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"Existentialism and Man's Search Form Meaning" by Manuel Dy, JR
"Existentialism and Man's Search Form Meaning" by Manuel Dy, JR
"Existentialism and Man's Search Form Meaning" by Manuel Dy, JR
B.
The Philosophical Approaches to the Study of Man
"Existentialism and Man's Search form Meaning" by Manuel Dy, Jr.
Introduction:
-
as there are many definitions of philosophy and many schools of philosophy, so there are many
approaches to the philosophical reflection/inquiry on man.
In our course, we will not examine all the different approaches in a specific and elaborate manner.
Rather, using Manuel Dy's article,
first, we just study the fundamental approaches which could be discerned if we survey
the three periods in the History of Western Philosophy and examine what is distinctive in each
period in its philosophical reflection on man:
- we could characterize the distinctive fundamental approach of each period as:
Ancient Philosophy: COSMOCENTRIC
Medieval: THEOCENTRIC
Modern: ANTHROPOCENRIC
- These three fundamental approaches do not explain away the uniqueness, and the subtle
and nuanced distinction of the different philosophies within each period nor they are true in
the same extent to all philosophers in each period.
then, we will study in details one particular approach: Existentialism, which is the
approach taken in this course.
Cosmos
Totality of Things
World of Things and
World of Ideas
One World of Concrete
Things made up of matter
and form.
Aristotle
Proto-Arche
Material Stuff
Ideas
4 Causes or Principle:
material, efficient, formal,
final
ii.
Man
is seen, conceived and understood as part of the cosmos, in relation to the
cosmos
he might be different from other things, but he is similar to the cosmos
in fact, man is a cosmos in miniature, a microcosm; there is a proper
proportionality between cosmos and man
- to understand the cosmos is to understand man
- if the cosmos is made of material stuff, then man is a material reality
- if the cosmos is a duality of the world of things and world of ideas, then man is
a duality of Body and Soul
- if the cosmos is one world of matter and form, man is one substance made up
of body (matter) and soul (form).
iii.
Ethics
-
c.
ii.
Man
Part of Nature, Cosmos
Cosmos:
- is not seen in itself, not simply in terms of its own consistency, harmony, unity
and stability but in relation to God, the Absolutely Transcendent Reality
- Creator-Creation relationship
Though man is part of nature, he has unique and special relationship with God
compared to anything, compared to the totality of the things or created order
Thus, man is seen not simply in relation to the cosmos, but in his unique
relationship with God and God's unique relationship with him.
iii.
Ethics
his action is to be conformed to the Natural Law
Natural Law is understood as the Divine Laws which man comes to know by
the use of his natural faculty, his own reason
To conform to the natural law is to conform to the divine law
Ideal/virtue: contemplation of God in himself and His creation in relation to
God
General Remarks:
shift in primary and central concern: from the cosmos, from God to man
himself
- everything is seen in relation to man, and man is starting point, point of
departure for any philosophical reflection
subjective turn/shift:
- subject: the one who philosophizes, the one who knows about nature, about
God, has now become the important, primary, fundamental and central object of
philosophical reflection.
ii.
- For Kant, to come to these metaphysical truths, we must inquire into what man
ought to do, and this will lead to these truths as postulates of morality. And to see
the connection between order of the universe in which we experience and the moral
laws/obligations of which God, Soul and World are postulates, we inquire on the
question of meaning and purpose.
- Thus, we must start our philosophizing not only with man as knowing subject
but also as moral agent, and as subject in search of meaning and purpose of his
existence.
George Wilhelm Freiderich Hegel (1770-1831)
after Kant, philosophy turned again to metaphysical question (cosmological
question), departing from the anthropocentric approach of the Pre-Kantian Modern
Philosophy. It reached it height in the philosophy of Hegel
Hegel was primarily and fundamentally concern with the question of
metaphysics:
- What is ultimate reality
Source and origin of all realities
That which account/explain the unity/relation of all the reality
(system)
- What is structure and dynamism of reality?
For Hegel,
- The ultimate/absolute reality: GEIST (Absolute Spirit, Mind, Idea)
- The Geist develops by embodying itself in history through a triadic dialectical
process of thesis-anti-thesis-synthesis.
- All realities other than the Geist are just aspects or certain stages of the mind,
just embodiment of the mind as it develops in and through history.
- Man:
seen in relation to the Geist, to its unfolding, embodiment and
development in History through a triadic dialectical process
is the highest unfolding, manifestation and development of the Geist
among individual realities
compared to Nature, man has consciousness; man is the Geist coming
to consciousness (Spirit) in three forms:
- Subject Spirit:
Manifestation of the Geist in the finite, individual
consciousness of nature, of his action, of himself
- Objective Spirit:
Manifestation of the Geist in the world of laws and ethical
institutions, i.e. family, civil society, and state. In short, CULTURE.
- Absolute Spirit:
Self-Consciousness:
- Human spirit comes to consciousness of its unity with the
Absolute Spirit
- consciousness of the Geist as Geist.
- Geist comes to consciousness of itself as the one and only
reality in which nature and finite spirit are manifestations and
stages in its coming into self-consciousness.
Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
Contemporary Philosophy is commonly characterized as a reaction against
Hegel's philosophy.
One such reaction is the philosophy of Soren Kierkegaard who is considered
as the Father of Existentialism
Kierkegaard reacted against Hegel on two important points:
1. Hegel's Imperialism of the Absolute Idea/Spirit over the Individuals
Hegel subordinates the individual, the concrete man or woman at
every point to the Universal Absolute Spirit.
- In his theory of knowledge, the knowledge of the finite mind is only a
manifestation of the universal.
- In his metaphysics, he reduces the individual to simply a
manifestation of the Universal Spirit as unfolds and develops itself in and
through history
- In his ethics, actions and duties of the concrete, individual man or
woman are to be determined not by him/her conscience but his/her
position/relation to the Absolute Spirit, to the Institutions and Laws which
are higher manifestations of the Spirit than himself/herself as individual
- In his philosophy of history, all individuals are regarded as mere
instruments used by the "cunning" of the Geist for its universal purpose
For Kierkegaard,
- each concrete, individual man:
4
2.
The question of the meaning of man's existence is more important than the answers
for the Existentialists, philosophy is primarily and fundamentally about
philosophy of man
- the fundamental, primary and central question of philosophy is man
- specifically: the meaning and purpose of human life, what is to be human
Existentialist philosophies have to do with asking questions about the
meaning and purpose of one's life, about the meaning and purpose of one's
existential situation in which one finds himself
The raising of the questions of meaning and purpose is more important than
the answers
5
And the answers to these questions they try to communicate or articulate are
not simply to let us know the answers to our own existential question but to shock us, to
dispose us, to lead us to ask the same questions ourselves and to find answers for them.
b. Two Types/Tendencies/Camps of Existentialist Philosophers
- inspite of great divergence among individual existentialist philosophers/thinkers, they
could be divided into main camps or groups
ATHEISTIC
THEISTIC
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844--1900)
Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
Jean Paul Sartre (1905-1980)
Martin Buber (1878-1965)
Mauice Merleau-Ponty (1907-1961)
Karl Jaspers (1883-1969)
Albert Camus (1913-1960)
Gabriel Marcel (1889-1973)
Martin Heidegger (1889-1976)
c.
iii.
iv.
Stages/Levels of Freedom
- Aesthetic Stage: choose what is pleasure
- Ethical Stage: choose what is good and reasonable
- Religious Stage: choose what is beyond reason, even what seemingly
contradicts reason; leap into faith, into an abyss, into darkness in fear and
trembling.
Heidegger
- Human Freedom: self-transcendence in time
Man as Dasein (being there)
- Being-ahead-of-himself
- Right in the very present, he is already ahead of himself in the sense:
In the present, the possibilities of his future are already
contained
In the present, he realizes, determines, shapes his future by
the choices that he makes with regard to the possibilities at the
moment
The decision, choice he makes is made in view of the future.
In the present moment, he can free himself from the determination of
the past by embracing embracing/determining his future possibilities which
are contained in his present determination.
Sartre:
- Human freedom is absolute freedom
Mans essence is not something given before he exists, which he must
recognize, unfold and realize
But is something that he himself creates/defines by his own decision
and choices
All other things become an obstacle or a means in relation to the kind
of self I have determined, shaped by my choices.
Merleau-Ponty
- Man already finds himself in a situation in which:
he has not chosen
determined by others
- yet within the situation/facticity are the possibilities which I could realize by
my choice through which I could transcend, go beyond my present determination,
through which the present situation will no longer determine me as it is now.
Gabriel Marcel:
- Freedom is not just :
freedom from
and freedom to
- But more profoundly, it is FREEDOM FOR, FREEDOM WITH.
-
v.