purpose, but surely the experience gained will greatly help in building our own atomic power station in near future. The record of work at India's Atomic Establisment would show that the ground has already been prepared for starting work on a nuclear power station.

Since the isolation of nuclear power, if the scientists all over world had engaged themselves in its appplication and research for peaceful purpose, I think, the world would have surely gained a lot and mankind would have been happier and more prosperous than what they are to-day. The vast energy lying dormant within atomic nucleus is like the genie of Aladin's lamp-it will serve the master and fulfil his desire in whatever way it is desired.

REFERENCES

(i Atomic energy in cosmic and human life-by George Gamone. (Cambridge 1947). (ii) Nuclear Explosives and their effects-Govt. of India. Publication Division.

(iii) Report on Rexional Economic Development and nuclear Power in India-Washington 1957.

(iv) The atom and its energy by A. Das Gupta.

THE CONCEPT OF EXISTENCE IN MODERN

EXISTENTIALISM

NAMITA CHOWDHURY

Research Scholar

I

The traces of Existentialism can be dated as far back as the "Cynics and the Cyrenaics" of the west as well as the Upanisads of the east. So it can be stated that the spirit of Existentialism is not a new thought pioneered either by the occidental or by the oriental world. Verily, it represents the latest movement of European thought and gained ground not as a serious philosophy but as a literary fashions, as we find Existentialism was nurtured in the literary works, mostly in the essays of the titular father of the school, Sören Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher-literateur, and, in the novels of the French philosophernovelist Jean-Paul Sartre.

In Existentialism, for the first time in the annals of philosophy, life is viewed with all its concreteness. Thus, what is real for the Existentialists is not the harmonious, all-inclusive Absolute of Hegel and Bradley, but the living existent with all his seriousness together with his sorrows and sufferings, his failings and ailings, his anguish and anxieties, his dread and despair. The main point regarding Existentialism is that it is not so much concerned with philosophy as with life. It is not involved with "thought" in its abstraction from "being", but concerns itself with the concrete life of the individua'. Existentialism views life with a spirit of sincerity and seriousness, and, it is this spirit of sincerity and seriousness that distinguishes it from all other branches of philosophic thought. It is a review on life rather than a view of the world.

"Existentialism is a reaction of the philosophy of man against the excesses of the philosophy of ideas and the philosophy of things". (Emmanuel Mounier-Existentialist Philosophies, p. 2).

Etymologically we can describe Existentialism as a doctrine which preaches something about existence. But, we should be careful here not to presume any idea on Existentialism, unless we can see the whole thing by proper analysis of the term, and, thereby the signi

ficance it bears. It is, however, wise to make it clear at the outset that according to the spirit of Existentialism, there cannot be any doctrine, in the sense of a system, of existence. A system consists of collection of evidences and stringing of facts together whereas exis. tence is "inexhaustible", and intangible and, as such, cannot be estimated and strung together. The reason why there cannot be any doctrine of existence becomes clearer when we are try to distinguish between the terms 'essence' and 'existence', the meaning and significance of which play a major part in the whole Existentialistic endeavour.

As we know, every concrete object has two sides-a 'that' and a 'what' (Bradley),-a content and a form. 'What' of an object refers to the essence of the thing and 'that', its existence. The essence, therefore, refers to the totality of the distinctive characteristics, "the infinite wealth of structures and relations" of a thing, that which distinguishes it from other things. Difficulties, however, crop up as soon as we try to explain the existence of a thing. This is due to the fact that to explain means to explain through the medium of essence. Hence, whenever we attempt to explain existence we have to explain the essence of existence. This is absurd. However, with reference to essence we can explain existence negatively. Thus, we can say that, that part of a thing which can be defined, is its essence, whereas existence is indefinable and unanalyzable. In other words, "Essence is what a being is. Existence is the act by which a Being is". No doubt, with reference to essence we can explain a thing, but it does not indicate that the thing actually exists. It is only through the threshold of existence that we enter the actual world. Existential thinking, therefore, refers to that human situation in which the thinker is actually involved. It is a living issue for him. "He is the living, striving person whose thought is embedded in his life". Existential thinking, thus spoke Kierkegaard, "refers to the mode in which the subject is engaged in his thought". Existentialist point of view is strictly ethical,-though may not be scientific or psychological, since it is concerned with the life of the suffering individual and points a direction towards which his life is to be reoriented.3

The term "existence" takes a special meaning in the hands of Kierkegaard. He does not use it in the sense of "being there", in its opposition to essence as it is universally held. His 'existence'

refers to "human existence",-to man, not as a finite being, but man together with the limitations of his finitude and the possibilities of his infinitude. The existent individual, for him, is the "spiritual being" with his "passion and will"; it is the self that "reflects, chooses and decides"; it is the "man in the process of coming to be" with a self-determination. Consequently, existential truth, for Kierkegaard, is a "state of being" rather than a state of having. As such, existential situation cannot be put within the realm of "pure thought" which is based on "dialectical necessities". On the contrary, freedom and genuine novelty constitute the basic fabric of existence. The existent individual is interested in his truth, a truth which he car catch hold of in his days of joys and sorrows, -a truth which is "in accordance with his aspirations, crowns his efforts and straightens out his problems". It is this life of intensity to which Kierkegaard refers when he says "truth is subjectivity". This is not solipsism. The individual of which Kierkegaard speaks, is not the ideal subject abstracted from the rest of the world, but he is "facing up to the whole world". We can, in a sense, describe it as the "universalistic individualism". It is not a contradiction of thought, but a statement of truth through paradox.

We have said earlier that existence as such is indefinable. Nevertheless, considerable informations can be gathered regarding our human mode of comprehending existence. Thus instead of speaking about existence as such, the Existentialists speak about the human way of encountering existence. Thus, by 'existence' Kierkegaard means that mode of being which is characteristic of man, not as "disembodied intelligences" but as concrete individual, the "inexhaustible concretion" which hankers after real existence.

The question arises whether this 'real existence' can be achieved by the human being and, if so, how? Of course, we cannot reach existence through intellect, because intellect by itself cannot transcend the sphere of essence, and, because existence lies outside the realm of essences. But it is this inability on the part of the intellect that pushes us towards existence. According to Kierkegaard, this inability to transcend the realm of essences creates uneasiness, a "metaphysical sickness" and thence a sense of despair in the individual. But the individual is never at rest. More the determination more is the disappointment. And when this "inner drama" is continuing the individual is on the verge of losing all hope, and, just at this moment he suddenly comes face to face with the "trans-essential existence". This state of existence is described by Kierkegaard as a state of "giddiness

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in the face of infinite possibilities" and "man's awareness of his freedom", and, at the same time, of his responsibilities.

III

Heidegger makes a sharp distinction between essence and being, and, he associates being with existence. He agrees with the Kierkegaardian contention that essence does not include existence. Heidegger does not favour the idea that there can be any unity between essence and existence at any definite point. On the contrary, he maintains that it should be the strict principle and motto of all Existentialists that they take precedence of existence over essence and that their main concern should be with the former.

The main philosophical problem for Heidegger is the problem of being. Being must be grasped in its givenness. Heidegger distinguishes between external thing and the human self. With regard to the former, essence is primary and existence secondary; but with regard to the self it is just the opposite. Here existence is primary and essence is secondary. Being in the proper form, is experienced in the case of human self only. All other things have being but they do not 'enjoy' existence. A thing is constituted of the collection. of its qualities. These qualities may inhere in a substratum, as some philosophers have argued, but this substratum is only an empty conceptual form. But the human self can never be reduced to an empty form of thought. This is because the human self never means an abstract general concept. It represents and stands for the "absolute concreteness of existence". Thus, the qualities of the human self do not exhaust the individual nor do they constitute the whole of it. The qualities only express the modes in which the human self exists. In other words, they are certain realized possibilities, while there are innumerable others waiting for their realization. These possibilities are not determined by any essence, whether in the individual himself or in somebody else, and, his "metaphysical freedom" lies in this dissociation of existence from essence. The objects of the world do not ‘enjoy' existence. These are mere instruments which constitute man's field of activity. But the same does not hold good in the case of other fellow beings. They are not mere instruments but they are experienced by the self as various possibilities of his existence and, as such, are real existents.

IV

Sartre is very much enthusiastic in establishing the priority of existence over essence. Rather he makes it the basic point of his