ExistentialismBy

Soren Kierkegaard

Soren Kierkegaard

- born in 1813 in Copenhagen Denmark, he was a profound and prolific writer in the Danish “golden age” of intellectual and artistic activity.

- his work crosses the boundaries of philosophy, theology, psychology, literary criticism, devotional literature and fiction.

- he is known as the “father of existentialism”, as his philosophy becomes a precursor to the existentialist thought. It can be said that see many themes in it are picked by many atheist philosophers.

Kierkegaard's Existentialism

- his existentialism thought is similar to the Sartean (Jean-Paul Sarte) philosophy which is centered to the idea that “existence precedes essence” and “individuals define their own essence”; that what do we become is what we choose to be.

- his philosophy of existentialism focuses mainly on the importance of subjectivity, choices and the quest for authentic individual truth.

Choices

Existence Essence

- Kierkegaard emphasizes the importance of the individual’s subjective quest for truth, and condemns the attempt by many philosophers to establish objective universal truths.

- he believed that “to exist” meant to realize oneself through self-commitment to the choices one makes as a free subjective individual. “I always reason from existence, not

toward existence...” - Kierkegaard

- The essence of Kierkegaard’s view on truth is, that truth is not a set of propositions to be learned, but a process of choices to be made, which is never completed. Subjective truth is a work in progress and impossible to be encapsulated in any absolute system.

- he believes that life is a continuous process of decision-making and conquest for truth.

- consequently, individuals experience anxiety or dread (Angste) as a presentiment when standing before the difficulty of creating choices.

“Angst”

“the difficulty of making choices”

Kierkegaard's Existentialism

- his philosophy of existentialism is a departure from the Sartean (Jean-Paul Sarte) philosophy which denounces the existence of God.

- instead, his philosophy is often termed as the “Christian Existentialism”, as he postulated with it that God and religion is the final and most important stage of human existence.

- He wrote the books Either/Or and Fear and Trembling where he posited the idea that life consists of three levels of existence,which are (1.) the aesthetic, (2.) the ethical, and (3.) the religious level.

The Three Stages of Existence

The Aesthetic Level

The Ethical Level

The Religious Level

1. The Aesthetic (Individualistic)

- level of existence that is characterized by: individuals making choices based on pleasure and materiality immersion to sensuous experience Egotism fragmentation of the subject of experience nihilistic wielding of irony and skepticism flight from boredom

- It is seen to be emptily self-serving and escapist. It is a despairing means of avoiding commitment and responsibility.

2. The Ethical (Conventional)

- level of existence that is characterized by: individuals making choices based on the dictate of the society

(ethics or “the universal”) choices made by an individual which are determinative to who

he is/will be in the society the notion that the social norms are seen to be the highest

court of appeal for judging human affairs a recognition of duties to a power higher than social norms

- this level is said to be superseded by the religious level of existence. With such, there is now a “suspension of the ethical”, where the social norms are nullified by greater values laid down by the being supreme among all.

3. The Religious (Mysterious/Unknown)

- The religion to which he sought to relate his readers is Christianity.

- Faith is the most important task to be achieved by a human being, because only on the basis of faith does an individual have a chance to become a true self.

- However, he believes that Christian faith is not a matter of regurgitating church dogma. It is a matter of individual subjective passion, which cannot be mediated by the clergy or by human artifacts.

- There is no  mediation  between the individual self and God by priest or by logical system (contra  Catholicism and Hegelianism respectively).

- Faith is a matter of choice. The individual is thereby subject to an enormous burden of responsibility, for upon h/er existential choices hangs h/er eternal salvation or damnation.

- But the choice of faith is not made once and for all. It is essential that faith be constantly renewed by means of repeated avowals of faith. One's very selfhood depends upon this repetition.

Leap of Faith

The religious level of existence requires a “leap of faith”: the act of believing in or accepting something intangible or unprovable, or without empirical evidence.

God cannot be proved or qualified, that is why believing on him requires the “suspension of logic and ethics”. It is also called the virtue of the absurd.

Ex: Abraham gets a reprieve from having to sacrifice Isaac, by virtue of the absurd (Fear and Trembling)

Man’s leap to faith is necessitated by man’s need to supplement the psychological concept of anxiety and the dogmatic issue of hereditary sin.