Existentia means existence. Essentia means being or essence.
Speculative philosophy (German classical) explores the "objective reality". It explores the essence. It dissects, watches aloof.
Existential philosophy explores “man-in-the world”, or rather self-world as a single substratum.
Speculative philosophy extracts truth through logical analysis of the world.
The key category of existential philosophy is "existence".
What is "existence" for the ordinary, not philosophical mind, living in an abstract world, out of context, without depth?
It means just to “exist”. Abstractly. Neutrally.
For existential philosophy, "existence" has a lot of shades, gradations. And the main of them is the "existence of man."
"Existential philosophy" is akin to " phenomenology." In both cases the external world is perceived not as "objective reality", but as a kind of world, the space of "models", which are created by the consciousness of a particular person, by all his knowledge, experience, emotions, imprints, misconceptions, beliefs, sexuality, personal qualities.
Existence as existentia, existentialiså philosophy is existence within the same world, only perhaps even more subtle, because the central theme of the philosophy of existentialism is the social dislocation of man, his fear, his flutter, his experiences, his trembling and vibrating.
Because it is in this state that man is able to realize the basic requirement of the philosophy of existentialism - to have subtle experience of himself and reality, himself-in-reality, reality-in-contact-with-himself.
Such an experience, equal to "enlightenment", a person can experience in the face of death.
At the moment when – and here we touch upon the subject of existentia – his existence is facing an end, termination, death.
Existence, being, living being, "I think, therefore I exist" ... Existence, first of all, refers to man.
His existence is finite.
Yes, existence can be infinite, for the gods. But we know nothing of them, and we can only speak for man, using ourselves, our existence, as a universal example.
Limited existence gives a special flavor, reflects all the results of man’s knowledge about himself and the world in a specific form. And the closer one to this border – the end of existence, the threat to his existence, the end of his existence, the clearer can he realize the existentia – himself-the-world, the single substratum of himself-in-the-world, world-in-himself.
By discovering existential truth through the experience, one is forced to profess what one preaches and to preach what one professes.
Otherwise, he will not obtain the experiences through which he unfolds the truth.
In this sense, the philosophy of existentialism is extremely honest. And in this sense, it is extremely accurate.
This is its difference from speculative "objective" philosophy, which is speculative, both in the sense that it operates with abstract concepts and in the sense that, from the point of view of honest philosophy, it is often unscrupulous speculation.
The key question of the existentialist philosophy is "To live or to die?»
It holds two great aspects.
The second aspect is that only in a situation where there is a question of choosing "to live or to die?"...rather, not so much a conscious choice, but when it is a depiction of the current situation, a person is able to realize the existential truth.
The first aspect goes back to the honesty of existential philosophy, and means that a person at some point has to reconsider all his experiences, all his decisions, on the basis of whether he will decide to live or die?
Why?
Well, because every honest, conscious person as a philosopher aspires to make their own decisions.
Not only he just aspires – it's the only way to be a philosopher. The essence of the philosopher is independent thinking.
Therefore, all decisions made by him should be independent.
Each of his decisions is based on previous ones. And the whole system of his decisions is based on a decision that was not made by him. He did not make the decision to come into this world and live.
That's why, at some point, he has to make that decision on his own. And make his choice consciously.
Some people make the right choice.
That’s what is called existentialism, existentialist philosophy.
Alexander Klein
2019, Oct. 10