Existentialism

Category of Being: The Being of the World and the Being of Man

Existentialism rejects the traditional understanding of philosophy as metaphysics. According to Heidegger, philosophy is neither a science, as metaphysics from Plato and Aristotle to Nietzsche believed, nor is it merely a worldview. Philosophy resembles art and religion more than anything else, but it cannot be defined through them; it can only be defined through itself, as a self-sufficient and ultimate discipline. "Philosophy is the act of philosophizing." It engages with fundamental concepts that cannot be scientifically defined, striving for absolute generality and seeking to comprehend the world as a whole, even though what "the world as a whole" means remains in question. Every individual philosophizes, as philosophy prompts one to question oneself, and only through it can one find an answer to the problem of being. Yet, individuals philosophize only when they are in a "fundamental mood," which Heidegger describes as nostalgia. In this state, a person immerses themselves in the world, merging with it, leading to an awareness of their finitude.

Camus expresses a similar understanding of philosophy, stating, "There is only one truly serious philosophical problem—suicide. To determine whether life is worth living is to answer the fundamental question of philosophy. Everything else—whether the world has three dimensions or whether the mind operates according to nine or twelve categories—is secondary." What compels us to confront this question, driving us to philosophize? Boredom, melancholy, answers Camus. It confronts us with the absurdity of our existence. Life unfolds as a cycle: waking, breakfast, commuting, four hours of work, lunch, four more hours of work, dinner, sleep; day after day. At a certain moment, the question "why?" arises. We are overwhelmed by boredom, melancholy. "Why?" if life ultimately leads to death. Camus notes, "The lineage of the absurd world stems from destitute origins." However, in his further reflections, social status plays little role. Wealth may diversify life, but it does not rescue one from boredom and melancholy, nor does it eliminate the world's absurdity.

This mood places the individual before the problem of being. The category of being is central to philosophy, according to existentialism. Parmenides, by introducing the category of being—though his assertion that "what is, is being" remains inadequately explored—has defined the development of European thought to this day, ensuring the planetary dominance of the European mode of thinking. Heidegger refers to the ancient Greek conception of being as a search for the hidden essence, which precipitated the emergence of science in general and modern European science in particular. Yet, there exists a vast distinction between ancient Greek science and modern European science; they may even be said to be oppositional, as Greek philosophy seeks the universal and shuns the particular, while modern science is primarily concerned with the specific, the empirical. However, existentialists argue that the ancient Greek understanding of being, as well as its interpretations throughout subsequent metaphysics, is flawed. They contend that being is often conceived as the essence that lies beyond sensory perception, transcendent in nature. Whether it be Democritus's atoms, Plato's ideas, the Medieval God, Leibniz's monads, or Berkeley's perceptions—all these represent entities referred to as being. Even when Nietzsche replaces this rationally abstract, transcendent view with the will to power as a manifestation of the sensibly concrete, Heidegger asserts he remains within the confines of metaphysics, as he, too, perceives being as an entity, as the will to power. Yet, being as an entity does not exist. "Being" is neither God nor the foundation of the world. Being is broader than all entities, yet it remains closer to humanity than any entity, be it rock, beast, work of art, machine, angel, or God. Any entity presupposes concrete being; thus, one cannot arrive at being from entities, but can only arrive at another entity, which is always also concrete and particular. Consequently, within classical philosophy, the problem of being cannot be resolved, even though classical philosophy has posed it.

The problem of being can only be understood and resolved through the lens of human existence. Humanity is the only being capable of posing the problem of being. Consciousness is intrinsic to humanity, and it is not merely one of many attributes or qualities possessed by humans alongside others. Consciousness represents a fundamentally distinct property compared to all other attributes inherent in humans and other entities in the world, placing humanity in a unique position. "Consciousness is being for which, in its being, the question of its being stands," Sartre writes, "since this being presupposes another being, distinct from itself." Through consciousness, humanity emerges as the being that raises questions about being, aware of its own existence. Sartre characterizes the being of consciousness as "being-for-itself," while the being of worldly entities is referred to as "being-in-itself." "In-itself-being" is characterized by absolute identity, density, and passivity, whereas "being-for-itself" embodies negation and variability. In the being of things, essence precedes existence, while in human being, existence precedes essence. Everything in the world is what it is from the moment of its emergence; only humanity, in its existence, is never complete. This idea is not new in philosophy. During the Renaissance, Pico della Mirandola, in championing human free will, asserted that upon creating humanity, God did not designate a fixed place for it, allowing humans to shape their own destinies, to ascend to angelhood or descend to bestiality. Yet neither Mirandola nor even Descartes, who placed humanity at the center of his philosophy with "Cogito, ergo sum," transcended metaphysics in their examination of humanity.

According to Heidegger, metaphysics, in its understanding of human nature, views it as an entity among other entities, failing to distinguish it from other forms of being, regarding it as a unique thing endowed with its own capacities. Even Sartre, in "Being and Nothingness," remains within the bounds of metaphysics, as he examines both essence and existence in traditional terms. Existence (from late Latin "ex(s)istentia" - existence) is not simple existence, as medieval philosophy understands it in contrast to essence, but human existence, the mode of being of humanity. "Existence can only be attributed to the human being," Heidegger writes, "that is, only to the human mode of 'being,' for only humanity can grasp the destiny of existence. Thus, in existence, one cannot conceive of a specific kind among other kinds of living beings..." The misunderstanding of this uniqueness of human being by metaphysics leads to the conclusion that, having posed the problem of being, metaphysics is altogether ignorant of being itself. It knows only entities and understands being as entities as a whole, in its most general characteristics, in its highest manifestations. This principle of approaching being is inherited by both ancient and modern science, although, in principle, modern science does not address the question of being; at best, it concerns itself with entities as the ultimate foundation, whether they be atoms, elementary particles, energy, and so forth.

Humanity knows of being because it exists, and in this state, it encounters Nothingness. In his essay "What is Metaphysics?" Heidegger reveals the process of discovering being as the process of uncovering Nothingness. Confronted with Nothingness, we come to understand being as the unity of the entities, the entities as such, for only before Nothingness does the unity of entities present itself to us as being, as the antithesis of Nothingness. However, this manifestation of Nothingness, this revelation of being, is not the result of analysis. "Being is by no means a definition of thought." The discovery of Nothingness, and thus of being, is the result of an ecstatic state, the product of nostalgia, profound melancholy, and the "fundamental mood of dread." This is why existentialism is regarded as one of the principal irrationalist currents in Western philosophy of the twentieth century, as it holds that being, the entity as such, is inaccessible to reason. It is accessible only through direct perception, intuition. Only in states or moods of melancholy, dread, and nostalgia does one perceive the entity in its entirety, realizing that one is included within the entity and aware of this because, in such a state, one stands before Nothingness, confronting one’s finitude, the direction of one’s being toward death. Yet it must be noted that the boredom and dread in which Nothingness—and therefore being—are revealed to us are not the boredom of a dull, uninteresting book or presentation, nor is the dread of a coward before imagined or real danger; rather, they are metaphysical boredom and metaphysical dread that encompass us entirely, placing our being in question before Nothingness, unveiling to us the truth of being and Nothingness.