Philosophy on the 86th Floor
Decades ago, someone jumped from the observation deck on the 86th floor of the Empire State Building, only to be blown by a gust of wind to a lower ledge from which she was saved. Glowing endorsements of the philosophy of existentialism and authenticity bring to mind that vertiginous observation deck: Surely, if existentialism entails radical human freedom, construed as the power to make a choice, any choice; then how could any truly authentic existentialist repeatedly visit that deck and yet never decide to jump from it? One is left to speculate whether any existentialists have ever visited that deck, and if so, whether favorable winds have saved some of them from true authenticity.
The present writer thought again of that 86th floor while reading a favorable account of existentialism in the book review “Choose Your Own Adventure” by Professor John Kaag in the May 11, 2018 Wall Street Journal. The reviewed book is entitled “The Existentialist’s Survival Guide,” by Professor Gordon Marino, who “has produced an honest and moving book of self-help for readers generally disposed to loathe the genre.” Marino paraphrases Camus in writing that many people “have committed intellectual hari-kari … [in part by] mentally constructing an apparatus like faith in God” to order their lives. Kaag writes that “it’s not that Mr. Marino disparages faith … [but] contends that faith never gives the certainty many religious seekers crave.” However, if the charge of “intellectual hari-kari” does not count as a disparagement of faith, then it is hard to see what would so count. Moreover, great numbers of Christians understand faith as the assurance of things hoped for and not as an expression of post-Cartesian certainty. One might wish to consider alternatives to existentialism.
Such an alternative is found in essentialism, whose paradigm, Platonic philosophy, considers that Ideas are essences and that essence is ontologically prior to existence. Plato’s Demiurge looks to Ideas when setting about to fashion pieces of creation, thereby adding to the stock of existent things. To the extent that Western philosophy is a series of footnotes to Plato, essentialism has been the long-term winner in the debate with existentialism, which holds the opposing view that existence is prior to essence. How can one explain the post World War II fascination with the priority of existence?
One might view existentialism as arising from an objectionable definition of human freedom as the power to make a choice, any choice. It would seem that this freedom is more reasonably construed as the power to do what one ought, leaving open the question of what theoretical apparatus best controls the discussion of what one ought to do. The impression arises that, to the extent that an existentialist cannot find a moral theory affording desired results, he or she finds it expedient to excise the moral theory intervening between freedom and action and to adopt the definition of freedom based on “choice, any choice.”
Is there a theoretical preference for the priority of essence or existence? For Hegel, natural consciousness contains movements of thought that proceed by (what others termed) “thesis-antithesis-synthesis,” which is a teleological process whose final cause is the ultimate, or essential, state of Absolute Knowing. In the Aristotelian tradition, a final cause is first in specification (essence) and last in generation (existence). Thus, Hegel’s system is essentialist and, eo ipso, objectionable to the existentialist, Sartre.
For Sartre, being in itself (massive, mysterious, and lacking freedom) undergoes a type of ontological fission, or “self-splitting,” from which arise the existence of consciousness and a world of finite beings. Human freedom lies in the structure of human consciousness and is not a property of any human essence, which must be constructed piecemeal from human actions. But on Sartre’s theory, what is the first existent thing? It would seem to be a reality capable of creating its own essence. But this reality might be supposed to have other characteristics as well and to constitute the human essence, in which case existence and essence would be co-primeval. Moreover, as an empirical matter, human freedom seems to be limited by sociological, psychological, and moral factors; hence, “what a person becomes” is likewise limited. On balance, the present writer finds that essentialism is more compelling than existentialism.
One concludes from these considerations that erstwhile existentialists may be permitted to take the elevator down from the 86th floor.