Essence and existence.

What is existence - Existence is a fact of being present - "that it is"
What is essence - Essence is the description of existence - "what it is."

There has been a perennial debate over centuries over mans existence and whether it comes with a predetermined essence or not. Inorder to present both the existential and metaphysical points I'll cover it in 2 parts. Part 1 covering the existential and the latter metaphysical.
Part 1
The basic proposition of existentialism "Existence precedes essence" over traditional philosophical and metaphysical view that essence is fundamental/immutable/eternal than it's existence. To existentialists, the human being— through his consciousness creates his own values and determines a meaning for his life because, in the beginning, the human being does not possess any inherent identity or value. By posing the acts that constitute him, he makes his existence more significant
It is well claimed by Jean Paul Sarte in "Existentialism is humanism" that existence precedes essence, which gets a support from his closest Simone de beauvoir who states that "one is not born women, but becomes one."

Sarte and many existentialist's rules out and disbeliefs that any cosmic order determines human nature. However the concept can be questioned over the example of any object let's take an ashtray. It was created to specify certain purpose and it has a predetermined nature and properties for which it was created. Which can be simply stated as it's essence precedes it's existence. But Sarte claimed for such purpose that it's concept applies to humanity but not universally. The same cannot be stated for human beings since to accept an essence is to confine ourselves over a common meaning and a purpose. Over essence we become a mere object who are only to fulfil a higher ordained purpose which isn't conveyed to us.

Despite of this some atheists assume that we're possessed by special human nature which fulfils our role among fellow humans. Against which Sarte argues that no human nature is common to everyone, we define our nature which abides and commensales with the society. However this radical freedom, should be accompanied by radical responsibility.

The precedence of existence, which devoid the essence for our creation put a question mark over the presence of God and it's essence of creation of humanity, which is discussed in the next part.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.9