Spencer P.

Reyes
M.A Philosophy Program
spreyes.rock47@gmail.com
Contemporary Problems in Ethics

The article entitled, Existentialism Here and Now, is written by Alfie Kohn. Alfie Kohn wrote this

article for the purpose of knowing the movements of current status. In the recent existentialist philosopher,

Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and the rest of the many that were very much alive in the 20 th century onwards,

they are earning knowledge to present the art of life and the credibility of the ability of man without

imitating anyone. The author would like to give emphasis on the what the man can be. A man could be

somebody in the notion of becoming an idealist. A man is someone greater above all the creatures and the

foreman of God. A man can be the somebody that could change everything in the world we live in. For Mr.

Kohn, he introduces how powerful the man can be. All contemporary philosophers are truly said that every

individual has a gift of uniqueness. Thus, every individual has a different point of view in life, and every

individual has a different choice on the things they deserve to have.

The author enjoins Albert Camus in his article because he believes that Camus has something to

say on how the world runs in its state progressively. The thought of Camus might be one of the bases on

our generation today on its daily progression too. In his article, it says, “Camus spoke of a dialectical

tension between, on the one hand, human beings, desperate for a sense of coherence to their lives,

who cry out to the heavens for answers, and, on the other hand, the stubborn silence that greets

such pleas. This may serve as a somewhat strained metaphor for the quest to understand

existentialism itself. A taste for neatly packaged definitions. . . and the maddening ambiguity of

the subject in question: here, too, are ingredients for the absurd — or at least for a generous

measure of misunderstanding.” On this pace, Albert Camus clearly emphasized that human being

as alone. Many people pray in the heavens to hope for something else which impossible to happen.

Albert Camus wanted to say that our life is totally no direction if our life never encounters misery.
The reality of life is absurd and its absurdity will help us to identify that life is purely difficult

which contradicts to the idea that life is beautiful that says by our mind.

The simple confusion of every individual is on how they understand themselves. Many

were born in the contemporary era but never understood the meaning of oneself. Just like Maurice

Friedman, he said, “Give me a one-sentence definition of existentialism.” This statement is often

more a ritual defense against the insecurity aroused by not being au courant than a genuine desire

for knowledge…The very notion that existentialism is something that can be defined in a catch

phrase, or that one can merely know about it without understanding it from within, has made it,

for some people, into an intellectual fad and robbed it of its proper seriousness. Mr. Maurice would

like to have a clearer vision on the idea of existentialism because no one knows it. Everyone may

have a blurry meaning but it is clear that there is a meaning without understanding from within.

Moreover, the other says, “There is no sign that [existential psychology] will become a frothy

success like Freudian analysis or hula hoops…[because] any understanding of it requires the most

rigorous intellectual exercise.” A book on the subject likely to sell today would have to be entitled

The One-Minute Existentialist. Indeed, I was reminded of Rabbi Hillel, asked for the meaning of

life while standing on one foot, when a middle-aged student of mine conceded recently that she

wanted to learn about philosophy so long as she did not have to read too much.”

In the midst of the existentialism, they don’t like to give definition on the word

“Existentialism.” It is because the doer will have its own mission to look for it in his/her own way.

On the latter it says, “Existentialism is difficult to define primarily because its essence, so to speak,

is to oppose the kind of analytic reduction that definition entails. It is not a system of philosophy

to be learned or subscribed to (I am always at a loss to answer the question “Are you an

existentialist?”); it is not properly an “ism” at all, at least in the sense that Catholicism or
Communism is. Perhaps the best one can do is define the term ostensively: (This is admittedly

unsatisfying, though, since we need a set of criteria to justify putting Sartre and Kierkegaard on

the list and keeping others off.) What analytic philosophers call ostensive definition, a method,

here becomes a clue to content; it recalls the watchword of phenomenology: “Zu den Sachen

selbst!” — “To the things themselves!” Thus, it emphasizes here that the meaning of existentialism

is discoverable on how the individual person perceive it. The author of this article is helping us by

saying, “For the existentialist, the fact of existing becomes not simply declarative but exclamatory

(“Imagine! I am!”) and then interrogatory (“…and what am I to make of that?”) “Man becomes a

question to himself,” and the question begets more questions, all of which concern the issues

inherent to being human. The issues of interest do not concern my being a male or an Ohioan, a

laborer or a Protestant or a neurotic; the focus instead is on those problems common to every

human being by virtue of that status: What does it mean to choose? What shall serve as meaning

for me? What am I to make of my fellows? And, in Ionesco’s haunting words, “Why was I born if

it wasn’t forever?” Because of this, giving meaning is not necessary because meaning ca be known

in a certain period of time. In having a meaning, it is not just one but many.

This is to say that existentialists don’t like to put meaning because in giving different

meanings, many will arrive at the certain misconceptions. It is because meaning may derive

depending on the belief of every individual. It may be going like this, existentialism as,

respectively, atheistic, pessimistic, abstract, here-and-now oriented, irrational, and individualistic.

In every pace, anti-religious philosopher has something to say with regards to individuality, on the

other hand, pro-religious philosopher may arrive at a certain meaning that individuality is

depending on the morals of Catholicism. Most of the philosophical articles about existentialism

still appear in religious journals like Encounter, Thought, and Cross Currents. Christians, and
particularly Catholics, have resonated to the existential canon far more than atheists. It should be

noted, though, that the problematics of human existence cannot be neatly resolved for a theistic

existentialist; this is what distinguishes him from many other theists. They believe that the meaning

of their life is in God. For Kierkegaard or Marcel or Buber (to choose one representative from each

of the major Western faiths), there is no untroubled salvation for the faithful. Truly, even a life

with God — or searching for God — is a life struggling to conquer absurdity.

The author is saying that “even to talk about subjects like death — never mind what one

has to say — is viewed in this country as morbid and unseemly. Existentialism is a philosophy of

balance: To exist is literally marvelous and not to be taken for granted, but that existence is shot

through with finitude; our freedom to define ourselves is exhilarating but also a terrible burden;

that God is dead — an historical statement, not a theological one – allows us to “belong to a higher

history than any history hitherto,” but suggests utter abandonment, a loneliness of dreadful

proportions. On the other hand, when Sartre writes that “life begins on the far side of despair,” he

is not only pointing to the self-deception involved in denying the dark underside of existence but

also emphasizing that life can begin.” Life must be in balance.

The article of Alfie Kohn is not presenting a meaning of Existentialism but rather a descriptive

Existentialism. Philosophy is not form with full of meaning but an art. The author has tackled something

which says, “The description of existentialism as concerned exclusively with “here-and-now”

reality offers a truncated and thus misinformed perception of the movement. The human as he or

she experiences the world is central, but this is not at all an experience locked in the present

moment. Kierkegaard brilliantly described such temporal isolation in his discussion of the

“aesthetic mode,” but he did not mean to endorse this any more than Camus’s stranger reflected

the latter’s idea of authenticity. Human life is a tension between history and possibility, which is

to say, between past and future. Thus, the present can be understood as the intersection of previous
choices (now congealed into a self) and the process of projecting ourselves forward at each

moment — anticipating, dreading, planning. Existentialists, like Eliot, understand that “If all time

is eternally present/All time is unredeemable.” Existentially oriented psychologists have even used

the idea of temporal imbalance as a conceptual tool for understanding personality disturbance.

Misunderstanding of existentialism’s view of the present probably issues from the dramatic

depictions in its literature of being caught in the present and also from the disproportionate

emphasis on here-and-now experience in some quarters of humanistic psychology.” Moreover, the

cycle of life does not depend on any matters apart from the self but rather cycle of life is being

experienced. That is, the cycle of life is not apart from every individual but rather it is in the

individual.

Existentialism in line with philosophy is a descriptive philosophy. It looks to the thing in

themselves. It is in contrast to the thought of giving meaning to everything. Existentialism is in

life struggle, it is on the life’s point of view. It is called a descriptive one because its meaning

defines to everyone’s experiences. Therefore, the experience of each other may be its core of being

unique.