JAMES COLLINS o GATEWAY EDITKlN '-"S THE Existentialists A Critical Study BY JAMES COLLINS Professor of Philosophy at St. Louis University A GATEWAY EDITION HENRY REGNERY COMPANY-CHICAGO Copyright 1952 HENRY REGNERY COMPANY Chicago 4, Illinois Fourth Gateway Printing, 1963 IVlanufactured in the United States of America. This Gateway Edition is dedicated to my sister Elinor Collins Contents PREFACE xi I EXISTENTIAL BACKGROUNDS: KIERKE- GAARD, NIETZSCHE, HUSSERL 1 1. S¢ren Kierkegaard 3 a. The Individual versus the Crowd h. The Existent versus the Speculative System c. The Illumination of Existence by Christian Faith 2. Friedrich Nietzsche 17 a. New Morals for Old h. New Gods for Old 3· Edmund Husserl 27 a. Philosophy as a Rigorous Science h. Radical Transcendental Idealism II SARTRE'S POSTULATORY ATHEISM 40 1- Phenomenology, Ontology, and Meta- physics 42 2. The Myth of Being In-Itself 48 a. Phenomenal Realism h. Description of the In-Itself 3· Consciousness, the Power of Negativity 60 4. The Will to Atheism 69 5. Human Freedom 77 III JASPERS' QUEST OF TRANSCENDENCE 88 l. The Present Situation 90 2. Becoming Aware of Existence 98 3· Transcendence and the Transcendent 110 4· Religious and Philosophical Faith 123 IV MARCEL'S CONCRETE PHILOSOPHY OF 128 P ARTICIP A TION l. Restoring the Ontological Weight 133 2. Mystery and Problem 146 3· Being and Having 155 4· Creative Fidelity 160 V HEIDEGGER'S RECALL OF MAN TO BEING 168 H eidegger and His Critics 168 l. 2. The Destruction of the History of Ontology 176 3· God's Absence and Man's Home- coming 185 4· Man, the Horizon of Being 195 5· Being and God 204 VI FIVE EXISTENTIAL THEMES 211 l. The Vellture of Philosophizing 212 2. Descriptive Metaphysics 220 3· Man in the \Vo rld 226 4· Man and Fellow Man 235 5· Man and God 244 NOTES 253 BIBLIOGRAPHY 279 INDEX 295 Acknowledgments Personal permission to quote from their books is very kindly given me by Professors Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers. I am also grateful to the following publishers for permission to make quotations from their books: The Beacon Press (Marcel's Being and Having); A. Francke Ag. (Heidegger's Platons Lehre von der Wahrheit); Librairie Gallimard ( Marcel's Du Refus a l'invocation and Sartre's L'Etre et Ie neant); Walter De Gruyter & Co. (Jaspers' Descartes und die Phi losophie and Existenzphilosophie) ; Harper and Brothers (Wilder's The Ides of March); Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. (Sartre's No Exit and The Flies); Max Niemeyer Verlag (Heidegger's Sein und Zeit) ; Philo sophical Library (Jaspers' The Perennial Scope of Philosophy and Sarb"e's Existentialism); R. Piper & Co. Verlag (Jaspers' Von der Wahrheit); Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies (Gilson's Being and Some Philosophers); Springer-Verlag (Jaspers' Phi losophie). Pl'eface My own acquaintance with the existentialists came about indirectly, as an extension of studies in Kier kegaard and phenomenology. It js always an inter esting and profitable question in the history of phi losophy to inquire about the consequences of given doctrines. Although the results of Kierkegaard and Husser! lead in many divergent directions, there is one point of convergence in existentialism. This doc trine is an aftermath of the joint impact of these two thinkers (along with Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche) upon Western thought. It was from this perspective that I began to examine the writings of the leading existentialists. From a study of the sources, existentialism is seen to be a challenging and instructive philosophy. It embodies a legitimate continuation of several im pOl'tant European traditions and addresses itself to vital problems of the greatest contemporary moment for both philosophy and life. Yet it is still slow work to establish some effective lines of communication and discussion between this movement and the pre vailing philosophies in America and Britain. A first glance seems to reveal no common ground between existentialism and positions which are predominantly analytic, scientifically molded, and imbued with some form of naturalism. However, a patient com parative study shows that at least there is a common aim of examining and interpreting man's condition in the world and the possibilities open to human freedom. xii PREFACE For their part, the existentialists have had a good deal to say about the movements fashionable today in English-speaking countries. They are quite aware of what is passing for sound philosophical currency in other circles and have given these tendencies con siderable attention, usually of a highly critical sort. But to disagree intelligently with logical empiricism, analytic philosophy, and naturalism is not the same as to dismiss them unheard or to be blissfully ig norant of their main contentions. Common courtesy, if not prudent openmindedness, recommends that we give the existentialists, in tum, a fair hearing. It is at this point that even the well-disposed reader is apt to get discouraged, because of the vast ocean of existentialist literature. One cannot reason ably be expected to devote a lifetime to the study of this philosophy, and yet the heap of books would seem to demand just that. In this predicament, most people sensibly tum to some introductory work that can serve as a guide to existentialism, its major ex ponents, and its' underlying theses. Unf0rtunately, consultation of popular guides must be listed as one of the deterrent causes preventing an intelligent ap preciation of existentialism among English-speaking readers. There are some excellent accounts, but there is also an unconscionably large number of super ficial and even inaccurate surveys. This is the price inevitably paid for achieving a certain amount of fame and literary success. The present book does not pretend to open up an easy path to understanding existentialism, nor is it an exhaustive analysis; there are several different ways of approaching this matter, all of them re warding. But the procedure followed here does at tempt to mcet certain needs that are not satisfied elsewhere. For one thing, it avoids a premature scttlement about the meaning of existentialism. Too often, an arbitrary abstraction or a wholly one-sided definition is set up as the pattern by which to judge PREFACE xiii the entire movement. Yet nothing is clearer, from even a preliminary acquaintance with these think ers, than that they admit the most radical differ ences of opinion among themselves. Consequently, I have thought it better to proceed at first upon a merely nominal definition and to postpone until the final chapter any extended attempt to draw general conclusions about the significance of existentialism as a whole. The picture that does emerge is drawn more in terms of methods and problems than of a common fund of doctrinal content. This gives suffi cient latitude to domestic quarrels as well as to tenets they undoubtedly share. In a word, emphasis has been placed upon the existentialists rather than upon existentialism. The latter conception is formulated only gradually and inductively, to the extent that the individual think ers do exhibit some shared traits. But first of all, sufficient opportunity is given to each existentialist to present his own distinctive views. The four repre sentatives chosen here-Sartre, Jaspers, Marcel, and Heidegger-are acknowledged to be the most orig inal and comprehensive minds in this group. This is not to deny, of course, the valuable work done by less well-known existentialists, especially in France and Italy. But it is upon the shoulders of these four men that the main burden of existential inquiry squarely lies. I have not followed the conventional division into French and German schools. Interpreters of exis tentialism often confine their main attention to, say, Sartre and Marcel, and then make a hurried com parison with Heidcgger and Jaspers. Or the latter pair is taken as prototypal, thus forcing Sartre and Marcel to conform with a preconceived formula. It has seemed much more natural and in accord with the actual content of their thought to make another arrangement that cuts entirely across national lines. I have treated Sartre and Jaspers first, sinoe they