Hegel's importance with respect to Existentialism is much more readily recognized than is his importance for Pragmatism. So there is no need to demonstrate that Hegel has influenced Existentialism. However, Existentialism is considered as a revolt against Hegel's influence and this is only partially true. A great deal of Existentialism is pure Hegelian, plain and simple. What there is of revolt against his influence is actually an attempt to accept only half of what Hegel says at the exclusion of the rest.
The reason Existentialism has not been understood to have this relationship with Hegelianism is because of the previously mentioned influence Schelling had in rendering the popular interpretation of Hegel's work so un-Hegelian. Kierkegaard was one of Schelling's pupils.[1] The scorn Kierkegaard leveled at Hegel only shows how well Schelling misinformed his pupils of the nature of Hegel the man and his philosophy.[2] Mechanical formalism and the attitude of detachment and contemplation are ridiculed by Hegel just as much as by Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard apparently didn't read much Hegel and never realized "how much he had taken from the man he fought."[3]
After the death of Hegel, Schelling taught Hegel's philosophy as merely "negative" philosophy, a stepping stone to Schelling's own, "positive," Existenzialphilosophie. [4] What, in effect, Schelling did, was to stress the collective aspect of Geist as opposed to the balanced view that actually was Hegel's position. Thus, Schelling gave the impression that Hegel kept aloof from the individual's existence in situation, which was not the case. As this thesis attempts to show, the concept of Geist can not be stressed one way or the other at the expense of the other without misunderstanding the nature of Geist. The dual nature of Geist is most often not clarified simply to show that what is said about it is meant both for the individual and the collective. There are many reminders that this is the case. For example, "The particular individual, so far as content is concerned, has also to go through the stages through which the general mind (Geist) has passed..."[5] Hegel also places the individual's reality where the Existentialists put it, in the act. "The true being of a man is, on the contrary, his act; individuality is real in the deed, and a deed it is which cancels both the aspects of what is 'meant' or 'presumed' to be."[6]
The Existentialist who fully appreciates the work of Hegel is Jean-Paul Sartre. With Sartre we can see the effect of exaggerating the individual aspect of Geist at the expense of the collective aspect. Sartre presents his phenomenology as a study of the pour-soi and the en-soi; two concepts which are linguistically similar to Hegel's fur sich and an sich. However, Sartre describes the interplay of the pour-soi and the en-soi in a much different light as a result of his conceptions of "Being" and "Nothingness." The concepts of "Being" and "Nothingness" are rooted in Hegel's thought, for Sartre quotes: "there is nothing in heaven or on earth which does not contain in itself being and nothingness."[7] Sartre describes Hegel's theory as "the idea that a philosophical procedure is necessary in order at the outset of logic to rediscover the immediate in terms of the mediated, the abstract in terms of the concrete on which it is grounded."[8] It is against this view that Sartre writes, "It is not sufficient to posit mind as mediation and the negative; it is necessary to demonstrate negativity as the structure of being of mind."[9] This is exactly what Sartre proceeds to do. Consciousness is l'etre-pour soi, being for itself.
The for-itself is a being such that in its being, its being is in question in so far
as this being is essentially a certain way of not being a being which
it posits simultaneously as other than itself.[10]
The Nothingness that "lies coiled in the heart of being - like a worm" is man's consciousness.[11]
The distinguishing characteristic of consciousness...is that it is a
decompression of being. Indeed it is impossible to define it as
coincidence with itself.... It is often said that the act of reflection
alters the fact of consciousness on which it is directed.... But I
believe that I have demonstrated that the first condition of all
reflection is a pre-reflective cogito. This cogito, to be sure,
does not posit an object; it remains within consciousness.
But it is nonetheless homologous with the reflective cogito
since it appears as the first necessity for non-reflective
consciousness to be seen by itself.[12]
The self therefore represents an ideal distance within the immanence
of the subject in
relation to himself, a way of not being his own
coincidence, of escaping identity while positing it as a unity -
in short, of being in a perpetually unstable equilibrium between
identity as absolute cohesion without a trace of diversity and
unity as a synthesis of a multiplicity. This is what we shall call
presence to itself. The law of being of the for-itself, as the
ontological foundation of consciousness, is to
be itself in the form of presence to itself.[13]
The being of
consciousness qua consciousness is to exist at a
distance from itself as a presence to itself, and this empty
distance which being carries in its being is Nothingness. Thus in
order for a self to exist, it is necessary that the unity of this
being include its own nothingness as the nihilation of identity.[14]
Sartre unifies two consciousnesses (the pre-reflective cogito and the cogito) exactly as that - the Nothingness between the two. This is the for-itself, l'etre-pour-soi. The being to which the cogito refers is the in-itself, l'etre-en-soi. The for-itself is made to be by the in-itself. The for-itself "as an internal negation...must by means of the in-itself make known to itself what it is not and consequently what it has to be."[15] That is, "The possible is the something which the For-itself lacks in order to be itself."[16] With Sartre there is no collective Geist only individual Geist. What the word "we" stands for "...is not an inter-subjective consciousness nor a new being which surpasses and encircles its parts as a synthetic whole in the manner of the collective consciousness of the sociologists."[17] There is instead only the "Us-Object" which is evident only when "We have...a common shame and a common alienation."[18] That is, it serves as the plural for when "I" feel like an object for the "Other." Being an object for an other does not change the status of the for-itself.
My object-ness for myself is in no way a speculation of Hegel's Ich bin Ich.
We are not dealing with a formal identity, and my being-as-object or
being-for-others is profoundly different from my being-for-myself.[19]
I am ashamed of myself before the Other.[20]
The in-itself "is never anything but what it is" and as a result what is real for myself is solely a result of my choice.
All these trivial passive expectations of the real, all these commonplace,
everyday values, derive their meaning from an original projection for
myself which stands as my choice of myself in the world. But to
be exact, this projection of myself toward an original possibility,
which causes the existence of values, appeals, expectations,
and in general a world, appears to me only beyond the
world as the meaning and the abstract, logical signification of
my enterprises. For the rest, there exist concretely alarm clocks,
signboards, tax forms, policemen, so many guard rails against
anguish. But as soon as the enterprise is held at a distance
from me, as soon as I am referred to myself because I must
await myself in the future, then I discover myself suddenly as the one
who gives its meaning to the alarm clock, (etc.).... I emerge alone
and in anguish confronting the unique and original project which
constitutes my being; all the barriers, all the guard rails
collapse, nihilated by the consciousness of my freedom.... I have
to realize the meaning of the world and of my essence; I make
my decision concerning them - without justification and without excuse.[21]
This extensive quote enables the perspective of Sartre, the Existentialist who most fully advances the Existential thesis, to show clearly the extreme result of accepting only individual Geist and denying totally collective Geist. That is what Sartre does. The in-itself bears only a pitiful resemblance to the richness of Being as described by Hegel. For Sartre "Being is. Being is in-itself. Being is what it is."[22] Only "appearances" are left and we see how they are ruled by the for-itself. This is the extreme result of "positive" philosophy.
[1] Kaufmann. Op. cit. p. 12
[2] Ibid. p. 63
[3] Ibid. pp. 154, 117, 288
[4] Ibid. p. 167
[5] Hegel, op. cit. Phen. P. 89
[6] Ibid. p. 349
[7] Jean-Paul Sartre. Op. cit. p. 13 quote is from Hegel. Greater Logic chap. 1
[8] Sartre. Op. cit. p. 13
[9] Ibid. p. 19
[10] Ibid. p. 150
[11] Ibid. p. 21
[12] Ibid. p. 50
[13] Ibid. p. 53
[14] Ibid. p. 54
[15] Ibid. p. 536
[16] Ibid. p. 78
[17] Ibid. p. 390
[18] Ibid. p. 391
[19] Ibid. p. 249
[20] Ibid. p. 248
[21] Ibid. p. lxvi and p. 39
[22] Ibid. p. lxvi