TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
1.1 Self: An Existential
Approach.
1.2 Existentialism: A Phenomenological Background.
1.3 Facticity of Existence
CHAPTER TWO
GENERAL
NOTION OF FREEDOM
2.1 Freedom: A Historical Review
2.1.1 Freedom in Pre-Historic Era
2.1.2 Freedom in Medieval Era
2.1.3 Freedom in Modern Era
2.1.4 Freedom in Contemporary Era
CHAPTER THREE
GENERAL NOTION OF EVIL
3.1
Evil, Its Problematic Nature.
3.1.1
Ancient Period and Evil
3.1.2
Medieval Period and Evil
3.1.3
Evil in Modern Era
CHAPTER FOUR
BETWEEN FREEDOM AND EVIL: A DIALECTICAL
TENSION.
4.1
Matters Arising From the Tension.
4.2 Is Man Really Free?
4.3
Moral Evil as the Exercise of Freedom.
4.4
Physical Evil: A Limitation of Freedom
CHAPTER FIVE
CRITICAL EVALUATIONS AND CONCLUSION.
5.1 CRITICAL EVALUATION.
5.2 Conclusion
BIBLIOGRAPHY
CHAPTER ONE
1.1 Self: An Existential Approach.
Existentialism is better
seen as a style of philosophizing rather than a philosophy. Thus, the
existentialists have some patterns of thought following their existential
traits. Hence, they deny that reality can be neatly packaged in concept or
presented as interlocking system. “An
inquisitive style of thought that sets to adopt with ardent mastery the world
in relation to man’s life in it.” Jean Paul Sartre, Soren
Kierkegaard and Martin Heidegger made remarkable imprints among the
existentialist thinkers. The basic style of their philosophizing begins from
man rather than nature. A philosophy of the subject rather than the object per
se. William Barrett’s definition of existentialism sets the existentialists’
agenda in motion:
A philosophy
that confronts human situation in its totality, to
ask what the basic conditions of human existence are and how man can
establish his own meaning out
of these situations. 2
From the foregoing therefore, existential approach to self is not very difficult to
define.
Rene Descartes (1596-1650), the father of modern
philosophy was the first to make a dialectical shift in the history of thought,
breaking apart philosophy from the chains of scholastic ‘theocentricism’ to the
modern ‘anthropocentricism’. In his famous cogito, he sets out
to posit the “I” as the referential point of existence. Hence, the “I” becomes
the starting point and the end point “terminus a quo and terminus ad quem” of his ontological status quo. The ‘I’ becomes the thinking
subject.
But, a remarkable attempt to move the straight points
of philosophy from the “abstract thinking subject to more concrete base, in the
total, multi-dimensional human experience of involving in a world of affairs
was carefully explored by John Macmurray.”3 Toeing the same line of argument,
the existentialists owe their thought in agreement with John Macmurray’s view
of the self as an ‘agent’ as against the
traditional understanding of self as the ‘subject’.
In his own words, “the ‘I’ act (the self as agent)
replaces the ‘I’ think (the self as subject) as the place where existential
philosophy finds its beginning.”4 Thinking according to him is an
abstraction from the totality of self
as agent. Having given a skeletal view of the general notion of the existential
self as the existentialism owe to Macmurray, it is very pertinent at this
juncture to X-ray what three front liners existentialists have as their views
in relation to self.
In order to bring the intrinsic meaning of the
existential self to the fore, Soren Kierkegaard driving home his message made
an allusion to the idea of the ‘anonymous crowd’. In his own words, “Being in a crowd unmakes one’s nature as an individual self by diluting
self.” He further stresses:
A crowd
in its very concept is untruth, by reason of the
fact that it renders the individual
completely impenitent
and irresponsible or at least
weakens his sense of duty, vision
and responsibility by reducing it to
a fraction.6
From a different angle, Martin Heidegger with a bold
stroke shifted the nineteenth century continental philosophy away from the
traditional concerns about theories and focused it upon the concern of thinking
individual (self). He sets out to explore the deepest nature of self as an
existing being. Fascinated by the
question of being (Zeins frage) he desires to explore the fundamental ontology
- the phenomenological analysis of the ‘Dasein’. In his fundamental task
of de-structuring the essential components of the Dasein he does not
intend to joke when he remarks, “Dasein has a pre-ontological understanding of his
own being because; being reveals itself gratuitously to him.” By making serious enquiry into the meaning of
being through rational and fundamental questions, the existential approach to
self in Heidegger’s line of thought is not very difficult to disclose, implying
though it may be.
Jean Paul Sartre not dismissing his phenomenological
background approaches the question of self as the only unique Consciousness. According to him,
The mode of the existence of the
Consciousnesses
is to be conscious of itself and
being conscious of
his consciousness, its law of
existence is correctly
defined.8
He further maintains that insofar as Consciousness is conscious of itself, it is purely absolute. The central message
of the celebrated book of Sartre, Being
and Nothingness presents an existential concept of self “as the unique individual that is essentially
free even though in chains, is a master of his own fate.” He therefore projects the self in
conformity with the analysis of Cartesian thought, as individual human being
seeking for apodictic certainty as a referential point of departure. The actual
message of self in
Sartrian philosophy may not be correctly sent without the cause to “make a veritable insight into the
ontological and epistemological variations, wherein the Cartesian cogito becomes essentially
manifested.”
Hans Gadamer would have been
forgotten in the arc of intellectual history if not for his celebrated line ‘No one speaks from nowhere’,
thus, to speak implies speaking from a particular point of view. Bearing this
in mind, the question of self in Sartrian philosophy may not be exhaustively
explored without a necessary reference to his phenomenological background.
1.2 Existentialism: A Phenomenological Background.
The word “phenomenology” has quite a long
history in philosophy. Occasionally, it was employed by Immanuel Kant to stand
for the study of phenomena or appearances as opposed to things-in- themselves.
Hegel, in his phenomenology of mind, used the word for his exposition of the
manifestations of the stages of the mind, from perception, through the forms of
consciousness, to the highest intellectual spiritual activities. Husserl’s Introduction
to Pure Phenomenology bracketed, questions concerning reality and tends to devise method for detailed and accurate description
of various kinds in their pure essences.
A brief intellectual tour in the existentialists’
environment will reveal that, it was Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) that first
picked up the intellectual relay- race in the German phenomenology. Thrilled by
the Cartesian cogito, he plans to establish from a phenomenological
background, the self, from the focal point of action as the existing
agent. The undeniable influence he asserted on his successors, thinkers like
Martin Heidegger, Merleau-ponty and Jean Paul Sartre carried along the
phenomenological relay race. Due to the fact that existentialism owes its
definitive emergence to phenomenology, invariably most existentialists are
phenomenologist though the reverse may not be the case, notwithstanding, there
is an undeniable fact of close tie that developed between the two styles of
philosophy. The fact is obvious; “Phenomenology
seems to offer existentialism the kind of methodology necessary to pursue the
investigations into human existence.” Fascinated
by Cartesian methodic doubt, Husserl radicalized its tenets with a certain
degree of consequence. The transcendental consciousness could no longer be
characterized in terms of a thinking
matter, a ‘res cogitans’ but an acting matter. In his argument, he
stresses that if consciousness only exists as consciousness of something, then,
Husserl’s interpretation of the methodic doubt implies that the ‘physical ‘I’
would perish along the line, “because the ‘I’ presents the character of an
object.”13 The existentialists developed phenomenology to suit their own purpose. The
point of divergence between Husserl and the existential phenomenologists is not
very difficult to pinpoint. Whereas the former places emphasis on essence and
approaches phenomenology as an apodictic science, the latter stresses on
existence. The existentialists’ allegiance to existence could be seen in
Sartre’s assertion ‘existence precedes essence’. In this regard, they refuted
Kantian dualism that supposed some hidden ‘noumena’ of which the ‘phenomena’ is
merely the appearance.
In his book ‘L’Action’, Maurice Blondel
(1861-1949) argues, “the starting point of philosophy should be sought not in
abstract ‘I’ think but in the concrete ‘I’ act.”14 To buttress this fact, the existentialists insist on action,
for according to them, only in action does existence attains correctness and
fullness. Where thought, passion and inward decision are lacking, there will be
nothing worthy of the name action. Despite the premium existentialists
place upon action, it does not seem to connote they are pragmatists. A proper
juxtaposition of the differences and similarities of both the former and latter
leads us into the next sub-heading. The pragmatists and the existentialists
without doubts place a greater percentage on man as a deciding agent. But as
the former views man as a functional man the later approaches him from
the point of ‘Homo Viator’. The former to a greater extent highlights
optimism from the utilitarian standpoint. They occupy themselves with issues of
success in every undertaking, with a little or no attention to the tragic and
frustrating sides of life as expressed in most existentialists’ writings.
Berdyaev clearly remarks the difference between the duo in his words, however close the
latter could be at some points with the former:
They are distinguished from them by the
fact that their interest is in the intensity of life even its
tragic intensity rather than its outward expansion and success.”15
The existentialists acknowledge the obvious situations
of man’s existence as a fact of life. This I plan to unmask in the preceding
sub-heading.
1.3 Facticity of Existence
A simple look at this phrase elicits the two
contending concepts: Fact and Existence. In philosophy of science, facts are
said to be the ultimate tribunal. As such without facts, there would not be any
result. The issue is not different in the field of law and other disciplines.
‘To exist’ from its Latin etymology ‘ex-sistere’ means,
‘to stand out’, ‘to emerge’. To ‘lie around’ seem to highlight the clearer meaning
of existence in recent times- ontological location. Here, to exist implies to
be located somewhere in the world, to have a place in the real world. In
passing the message of what it means to exist, Martin Heidegger made allusion
to the idea of ‘Dasein’. Jean Paul Sartre explores the content of the ‘Pour-soi’
for-itself. The question above all is, what the facts of existence are in the
existential mind? Existentialists use the word ‘Facticity’ to designate the
limiting factor in existence. From etymology the word had been coined to
translate the German ‘Faktizitat’ and French ‘Facticite’. It is
as opposed to the background of the word factuality that has to do with
objective state of affairs observable in the world. It is an inward existential awareness of
one’s own being. No one has chosen to be. As Augustine Farrer voices out “The
loneliness of personality in the universe weighs heavily upon us, it seems
terribly improbable that we should exist.”16 Man from time immemorial has formed some beliefs or even
revelations about his origin and destiny. How truthful or valid such
assumptions are, may not be our concern here. The only fact we know beyond
doubt is that ‘we are’. Where we came from and where we are going remains under
the confines of mystery. Existence never escapes from the tension between
possibility and facticity. Facticity opens for us the radical finitude of human
existence.
Robert Cumming gave a clearer insight to facticity as
portrayed in Sartre’s ideology. The “for-itself” is, insofar as it appears in a
condition which it has not chosen, it is, in so far as it is thrown into the
world and abandoned in a situation.”17 In the thought of Heidegger,
facticity means that man finds himself in situation where he is bound to be.
‘Throwness’, ‘Geworfenheit’ in Heideggerian thought underlines to a
greater extent the intrinsic meaning of facticity. “Being thrown into
existence, without his prior knowledge the ‘Dasein’ finds himself in a
circumstance that is not his own making.”18 Facticity is an outright revelation
of the limitations of the ‘Dasein’. In a case, the ‘Dasein’ realizes
some givens beyond his control, things he cannot alter even if he wants to.
Some factors project certain unavoidable existential
situations. Death, Temporality, Guilt and Alienation tend to summarize those
inescapable conditions of life. As Heidegger rightly puts, death is the
possibility of the impossibility of existence. Heidegger is one of the
existentialists that never approached the issue of death with reservation. At
death alone could the ‘Dasein’ be correctly defined. He sees death as
the last possibility of all, that which makes impossible any further
possibility. In temporality, man’s nature as being time-bound is re-defined.
Man as creature of time must pass away in time. The transience of human life is
one of the most poignant aspects of finitude. No matter, whatever may be the
case; man must be a client to the tribunal of birth and death.
Pessimistic though the existentialists may seem to be,
as some thinkers argue as opposed to pragmatists, they have always not failed
to recognize the obvious fact of disorder in human existence. Thus, man
experiences guilt and sometimes feels alienated from what he encounters around
him.
Karl Marx pointed the fact of alienation in the
revolutionary changes in man’s material condition. From the existential angle,
alienation implies that one is mortgaged in inauthentic existence. Without
facticity, Robert Cumming, avows “Consciousness would choose its attachment to
the world in the same way as souls in Plato’s republic choose their condition.”19
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