BEACON UNIVERSITY
AN INTRODUCTION TO SØREN KIERKEGAARD AND EXISTENTIALTIC REALISM
SUBMITTED TO
DR. IAN A. H. BOND
INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY PHI 301
BY
TYRONE STEELE
HOLIDAY, FLORIDA
JULY 25, 2006
EXISTENTIALTIC REALISM
Søren A. Kierkegaard, born 1813, was a Danish philosopher and pastor is regarded as the first existentialist. He authored many works of philosophy around the middle of the nineteenth century.[1] Existentialism is neither inflexibly theistic nor atheistic in nature, but is susceptible to either use. While the “father of existentialism,” Kierkegaard, used it theistically, others like Nietzsche used it atheistically. It was further modified by Jean-Paul Sartre who defined his doctrine as, “an attempt to draw out all the logical conclusions from a consistent atheism.”[2] He insisted that there were no absolutes or absolute moral values. This brand of philosophy is called Special Existentialism. From his philosophy came Camus’ Absurdity (“the clash between human hopes and desires and the meaningless universe into which man has been thrown.”[3]) and the more modern philosophy of Relativism.
There are two categories of Existentialism: Religious and Atheistic. Karl Jaspers, a German Religious Existentialist, Jaspers explains the concept of freedom as being a wholly subjective experience that cannot be defined objectively or scientifically, which drifts back to the pure Platonic version of subjectivity of the “self.” Meaning the self is
the first and only thing we really ever know. Therefore, no one other than the self could define freedom, and only for the self. Jaspers uses this concept of freedom to advocate discovering God from within, since subjectively is the only way we know Him, and freedom is the gift of Freewill from Him.
Where Realism states that all things are dependent upon being experienced in order to become real or realized and where General Existentialism is a belief that “Existence precedes and determines essence with no absolute knowledge,”[4] Existentialistic Realism places emphasis on existence and reality in an Aristotelian arrangement. Objects are independent of individualistic sensory experience, though experience is subjective.
Kierkegaard was at odds with the philosophical trend of Hegel during his time in the early twentieth century, which was that truth is found in the absolute objectivity. Søren found it in the subjectivity.
One of the tenants of Existentialistic Realism is that when the subjectivity of the self (or mind) encounters the pure objectivity of all other external presence (reality), the phenomenon we call “consciousness” occurs. However, this is ironically a subjective leap of logic. It cannot be verified objectively. Consciousness would be better described as “awareness” in this sense rather than a “bipolar relationship”[5] between the self and reality as this philosophy holds. After all, it is the human mind that transcends the objective world and consciousness itself, and that objectifies the world. It is man’s dual awareness of objectivity and subjectivity that could be described as consciousness, not the other way around.
Another tenant of Existentialistic Realism places truth in a purely subjective light rather than in an objective one. It states that each person is “epistemologically responsible for the world s/he creates,” and that “choosing is creating.”[6]
Professor Cottle describes “freewill” as being opposed to psychological compulsion, and the “possibility to choose one’s goals and to fulfill them once they are chosen.”[7] Since freedom is dependent on thought, and therefore upon intellect, it can be enhanced or degraded depending on external input. Therefore, the more input we receive the freer we become as our awareness of the objective world grows. Professor Cottle laconically summarizes the definition of awareness in the following way, “Conflict between values and facts produces choice, and choice brings life.” This is the fundamental basis of existence, and the groundwork of Existentialistic Realism.