The Path of Existence: Person against Science?

Abstract

The polemic against science and scientific rationality is quite often conducted under the banners of the “person”, “personhood”, and the “whole human being”. Among all twentieth-century philosophical movements of this kind, existentialism was distinguished by the greatest radicalism. An analysis of its diverse versions, however, shows that the central idea around which this critique of science and technology is organised rests on the highly polysemous concept of existence, which is present in three distinct philosophical currents: Existenzphilosophie, existential philosophy, and existentialism proper. The first designation is used primarily in German-language scholarship. The second, “existential philosophy”, has proved to be applicable to almost any reflection on the problems of the human being, the person, and the individual’s relation to nature and society. The third, “existentialism”, denotes the most extensively studied cultural phenomenon: a current in twentieth-century philosophy which, however, likewise lacks clearly defined boundaries and a generally accepted circle of representatives. In both Russian and non-Russian philosophy, the latter two expressions are often regarded as synonymous. The first step towards clarifying the nature of the polemic against science and the arguments advanced against it consists in distinguishing the different approaches concealed behind these designations. It is also necessary to explicate the various stereotypes of perception associated with existence as a trendy topic. The analysis shows that: (1) although the problematisation of existence in the first half of the nineteenth century resembles existentialism, it was pursued within entirely different ontological and theological contexts; (2) the expression Existenzphilosophie came into use long before Jaspers; (3) Existenzphilosophie was a specifically German phenomenon, explicable by the powerful reception of Kierkegaard; Russian and, to some extent, French thought subsequently drew upon the German interpretations of the Danish thinker; and (4) from the 1800s to the 1920s, the problem of existence was not associated with irrationalism or with the critique of science and technology.