The personal website of John Bruce Cantrell

Toolbox Philosophy

Being Alone/Being with Others (Buddhism)

Choosing the Good and the Beautiful (Ethics and Aesthetics)

A Fair Field of Folk (Politics and Religion)

The Meaning of Meaning (Language, Aalysis, Logical Posivitism)

No Excuses, No Escape (Existentialism)

Prince Andre's Presentment (Metaphysics)

 

Return to www.sadasae.com

 

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Credits:

Angeles:  Peter Angeles, The Harper-Collins Dictionary of Philossophy

Blackburn:  Simon Blackburn, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy

EOP:  The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Paul Edwards et al.

Flew:  Anthony Flew, A Dictionary of Philosophy, 2nd ed.

Lacey:  A. R. Lacey, A Dictionary of Philosophy

OCP:  The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, ed. Honderich

 

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Soren Kierkegaard

 

"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."

 

 

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Fyodor Dostoyevsky

 

"Man, so long as he remains free, has no more constant and agonizing anxiety than to find as quickly as possible someone to worship."

 

 

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Jean-Paul Sartre

 

"I do not believe in God; his existence has been disproved by Science. But in the concentration camp, I learned to believe in men."

 

 

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Friedrich Nietzsche

"The 'kingdom of Heaven' is a condition of the heart - not something that comes 'upon the earth' or 'after death'."

 

 

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Martin Heidegger

 

"Thinking begins only when we have come to know that reason, glorified for centuries, is the stiff-necked adversary of thought."

 

 

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Simone de Beauvoir

 

"Freedom is the source from which all significations and all values come."

 

 

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Jose Ortega y Gasset

 

"Living is a constant process of deciding what we are going to do."

 

 

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David Loy and wife
Linda Goodhew

 

"If we repress awareness of our ungroundedness, then it will return as the various compulsive ways [in which] we try to ground ourselves in the world, to make ourselves feel more real in the world."

 

 

 

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Paul Tillich

 

"Being religious means asking passionately the question of the meaning of our existence and being willing to receive answers, even if the answers hurt."

 

 

 

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Migel de Unamuno

 

"As a youth and even as a child, I remained unmoved when shown the most moving pictures of hell, for even then nothing appeared to me quite so horrible as nothingness itself."

 

 

 

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Aristotle

 

"Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them."

 

 

 

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R. D. Laing

 

"The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice, there is little we can do to change, until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds."

 

 

 

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Karl Jaspers

 

"The history of philosophy is not, like the history of the sciences, to be studied with the intellect alone. That which is receptive in us and that which impinges upon us from history is the reality of man's being, unfolding itself in thought."

 

 

 

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Gabriel Marcel

 

"The dynamic element in my philosophy, taken as a whole, can be seen as an obstinate and untiring battle against the spirit of abstraction."

 

 

 

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Kitaro Nishida

"It is not that there is experience because there is an individual, but that
there is an individual because there is experience."

 

 

 

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Sigmund Freud

 

"Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility."

 

 

 

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Sartre & de Beauvoir

"One's life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation, and compassion."

 

 

 

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Stephen Batchelor

"The primary purpose of Dharma [a process of authentication] is to reestablish a consciousness of being."

 

 

 

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Martin Buber

"The atheist staring from his attic window is often nearer to God than the believer caught up in his own false image of God."

 

 

 

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Hannah Arendt

"Man cannot be free if he does not know that he is subject to necessity, because his freedom is always won in his never wholly successful attempts to liberate himself from necessity."

 

 

 

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Albert Camus

"Man is an idea, and a precious small idea once he turns his back on love."

 

 

 

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Maurice Merleau-Ponty

"I never encounter face to face another person's consciousness, any more than he meets mine."

 

 

 

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Eric Fromm

"There can be no real freedom without the freedom to fail."

 

 

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Henri Bergson

 

"All that we have felt, thought and willed from our earliest infancy is there, leaning over the present which is about to join it, pressing against the portals of consciousness that would fain leave it outside."

 

 

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Plato

 

"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light."

 

 

 

 

 

Existentialism is first and foremost an axiology, or theory of values. Robert G. Olson

The varieties of Existentialism range from the "atheistic existentialism" of Jean-Paul Sartre to the "theistic existentialism" of Gabriel Marcel and Martin Buber, from the "ontological existentialism" of Martin Heidegger to the "phenomenological existentialism" of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, from forms of Aristotelianism to forms of Mysticism and Intuitionism. In general, one or more of the following themes are common to the existentialists mentioned above: 1. That the universe is meaningless and absurd, providing no rational or moral rules or directions, the only moral principles available to man being those principles determined by man himself to encourage responsible behavior on his own part and on the part of others. 2. That philosophy should concern itself with humanity, with the human predicament and human psychology, with such inner states of mind as alienation, anxiety, despair, dread, the fear of death, feelings of inauthenticity, the sense of void and impending nothingness. 2. That truth is subjective, or at best so fraught with subjectivity that it is seldom if ever the same for any two human beings. 3. That "All wisdom of life is abstraction" (Kierkegaard): universal generalizations (abstractions) and other declarations of "knowledge" are incapable either of expressing or communicating the reality of existence as this is actually experienced by individual human beings. 4. That "Existence precedes essence" (Sartre): the nature of human existence (life) is determined not by formula but by existence itself, which becomes and is whatever it becomes and is, with complete unpredictability, this and only this giving it whatever "essence" (substance, substantiality, meaning, significance) it may then have. 5. That Individual human beings can become whatever they choose to become, if need be the complete opposite of what they have been before, are compelled to choose and completely free to make whatever choices they want, and enjoy the only sense of authentic self-actualization they will ever know only in the act of choosing. jbc

Existentialism is a movement, a "sensibility," not a set of doctrines. Robert Soloman

See ANXIETY; BAD FAITH (Sartre); COMMITMENT (Sartre); ENNUI; EN SOI, ETRE (Sartre); ONTOLOGY (EXISTENTIAL PSYCHOLOGY); POUR SOI, ETRE (Sartre).

PRIMARY TEXTS: Soren Kierkegaard's Either/Or (1843), Fear and Trembling (1843), The Sickness Unto Death (1843), The Concept of Dread (1844), and Concluding Unscientific Postscript (1846); Fyodor Dostoevsky's novella Notes from Underground (1864); Friedrich Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883) and The Will to Power (1906); Miguel de Unamuno's The Tragic Sense of Life (1913); Martin Buber's I and Thou (1923); Franz Kafka's novel The Castle (1926); Martin Heidegger's Being and Time (1927); Karl Jaspers' Man in the Modern Age (1931); Gabriel Marcel's Being and Having (1935); Jean-Paul Sartre's novel Nausea (1938) and treatise Being and Nothingness: a Phenomenological Essay on Ontology (1943); and Albert Camus' novels The Stranger (1942) and The Plague (1947), and essays The Rebel: an Essay on Man in Revolt (1951) and The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays (1955).

II. Secondary Definitions

ABSTRACT. Our disassociation of a subject, whatever it may be, from any specific instance or specific object of investigation or discussion, dealing with it in its most general aspects, in an impersonal and detached manner. See ABSTRACTION.

Existence involves first and foremost particularity, and this is why thought must abstract from existence, because the particular cannot be thought, but only the universal. Soren Kierkegaard

ABSTRACTION (L., fr. ab(s), from, away + trahere, to draw, hence to draw away from). Any subject that we disassociate (separate or disconnect in our minds) from any specific instance or particular object or event and thus not directly or concretely perceived by us in actual experience: for example, "redness," "justice," "humanity," that is to say, the universal (in traditional logic) derived from an examination of what is common to a number of particular things.

Every formula and every science is of universals. Aristotle

All wisdom of life is abstraction. Soren Kierkegaard

ABSURD, THE (L., absurdus, fr. ab, from, away + surdus, deaf, stupid). Life's meaninglessness, its stupidity, disorderliness, injustice, and amorality.

In a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between a man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity. Albert Camus

ALIENATION (L, alienus, alien, fr. alius, another). A state of mind in which things become foreign and strange to us, characterized by ennui and detachment, thus a failure to identify with others and to be interested in and committed to the goals of others, thus a tendency to aversion and indifference. Compare BOREDOM (ENNUI); ESTRANGEMENT; SELF-ALIENATION.

ANGUISH (Anglo-Fr. anguisse, distress). Extreme pain, distress, or anxiety.  Syn sorrow.   See BEING, ANGUISH OF.

Anguish is an extremely intense experience with a wholly distinctive emotional tone.  On the one hand, there is a sense of dread, terror, and revulsion.  On the other hand, there is a sense of awe, exhilaration, and sublimity.  Robert G. Olson

ANXIETY (Fr. angoisse, sometimes anomie; Ger., angst). An overwhelming sense of apprehension and fear, often accompanied by such physiological symptoms as profuse sweating, hypertension, and increased pulse rate, aggravated by doubt concerning the reality and nature of the threat, as well as doubt concerning one's ability and desire to cope with the threat, an agonizing, disorienting sense of isolation and dread or despair (Fr., angoisse), a "free-floating" dread of annihilation, meaninglessness, nothingness (G., angst). Compare BOREDOM, FEAR, and JOY (EXISTENTIALE, AFFECTIVE [Heidegger]). See NOTHINGNESS.

Nonbeing threatens man's ontic self-affirmation [that is to say, his sense of "being," of existing in the world], relatively in terms of fate, absolutely in terms of death. It threatens man's spiritual self-affirmation, relatively in terms of emptiness, absolutely in terms of meaninglessness. It threatens man's moral self-affirmation, relatively in terms of guilt, absolutely in terms of condemnation. The awareness of this threefold threat is anxiety appearing in three forms, that of fate and death (briefly, the anxiety of death), that of emptiness and loss of meaning (briefly, the anxiety of meaninglessness), and that of guilt and condemnation (briefly, the anxiety of condemnation). In all three forms anxiety is existential in the sense that it belongs to existence as such and not to an abnormal state of mind as in neurotic (and psychotic) anxiety. Paul Tillich

Dread differs absolutely from fear. We are always afraid of this or that definite thing, which threatens us in this or that definite way ... Dread reveals Nothing [i.e., "nothingness"]. Martin Heidegger

ATHEISM (Gk., atheos, godless, fr. a-, not, without + theos, god). The idea that there is no god. (The Greeks called the early Christians "atheists" for not believing in the Greek pantheon of gods, and the Christians called the Greeks "atheists" for not believing in their God.)

"Whither is God," he cried.

"I shall tell you. We have killed him, you and I. All of us are his murderers ... Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space ... How shall we, the murderers of all murderers, comfort ourselves?"  Friedrich Nietzsche

Because we hark back to Nietzsche's saying about the "death of God," people take such an enterprise for atheism. For what is more "logical" than to consider the man who has experienced the "death of God" as a Godless person. Martin Heidegger

One of the great realizations of the Enlightenment was that an atheistic materialist could be just as moral a person as a believer—even more so. This insight led to liberation from the constraints of ecclesiastical dogma, which was crucial in forming the sense of intellectual and political freedom we enjoy today. Stephen Batchelor

AUTHENTICITY. See INAUTHENTICITY.

AWARENESS. The state or condition of our being conscious, that is to say, CONSCIOUSNESS, the attention we focus on the content of a sensation, or SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS, the attention we focus sometimes on the act itself of focusing our attention on something. See CONSCIOUSNESS and SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.

AXIOLOGY (Gk., axios, worth, worthy + logos, the study of). The study of values and of value judgments, especially in Ethics.

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BAD FAITH (Sartre). Self-deception, and in turn our deception of others, especially any failure, whether deceitful or not, to acknowledge and accept our absolute freedom of choice, thereby avoiding responsibility and the anxieties of decision-making, that is to say, of making up our own minds. See EN SOI, ETRE (Sartre) and POUR SOI, ETRE (Sartre).

Man shapes his own destiny through a succession of free choices for which he is totally responsible. In 'bad faith' he denies the necessity of relying on his own moral insight and fallible will, trying to escape the burden of responsibility by regarding himself as the passive subject of outside influences, and his actions as being predetermined by these rather than freely chosen by himself. Antony Flew

BEING, ANGUISH OF.  The fear, sorrow, and despair inspired by feelings of meaninglessness and nothingness.  See NOTHINGNESS.

The anguish of being is the feeling we have whenever the thought comes to us that nothingness was and still is just as possible as being, whenever we ask ourselves how it is that there is something rather than nothing.  It is a curious fact that one cannot experience the full wonder and mystery of being without thinking of absolute nothingness.  Speaking metaphorically, it could be said that only from the vantage point of nothingness can we get a good look at being.  Robert G. Olson

BEING-FOR-ITSELF (Sartre). A difficult concept, perhaps "the realm of consciousness that perpetually strives to transcend itself" (EOP). [EOP 3-109; 7-290]. Compare BEING-IN-ITSELF (Sartre) and POUR SOI, ETRE (Sartre).  See DHARMAKAYA.

The chief characteristic of ... "being-for-itself" ... is its activity. It is incapable of being acted on from without, and it consists in and is exhausted by its own intentional, meaning-conferring acts. By contrast, the being of things-"being-in-itself"--is characterized in terms of a complete incapacity for any relationship to itself; it is, in Sartre's highly metaphorical language, "opaque," and it "coincides exactly with itself." All that can strictly be said of it is that it is. (EOP)

BEING-IN-ITSELF. Another difficult concept, perhaps "the self-contained reality of a thing" (EOP). See BEING-FOR-ITSELF (Sartre) and EN SOI, ETRE (Sartre).

BEING-IN (Heidegger). A state of mind in which we allow ourselves to become merely part of the environment. See SAMSARA.

[The self] tends itself to become part of the system, to be caught up in the processes that it has itself originated, to become just another part of the machinery. John Macquarrie

BEING-IN-THE-WORLD (Heidegger). A state of mind in which we allow ourselves to become concretely embodied (that is to say, as it were, "stuck") in the external world, or the "stuck-ness" itself in which our authentic (true, genuine) selves get suppressed in everyday existence, overwhelmed with concern for the man-made things of this world. Compare BEING-IN (Heidegger).

BEING-ITSELF. In the theology of Paul Tillich, the idea of God, that is to say, that which is the ground or basis of the ontological structure of being, yet not subject to or dependent upon this structure. See ONTOLOGY.

Nothing can properly be of ultimate concern unless it is the ultimate determiner of the reality and meaning of our existence, and only being-itself occupies this position. From this conclusion it is only a short step today that in ultimate concern one is always really concerned with being-itself, whether one realizes it or not. (EOP)

Compare BEING-AS-SUCH.

BEING-TO-DEATH (Heidegger). A state of mind in which we are willing and able courageously and clear-mindedly to confront life in its entirety, from our earliest memories to what we imagine death to be like.

Life in its entirety is life facing death. (EOP)

BEING-WITH (Heidegger). Our anxiety for the welfare of others (a caring [Ger, sorge] for others, but specifically not compassion, "love or sympathy for those who suffer").

Thus we are related to the other existent not in terms of the "concern" (handling, producing, and the like) by which we relate to things, but in terms of personal concern or "solicitude" that characterizes relations between selves. John Macquarrie

BOREDOM (ENNUI). Psychological and even physical tiredness or weariness caused by an overwhelming sense of tedium and ennui (OF ennui, annoyance, fr. L., in odio, in hatred); a feeling of weariness and dissatisfaction, especially fatigue and listlessness the result of overindulgence, satiety, or impotence. See EXISTENTIALISM. Compare ANXIETY, FEAR, and JOY, the EXISTENTIALE, AFFECTIVE (Heidegger).

BUDDHISM.  The ethical, metaphysical, and epistemological ideas espoused by the Indian prince turned aesthetic Siddhartha Gautama (6th c. BC), known as the Buddha (enlightened one), who taught what became known as the Four Noble Truths, namely that life is suffering, that suffering involves a chain of causes (that ignorance leads to experience, which leads to thirst, which leads to clinging, etc.), that suffering can cease, and that there is a way to bring about this cessation.

When he met his first disciples at Benares after his enlightenment, the Buddha outlines his system, which was based on one essential fact: all existence was dukkha. It consisted entirely of suffering; life was wholly awry. Things come and go in meaningless flux. Nothing has permanent significance. Religion starts with the perception that something is wrong.… The Buddha taught that is was possible to gain release from dukkha by living a life of compassion for all living beings, speaking and behaving gently, kindly and accurately, and refraining from anything like drugs or intoxicants that cloud the mind. 

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CHOICE. The act of consciously making a selection from among alternative objects, courses of action, attitudes, states of mind, or the thing chosen; or the power of choosing, of deliberately exercising one's options or demonstrating one's preferences.

"Some characteristics of choices: (a) They cannot be classified as true or false, but [only] as good or bad, right or wrong, preferable or not preferable. (b) The choices one continues to make are said to habituate one's character toward them. (c) Choices reveal the essential traits of a personality. (d) Choices require awareness of alternatives, deliberation, and intentional activity. (e) Choices may be related to, but can be distinguished from, motives, intentions, wishes, desires, consequences, and principles of conduct." (Angeles, following, it would seem, Aristotle)

When you have to make a choice and don't make it, that is in itself a choice. William James

Choice is possible, but what is not possible is not to choose. I can always choose, but I ought to know that if I do not choose, I am still choosing. Jean-Paul Sartre

According to many existentialists, every act and every attitude must be considered a choice.  Yet the existentialist attitude itself is apparently not chosen.  One finds oneself in it.  Robert Solomon

COGITO, ERGO SUM (DESCARTES).  "I think; therefore, I am."

COMMITMENT.

For the existentialist, to live is to live passionately.  Robert Solomon.

COMPASSION (Late L., compassio, fr. compati, to sympathize).  Sympathetic awareness of others' distress, together with a desire to alleviate it.

Compassion is not usually an existentialist value.  Most existentialists follow Nietzsche, who considered compassion an insult to human dignity.  Dostoyevsky and Gabriel Marcel are exceptional in this regard ...  Since by definition compassion is a form of love or sympathy for those who suffer, compassion would be logically impossible in a world without suffering ...  Most people would probably say that a world with no suffering and no compassion is better than a world with suffering and compassion, since the disvalue of suffering is greater than the value of compassion.  Some persons would prefer, however, a world with suffering and compassion.  Marcel and Dostoyevsky are among them.  Robert G. Olson

CONSCIOUSNESS (L., conscius, having knowledge of oneself, fr. con, with + scire, to know). Our awareness of something in the world, for example., a physical object, some particular state of affairs, some piece of factual data, and frequently our awareness of something within ourselves, for example, our existence (being), our sensations (pain, anger, jealousy), our thoughts (an image, a concept, a symbol), and sometimes of the relationship in our minds between the act of knowing and the content of that which is known. Syn AWARENESS.

Ascribed to consciousness [by various philosophers, at various times] are (a) primitiveness ..., (b) brute-factness (something that just happens and cannot be reduced to anything else) ..., (c) uniqueness, individuality, unity, continuity in time, privacy ..., intentionality, and self-reflection, and (d) [the possession of] irreducible 'modes' (levels, aspects, abilities, dimensions) such as, content (images, sensations, perceptions, feelings, emotions, cognitions, etc.), quality, mood, intensity, comprehen-siveness, direction, volition, selec-tivity, attention, intention, memory, etc. Peter Angeles

Man is the means by which things are manifested. It is our presence in the world that multiplies relations. It is we who set up a relationship between this tree and that bit of sky. Thanks to us, that star which has been dead for millennia, that quarter moon, and that dark river are disclosed in the unity of landscape. It is the speed of our auto and our airplane that organizes the great masses of the earth. With each of our acts, the world reveals to us a new face. But if we know that we are directors of being, we also know that we are not its producers. If we turn away from this landscape, it will sink back; there is no one mad enough to think that it is going to be annihilated. It is we who shall be annihilated, and the earth will remain in its lethargy until another consciousness comes along to awaken it. Jean-Paul Sartre

CONTINGENCY. This is when something is likely to happen, but not certain to happen, "the property of not having to occur" (Antony Flew), or when something exists quite by accident or as a result of unforeseen circumstances, of not existing necessarily, "the property of not having to exist" (Flew). Compare NECESSARY.

Contingency is usually contrasted with necessity, and the kinds of necessity [having to exist, having to occur, having to be true] are distinguished as, variously, logical or causal. Medieval thinkers sometimes took the view that God exists necessarily and hence that his existence is not a (logically) contingent matter, to be doubted, debated and investigated.

Logical empiricists, however, have doubted whether 'necessary truths' can yield fresh information about the world, on the ground that they are logically analytic, or tautological. Thus it has been thought that most or even all of our experience and knowledge is of a contingent kind. This has not greatly disturbed recent philosophers in the Anglo-American tradition, but in the philosophical novel La Nausee, and elsewhere, Sartre appeared to lament the contingency of all existence. Antony Flew

Contingently we are put into the whole web of causal relations. Contingently we are determined by them in every moment and thrown out by them in the last moment. Paul Tillich

The essential thing is contingency. I mean that one cannot define existence as necessary. To exist is simply to be there [Ger., DASEIN]; those who exist let themselves be en-countered, but you can never deduce anything from them. Jean-Paul Sartre

One might never have been born, or been born in a different place, at a different time, as a different person ....  Heidegger's image of "thrownness" suggests how much of our lives is given, not chosen.  Robert Solomom

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DHARMAKAYA (Skt). The fully realized and awakened mind of Buddha.  See POUR SOI, ETRE (Sartre).

The state of optimum being-for-oneself.  Stephen Batchelor

DA-SEIN (Ger, das, the + Sein, being, existence, "that-ness," the "that-it-is" of a being). In Heidegger, human-ness or human-being (synonyms Heidegger is careful never to use, for phenomeno-logical reasons), the being "ontically distinguished" from all other beings "by the fact that, in its Being, this being is concerned about its very Being" (Heidegger, punctuation added). "Heidegger uses this term to refer to us, the entities who have an understanding of Being" (Richard Polk, Heidegger, an Introduction [1999]). Syn human being (in writers other than Heidegger). See BEING and EXISTENCE.

We can belong entirely to no thing, not even to ourselves, yet being there, Dasein, is in every case ours [our lot, our fate, our birthright]. Martin Heidegger

We are Dasein, "being there." Like all living things, we live in an environment. . . . [But] man and only man produces languages, tools, ideas, acts . . . in short, himself. All life except for man's is merely "being there" within its environment (emphasis added). Karl Jaspers

DEATH. The end of life. See IMMORTALITY and "MY DEATH."

Living ... is never easy. You continue making the gestures commanded by existence for many reasons, the first of which is habit. Dying voluntarily implies that you have recognized, even instinctively, the ridiculous character of that habit, the absence of any profound reason for living, the insane character of that daily agitation, and the uselessness of suffering. Albert Camus (on suicide)

From the hour you are born you begin to die. But between birth and death there's life. Simone de Beauvoir

DEATH, DENIAL OF.

DEATH, THE HAPPY.

It was as if that great rush of anger had wased me clean, emptied me of hope, and, gazing up at he dark sky spangled with its signs and stars, for the first time, the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the uiverse.  To find it so like myself, indeed, so brotherly, made me realize that I had been happy, and that I was happy still.  Albert Camus

DESPAIR (L., desperare, fr. de-, from, down, away [the opposite of, the reverse of] + sperare, to hope). A state of mind in which we experiences the utter loss of hope or confidence in ourselves to make a difference, Kierkegaard's "sickness unto death." Syn hopelessness, despondency, discouragement, dejection.

Despair is an ultimate "boundary-line" situation. One cannot go beyond it. Its nature is indicated in the entymology of the word despair: without hope. No way out into the future appears. Nonbeing is felt as absolutely victorious.... The pain of despair is that a being is aware of itself as unable to affirm itself because of the power of nonbeing. Consequently it wants to surrender this awareness and its presupposition, the being which is aware. It wants to get rid of itself--and it cannot. Paul Tillich

What we call despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope. George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans)

DETERMINISM. The idea that everything that happens in the world (acts of volition, natural occurrences, social and psychological phenomena) happens of necessity, that is to say., as the inevitable consequence of everything that has happened before.

The determinist or the fatalist is in despair, and in despair he has lost himself, because for him everything is necessary…. The self of the determinist cannot breathe, for it is impossible to breathe necessity alone, which taken pure and simple suffocates the human self. Soren Kierkegaard

DIGNITY. The quality or state of being worthy of honors.

Every man has his dignity. I'm willing to forget mine, but at my own discretion and not when someone else tells me to. Denis Diderot

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EMANATIONISM. A theory of the origin of the world by a series of hierarchically descending radiations fromthe Godhead through intermediate stages of matter. See CHAOS and COSMOS. Compare DEISM and PANTHEISM.

Emanationism explains the origin and structure of reality by postulat-ing a perfect and transcendent principle from which everything is derived through a process called emanation (Greek apporroia, probole, proodos; Latin emanatio) which is comparable to an efflux or radiation. Emanation is timeless ... leaves its source undiminished, so that the source remains transcendent ... [and] each of its products [as it descends through its various stages] ... less perfect.

In these three respects Emanationism is opposed to evolutionism because -evolution is a temporal process in which the principle itself is involved (immanent) and in which an increase in perfection is usually conceived. Emanationism is also opposed to creationism, according to which the principle creates the rest of reality (from which it differs absolutely), either out of nothing or by transforming a pre-existing, chaotic matter into a cosmos. There is some affinity between Emanationism and pantheism, except that the latter teaches the immanence [L., immanere, fr. in-, in + manere, to remain: inherence, remaining in] of the principle in its product. (EOP)

EMPOWERMENT.

EMPTINESS (BUDDHISM). "Absence of conception ... the plenum void ... the infinite potentiality of existence" (Nancy Wilson Ross).   Compare NOTHINGNESS.

To know emptiness is not just to understand the concept. It is more like stumbling into a clearing in the forest, where suddenly you can move freely and see clearly. To experience emptiness is to experience the shocking absence of what normally determines the sense of who you are and the kind of reality you inhabit. It may last only a moment before the habits of a lifetime reassert themselves and close in once more. But for that moment, we witness ourselves and the world as open and vulnerable.   Stephen Batchelor

EN SOI, ETRE (Sartre) (Fr, etre, being + en, in, by, of + soi, himself, herself, oneself, itself, i.e., "being-in-itself"). Inert fixedness, absolute CONTINGENCY, without consciousness or purpose, self-deceptive ("inauthentic") pretence of inertness ("bad faith"), acceptance of the idea that human existence is predestined to be this or that and powerless to change or modify itself and choose its own future, or one's ignoring, suppressing, or disclaiming the responsibility to be free for the purpose of avoiding the challenge and stress of making choices and anxiety of assuming and taking full responsibility for one's whole life. Compare BAD FAITH (Sartre). See EXISTENTIALISM.

Being-in-itself roughly corresponds to the being of an inert object, complete and fixed, expressing no relationship either with itself or with anything outside itself. It is uncreated, without reason for being. and absolutely contingent. Antony Flew

ESSENCE (L., essentia, fr. esse, to be, form). The properties or attributes by means of which a thing can be placed in its proper class or category or identified as being what it is; in EXISTENTIALISM, the aftermath of everything that we have done in the past, the result for good or ill of every choice that we have ever made: what a man makes of his life, his accomplishments as a human being.

For Sartre as for Hegel, essence is what has been ... man's past. Since there is no ... human nature, each man makes his essence as he lives. Hazel Barnes

The endeavour, wherewith everything endeavours to persist in its own being, is nothing else but the actual essence of the thing in question. Benedict Spinoza

The essence of man lies in his existence. Martin Heidegger

Essence is not the object, it is the sense of the object. Jean-Paul Sartre

ESSENTIALISM. The idea that things have essences, basic natures, or essential qualities, and that the study of essences (the abstract, universal) should be given priority over the study of existence (the concrete, particular). Contrast EXISTENTIALISM

ESTRANGEMENT (MF, estranger, to alienate, fr. L., extraneus, strange). A state of mind in which we feel removed or dissociated from our customary surroundings, or angry or indifferent in relationships where formally there had been love, affection, friendship. Compare ALIENATION.

EXISTENCE (L., existere, to come into being, to stand out in being, thus to appear, to emerge from non-being, fr. ex-, from, out of + sistere, to stand). The acute personal AWARENESS of radical CONTINGENCY (the utter unpredictability of life), on the one hand, and of absolute and necessary FREEDOM and responsibility, on the other. Compare ESSENCE. See EXISTENTIALISM.

Existence separates and holds the various moments of reality discretely apart. Soren Kierkegaard

The being that exists is man. Man alone exists. Rocks are, but they do not exist. Trees are, but they do not exist. Horses are, but they do not exist. Angels are, but they do not exist. God is, but he does not exist. Martin Heidegger

"Existence" is first defined by Kierkagaard to refer to a life that is filled with passion, self-understanding, and commitment.  For Nietzsche, to really "exist" is to manifest your talents and virtues--"becoming the person you really are."  Robert Solomon

EXISTENTIAL. Having being in time and space: "The experience of being intensely involved in living, its [satisfactions] and predicaments" (Peter Angeles).

The proposition "man exists" means: man is that being whose Being is distinguished by the open-standing standing-in in the unconcealedness of Being, from Being, in Being. The existential nature of man is the reason why man can represent beings as such, and why he can be conscious of them. Martin Heidegger

EXISTENTIAL PSYCHOANALYSIS. In Psychology and Psychiatry, a reaction against the theoretical and philosophical presuppositions of psychology based on natural science in general and on Freudian psychology in particular. See ONTOLOGY (EXISTENTIAL PSYCHOLOGY).

The personalities of doctor and psychotic, no less than the personalities of expositor and author, do not stand opposed to each other as two external facts that do not meet and cannot be compared.. Like the expositor, the therapist must have the plasticity to transpose himself into another strange and even alien view of the world. In this act, he draws on his own psychotic possibilities, without forgoing his sanity. Only thus can he arrive at an understanding of the patient's existential position. R. D. Laing

EXISTENTIALE, AFFECTIVE (Heidegger). See ANXIETY, BOREDOM, FEAR, and JOY.

EXISTENTIALISM, HUMANISTIC. The idea that reality, in and of itself, is unintelligible, does not conform to any rational or logical order, and was not created by God or any other supreme deity, that all things are CONTINGENT, all meaning, order, significance, explanation by rational and empirical means, and so forth, being the result solely of human efforts to make sense of the world, that there is no one system by which to classify and categorize phenomena, and that there are no objective, absolute moral values. Compare HUMANISM, PHILOSOPHICAL.

 

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FACTICITY. In the EXISTENTIALISM of Sartre, the condition of the EN SOI (inert fixedness, absolutely contingency, pure objectivity) in relation to the POUR SOI (absolute freedom, self-awareness, pure subjectivity): ): "the For-itself's [pour soi's] necessary connection with the In-itself [en soi], hence with the world and its own past" (Hazel Barnes). See POUR SOI, ETRE (Sartre) and EN SOI, ETRE (Sartre). Compare DETERMINISM.

[One] never begins with wide open horizons, so to speak, for at any moment there are already a great many "givens." Some of these may have arisen from [one's] own past choices, but there will be others that it has not chosen at all, and that will have been determined ... by society or history or heredity or other agencies. John Macquarrie

The facticity of freedom is the fact that freedom is not able not to be free. Hazel Barnes  [Facticity as "stuckness."  jbc]

Our past is part of our facticity ...  Our future, however, is absolutely open, absolutely undetermined either by our past self or by the external world.  Robert G. Olson

FEAR (ME fer, fr. OE faer, sudden danger). The emotion evoked by anticipation or awareness of danger. Compare ANXIETY, BOREDOM, and JOY (EXISTENTIALE, AFFECTIVE [Heidegger]).

In time we hate that which we often fear. William Shakespeare

There is a virtuous fear that is the effect of faith, and a vicious fear that is the product of doubt and distrust. The former leads to hope as relying on God, in whom we believe; the latter inclines to despair, as not relying on God, in whom we do not believe. Persons of the one character fear to lose God; those of the other character fear to find him. Blaise Pascal

FINITUDE (L., finitus, pp. of finire, to limit). In the EXISTENTIALISM of Sartre, emphatically not mortality, but the exclusion of possibilities each time a choice is made: "To be carefully distinguished from 'mortality.' Finitude refers not to the fact that man dies but to the fact that as a free choice of his own project of being, he makes himself finite by excluding other possibilities each time that he chooses the one that he prefers. Man would thus, because of his facticity, be finite even if immortal." (Barnes) See FACTICITY.

FORM (L., forma). The ESSENCE, or essential nature, of a thing, as distinguished from its matter. Compare ESSENCE.

The term "form" is used to translate the Greek term "eidos." In the philosophy of Plato, "form" and "idea" are interchangeable terms. Although Aristotle's account of the nature of forms differs from Plato's, he is concerned with broadly the same problems. In Plato, to know the form of X is to understand the nature of X; so the philosopher who, for example, grasps the form of justice knows not merely what acts are just, but also why they are just. Similarly, Aristotle regards a form as that which makes something intelligible, and which (like Plato's forms) is grasped by the intellect. Antony Flew

FREEDOM. In the EXISTENTIALISM of Sartre, as beings "condemned to be free," our requirement to make our own choices and create ourselves one choice at a time.

"To be free" does not mean "to obtain what one has wished" but rather "by oneself to determine oneself to wish" (in the broad sense of choosing). In other words, success is not important to freedom. Hazel Barnes

The man who seeks to justify his life must want freedom itself absolutely and above everything else.  Simone de Beauvoir

FREEDOM, PERSONAL. The absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action: "Inner freedom, i.e. the state of being an inwardly autonomous individual capable of exerting free will or freedom of choice within a given set of outward circumstances" (Wikipedia [freedom])

FUNCTIONALISM. Any doctrine stressing purpose, practicality, and utility (over FORM, MATTER, and such "efficient causes" as human initiative and enterprise.

Functionalism is often compared with descriptions of a computer, since according to it mental descriptions correspond to a description of a machine in terms of software, that remains silent about the underlying hardware or "realization" of the program the machine is running.Simon Blackburn

Through the countless agencies of mass production and its culture the conventionalized modes of behavior are impressed on the individual as the only natural, respectable, and rational ones. He defines himself only as a thing, as a static element, as success or failure. His yardstick is self-preservation, successful or unsuccessful approximation to the objectivity of his function and the models established for it. Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno

Functional analysis is enclosed in the selected system which itself is not subject to a critical analysis transcending the boundaries of the system toward the historical continuum, in which its functions and dysfunctions become what they are. Herbert Marcuse

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GOD. The supreme or ultimate reality, the being perfect in power, wisdom, and goodness whom men worship as creator and ruler of the universe.

God is a subject, and therefore exists only for subjectivity, in inwardness. Soren Kierkegaard

Man is the being whose project it is to be God. Jean-Paul Sartre

GOOD AND EVIL.

True evil, as distinguished from mere weakness, which surrenders to the natural bent, consists in what Kank called perversion: I do good only if it does me no harm or does not cost me too much ... I follow the law of the good only insofar as it is compatible with undisturbed sensual pleasure; only on this condition, and in no unconditional sense, do I wish to be good. Karl Jaspers

GOOD, THE. That which conforms to the moral order of the universe.

The man who desires the Good for the sake of the reward does not will one thing, but is double-minded. For Good is one thing; the reward is another. Soren Kierkegaard

We always choose the good, and nothing can be good for us without being good for all. Jean-Paul Sartre

GRACE (L., gratia, favor, fr. gratus, grateful, pleasing). In Theology, unmerited divine love and protection.

The Christian existentialists [e.g., Marcel] place the dogma of the fall and of divine grace in the center of their philosophy, as did Augustin and Pascal …  Since the fall man has become an exile in the world.  His natural reason has become not merely impotent to fathom God's way but also a barrier between man and God.  At the same time man cannot hope for salvation through the strained quest after moral perfection.  God's grace, like the rain, falls on good and bad, indifferently.  Robert G. Olson

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HAPPINESS.  A state of well-being and contentment.  See JOY.

The existentialists … mock the notion of a complete and fully satisfying life. The life of every man, whether he explicitly recognizes it or not, is marked by irreparable losses. Man cannot help aspiring toward the goods of this world, nor can he help aspiring toward the serene detachment from the things of this world which the traditional philosopher sought; but it is not within his power to achieve either of these ambitions, or having achieved them to find therein the satisfaction he had anticipated.   Robert G. Olson

 

HUMANISM, PHILOSOPHICAL. The idea that we are, in and of ourselves, the ultimate source of ethical and aesthetic values and standards of moral and artistic behavior. Compare EXISTENTIALISM, HUMANISTIC.

Man is the measure of all things. Protagoras

HUMANISM, SECULAR. 

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INAUTHENTICITY. My failure to recognize and take full advantage of my full range of possibilities.

In the case of being-along, we will see that such actualization of possibility is limited by ignorance and selfishness; in the case of being-with, by self-concern and disregard for others. Thus in correlation with these two poles of existence, two distinct modes of inauthenticity become evident: inauthentic being-for-others and inauthentic being-with-others. Stephen Batchelor

INDIVIDUALTY.

INTELLECT (L, intellectus, fr. intellegere, to understand). The power, especially when highly developed, by which we acquire knowledge.

The intellect is a developed instrument for the use of knowledge, but only the senses and the intuition acquire knowledge at first hand. The thought-machine, therefore, too easily becomes a cage, a workshop for the handling of second-hand material. Christmas Humphreys

INTENTION. That which one has in mind as the purpose, goal, design, meaning, import, or significance of one's own actions, or of the result or product of one's own actions. Compare KARMA.

In the works of man as in those of nature, it is the intention that is chiefly worth studying Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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JOY (ME, fr. OF joie, fr. L., gaudia, fr. gaudere, to rejoice, akin to Gk., gethein, to rejoice). The emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune, or by the prospect of possessing what we desire. Compare ANXIETY, BOREDOM, and FEAR (affective existentiale [Heidegger]).

JUSTIFICATION.  See FREEDOM.

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LOVE. Strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties.

I know of only one duty, and that is to love. Albert Camus

 

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"MY DEATH." In Philosophy, Psychology, and literature, the idea that one's own death, "the annihilation of the spectator," is something incomprehensible.

Our own death is unimaginable. Sigmund Freud

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NECESSARY (ME, necessarie/necessite, fr. L., necesse, necessary). The idea that things must be as they are, inescapable, compulsory, compelled, determined, predetermined. ant CONTINGENT.

Thus is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune, —often the surfeit of our own behaviour,—we make guilty of our own disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars; as if we were villains by necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion, knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical predominance, drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforcd obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on. William Shakespeare

NIHILISM (L., nihil, nothing, nothingness). The idea that tradition-al VALUES and BELIEFS are unfounded and that EXISTENCE is senseless and without purpose or meaning; that such concepts as being/nonbeing, know-ledge/ignorance, real/unreal, reality/illusion, truth/error, i.e., all distinctions, are meaningless; and that the universe is meaningless and without purpose, that human life is of no value or significance; in Psychology, a state of mind in which the individual client or patient has lost all sense of VALUE, ethical, religious, political, and social, characterized frequently by anger, ANXIETY, BOREDOM, and DESPAIR.

By definition, the nihilist believes in nothing and disdains all values. But it is worth asking, along with Nietzsche, whether any such stance is possible, in theory or in practice. (OCP)

The minimum of truth that is always premised in the negations is also negated … there is … only the meaningless vitality of the moment, with its unthinking immediacy. Karl Jaspers

NOTHINGNESS. The void, "emptiness," a metaphysical state opposed to and devoid of BEING, regarded by some Existentialists as the ground of ANXIETY (angoisse [Fr.], angst [Ger.]). Compare BEING.  Compare EMPTYNESS (BUDDHISM).

Ever since Parmenides laid it down that it is impossible to speak of what is not, broke his own rule in the act of stating it, and deduced himself into a world where all that ever happened was nothing, the impression has persisted that the narrow path between sense and nonsense on this subject is a difficult one to tread ....

Nothing, ... whether or not the being of anything entails it, clearly does not entail that anything should be. Like Spinoza's substance, it is causa sui; nothing (except more of the same) can come of it; ex nihilo, nihil fit. That conceded, it remains a question to some why anything, rather than nothing, should exist. This is either the deepest conundrum in metaphysics or the most childish .... If nothing whatsoever existed, there would be no problem and no answer, and the anxieties even of existential philosophers would be permanently laid to rest. (EOP)

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ONE, THE (PARMENIDES). The idea that the world must be ungenerated, imperishable, indivisible, perfect, and motionless.

ONESELF.  One's normal, healthy, or sane condition; one's normal and individual state of body or mind, not influenced by others.

We make ourselves.  Jean-Paul Sartre

ONTOLOGY (NL, ontologia, fr. Gk., ont- or onto-, fr. ont-, on, present participle of einai, being + logos, the study of). The study of the nature of being-in-itself apart from the study of particular things.

ONTOLOGY (EXISTENTIAL PSYCHOLOGY). In general, a movement in Psychology and psychiatry influenced by EXISTENTIALISM opposed to mechanistic (deterministic) theories of psychology based on the natural sciences, and in particular an opposition to the scientific determinism of such theories as Freud's (psycho-sexuality) and Skinner's (behaviorism) in favor of specifically humanistic and individualistic theories.

The study of the inescapable psychic and structural features (predicaments) of life, such as death, fear, dread, suffering, responsibility, anguish, and alienation. For example, the fear of extinction is ontological in the sense that it is possessed by all human beings; it is part of the human condition; it is inescapable and must be faced by all. The anxiety about death can be, and is, repressed, but it remains a part of our unconscious being affecting our behavior in sometimes unaccountable ways. Peter Angeles

See EXISTENTIAL PSYCHOANALYSIS.

OTHER, THE. A thing opposite to or excluded from something else.

By the mere appearance of the Other, I am put in the position of passing judgment on myself as on an object, for it is as an object that I appear to the Other. Jean-Paul Sartre

I am only in conjunction with the Other; alone I am nothing. Karl Jaspers

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PASSIONS, THE.

PERCEPTION (L., perceptio, fr. percipere, to receive, to gather together). The gathering into awareness of physical sensations and their interpretation in the light of experience.

Many people think that perception and thinking are completely different because perception is a consciousness of concrete facts whereas thinking is a consciousness of abstract relations. But we cannot be conscious of purely abstract relations. The movement of thinking occurs by virtue of certain concrete mental images, and without them it cannot take place. Kitaro Nishida

PHENOMENOLOGY (HUSSERL). A descriptive methodology requiring detailed examination and analysis of one's own intellect, consciousness, immediate experiences, and presuppositions (religious, moral, aesthetic, conceptual, sensuous), the goal of which is to identify and "bracket" these presuppositions so as to arrive at an enhanced understanding of the essential nature of experience.

POUR SOI, ETRE (Sartre). (Fr., etre, being + pour, for, for the sake of, because of, with regard to + soi, himself, herself, oneself, itself, i.e., "being-for-it-self" or "being-for-one-self"). Authentic existence, the denial of the idea that human existence is predestined to be this or that and powerless to change or modify itself and choose its own future; acceptance of the human responsibility to freedom, the challenge and stress of making choices, and the anxiety of assuming and taking full responsibility for one's whole life. Compare EN SOI, ETRE (Sartre). See ALIENATION, BAD FAITH (Sartre), and ESTRANGEMENT. See EXISTENTIALISM.

PSYCHOLOGY, VICTIM.

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RATIONALITY.  The state or quality of being having reason or understanding.

Traditionally, acting "rationally" is said to be free, while acting [emotionally is said to be] a "slave to one's passions."  The existentialists suggest that we live best and are most ourselves [when we act passionately].  Kierkegaard's notion of "passionate commitment" is central.  Robert Solomon

REASON.  The power of comprehending, inferring, or thinking (especially in orderly, rational ways).

RELIGION. Any particular integrated personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices.

If we subject everything to reason, our religion will have nothing mysterious or supernatural; if we violate the principles of reason, our religion will be absurd and ridiculous. Blaise Pascal

Everyone collaborates in everyone else's forgetting. Parents seek to prepare their offspring for life. ... Religions largely offer consolation: perhaps there is a chance that we won't really die after all. Stephen Batchelor

REVOLT.  To refuse to acknowledge someone or something as having authority.

The absurd man can only drain everything to the bitter end, and deplete himself.  The absurd is his extreme tension, which he maintains constantly by solitary effort, for he knows that in that consciousness and in that day to day revolt he gives proof of his only truth, which is defiance.  Albert Camus

 

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SAMSARA (Skt, lit. "faring on," transmigration, coming to be, "birth and death"). "The inauthentic mode of existence in which one's actions are motivated by disturbing conceptions (klesha) rooted in ignorance (avidhya), characterized by anxiety, frustration, and suffering" (Stephen Batchelor). ant NIRVANA.

The root of this condition is a state of ignorance in which we are blind to being itself [i.e., Being, or BEING-IN-ITSELF] and are only conscious of particular entities [i.e., being, or BEING-IN]. Moreover, this state of ignorance ascribes an inherent self-sufficiency to the entities with which it is concerned and thus raises them to an illusory position of ultimacy.  Stephen Batchelor

SELF.  The union of elements (such as body, emotions, feelings, sensations, thoughts) that constitute the individuality and identity of a person. syn EGO. Compare PSYCHE, SOUL.

The thing is to understand myself, to see what God really wishes me to do; the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die. Soren Kierkegaard

SELF-ALIENATION. A state of mind in which one become alienated from, i.e., a stranger to, oneself, emotionally distancing oneself from oneself (if this sounds somewhat schizophrenic, it is). Compare ALIENATION and ESTRANGEMENT.

SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. Intense, sometimes uncomfortable, consciousness of one's own actions, states of mind, appearance, or manners, as the object of others' scrutiny.

If we make ourselves into the object of our thinking, we ourselves become as it were the other, and yet at the same time we remain a thinking I, who thinks about itself but cannot aptly be thought of as an object because it determines the objectness of all things. Karl Jaspers

What is self-consciousness?  According to some recent existentialists, there is no self as such.  And what is consicousness?  "It is nothing," Sartre tells us, and for Heidegger it is scarcely worth mentioning....  Self-consciousness is not, strictly speaking, awareness of self, for there is no self.  Rather, self-consciousness in the existentialist sense is this very recognition that there is no self.  The self is an ideal, a chosen course of action and values.  Robert Solomon

STANDARD. Model, rule, or guide.

SUBSTANCE (L., substantia, fr. substare, to stand under, "to support," fr. sub, under + stare, to stand). The essential nature of anything, apart from its FORM or attributes: "what [something] really is, as opposed to the way in which it appears" (Flew). Compare ESSENCE.

Substance is the permanent in time that remains and is neither increased nor diminished. Existence is found in the appearance of time, arising and disappearing. Karl Jaspers

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TELEOLOGY. The use of design or purpose as an explanation of natural phenomena.

Existentially, the teleological question is prior to any aetiological questions [questions having to do with cause and effect].. That is to say, the purpose of our existence is of living and vital concern since we are constantly moving ahead into its potential actualization, whereas the causes of our being lie in the realm of the factically given and are no longer a possibility for us. Stephen Batchelor

TIME, SUBJECTIVE. The idea that there is a now, a present, which implies as well a past, that which has gone before, and a future, that which will take place in time to come.

Perhaps the most puzzling of the pure philosophical problems about time is that of its "passage." It is almost irresistible to think either in terms of its flowing or of our moving through it. But if so, we seem to imply that it could flow faster or slower--but then in respect to what?" Antony Flew

[The] prototype of all conceived times is the specious present, the short duration of which we are immediately and incessantly sensible. William James

Time produces itself only insofar as man is. There is no time when man was not, not because man was from all eternity and will be for all eternity, but because time is not eternity and time fashions itself into a time only as a human, historical being-there [Dasein]. Martin Heidegger

Time gnaws and wears away; it separates; it flies. Jean-Paul Sartre

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VALUE. The property or aggregate properties of a thing by which it is rendered useful or desirable, or the degree of such property or sum of properties; worth; excellence; utility; importance.

VIRTUE. Manly strength or courage; bravery; daring; spirit; valor.

VOLITION (L., vol-, stem of velle, to will or wish, + -ition, itio, the act of wishing). The power of choosing or determining. Syn WILL.

For it to be true that a person is moving his hand, it must be true that his hand is in motion. However, the statement "He is moving his hand'" does not mean the same as "His hand is in motion." Some philosophers think of a movement (as distinct from a motion) as being really two things causally connected: (1) a mental activity and (2) its effect, a bodily motion. Instances of the mental activity they call acts of volition, or acts of willing. (EOP)

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WHY? For what cause, reason, or purpose?

There is a sense in which "how" and "why" have roughly the same meaning. In this sense science is perfectly competent to deal with the "why."... There are certain senses in which "how" and "why" serve to ask distinct questions, but here too both types of questions can in principle be answered by empirical procedures.... One of the cosmic "whys"--what we have called the theological "why"--is used to ask meaningful questions, at least if certain semantic problems about theological utterances are disregarded. It was pointed out, however, that this does not imply that the theological answers are true or well supported.... Some apparent questions introduced by "why" are really complaints and not questions, and for this reason unanswerable.... What we have called the super-ultimate "why" introduces questions that are devoid of sense, whether they are asked by ordinary people in their reflective moments or by philosophers. (EOP)

"Why is there something rather than nothing?" ... is the fundamental question of metaphysics ... with this question philosophy began and with this question it will end, provided that it ends in greatness and not in an impotent decline. Martin Heidegger

WILL (OE, wille, wyllan, to wish; L, velle, to wish, desire). Whether in individuals or in groups and collectives, the mental powers conspicuous in wishing, choosing, desiring, or intending. Syn INTENTION.

Great souls have wills; feeble ones have only wishes. Chinese proverb

 

 

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