About Real Existentialism

In philosophy, Essentialism of Plato and Aristotle usually contrasts to Existentialism of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Sartre.

Essentialism believes that essence precedes existence and the existentialism - the opposite, that the existence precedes essence and the one can define his essence through his existence (i.e. actions).
Actually, both are two sides of the same coin.


The "existentialism versus essentialism" question is similar to the long-standing philosophic dilemma about chicken and egg - which came first? Actually, none and both of them, because the egg is a product of the reproductive system of a bird, they belong to each other just like reptile's egg belonged to the reptile's reproductive system before and then back to amphibia and fish in the evolutionary process.

Similarly, both essentialists and existentialists are partially right, but this becomes clear only by going beyond the single human being and considering for example the whole humanity in its evolutionary process. Then you can see the essense and purpose of existence of a human being.

Does the essence precede its own existence? Yes, of course, because the essence is born first and then its existence begins.
Does the existence precede the essence? Yes, because each essence belongs to a certain species and is born with a certain set of basic physical features. And yes, you can really define your essence through your actions existentially.


Like every normal human being I'm bored of digging in the intricacies of philosophic ideas. It's mostly juggling with the invented words that leads to nowhere, because all or nearly all of the philosophers see a little piece of the puzzle and pass their vision off as the ultimate truth. Philosophy has long been completely impractical, and philosophers for me were just like 6 blind men describing an elephant as rope or a tree and "though everyone was partly in the right and everyone was in the wrong".

The vast majority of philosophical books are remote from mundane life and are perceived by readers as being "not about here" and "not about now". So I do not consider the existentialism of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche (and later of Sartre and Heidegger) to be the existentialism at all. You can see my opinion of Nietzsche here.


And regarding my understanding of the existentialism. It is close to Buddhist "to be here and now". Real existentialism is about time and awareness of time by different species living on earth.

The real existentialists are therefore not Kierkegaard or Sartre, but all plants, animals and human children under the age of 7. They live out of time according to the good rule of existentialism "give and spend and God will send" and are mostly happy because they are freed from the understanding of the necessity to earn their daily bread. Adult humans cannot afford that and therefore most of humanity is unhappy and lives not in the present moment "here and now", but either in the future (the hope for better life at Mars or fast getting rid of the coronavirus) or in the past (the depression from the fact that the world is getting more complicated and worse).


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P.S. Dear Reader! I am very much interested in your opinion on the subject of this article. Please, write a comment or ask a question if you want to clarify something.
Yours,
Igor Chykalov