The Search for Meaning. Philosophical Vistas

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THE SEARCH FOR MEANING

Philosophical Vistas

THE SEARCH FOR MEANING

Philosophical Vistas By Alfred Stern, PhD. Professor of Philosophy at the University o f Puerto Rico in Mayagiiez

and Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at California Institute of Technology

Memphis State University Press, Memphis

© Copyright, 197'] By Memphis State University Press Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 75-134888 ISBN: 0-87870-006

Manufactured in the United States ofAmerica

To My Beloved Wife, Marigloria

Preface ”The question of the meaning of life arises only at those times when such a meaning has become doubtful." These

words, written by the late Austrian philosopher Robert Reininger-on the eve of World War II,1 have kept their entire validity. They may even be more meaningful to our age, with

its bellum omnium contra omnes— its war of all against all, and its shortsighted aims. All our activities are directed toward purposes; only the sum total of our activities seems to be deprived of a purpose. A life is meaningful when it is directed toward the realization of values. These values are always embodied in concrete projects. This book examines different projects offered to modern man, the realization o f which would lead to the crystallization

of values and give meaning to the lives of those who adopt them: science, literature, history, philosophy, psychology, ethics, politics, etc. It also examines the meaning of man’s reactions to the realization o f certain values, expressed in

laughter and tears. Finally, it analyzes the repertoire of meanings proposed to us by outstanding thinkers such as Sophocles, Kant, Nietzsche, Balzac, Sartre, Camus, Unamuno, Gasset, Mazzini.

Ortega y

This volume is not a systematic book but a collection of essays; therefore, it carries the subtitle Philosophical Vistas. It is, indeed, a collection of philosophical vistas on The Search for Meaning, which occupies modern man. Many o f these essays are new, while others have been

published in different journals over the last 25 years, and are reprinted here with the kind permission of the editors. ”A Philosopher Looks at Science" appeared in The Southern lournal of Philosophy, “Fiction and Myth in History” in Diogenes, ”Conversation with Einstein" and ”Nietzsche and Judaism” in Contemporary lewish Record, “Why Do We Laugh ‘ R. Reininger, Wertphilosophie und Ethik, 3. Auflage, Wien, 1947, S. 65. vii

The Search for Meaning

and Cry?” in Engineering and Science,” “Kant and Our Time” in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, and "Existential Psychoanalysis and Individual Psychology” in the Journal of Individual Psychology. The following essays were published in The Personalist: ”Tragedy and Human Values," ”Some Philosophical Considerations of Literature," "The Current Crisis in the Realm o f Values,” ”Historicism and Basic Existential Ethics,"

and ”Considerations of Albert Camus’ Doctrine.” Some of them were slightly modified in the present edition. The essay, ”What Are Spiritual Phenomena?", was my official address as president of the American Philosophical Association, Pacific Division, and appeared in the Proceedings and Addresses of that distinguished organization in 1965-66. I am grateful for having these dispersed writings united with other of my essays in this volume published by the Memphis State University Press.

ALFRED STERN University of Puerto Rico Mayagiiez, Puerto Rico lune, 7970

viii

Contents . II. III. IV. VI. VII. VIII. IX.

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii The Search for Meaning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 A Philosopher Looks at Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Fiction and Myth in History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Conversation with Einstein . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Science as a Humanistic Activity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Why Do We Laugh and Cry? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Tragedy and Human Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Some Philosophical Considerations of Literature. . . . 99 The Current Crisis in the Realm of Values . . . . . . . . . 119 Historicism and Basic Existential Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 What Are Spiritual Phenomena? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 Nietzsche and Judaism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

XI. XlI. XIII. Nietzsche and Methodological XIV. Existential Psychoanalysis and

Doubt in Ethics . . . . . 183

Individual Psychology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 Considerations of Albert Camus’ Doctrine . . . . . . . . . 213 Tolerance, lts Meaning and Limits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223 Kant and Our Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235 Unamuno and Ortega: The Revival of Philosophy in Spain . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247 XIX. Ortega y Gasset, Existentialism and Phenomenology. 263 XX. Jean-Paul Sartre’s Philosophical Theatre . . . . . . . . . . . 279 XXI. The Timeliness of Balzac . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301 XXII. The Greek Theatre and the Meaning of Antigone's Struggle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317 XXIII. Mazzini and the Meaning of Nationalism . . . . . . . . . . 331 XXIV. What Is Man? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339 XXV. Retrospective and Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363 XV. XVI. XVII. XVIII.

Longa est vita, 5i plena est Seneca

THE SEARCH FOR MEANING Philosophical Vistas

THE SEARCH FOR MEANING

“Man does not live by bread only.”1 These are some of the wisest words to be found in the Pentateuch. To be sure, the struggle for bread is the first preoccupation of man, but as soon as he has secured his bread, he asks himself why he struggles for it at all. This question is the first manifestation of man’s search for meaning: his search for the meaning of his life. As Heidegger expressed it, man has been “cast” or “thrown” (“geworfen”) into the world, without his knowledge,

will, o r

consent, and is removed from it again without his will or consent. Between these two events man has to go through much suffering. Being not only conscious, like other animals, but conscious o f his consciousness, i.e., self-conscious, man must

ask himself earlier or later: ”Why am I here and for what purpose? What is the meaning of my sudden existence and my sudden disappearance?” Finding no answer in the nature ' Deuteronomy, 6.16.

The Search for Meaning

which surrounds him — for nature is silent— man invents answers, first in the form of myths and religions, later in that of philosophic systems. Goethe wrote in his essay "Von deutscher Baukunst” (On German Architecture): ”Sobald er nichts zu sorgen und zu ft'irchten hat, greift der Halbgott, wirksam in seiner Ruhe, umher nach Stofi, ihm seinen Geist einzuhauchen”2— as soon as he is free from care and fear the demigod (man), active in his repose, gropes round him for matter into which to breathe his spirit. The German poet suggests that this is the origin of art as pure art. Yet today, thanks to more ethnological information, we know that to primitive man the art he creates has no “artistic,” i.e., no purely aesthetic meaning, but a magic-religious significance. The objects of art he creates are parts of a crude explanatory system, full of irrational elements, made up of the ”representations collectives” (Durkheim, Lévy-Bruhl) or collective ideas of his tribe. However illogical these systems may be in the eyes of modern man, with his strong rational demands, they give meaning to the existence of primitive man. To be sure, the first purpose of the creation of primitive man’s magic world systems was and is to assuage his fear. Therefore, Goethe erred in his youthful and in many respects objectionable writing ”On German Architecture” when he suggested that the primitive man starts creating only after Overcoming his fear. Man certainly must first have satisfied his most elementary needs, his hunger and the necessity for shelter against the elements. His fear, however, will not leave him for a long time; it is even present in civilized man, be it only in the form of existential anxiety. But existential anxiety proves and always has proved to be one of the strongest motivating forces in the creation of frames of orientation, first in the form of magicreligious systems, later in that of rational, phi|050phica| ones. The totems and taboos which the modern observer of the primitive universe often evaluates in purely aesthetic terms, are parts of the frame of orientation which gives primitive man a feeling of security and the impression of living in a mean-

ingful universe. ’1. W. Goethe, "Von deutscher Baukunst,” Werke, XXXVII, p. 148.

2

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The creation of such frames of orientation corresponds to an existential need in man: the need of livrng in a world which has

a semblance of meaning. Otherwise he cannot feel secure. But all these frames of orientation are children of their respective times and are worn out earlier or later, under the impact o f

growing empirical knowledge and increasing rational de-

mands. A frame of orientation which appeared meaningful to a past age will no longer appear so to a later age, and will require its replacement by a more realistic and more rational framework. Thus the problem of meaning is a perpetual problem of mankind. It will remain with us as long as our species exists. The search f0r bread is arduous, even to civilized man, but

his search for meaning is still more difficult. The best human

brains have been engaged in it for millennia. We have no reason for complaining about it, for the search for meaning has brought forth man’s most wonderful creations: his myths, his religions, his works of art, his philosophical systems, his scientific theories. It recent years man’s need for meaning was not only recognized by leading psychologists such as Erich Fromm, but also by prominent psychiatrists. The pioneer among the latter is Professor Vlktor E. Frankl of the University of Vienna, creator of the third great Viennese'school of psychiatry, after Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler. While Freud stressed man's will to pleasure and Adler his will to power, Frankl insists on man’s will to meaning. Animals also are seeking pleasure and are striving for power, but man alone cares for meaning, searches for meaning. Therefore, Frankl sees in the search for a meaning of his life the basic characteristic of man, ”ein Constituens menschlicher Existenz”,a a constituent of human existence. Since man philosophizes in order to satisfy his will to meaning, I am calling him (in Chapter XXIV, “What Is Man?”) the only animal philosophicum.4 Professor Frankl’s basic discovery is that man’s_n_eed for meaning is so fundamental that its frustration may result in ‘a ‘ V . E. Frankl, Das Menschenbild der See/cnheilkunde, Stuttgart, 1959, 5.81.

‘ Chapter XXIV, '\Nhat ls Man?”, pp. 000.

3

The Search for Meaning

certain type of neurosis, which he calls “noogenic neuroses” (”Ougt‘nt‘ Neurmen)", from the Greek word ”his, mind, or reason. I n other words, the noogenic neuroses arise out o f the

frustration of a basic need of our mind, the need for meaning. In order to avoid the unilateralness of certain followers of Freud and Adler, Frankl insists o n the fact that not every

frustration of our will to meaning must result in a noogenic neurosis, but that it can lead to it, and his wealth of experience as head of the Neurologische Poliklinik of Vienna confirms this fact. To cope with these noogenic neuroses, Professor Frankl created his "logotlterapy" which, by means of an existential analysis, tries to widen the patient's axiological horizon, to show him the possibilities of concrete, meaningful interpretations of his personal existence. Among these possibilities, the patient may choose. Under the guidance of the logotherapist—a physician healing through Aéyos or meaning— the patient may find a new sense of life, a new value, a new purpose, a new responsibility in his existence. Frankl bases himself on Nietzsche’s insight that ”he who has 3 why to live for, can bear almost any how;” but the psychiatrist goes beyond the philosopher by saying: ”Er ertragt jedes Wie”— he hears any how, and not only ”almost any how”.6 50 strong is man’s “will to meaning", so fundamental for his whole existence! One of the earliest and most ingenious creations of man’s search for meaning was religion. The Jewish religion and, later,

the Christian faith provided so well-integrated frames of orientation that they gave meaning to Western man’s existence

for many centuries. The medieval Christian lived in a world which satisfied completely his need for a meaningful existence, and still today Christianity provides a satisfactory frame of orientation to many millions. Yet, with the growing conflicts between religious conceptions, scientific findings, and political realities the great traditional religions are loosening ‘ V . E. Frankl, op.cit., $.69. ' Ibid., 5.81.

The Search for Meaning

their hold on other millions of people and have gnen way to a great variety of philosophical and scientific frames of orientation. What has happened in modern times since the Renaissance is a repetition, on a larger scale, of a process which took place in ancient Greece two and a half millennia ago. One cannot but admire man’s inventiveness in the creation of frames of orientation which provide meaning to his existence. We spoke of religion, but we must also mention poetry. Historically, these two activities are closely related to each other, for in most civilizations religion is man’s first poetical creation. Only, that at this early stage, man is still not aware of being the poet, the woinrfis, or maker. Fingunt, simu/ cre-

duntque said Tacitus, they create fictions and at the same time believe In them. Later, at higher stages of their evolution, men create their frames of orientation consciously, In the form of philosOphy and science. When we are amazed at the abundant imagination which early civilizations show in creating their mythologies and religious systems, we must think of Giambattista Vico’s pertinent remark: “La fantasia tanto é pit? robUsta, quanto :3 pm debole il raziocinio”,7—imagination is so much stronger, the weaker reasoning is.

We saw that the search for meaning starts at the earliest stages of man 's exolution as a self-conscious being and stays with him even at the highest levels of his civilization. But what is meaning? People seem to know it, at least vaguely, for they

would not search for it if they had not found it already, at least negatively, as something which is missing in their lives. They

know what they are looking for but are unable to define it. This is not their fault, for meaning is indefinable As I pOInt out in Chapter XI (”What Are Spiritual Phenomena?"), a definition is a statement about a meaning. Being presupposed in any defini-

tion, meaning cannot be defined. Yet we are able to say what meaning means in a definite, concrete context: the meaning of a sign is what it stands for, what it represents; the meaning of an artifact is what it is intended for; the meaning of an institution is its purpose. Now, when speaking of the ”meaning of TG. Vico., PrInCIpi di Scienza Nuova d’intorno

alla Commune Natura

delle Nazioni Seconda Edizione, 1744 (Milano, 1854], XXXVI, p. 107.

5

The Search for Meaning

existence, ’ we can either mean what man is intended for, Le, the purpose of his existence or its iuwfication. In examining the question of the meaning of existence, we should always make clear to ourselves which of these two concepts we are referring to: purpose 0r justification. In principle these two questions can be answered in three different ways theologically, metaphysical/y, and critically. The theological answer would be that God, in creating us, did it for a certain purpose which we hate to fulfil by our individual as well as by our collective existence, and that the fulfil-

ment of this purpose would be the justification of our existence. This would make each man’s existence and the exis-

tence of mankind meaningful, to the extent to which they fulfill the divine’purpose. The metaphysical answer would be that the purpose of human existence is inherent in nature or in another abstract force such as the Absolute, the idea, Will, etc., in which this existence is supposed to be rooted. In fulfilling the purpose of this metaphysical entity, our existence would become meaningful, i.e., justified. The critical answer would be that meaning is not written in o u r existence nor in the things and events i t confronts. I t is we,

men, who have to give meaning to our existence, individually as well as collectively. There is no meaning in itself. Meaning is always a meaning to someone, to us, or to our ancestors, to Western or to Eastern man. Meanings change from one age to another, from one civilization to another. In order to ascertain

to which extent a thing or event is meaningful, we must have a standard of measurement of meanings, and these standards are historically conditioned and thus changing. A purpose is a design, an intention, a desired end. Designed, intended, desired by whom? In the theological interpretation

of meaning by God, in the metaphysical one by nature, in the critical one by ourselves. Purposes presuppose acts of will; in the theological interpretation acts of divine will, in the metaphysical one acts of will of nature, and in the critical interpretation acts of human will. I shall concentrate on the critical approach, which is based on acts of human will, because these acts are the only ones which can be empirically verified. 6

The Search to; Meaning

To b e sure, I do n o t deny that for millions or persons the

theological approach to the problem of meaning is still satisfactory; but we are engaged in a philosophical investigation, and in avoiding any recourse to God we are only following the example of two great philosophers who were no atheists at all: Kant and Hegel. In his Critique of Practical Reason, Kant wrote that "to have recourse to God as the originator of all things... is everywhere a confession that one is at the end of one’s philosophy.” And in his Phenomenology of the Spirit, Hegel insisted that ”philosophy must be on its guard against wanting to be edifying.”9 As for the metaphysical theories, they are all based on what Karl Jaspers calls ”philosophischer CIaube,” philosophical faith, and thus are a matter of personal choice. If we Wish to present the problem of the search for meaning in a generally acceptable manner, we mUst not base it on a specific metaphysical creed. We found that purposes depend on acts of human will. Here we must distinguish between individual will and collective will. Acts of individual will create individual purposes, while acts of collectite will create collective purposes. Since history as reality is the exolution of the res publica and not of the res

privatae, the acts of will which set historical goals and estab— lish historical purposes are acts of collective will. Concretely, an historical purpose is always embodied in a definite collective project. In my book Philosophy of History and the Problem of Values”, I found, among other things, a principle which seems to be important for both collective and individual projects: If, logically, every project presupposes an act of will, we may say that psychologically every act of will appears in the concrete form of a project. Only in and through a project do we become conscious of our volitions and evalua‘ I . Kant, Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, Edit. K. Vorlander, I. Teil, ll. Buch, 2. Hauptstfick, VII, p. 176. Leipzig, 1915.

' G. W. F. Hegel, Pha‘nomenologie des Geistes, Edit. I. Hoffmeister, Leipzig, 1915, Vorrede, p. 14. ("Die Philosophie aber musz sich hL‘iten, erbaulich sein zu wollen.”) '" A. Stern, Philosophy of History and the Problem of Values, Mouton and Co., ’S-Gravenhage, Holland, 1962. For United States, Humanities Press, New York.

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trons. At the beginning neither of the two is abstractly formulated. Thus the projects appear as particularizations of our \ohtions and evaluations. Only after the genesis of the project, and sometimes even only in the course of or after its realiza— tion, do the evaluations it implies separate from the project and become crystallized as concepts which can be grasped in an abstract way. As I tried t o show in the book mentioned, the different col-

lective projects appearing in the course of history, and espe— cially those of the collectivities called nations, give birth to different codes of values. If one looks for a meaning in the sense of justification of the sequence of attempts to carry out collective projects which constitute history, one may find it in the fact that every realization of a collective project results in the crystallization of new values. Thus history is justified, in as much as it enriches the patrimony of mankind’s values. Earlier I said that the questions of meaning, that is to say of the purpose and the justification of human existence, can be answered in three different ways: theologically, metaphysically, and critically. This principle applies to both the existence o f individuals and to that o f collectivities, that is t o history. A

theological meaning is assigned to history when we assume that it follows a divine plan. This conception is most typically represented by such thinkers as Isaiah, Saint Augustine, Bossuet,

Hegel, and Toynbee. The second possibility of conceiving the purpose of history is the metaphysical one, and consists in assuming that a purpose is imparted to history by the ”Absolute” or by ”Nature” or that it is inherent in history itself, so that the latter moves with inner necessity toward an aim which i t carries in its womb,

in the sense of Aristotle’s entelechy. This metaphysico-teleological conception is represented by such thinkers as Vico, Kant, Condorcet, Voltaire and, most re-

cently, by Husserl. Even in Marx’s and Engels’ interpretation of history we may find traces of a metaphysico-teleological conception, although it was not intended by its authors and was rather unconscious to them. Anyway, this second conception of the purpose of history is much more rational than the first one.

The Search for Meaning

Finally, the term purpose of history” can also be used in a critical sense, as a purpose which different collectixities pro-

ject to achieve in history, by their common actions. Also the interpretation of the meaning of history in the sense o f justification can be carried out in three ways: theologically,

metaphysically, or critically. A few examples will show it. One of the first men who suspected that history may be meaningful, that it may have a purpose as well as a justification, was the Jewish prophet Isaiah, who wrote: ”In the last days the mount of the Lord will be conspicuous; and the house of God will be on top of the mountains; and exalted above all the hills. Many nations, indeed, will go say-

ing: Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of Jacob. And He will teach us the way and we will walk therein. ”For from Sion shall go forth a law; and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And He will judge among the nations, and work conviction in many a people; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares; and their spears into pruning hooks: and nation shall not lift up a sword against nation; nor shall they learn war anymore."11 Thus Isaiah did not consider history as an aimless sequence of conquests and defeats, but as a movement toward a goal, foreordained by God: that of the unification of all nations under one God, the God o f Israel, the adoption by all men of

His Law and the establishment of a universal brotherhood among men, which would end all wars among nations forever.

With this goal of eternal peace to be reached, history has gained a purpose, and all the blood and tears, all the sacrifices it imposes on men seem justified—at least for the believers in Isaiah’s prophecy. To them history has acquired a meaning in the sense of purpose and justification. Isaiah offered no proof for the correctness of his vision, so that its adoption became a matter of faith, as it happens with all religious matters. However, at the end of the eighteenth century, Immanuel Kant conceived of the question of meaning of history metaphysical/y, by suggesting some reasons which would justify the Jewish prophet’s hope for eternal peace as ” Isaiah, ll, 2-4.

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the iinal outcome, purpose, and justification of history. To the great German philosopher history was no longer the execution o f a divine plan, but the realization o f a plan o f "nature". Kant

supposed that this nature was endowed with ”wisdom” (Weisheit), and although men are unaware o f its intentions,

they fulfil them unconsciously. The purpose of this hidden plan of nature to be carried out in history is, "to accomplish a perfect civil constitution, as the sole condition in which it can

fully develop all the potentialities of mankind.”12

In his book Idee zu einer allgemeinen Ceschichte in weltbi'jrgerlicher Absicht (Idea of a Universal History with a C05mopolitan Purpose), Kant wrote: ”Man wants concord, but

nature knows better what is good for the species: it wants discord."13 Driven to action by his greed, man learns how to use his reason and so he gradually develops all his potentialities. But this same unsociability which drives man into a bellum omnium contra omnes, a war of all against all, forces him finally to create a perfect civil constitution, in which the freedom of the individual can coexist with the freedom of the group. By destructive wars and costly armaments, nature, according to Kant, forces men and states to overcome their antagonism, “to get out of the lawless condition of savages and

to enter a league of nations (V6Ikerbund,”“ which would guarantee even the security of the weakest countries. This is an idea which Kant was to develop later in his book on Eternal Peace. If I call Kant’s interpretation of the meaning of history “metaphysical”, it is because his concept of nature has nothing but the name in common with the empirical concept of nature used by the scientist. By considering nature as a meta-empirical force hidden behind the phenomena, by lending it ”will”, by endowing it with wisdom and by ascribing a plan to it, a purpose governed by final causes, Kant changed nature into a metaphysical force which directs history teleologically, yet

from within. Kant's historical conception corresponds, there" I. Kant, SEmmt/iche Werke, VI (Leipzig, 1870) p. 14.

1’ Ibid., p. 8.

1‘ Ibid. p. 11. 10

The Search tor Weaning

fore, to the metaphysical type of meaning ascribed to history, in contradistinction to the theological one, exemplified in Isaiah. Today we have already the second league of nations but are still very far away from the wonderful purpose which Isaiah and Kant ascribed to history and which was supposed to justify all the sacrifices it demands from us. We have thus to realize that eternal peace may he a noble dream of mankind, certainly an ideal for the realization of which we should strive, but that it is still too far removed from our present socio-political realities to make history meaningful. A critical answer to the question of the meaning of history would have to realize that a historical purpose is always embodied in a definite collective project of a group—be it a religious denomination, a caste, a social class, a nation, or a group of nations. A survey of past history shows that, up to now, the national state has proved to be the main carrier and most potent promoter of collective historical projects. Thus, in order to recognize the goals which would give meaning to history and would eventually justify it, one has to find out \\ hat were the collective projects which the world’s great nations and some supranational groups have tried to carry out in the course of their evolution, and in which ways these collective projects have shaped their codes of values. With this a great new task arises for the philosophy of history. It is an infinite, ever renewable task, capable of giving a new meaning to the doings of future generations of historians and philosophers.“ The fact that meanings can be discovered in the carrying out of collective projects is very important for the search for meaning o f the individual. To be sure, there are strictly indi-

vidual projects the execution of which gives meaning to millions of individual lives, but the values which these projects

try to achieve come from the collectivities of which the individuals are a part. There are, indeed, very few individuals who " For literature on this subject, see R. Barton Perry, Puritanism and Democracy, New York, 1944; A. Stevenson, W. Lippmann, etc., The National Purpose, 1960,- A. Stern, Philosophy of History and the Problem of Values, ’S-Gravenhage— New York, 1962.

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Invent new scales o f values; Moses, Buddha,

ChrIst, and

Nietzsche were some of these outstanding individuals. The great mass o f individuals, however, receive their tablets and

hierarchies of values from the collectivities within which they have been educated and choose their individual life projects within these realms. In principle an individual life becomes meaningful when it is based on a life project. for ther- it ha: a purpose, the execution of which is its justification. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote the famous sentence: ”Celui qui donne un coup de pioche veut connaitre un sens a son coup de pioche”16— he who gives a blow of the pickax, wants to ascribe a meaning to the blow of his pickax. He can do it, by integrating this blow into the totality of a life project. Within this project, every blow of his pickax could gain a meaning. The great crisis of the search

for meaning we are undergoing now comes from the fact that in spite of all the progress of science and technology, modern life does not seem to offer enough stimulating projects which would make it meaningful. _One of_ the first modem men who became aware of this crisis was probably Friedrich Nietzs.che He called it nihilism f’What does nihilism mean?" he asked, and his answer was: ”That the supreme values are depreciated. The goal is lacking, the answer t o the question: ”What

for?”" But Nietzsche not only ascertained the illness of modern man, he also proposed a remedy, by realizing that “only man

put values into things. In order- to maintain himself— he created the meaning of things a human meaning!”“3 If it depends on us to create the meanings of things, then we should create new meanings, new tablets of meanings and values. Hence Nietzsche's conception of the philosopher as a prophet. To be sure, not a prophet able t o foretell what will be, b u t able

to tell what should be. In Nietzsche’s own words: ”Die eigent/ichen Philosophen sind Befehlende und Cesetzgeber; " A . de Saint-Exupéry, Terre des hommes, Paris, Gallimard, 1939, p. 239 "’ F. Nietzsche, Gesammelte Werke, Band XVIII, “Der Wille zur Macht”, I, 2, p. 11.

" Ibid., Band Xlll, "Also sprach Zarathustra," I, “Von tausend und einem Ziele” p. 72.

12

The Search for Meaning

sie sagen ’so so]! es sein’. Sie bestimmen erst das 'Wohm? und 'Wozu?’ des Menschen”.‘" This means that the real philosophers are commanders and lawgivers; they say ”thus should it be!" They determine first the Whither and Why of man. Nietzsche considered himself such a prophet and the main goal he set for modern man was the superman. He was to be the true purpose of present man's existence. The superman was supposed to be the ideal man who justified our present, deficient existence. The striving for his realization was supposed to be the project which would give meaning to our lives and help us to overcome nihilism and pessimism. Nietzsche did, however, not tell us what we could do to

carry out this project, to translate its ideal into reality, and the would-be supermen of the twentieth century, Benito Mussolini and Adolph Hitler, were nothing but gigantic, bloody abortions of this ideal. Another modern prophet or goal-setter for mankind, Henrik Ibsen, showed us how essential it was for man to have a life

pTBTEEt which would gixe meaning to his existence. He showed this less through an ideal — f o r Pastor Brand is far from being a model worthy of being imitated—than by an anti-ideal: Peer Gynt. In the life of this Ibsenian character we cannot find any purpose, or search for purpose, no life project, no submission to higher tasks, no ideals, no striving for self-improve-

ment, no altruistic endeavor. At every moment of his existence, Peer Gynt is disposable, available for any adventure promising momentary fun, ready to give it up for another whim, promising more fun. If Ortega y Gasset wrote ”una vida en disponibilidad es mayor negacion de si misma que la muerte”20 — a disposable life is a greater negation of itself than death, it was because a disposable life, a life without a guiding project, is meaningless. Toward the end of his life old Peer Gynt himself realizes it, by crying out: ”Beautiful earth, forgive me for having trodden thee all to no purpose".21 We saw that the project is the main provider of meanings " F. Nietzsche, Gesammelte Werke, Band XV, “Ienseits von Gut und Bose," Par. 211, p. 154.

”I. Ortega y Gasset, Obras comp/eras, t. IV, p. 239. " H. Ibsen, Peer 6a, Act 5, Scene X, p. 236.

13

The Search for Meaning

to man’s life — meanings in the double sense of purpose and jwtificauon. But by its very nature a project is always directed toward the future, it is, indeed, a pro-[ection of oneself toward the future. It was to no present moment that Goethe’s Faust could say ”verweile doch, du bist so schon!”—”o stay a while, thou art so fair,” but to a future one, when he declared;

”And I who feel ahead such heights of bliss, at last enjOy my

highest moment, this”22 (”Im Vorgefijhl von solchem hohen C/Uck, Ceniess ich ietzt den hc'ichsten Augenblick.”) The mod— ern dynamic man cannot enj0y any present moment as the fairest, he cannot exist meaningfully without the dimension of the future, he must always transcend his present existence. Faust’s highest moment is only lived in anticipation of still a higher one, for every project which gives meaning to life points beyond itself. In our search for meaning we are always directed toward the future. The future is the main meaningproviding dimension. However, man’s possibilities of projecting himself toward the future are narrowed by the shortness of his life and the sudden occurrence of death. In our essay on Camus we quote this great French writer’s gruesome remark by which he foreshadowed his own absurd death in an automobile crash: ”The idea that I am, my way of acting as if everything were meaningful,. . . all this is dizzily belied by the absurdity of a possible death.”2" Death is indeed the greatest destroyer of meanings, the strongest argument against those who try to prove that life is meaningful. Hence the great significance of Sartre’s metaphor of ”the wall” (”Ie mur”). Man’s consciousness is essentially the anticipation of his future possibilities. But as soon as he knows that he has to die at a definite, very near date, he can no longer project himself toward the future: he feels as if ”a wall” had suddenly been erected in front of him, a wall beyond which he cannot go, think, feel, o r plan. Standing in front o f his wall,

man is suddenly deprived of his future, of his projects, and with this, of the meaning of his existence. In front of his wall ” I . W. Goethe, Faust, II. Teil, 5. Akt, p. 335. "'“ A. Camus, Le mythe de Sisyphe, Paris, 1942, p. 80; American ed., The t h of Sisyphus and Other Essays, New York, 1955.

14

The Search for Meaning

he cannot even any longer communicate with those whose life is still meaningful, because they can still look toward a tomorrow.24 In his De brevitate v i t a e — O n the Shortness of Life— Seneca denied what he seemed to affirm in the title of this book, by declaring that life is not short for him who uses it wisely, in earnest meditation,

avoiding

the losses o f time

brought about by the frivolities of social life. We cannot pro— long our objective lifespan, but we can lengthen its subjective duration, by the right use we make of our otium, our leisure, Seneca thought. To me such a life would seem meaningful only if the products of its meditations would survive the short span of the meditator’s individual existence and enrich future generations. This happened indeed with Seneca’s own meditations. If the shortness of our individual lives and the suddenness of our deaths may cripple our individual projects and deprive them of their meaning, we can still make our lives and projects meaningful by considering them as parts of the lives and projects of larger entities such as nations, societies, mankind. Why do so many of our young pe0ple flee into the worlds of hallucinations provided by such drugs as LSD and marijuana? Because they have no individual life projects which would give enough meaning to their lives and because the collectivities within which they live do not offer them enough stimulating supra-individual projects in which they could participate. It is undeniable that countries such as the Soviet Union have collective projects which stimulate persons to the point of adopting them as their individual projects. If these persons contrib-

ute something during their individual lifetimes to the collective projects of their nations or societies, they do not feel frustrated by the idea of their individual death, because they have the conviction that later generations may benefit from their work. In this case the shortness of their individual lives is no longer an argument against the meaningfulness of their endeavors. This is one of the few advantages which the collectiyism of the “ S e e A. Stern, Sartre—His Philosophy and Existential Psychoanalysis, New York, Delacorte Press, 1967, Chapter XXI, “The Philosophy and Psychology of Death,” pp. 161-177. A Delta book.

15

The Search for Meaning

Socialistic countries have over the individualism of our type of society. But there is no reason for believing that our type of society cannot overcome certain disadvantages of its otherwise so precious individualism. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote this wonderful

sentence: ”Etre homme, c’est sentir en posant sa

pierr'e que l’on contribue a construire le monde”—to be a

man is to feel that the brick one lays helps to build the world. The fact that this sentence was adopted as the motto of the 1967 World Fair in Montreal constituted a step toward the creation of a new feeling of a worldwide human solidarity. If the motto takes roots — and educators can do much to further this process—then many persons will be able to make their lives meaningful by subordinating‘ their individual projects to the collective projects ofumankind. For, as Saint-Exupéry said, only those blows of the pickax are meaningful which link a man to the community of men.” If we adapt our life-projects to the needs of mankind, if we see them sub specie humanitatis, then our lives will not only gain a meaning, but even a moral meaning. They will have a moral purpose as well as a moral justification. To reach the aim of developing a worldwide human soli— darity, a true world-consciousness, we must overcome

our

egoism, our cultural and social parochialisms. Someday they will appear as ridiculous provincialisms. The essays which follow offer different ”vistas” or perspectives of the problem of meaning as it appears in the most diverse fields of culture. The last chapter, ”Retrospective and Conclusion," w i l l show this explicitly. ” A . de Saint-Exupéry, Terre des hommes, Paris, 1939, pp. 239-240.

16

A PHILOSOPHER LOOKS AT SCIENCE

In giving this essay the title “A Philosopher Looks at Science”, I am imparting a rather individualistic character to it.

Yet, I cannot call it ”Philosophy Looks at Science,” because no single philosopher is entitled to speak in the name of philosophy as such. Terentius saying quot homines, tot sententiae, as many people, so many opinions—holds indeed first of all for philosophers, and only secondly for all other intellectuals.

The German philosopher Wilh‘elm Windelband Once sarcastically compared the philosophers to all persons whose name is, for instance, Paul, for they likewise have nothing in common

which would justify this common name. The history of philosophy is, indeed, a sequence of conflicting systems, each of which tries to refute the others. This means that we are able to create many philosophies, but not one philosophy which would be universally recognized as the only right one, as, for instance, certain chapters of science are by now accepted by 17

The Search for Meaning

all the scientists of our epoch. Voltaire, the brilliant French thinker and wittiest satirist o f the Western world, described in

one of his fantastic stories called Micromégas, a trip to earth of two giants—one from the star Sirius, the other from the planet Saturn. Arrived on earth, they meet our learned men to get some first-hand information on tellurian things. First the stellar visitors ask our scholars several scientific questions— about the distance between the earth and the moon, the spe-

cific weight of air, etc., — and admire the unanimity and precision of the answers. But then our tellurian thinkers are asked by their stellar colleagues some philosophical questions— about the nature o f the soul, the origin o f our ideas, the es-

sence of spirit and matter, etc. Immediately the unanimity which characterized their scientific views disappears, all the scholars talk pell-mell at the same time, one quoting Aristotle, a second Descartes, a third Malebranche, a fourth Locke, a fifth St. Thomas, each contradicting the philosophical theses of the others, each trying to refute the others. And when, finally, the fifth tells the two giants — each of whom is several thousand feet tall— that they, their stars, and suns, and satellites have only been created for the sake of the human inhabitants of our earth, the two giants burst into a Homeric laughter so mighty that our little planet shakes with it.

Voltaire wrote this story in 1750, but still today the fictitious stellar visitors would find a similar philosophical situation on earth, including the megalomaniac w h o — f o r dogmatic reasons—maintains that our earth, this speck of dust in the im— mensity of space, is the center of the universe and its ultimate purpose. But if Voltaire’s visiting giants would not find that our present philos0phical views are more unanimous than they were in the past, they would probably find that our present scientific views are much less unanimous than they were still half a century ago. Max Planck, the creator o f the quantum theory, declares that

”there is scarcely any scientific principle that is not nowadays challenged by somebody."1 Even measurable scientific data ‘Planck, M., Positivismus and reale Aussenwelt, Leipzig, 1931, p. 1 18

A Philosopher Looks at Science

have lost their absolute certainty. With the indivisible quantum of action a limit has been laid beyond which the most delicate physical measurement is unable to give a satisfactory answer to questions connected with the individual behavior of certain subatomic entities. Quantum mechanics has taught us that every act of researchmeasurement has, as Planck put it, ”a more or less causal in— fluence on the very process that is under observation,” so that

it has become impossible to separate the law we are seeking to discover from the methods that are used to bring about the discovery. Searching for new foundations for science, the theoretical physicist of today has become, to a large extent, an epistemologist, that is a philosopher, and never in modern times have science and philosophy been closer to each other than today. Let us see in what respect philosophy and science are related to each other. In a metaphor, Epictetus compared mankind to a fair where every0ne is busy selling and buying and perceives of men and things only that which is useful to his business. The philosopher, however, is like a spectator, whose mission is

to observe men and things and to contemplate. This remark of Epictetus and a similar one of Herodotus make clear the original meaning of philosophy as a contemplation for the sake of contemplation, a search for knowledge in order to know and not in order to act. Aristotle began his Metaphysics with the following words: m’vns fivflpmor rofi sL’SE'vaL ripe-you're". 4315081 "all men by nature desire to know”, and he insisted that this desire is independent of practical motives, of considerations concerning the usefulness of knowledge. After Plato had designated the flavnéé'ew, that is wonder or astonishment as the most genuine philosophical feeling, Aristotle wrote likewise: 81.31 ‘yfizp To flavpdéerv of 51'0pm7rot Kori Viv Karl. 1'6 7rp