WHAT IS EXISTENTIALISM?

THE QUEST
In all of its aspects, whether humble or great, the existence of man is the quest for being. The common desire for pleasure and comfort and the religious effort to reach God (to contrast opposing attitudes), like all the other attitudes of concrete humanity, are equally the quest for a state, that is, of a condition or a mode of being in which the realization of demands or needs thought basic is guaranteed. Man seeks, in each case, a satisfaction, a completion, a stability that he lacks. He seeks being. This condition characterizes his finitude. If he seeks being, he himself is not being nor does he possess it. To be aware of this finitude, to scrutinize its nature deeply, is the fundamental task of existentialism. But this inventory or scrutiny refers not only to making it an object of speculation, but in taking stock of it and making decisions accordingly. Herein one can clearly see the new perspective of existentialism. It demands from man a commitment to his own finitude. It demands that in the quest for being which constitutes the substances of every one his ordinary or extraordinary attitudes, he should neither forget nor fail to recognize this very substance; that he neither forget nor fail to recognize, moreover, that such a quest has a meaning or foundation only in virtue of his constitutive limitation - only in virtue of his insufficiency and instability; and that every step, therefore, in this quest merely pushes him further into the finitude of his nature. This demand, while closing off certain prospects to him, at once opens others which are much more effective. It shuts out the prospect of an ultimate fulfillment, of a definitive and inalienable possession, of a too credulous and inert expectation; it opens up, however, a prospect of struggle, of self-realization and of conquest. And in such a prospect things change. Man does not have to hurl himself upon being with the claim of grasping it and of being able, at any time, to dominate it completely; he should not nourish the illusion of transforming himself into and identifying himself with it - an illusion that prepares for his inevitable fall into bewilderment and despair. He should, instead, rally his capacity for the quest and for the conquest, recognize and accept his limits, and work profoundly within these limits while rejecting any kind of dissipation. This commitment is, at the same time, the recognition of the ultimate nature of man and of his metaphysical self-definition in terms of finitude: man is the basic transcendental possibility of the quest for being.

THE COMMITMENT TO FINITUDE
This is clearly the second fundamental theme of existentialism. To philosophize is not the privilege of philosophers. It is man's commitment to his own finite situation and toward the limits that condition him and goad him on. This commitment can be realized in belief as well as in action, in speculation as well as in art. It excludes no task, no human condition. It excludes only its opposite - non-commitment - nonrecognition of finitude. But this already designates a sure path for existence, proposing the norm of its authentic structure. It excludes distraction, dissipation; it excludes everything that severs man's existential bond with himself and with other men; for it demands a mustering of one's own powers and a working solidarity with others. Finitude as the substance of existence becomes the norm of existence. And this norm which brings man to realize himself as finite, leads him, at the same time, continually beyond himself, for it consolidates him in his capacity for the quest, in the possibility of his relationship with being.

Thus, that which at first glance seems to be the weakness of man - the impotence of his finite nature - becomes, actually, a strength and a power. Recognition, acceptance, and choice work this transformation. But this transformation is, in reality, a foundation. Man grasps his finite nature at the roots because he has decided to choose it. The deliberate choice designates man's commitment to his mission - his resolution to be profoundly and exclusively himself. But this self is not given to man before the choice and the decision which constitute it. The quest for being is the quest of one's own being, of one's very self, of the I - the fundamental unity of man's being. But man does not enjoy this unity as a privilege which be cannot lose; he must realize it by withdrawing from the flotsam and jetsam of inadequate attitudes and by rallying himself to the unity of a single task. The self is not a psychological or anthropological datum nor is it an observable objective fact; it is the fundamental requirement toward which man moves in his quest for being and the goal which he tries to structure and establish in his relationship with being.

The self is therefore transcendent. Man does not find it as long as he remains immersed and scattered in finitude, that is, in the heterogeneous multiplicity of his insignificant attitudes. He finds it only when be takes the finitude upon himself, and channels the multiplicity into the unity of a task. Yet, even when he has found it, he can still lose it, for his decision is not a single act but a continuous process in which the risk of dissipation and loss is always present.

TRANSCENDENCE
The third fundamental theme of existentialism is transcendence. The elimination of every datum, the resolution of all being in its problematic nature suggests, in all its enormous importance, the movement of transcendence. Thus, as the self is continuously transcendent for man, inasmuch as he must constantly relate to it in order to realize it, so the being of the world is transcendent. To realize one's self means to attach oneself to one's own task, and this means to bring the world out of the dislocation of meaning - less events and to recognize it in the seriousness and consistency of its order, in which each thing is a means or an obstacle for the realization of the self. The world does look like a totality of meaningless events, a kaleidoscopic spectacle deprived of consistency and gravity to the man who has not chosen his task - to the man who has not found himself. But to the man who is deeply committed to self-realization, the world appears as an integrated unity which must furnish the, indispensable instruments of realization but which can also constitute an insurmountable obstacle and the possibility of a stalemate (lo scacco). The acceptance of the world in the being which is proper to it, in its order clearly understood, is the indispensable condition for self-realization and is, therefore, essentially connected to this realization. The world, then, is not just a fact or a set of facts. Its authentic being is established only as a pole of existential transcendence.

COEXISTENCE
But the ultimate meaning of transcendence is revealed solely in coexistence, which is the fourth fundamental theme of existentialism. It would seem that the man who lives passionately in his task and in the drive toward self-realization is placing himself in splendid isolation. Actually man's bond with other men is essential for existence and reveals itself in its fundamental aspects: birth and death. Birth and death are not facts; they are not, as is commonly held, the constraining limits of human existence or of life in general. They are possibilities that man agrees to recognize and accept or to ignore and reject. To recognize that one is born means to recognize that one's existence is not the whole of existence, that it is bound, from its very beginning, to the existence of others; to recognize that one is born means, therefore, the recognition of the community with which one coexists and from which one originates. To take account of the basic fact (to which all pay lip service but which all do not understand in its existential significance) that one is born means to take account of the essential nature of the bonds that tie man to the community and of the concrete and individual character of his existence; this means the recognition of the dignity and importance of others in regard to one's own existence. Existence is not self-sufficient. At the very beginning an act of transcendence toward existence must be posited. The transcendence toward existence is coexistence. Man is born from man. This typically expresses the necessity of coexistence for existence - the insufficiency of existence by itself and the necessity of its rediscovery in coexistence. From this recognition springs the existential possibility of human solidarity which is at the basis of the historical communities and of the properly human aspects of existence: love and friendship. The existential relationship is revealed as a bond of solidarity that supports man in his weakness and insufficiency and obligates him to render to others that which has been given to him. The individual's existence is recognized as so bound up with another's existence that it is unable to be without it. Love is the typical form of the acknowledgement of the other as another self. It supposes the evident transparency of one to the other - a transparency through which the one is for another precisely what he is for himself. Friendship, in turn, multiplies the possibilities of accord and encounter between man and man, and as Aristotle saw, it is constituted by a fundamental community of interests and purposes.

All the forms of coexistence are founded on the finite nature of man as the possibility of relationship with being. Man cannot seek or confront being without coexisting. Man cannot discover himself and establish himself as a person, nor can he recognize the reality and the order of the world, unless, in the act of being in relationship with others, he acknowledges the fundamental and essential character of his bond with others and consequently commits himself to fidelity toward the community to which he belongs, toward love and friendship.

On the other hand, death expresses the possibility of the severance of the coexistential bond. By death I can be torn from others, from the world, from myself. Death is not an end nor a fulfillment but a possibility that accompanies all the other possibilities and constitutes their intrinsic limitation. It is the possibility of the non-possible that dominates and determines from within every human endeavour and makes of this endeavour an appeal to the future, which is precisely what a possibility is. Man must, in each case, reckon with the future; and in each case the future includes for him a latent threat: the possibility that his endeavor or he himself might be lost. This threat, if acknowledged and accepted, becomes a risk - the risk of success or failure. But, as a risk, it cannot be eliminated for it is precisely from the risk, in effect, that the necessity for decision - the need for fidelity - arises.

DESTINY
Here we meet with the fifth fundamental theme of existentialism. If the future were already included and pre-established in the past, if history were a continuous progress - a necessary order in which every victory would be made definitive and every value guaranteed in eternity - no dislocation, no estrangement of particulars could impede or disturb it. But in reality man must lift himself toward history, that is, toward the order in which he discovers the meaning of his being as belonging to the being of the world and of the community, moving laboriously away from the insignificant and dislocating events of time. Man is not history. He must become history by discovering himself in the world and in the community. He must evade the threat of time, which is always ready to submerge him in the insignificance of its banal events, and brave the risk of his success in history. He can brave this risk only by disposing himself to fidelity - moving toward the future with the decision to connect it to the past and to find in the past his real self and the real form of his coexistence with others. This fidelity is destiny.

In the "Myth of Er", Plato imagines that the souls before becoming incarnate are led to choose their destinies. They are placed before many models of life from which each can freely choose the one to which it will then remain necessarily joined. It happens that every soul chooses in light of the experience of its previous life. Thus, Ulysses, for example, taught by former trouble and stripped of every ambition, chooses for himself the most obscure and most humble life. This Platonic myth veils a vital teaching. It seems that in the choice of his task, in the acceptance and recognition of that which for each is his own destiny, man has before him infinite possibilities, among which choice may be indifferent. Actually, there is no possibility of indifferent choice. There is but one possibility that is my own and it is to that one I can dedicate myself with a passionate and total commitment. It is not possible to recognize it except through the possibility of this commitment. It is not possible to examine from without the various indifferent possibilities that seem to be offered to me. Actually there are others only so that I choose mine, which is the one at whose basis I shall find myself and my true relationship with others and with the world. And the decision is not just a single act but a continuous quest, a process of deepening which discovers, in the possibility that I have chosen, an ever new richness, disengaging me from what can distract me, centering me and strengthening me in what is proper to me. I am not myself nor is there for me any possibility whatever outside of commitment, decision, choice. The unity which gives me my identity is that of the existential commitment; it is the unity of the task in which I discover myself. The other possibilities propose themselves to me as the background of this fundamental task which I must attempt to clarify and recognize. And in this labor others can help me as I can help them; but, ultimately, the decision is up to me alone.

Certainly, I can deceive myself. As the souls in the Platonic myth, I can be bewitched and enticed by the external brilliance of certain dislocating possibilities and I can, in the vain attempt to pursue them, miss discovering myself and my true relationship with others. But in this case, the error will become clear to me, even before I reach the situation of a stalemate (scacco), through my incapacity to consolidate and maintain the commitment. This incapacity will immediately precipitate a fall into dislocation and into insignificance. I will not find myself in what I do because I will not be what I ought to be. I shall have failed the substance of my being, the ultimate nature of my finitude, and I shall have been unfaithful to myself and to others. At the bottom of this fall, if nothing redeems me and makes me return to myself, not only will the possibilities which seemed more promising vanish into nothingness, but my identity and my relationship with others will tend to become lost and vanish in the same way. The existential and coexistential bond will be threatened by the definitive break of isolation and of folly. But long before reaching this bottom, the self will have lost its own unity and its own destiny. Incapable of fidelity, it will be slave to insignificant events and it will let itself live as an anonymous unity, without a destiny.

Existentialism tries to salvage man from an anonymous indifferentism, from dissipation and from infidelity to himself and to others. It tries to restore him to his destiny, to reintegrate him in his freedom. Freedom is its last and conclusive fundamental theme. The free man is the man who has a destiny. Destiny is the fidelity to his proper historic task, that is, to himself, to the community and to the order of the world. Freedom is the act of decision of fidelity; it is the choice of the proper task and the unshakable trust in its transcendent value; it is the dispassionate passion that sees everything clearly and judges so as to be able to face everything.

THE HISTORICITY OF EXISTENTIALISM
Historically, existentialism is in a line with the great metaphysicians of the West, from Plato to St. Thomas Aquinas, from Descartes and Vico to Kant. But existentialism does not consider these great figures, and all the others that in some way or other have had their say in history, as embalmed and enclosed within their systems, but as live and powerful personalities who for centuries have offered to men a way to understand and find themselves, and who still can and will give clarifying answers to men's urgent and vital questions. Equally distant from dogmatism and from skepticism, existentialism returns to interrogate the masters of the past, and to evaluate the answers respectfully and firmly. The word by which man lived yesterday will perhaps be the word by which he will live tomorrow. But he must find it and make it resound clearly so that it can be heard. The task of existential clarification is strictly connected to a task of investigation and historiographic clarification. But both require commitment, work, fidelity and tenacity.

Existentialism is not a school and it repudiates proselytism. While it is not doctrine, though it requires for the foundation of doctrine an existential attitude, i.e., of the whole man, it can be an admonition or an aid to him; but it cannot be a substitute for his decision and for his commitment. It constructs an avenue; it does not impose a formula. On the basis of this avenue, there is the possibility for each man to recognize himself in his true nature and for all to understand and realize themselves in a loyal community.