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Existentialism Of Jean Paul Sartre
CHAPTER ONE -- [Total Page(s) 4]
Page 3 of 4
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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.â€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.â€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.â€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.â€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.â€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.
CHAPTER ONE -- [Total Page(s) 4]
Page 3 of 4
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