Existentialism and the Concept of Man

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Existentialism and the Concept of Man

I'm reading Witold Gombrowicz's charming A Guide to Philosophy in Six Hours and Fifteen Minutes. He introduces Existentialism with some compact and worthwhile thoughts:

Existentialism is subjectivity.

Personally, I am quite subjective and it seems to me that this attitude corresponds to reality.

Subjective man
Concrete man

Not a concept of man, but Pierre or François, since the concept of man does not exist, says Kierkegaard. (61)

You're asking why this is interesting. For me, philosophy always goes back to the foundations. How do we know what a good question is? How do we identify an area of inquiry we can work with? Those foundations are especially obvious when someone first learns about the tradition, the field. You have to look for those who are serious, to be sure. Some turn to philosophy to be able to tell everyone else they're wrong. I've seen a few of these people turn into professors, but more often than not, they leave the discipline. Some turn to it because they have crank ideas about the world. I remember this one poor fellow who was insistent morality was impossible nowadays because of the resurgence of the Presocratics. (I have only the faintest clue of what he was talking about.) And some just want to know how philosophy operates. What is this thing, anyway?

So Gombrowicz declaring "Existentialism is subjectivity" is especially useful. You're a philosophy student wondering about terms like "objective" and "subjective." Someone says that "objectivity" is where truth must lie, outside ourselves. They use "subjectivity" as a synonym for "relativism;" with "relativism," supposedly, good and evil and basic morality are impossible. And now here's this curious statement, "Existentialism is subjectivity." If you read "subjectivity" as a mere rejection of morality, then this statement is worthless. But it clearly means more than that to Gombrowicz!

Gombrowicz pushes you to consider what "subjectivity" is. Does it make itself manifest in a person? An attitude? Can it be strictly defined? You might say "Existentialism is subjectivity" is not much of an answer: What does it mean to insist on the brute fact of existing? But you have heard a few things about Existentialism before. How it emphasizes the absurdity of human existence, how we've been thrown into the world and loneliness is not accidental. For Sartre, Existentialism is about freedom and responsibility; you have a responsibility to accept freedom and not be afraid of affirming it.

Moreover, Existentialism has political dimensions. I find myself returning to this passage by Simone de Beauvoir in The Ethics of Ambiguity, a defense of Existentialist thinking:

In spite of so many stubborn lies, at every moment, at every opportunity, the truth comes to light, the truth of life and death, of my solitude and my bond with the world, of my freedom and my servitude, of the insignificance and the sovereign importance of each man and all men. There was Stalingrad and there was Buchenwald, and neither of the two wipes out the other. Since we do not succeed in fleeing it, let us therefore try to look the truth in the face. Let us try to assume our fundamental ambiguity. It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our life that we must draw our strength to live and our reason for acting.

Here, de Beauvoir exclaims that despite the "stubborn lies" of her age, "the truth comes to light," and that truth inescapably links her "freedom and... servitude" to "the insignificance and sovereign importance of each man and all men." She goes further, invoking Stalingrad and Buchenwald. The depravity we can reach, a depravity that only contingency may stop, requires us "to look the truth in the face." I attended quite a few lectures which assumed Existentialism was nothing but immorality, an attack on traditional values. Does any of this sound unethical to you? If Existentialism is subjectivity, what responsibilities does subjectivity ask of us? What does it ask which so-called "objectivity" takes for granted?

Gombrowicz's remark about Existentialism lacking a concept of man is worthwhile, too:

Not a concept of man, but Pierre or François, since the concept of man does not exist, says Kierkegaard.

So much regarding introducing philosophical traditions depends on quick and sometimes unfortunate definitions of humankind. I like to say that for the classics, humans are the "rational animal." Aristotle could be summarized this way: we use reason to realize virtue in order to pursue happiness. You could also say that Enlightenment thinking treated us as selfish in order to emphasize our predictability. Maybe not all humans were rational, but reason can organize them fruitfully by taking advantage of their greed.

I like to say these things, but a good philosophy student wants to see beyond them. And a way to really probe what's at stake is to thoughtfully consider that there may not be a "concept of man." That if you're serious about the fact of human existence as absurd, as "thrown" into this wild, cruel universe, you don't try to create a system explaining exactly what our place in it is. What you want is something which affirms each individual and ends up, perhaps, more damning of those who commit to failure. If we're trying to tell you what you've done right, the moral failures, the carelessness, show themselves that much more.

Gombrowicz's remarks about Existentialism do the work of engendering good philosophical habits. They don't let you take words for granted, but rather ask you to find the relevant questions and concerns behind each one. One stunning thing about our brave new world of mass deportations and prison camps is how we're not going to let a word be spoken or considered. For example, "illegal" is a term with immediate applicability; we throw it at people without any regard for their actual status, let alone their humanity. Some have openly said that "physical appearance" is primary in determining who will be the subject of a violent crackdown. A genuine philosophical habit, not mere sophistry, refuses to accept this.

References

Gombrowicz, Witold. A Guide to Philosophy In Six Hours and Fifteen Minutes. Translated by Benjamin Ivry. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. 61.