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Just as there are many definition of philosophy, so there are as many philosophical
approaches to the study of man.
The Western definition of philosophy as the love(or search) of wisdom originated from
the Greeks. The pre-Socratics were primarily concerned with the basic stuff of the cosmos, with
that constituted the universe. The question on man could not be totally divorced from the
cosmological, since man was conceived as part of nature. The Socratic motto Know Thyself
was viewed not in the isolation from the quest for some order in the cosmos, for immutable
harmony and stability. Man was seen as a microcosm, and the search for the truth about man
was simultaneously the search for the truth about the universe. Truth was the immutable object of
theory, the episteme, and mans ideal was its contemplation. Ethics as a practical philosophy,
dealing with mans action, was synonymous with politics, the art of patterning ones behavior
with the common good centered around the polis, the city. Wisdom was the primary virtue, and
in the practical order wad identical with prudence, the habit of maintaining a delicate balance
with nature. Thus, the ancient philosophicalphilosophical because now they were concerned
not with a part of the cosmos but with the totalityapproach to the study of man was
cosmocentric.
The change of focus began with the philosophizing of Rene Descartes (1956-1650), the
father of modern philosophy. Descartes, impressed by the progress of the sciences and the
mathematics of his time, wanted to achieve the same advance in philosophy by starting on some
one certitude, and indubitable, that which cannot be doubted because if it can be doubted, then
all else are dubitable. And so, the Cartesian Meditations, as Descartes meditations are called,
consisted of a methodic Cartesian doubt. Everything was dubitable, for Descartes, even his own
body, all except for one factthe fact that he was doubting. He could not doubt that he was
doubting, being a mode of thinking, brought him to the realization Cogito, ergo sum (I think,
therefore I am). I am sure I exist as a thinking being. And from this certitude Descartes
proceeded to establish the certitude of their existents, including God, by a criterion borrowed
from mathematics: the clear and distinctness of the idea.
With the mergence of Descartess Cogit, philosophy became the anthropocentric. The
question of man was now on the foreground of other questionings on nature or on God. Reason
was now liberated from nature and faith, sufficient to inquire on its own truth. The modern
philosophers after Descartes pursued this quest with Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) finally
introducing a Copernican revolution in philosophy: rather than reason conforming to the object
or nature that must be subjected to the a priori conditions of the mind or the subject. With Kant,
philosophy became a search for the priori conditions of knowing (and doing), rather than for the
object itself for the object as such is unknownable.
In talking about the existentialists search for meaning, one is immediately faced with two
difficulties. First existentialism is not so much a philosophical system as a movement, an
attitude, a frame of mind. For one thing, the existentialist philosophers are very much against
systems. As a reaction against Hegel, they labor philosophical system and philosophize in an
systematic though not inconsistent manner. In this regard, it is more appropriate to talk of many
existentialist philosophies rather than a single existentialist philosophy. Secondly, the question
of what is the meaning of mans existence is for them more important than the answer, for they
do not agree on the answer. It is not that the existentialist thinkers do not have an ethics, a notion
of the highest good or value, but their ethics for the most part is intertwined with their ontologies
and philosophies of man. And so, the existentialist would rather invite us (not impose) to ask
similar question but seek the answer for ourselves.
In spite of the divergency of thought, the existentialist thinkers in general can be divided
into two camps, the theistic and the atheistic. Belonging to the theistic group are Soren
Kiergaard. Karl Jaspers, Gabriel Marcel and Martin Buber. In the atheistic group, the well
known existentialist are Jen-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus and Mausrice Merleau-Ponty. Martin
Heidegger refuses to be identified with any of the two camps for the simple reason that the
question of god, he claims, is beyond his phenomenological approach.
There have been denials and countyer denials by these thinkers of the label
existentialist assigned to them, but what merits the title of existentialist? if these thinkers
have different philosophies, what accounts for the title of existentialist philosophy?
We can cite five common features of existentialist thinkers, keeping in mind, however,
that each one has his own interpretation, his own unique way of handling the matter.
In their ontology, the existentialists do not deny the reality of the object but emphasize the
subjective. The object is that which ob-jects (gegestand) to the consciousness of man, and yet the
object is meaningless, senseless without man. To be subjective is not necessarily to be
subjectivistic; rather, it could be only the only way to be objective, to talk meaningfully of a
world. According to Heidegger the worldiness of the world is due to mans concern. Among
theistic existentialists, God is not an object but God-for-me, the God of my prayer, the Thou that
I as a person can address to.
From the above common features of existentialist philosophers, what then can we infer
with regards to their notion of value?
The question of value for the existentialist cannot be divorced from the more original
question of what does it mean to be? What is the meaning of life? Camus in his Myth of
Sisyphus says that the truly philosophical question is the question of suicide for in suicide one
poses the question of the meaning of life. Value then is intimately related to life (and to death as
the corollary of life), and if human life for the existentialist is to be lived freely, authentically,
responsibly, personally then, value is that for which a person lives and dies for. Value is that to
which the authentic man commits himself. Marcel says in his Mystery of Being that for existence
to be truly human it must have a center outside itself. For life to be human, it must answer the
question, what am I living for? Value is then that around which all my human activities revolve.
Is value for the existentialist subjective or objective? The answer is that both subjective
and objective. Value is subjective because value always presupposes a subject who values; value
is always value-for-me. Value is objective because there is truly something I can live and die for.
Value is intimately connected with truth, for I cannot live and die for what is false or for what I
think is untrue. And yet between the two poles of value, the existentialist would prefer to
emphasize the subjective side, holding on to it as Kieregaard would put it, with the passion of
the infinite.
But where do values come from? What is the source of value? Here is where atheistic
and theistic existentialists part ways. The atheistic existentialist like Sartre would assert that man
is the ultimate source of values; he is responsible for what he commits himself to. Values spring
from mans freedom to realize himself and no outside source can be attributed to them. Values
are not absolute. Man alone is responsible for his own being; he cannot depend on any absolute.
This assertion may be tantamount to a certain kind of individualism, and indeed existentialism is
pictured many times as a man on a solitary island surrounded by the lonely span of the waters of
the ocean. Nevertheless we find in the philosophy of Sartre a stress on the responsibility of the
person to mankind for his decision(I chose not only for myself but for the whole of humanity),
and in Camus, the spirit of rebellion.
The theistic existentialist, on the other hand, would admit of the relativity of values as
precisely pointing to an Absolute Value who grounds them. The subjective source of values is
human freedom, yes, but human freedom is limited and becomes fulfilled only when it
participates in Someone greater than itself. Mans commitment to a value is finite and needs to
be grounded in an absolute. Above and below are linked with each other (Buber). The objective
source of value is none other than God, the Absolute Thou who can give final and complete
fulfillment to my life.
What then is existentialists search for meaning? In spite of the divergency of thought
between theistic and atheistic existentialists, we can infer that it is ultimately a search within.
Man the subject is the giver or discover of meaning. But the search within is a search that
erupts, extends to the outside, to the other than the self. How far this will extend depends on
how deep man can reach into the recesses of the subjectivity. Dag Hammarskjold once wrote a
diary, The longest journey is the journey inwards. The search is a life-time task andtime is the
essence of this meaning, for as Merleau-Ponty quoting the poet Claudel says,
Just as man cannot evade time, so he cannot escape from this search for meaning, for
upon this hinges the integrity and wholeness of his humanity.