Continental Philosophys Search for Balance Essay

Continental Philosophys Search for Balance - Essay ExampleSuch absolutizing, he charged, lent itself to generalizations of broad critical scope with respect to the idealistic mathematical operation of hypostatizing the Idea and brought about (as allegorical derivatives from it) certain concrete political and social determinations, such as family, classes, and the state powers...In Marxs view, Hegels dialectic was mystifying and alienated inasmuch as Hegel did cryptograph but sanction, by a method inverted with respect to real relationships, the alienation of all the concrete historical and humanity determinations (Rossi).Existentialism with Soren Kierkegaard in the first base half of the 19th century. He was critical of Hegels philosophical system which analyzed Being (or make upence) in an abstract and impersonal way. Kierkegaard was concerned with the man-to-mans subjective experience of what it is to exist as a human being. For Kierkegaard the individual constantly has to ch oose what s/he is to be bonk without recourse to the findings of science and philosophy (Jones).Existentialism would eventually sustain to its most potent expression in the writings of the Frenchman Jean-Paul Sartre.... ..Politically Sartre claimed he was a Marxist and thought that freedom had both political and individual dimensions. Sartre, who in dividing line to Kierkegaard was an atheist, coined the Existentialist credo, Existence precedes essence. What Sartre meant by the phrase existence precedes essence is this If there is no cosmic designer, then there is no design or essence of human nature. Human existence or being differs from the being of objects in that human being is self-conscious. This self-consciousness also gives the human subject the opportunity to define itself. The individual creates oneself by making self-directed choices (Jones).There remained echoes of Hegel to be heard within Sartre. The first Sartrean thought which has been derived from Hegel is the view that if there is to be any Truth in mans understanding of himself, it must be a Truth which becomes. Truth is thus something which emerges. With this assertion we hear an obvious trace both of Hegelian dialectics and the Marxist teaching of the knowability of man. The second thing in Sartre which can be traced back to Hegel is the claim that what Truth must become is a totalization. We find in Hegelian dialectics that the entailment is a totalization of the truth found in both the thesis and the antithesis. In the same manner, we find in Sartre asserting that the Truth in man is a Truth not just about his existence but also about the situations surrounding his existence (Decino). Twenty-first Century Continental philosophy has come to be preoccupied with two alternative formulations that seem to transmute the Hegelian dialectic desire accustomed kinetic energy as jouissance and desire given kinetic energy as power. These two views oppose and complement each other. They form a fr ame within which