn|Crowell|2020|loc=2.3 Authenticity}}

In contrast, the inauthentic is the denial to live{{Clarify|reason=Does this mean '[a person's individual] choice to not live in accordance with one's [i.e., their] freedom'? If so, the word 'denial' doesn't seem appropriate. But maybe something else is meant.|date=February 2023}} in accordance with one's freedom. This can take many forms, from pretending choices are meaningless or random, convincing oneself that some form of [[determinism]] is true, or "mimicry" where one acts as "one should".{{citation needed|date=October 2021}}

How one "should" act is often determined by an image one has, of how one in such a role (bank manager, lion tamer, sex worker, etc.) acts. In ''Being and Nothingness'', Sartre uses the example of a waiter in "bad faith". He merely takes part in the "act" of being a typical waiter, albeit very convincingly.<ref name="Jean-Paul Sartre 2003">Jean-Paul Sartre, ''Being and Nothingness'', Routledge Classics (2003).</ref> This image usually corresponds to a social norm, but this does not mean that all acting in accordance with social norms is inauthentic. The main point is the attitude one takes to one's own freedom and responsibility and the extent to which one acts in accordance with this freedom.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Sartre, Jean Paul: Existentialism {{!}} Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |url=https://iep.utm.edu/sartre-ex/ |access-date=2022-11-10 |language=en-US}}</ref>

=== The Other and the Look ===
{{main|Other (philosophy)}}
The Other (written with a capital "O") is a concept more properly belonging to [[phenomenology (philosophy)|phenomenology]] and its account of [[intersubjectivity]]. However, it has seen widespread use in existentialist writings, and the conclusions drawn differ slightly from the phenomenological accounts. The Other is the experience of another free subject who inhabits the same world as a person does. In its most basic form, it is this experience of the Other that constitutes intersubjectivity and objectivity. To clarify, when one experiences someone else, and this Other person experiences the world (the same world that a person experiences)—only from "over there"—the world is constituted as objective in that it is something that is "there" as identical for both of the subjects; a person experiences the other person as experiencing the same things. This experience of the Other's look is what is termed the Look (sometimes the [[Gaze]]).{{sfn|Crowell|2020|loc=2.2 Alienation}}

While this experience, in its basic phenomenological sense, constitutes the world as objective and oneself as objectively existing subjectivity (one experiences oneself as seen in the Other's Look in precisely the same way that one experiences the Other as seen by him, as subjectivity), in existentialism, it also acts as a kind of limitation of freedom. This is because the Look tends to objectify what it sees. When one experiences oneself in the Look, one does not experience oneself as nothing (no thing), but as something (some thing). In Sartre's example of a man peeping at someone through a keyhole, the man is entirely caught up in the situation he is in. He is in a pre-reflexive state where his entire consciousness is directed at what goes on in the room. Suddenly, he hears a creaking floorboard behind him and he becomes aware of himself as seen by the Other. He is then filled with shame for he perceives himself as he would perceive someone else doing what he was doing—as a [[Peeping Tom]]. For Sartre, this phenomenological experience of shame establishes proof for the existence of other minds and defeats the problem of [[solipsism]]. For the conscious state of shame to be experienced, one has to become aware of oneself as an object of another look, proving a priori, that other minds exist.<ref>{{cite book |last=Sartre |first=Jean Paul |title=Being and Nothingness |date=1992 |publisher=Washington Square Press |isbn=978-0-230-00673-7 |location=New York |translator-first=Hazel E. |translator-last=Barnes |chapter=Chapter 1 |author-link=Jean-Paul Sartre}}</ref> The Look is then co-constitutive of one's facticity.

Another characteristic feature of the Look is that no Other really needs to have been there: It is possible that the creaking floorboard was simply the movement of an old house; the Look is not some kind of mystical telepathic experience of the actual way the Other sees one (there may have been someone there, but he could have not noticed that person). It is only one's perception of the way another might perceive him.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Sartre, Jean Paul: Existentialism {{!}} Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |url=https://iep.utm.edu/sartre-ex/ |access-date=2024-06-14 |language=en-US}}</ref>

=== Angst and dread ===
{{main|Angst}}

"Existential angst", sometimes called existential dread, anxiety, or [[anguish]], is a term common to many existentialist thinkers. It is generally held to be a negative feeling arising from the experience of human freedom and responsibility.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Plesa |first=Patric |date=2021-07-14 |title=Reassessing Existential Constructs and Subjectivity: Freedom and Authenticity in Neoliberalism |journal=Journal of Humanistic Psychology |language=en |page=002216782110320 |doi=10.1177/00221678211032065 |issn=0022-1678|doi-access=free }}</ref>{{sfn|Aho|2023}} The archetypal example is the experience one has when standing on a cliff where one not only fears falling off it, but also dreads the possibility of throwing oneself off. In this experience that "nothing is holding me back", one senses the lack of anything that predetermines one to either throw oneself off or to stand still, and one experiences one's own freedom.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2018-02-20 |title=Soren Kierkegaard and The Psychology of Anxiety |url=https://academyofideas.com/2018/02/soren-kierkegaard-psychology-anxiety/ |access-date=2024-05-07 |language=en-US}}</ref>

It can also be seen in relation to the previous point how angst is before nothing, and this is what sets it apart from fear that has an object. While one can take measures to remove an object of fear, for angst no such "constructive" measures are possible. The use of the word "nothing" in this context relates to the inherent insecurity about the consequences of one's actions and to the fact that, in experiencing freedom as angst, one also realizes that one is fully responsible for these consequences. There is nothing in people (genetically, for instance) that acts in their stead—that they can blame if something goes wrong. Therefore, not every choice is perceived as having dreadful possible consequences (and, it can be claimed, human lives would be unbearable if every choice facilitated dread). However, this does not change the fact that freedom remains a condition of every action.

=== Despair ===
{{Main|Philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard#Despair|l1=Despair}}
{{See also|Existential crisis}}

Despair is generally defined as a loss of hope.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.tfd.com/despair |title=despair – definition of despair by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia |publisher=Tfd.com |access-date=2010-03-08}}</ref> In existentialism, it is more specifically a loss of hope in reaction to a breakdown in one or more of the defining qualities of one's self or identity. If a person is invested in being a particular thing, such as a bus driver or an upstanding citizen, and then finds their being-thing compromised, they would normally be found in a state of despair—a hopeless state. For example, a singer who loses the ability to sing may despair if they have nothing else to fall back on—nothing to rely on for their identity. They find themselves unable to be what defined their being.

What sets the existentialist notion of despair apart from the conventional definition is that existentialist despair is a state one is in even when they are not overtly in despair. So long as a person's identity depends on qualities that can crumble, they are in perpetual despair—and as there is, in Sartrean terms, no human essence found in conventional reality on which to constitute the individual's sense of identity, despair is a universal human condition. As Kierkegaard defines it in ''[[Either/Or (Kierkegaard book)|Either/Or]]'': "Let each one learn what he can; both of us can learn that a person's unhappiness never lies in his lack of control over external conditions, since this would only make him completely unhappy."<ref>Either/Or Part II p. 188 Hong.</ref> In ''[[Works of Love]]'', he says:

{{Blockquote|When the God-forsaken worldliness of earthly life shuts itself in complacency, the confined air develops poison, the moment gets stuck and stands still, the prospect is lost, a need is felt for a refreshing, enlivening breeze to cleanse the air and dispel the poisonous vapors lest we suffocate in worldliness. ... Lovingly to hope all things is the opposite of despairingly to hope [[nothing]] at all. Love hopes all things—yet is never put to shame. To relate oneself expectantly to the possibility of the good is to hope. To relate oneself expectantly to the possibility of evil is to fear. By the decision to choose hope one decides infinitely more than it seems, because it is an eternal decision.|author=Søren Kierkegaard|title=Works of Love|source=}}