NOTHINGNESS IN THE EXISTENTIALISTIC PHILOSOPHY

Niaz Erfan

What is the nature of Nothingness or Non-being? Does it -exist? Is it real? Is it the same thing as empty space? Such questions and answers to them have all along been confusing.

This confusion on the problem of Nothingness in the history of Philosophy has mostly arisen due to the equivocation of such statements as “Nothing is there,” which may mean either the negation of Being or affirmation of Non-being. These two statements do not have the same meaning. Even if we say : “Nothing is nothing besides being tautological it has two meanings : (1) That Nothing as identical with Non-being exists, (2) that Non-being is not there. Similarly, the traditional logical formula Ex-nihilo nihil fit, i.e. “out of nothing nothing comes out,” has two meanings.

The confusion and equivocation, which led to antagonistic and opposing views, was, at once, the cause and the consequence of the fact that this problem and others alike were being discussed on conceptual level. In order to discuss the existentialistic view we must first glance over the views of the old philosophers.

Parmenides was the first philosopher to say something about this problem. He denied the existence and reality of Nothingness on the ground that it cannot be thought about. It we think, the thought is contentless; it means it is not. Non-being is not. Being “is”. Plato, on the other hand, denied the reality of Non-being, yet admitted its factual existence. The particular objects which partake into reality (i.e. ideas) do have an element of Non-being in so far as they have spatiality. Space and, therefore, matter (which is extended in space) “is,” yet it is unreal. Spinoza’s great saying “Determination is negation” implies that the world in space, the world of particular determinate beings, is nothing.

Thus he did not fare better than Plato. In modern times we find Hegel discussing the problem again on purely conceptual level. Pure Being (as much as it is undeterminate and attributeless) and pure non-Being are the same thing. Determinate Being is particular Being, not pure Being. Devoid of all attributes and qualities it will become pure Being but then it will lose all the qualities and modes of expression, i.e. it will become contentless. But it can-not be thought in this contentless form as already Parmenides had, declared. Therefore, it is equal to non-Being, which “is”.

Thus we see that the great philosophers who have expressed themselves on Nothingness have used this concept to bring in change to the immutable reality. It is a device to make the objective world possible.

Religion has also something to say about Nothingness, for religion has to admit the existence of Non-Being so that God may create out of Nothing and thus the eternity, uniqueness and omnipotence of God may be safeguarded. Mysticism received its inspiration from religion. It teaches the negation of the soul by means of its merger into God. In ecstasy this aim is achieved momentarily.

Before finding out the characteristic approach of the existentialists to this problem we must briefly know what Existentialism is and what it stands for.

Existentialism is the recall of Philosophy to the concrete individual and his real situation in the world. The sophists had declared: “Man is the measure of all things,” but they had superficially understood the truth. They sought to make the passing whims and caprices of an individual the standard of judgments and reality. But existentialists who, by the analysis of very important common human feelings, that reality and its multifarious phenomena, are given in them. We experience reality, we live it, but not in the sense in which subjective Idealists or Spiritualists or even Bergson take it.

The problem of Nothingness has a very important position in the existentialistic philosophy. We find reference to the feeling of Nothingness through dread in Kierkegaard, the founder of the school. Dread and fear are not synonyms: fear is aroused by some specific object but dread is aroused by nothing, i.e. Nothingness. But the reference to the relationship of dread and Nothingness, made by Kierkegaard is occasional and does not play a major part in his exposition of the nature of dread. But this hint seems to have inspired the whole views of all existentialists, specially Helmut Kuhn and Heidegger with regard to the problem of Nothingness.

The historical expression that nothing nihilates, which fundamentally embodies the existentialistic approach, comes from Helmut Kuhn. It is found in his book An Encounter with Nothingness.

Heidegger has developed his view first in his book entitled Being and Time and later on he has explained and expanded it in a lecture captioned “What is Metaphysics?”

Heidegger defines Nothing as the complete negation of the totality of’ what is or the complete negation of Being. But at once-he poses a question: “Does Nothing exist only because the Not (i.e. the negation) exists?” Or “Does negation exist only because Nothing exists?” In answer he asserts: “Nothing is more primary, than the Not and negation.” But if Nothingness is primary, it means it must be given to us in some form so that we may be able to derive the Not from it. It has already been stressed that Logic can hardly capture nothing We may get a formal concept of Nothing by first imagining the whole Being and then negating it. We may also posit a void, a Nothingness or a non-Being over and above Being and thus unwittingly posit existence and being for Nothingness. In this sense Nothingness is Being because’ it “is”. Thus Nothingness eludes all our efforts to capture it into the moulds of logical concepts. All our feverish endeavors fail and each time we hit at Being and never at Nothingness. Nothingness is not—is Nothing. What then should we do in order to, get at Nothing?

Heidegger has the following solution. The individual does. only comprehend by means of intellect the totality of what is as explained above, but the individual also finds himself in the midst of what-is-in-totality. Sometimes it so happens that the feeling of the wholeness surrounding him entirely absorbs him, comes over him. He is not enchanted by or interested in any particular object. He is overcome by the totality. This happens in a feeling of real boredom which is not due to any particular object. We are simply bored. The real boredom reveals what-is-in-totality. Joy also, to some extent, does so. Such states are just like thick fog of solid Being which hide Nothingness behind them because the distance between the objective Being and the knowing Being is eaten up by Being and it also swallows up, rather “oppresses,” the knowing Being. So in such states there is only Being nothing is not. It is hidden. We can get at Nothingness only if somehow this totality slips away and leaves a void behind. Existentially there must be some mood to reveal Nothingness which lies behind Being. Heidegger borrows ready-made solution from Kierkegaard. The mood is dread which is distinct from fear or anxiety. Fear and anxiety pertain to particular objects and, therefore, are limit-ed. Heidegger, moreover, defines dread as a feeling of uncanniness., Dread holds us in suspense because it makes what-is-in totality slip away from us. “Hence we too,” he says, “as existents in the midst of what is slip away from ourselves along with it.” Moreover, it is not you or I as you and I, i.e. the particular individual, that has the feeling but only as “One”. This impersonal “One” he calls Pure Dasein. So when Pure Dasein is struck dumb by this feeling of slipping away of Being and his own self and there is nothing to hold to, he has the real experience of Nothing.

From the description of the revelation of Nothingness one gets the impression that Heidegger raises the conception to the level of Being as if Nothingness “is,” as if it has a quasi-objective being. So he hastens to add that Nothing is revealed in dread, but not as something that is objective. Neither is it to be taken as an object, nor is dread to be taken as the perception of Nothingness.

Nothingness functions as if it were at one with what-is-in totality, i.e. it is withdrawal or retreat from Being. This has its source in Nothingness which does not attract but repels. This “repelling from” is essentially “expelling into”; it is a conscious gradual relegation to the vanishing what-is-in-totality and it is also the essence of Nothingness; the same may be called nihilation. Nihilation is neither annihilation of what is, nor does it spring from negation. Nothing hilates of itself. Negation is the after effect of this shock, this experience. When one comes over the shock, one finds Being as the other as contrasted with Nothing. Heidegger’s theory is that such an experience is essential for a clear and overt revelation of Being to the Dasein (the human individual).

It is in the being of what-is that the hilation of Nothing occurs. Human Dasein is projected into Nothingness. Had it not been so projected or transcedent, it could never relate to what is. Human existence is possible only by a perpetual feeling of dread. Accordingly, dread is there, but- sleeping. “All Dasein quivers with its breathing.” It is awakened only rarely by unusual occurrences. Lastly, Heidegger observes that our enquiry into Nothingness is truly a metaphysical enquiry as the enquiry of Being falls in the scope of science., Now what Heidegger has said about Nothingness is in many points confused and unacceptable.

In the first place Heidegger—all existentialists for the matter of that— has not justified the use of moods and feelings for the revelation of Being and Nothingness--all philosophical problems. Care, guilt, joy, boredom, dread and curiosity are some of the states that are said to reveal whatever is and is not. Boredom, for example, is said to be the experience of what-is-in-totality as a whole. We do not quite understand as to why this mood has been selected. Yet let us grant that the dumb state of boredom does reveal the totality of Being. But he also says that joy too reveals it. Psychologically speaking, the statement does not appeal. The two experiences are poles apart and, if moods at all reveal any‑thing, the two moods, boredom and joy, cannot reveal the same thing.

There is yet another objection too. In spite of the fact that Heidegger has cautioned us against supposing that Nothingness. exists, yet he has discussed it as if it has an objective Being. Does it not appear that dread is like a perceptual experience of Nothingness. Still he states that dread is not an apprehending of Nothingness. It is not clear what sort of experience it is. The description that the Eastern mystics in general and the Muslim, sufis in particular give of the ecstasy, appears to be a better source of such an experience. Perhaps it was such a state that was intended when he said that joy is a second mood revealing Nothingness.

These are, according to him, two steps in the whole experience which may be called the functioning of Nothingness. Boredom is broken away by dread wherein the totality slides away and the Dasein’s control over the things is loosened. Here the individual is in the domain of Nothingness. The second step is the withdrawal. The Nothing repels. The individual is thrown back, and the Being now faces him with greater clearness and brightness. The experience of Nothingness, according to him, is essential before one can probe into the being of Being. Doesn’t it appear as a philosophy of madness?

Lastly, though Heidegger makes Nothingness only an antithesis—not a conceptual antithesis—of what-is-in-totality, yet because he never makes clear what what-is-in-totality is, the concept of Nothingness remains empty. Therefore, our experience of it gives, us nothing about Nothing. So we have to depend on our discursive thought to make a picture of it. As such Existentialism has failed to help us in getting at Nothingness.

Coming in the footsteps of Heidegger, Jean Paul-Sartre has made Nothingness the most important concept of his philosophy. He agrees with his master in two main points (1) He considers that negation is dependent upon Nothingness. (2) He says more clearly than his predecessor that Nothingness has only a borrowed existence. It is there, because Being is there. Being is empty of all other determination except identity with itself, but Nothingness is empty of Being. In other words, Being “is,” Nothingness “is not,” so Being is original, real and it also exists.

Heidegger’s position is an advancement over that of Hegel. But Sartre has one objection against him. “If negation is the original structure of transcendence, what must be the original structure of the human reality, in order for it to be able to transcend the world?” In both cases it is a negating activity and there is no concern to ground one such activity upon the other. Heidegger, in addition, makes of Nothingness a sort of intentional correlate of transcendence, without seeing that he has-already inserted it into transcendence. If Nothingness provides the ground for negation while transcendence of Being (by the Daseins) has been conceived as going into Nothingness, that is if I emerge into Nothingness beyond the world (Being), how can this extra mundane Nothingness furnish a foundation for those little pools of non-Being in the depth of Being which appear when we make such negative statements as “I have no more money,” “My class is absent.”

As against this, Sartre’s contention is that Nothingness is neither before nor after Being, nor in-a general way outside Being. Nothingness lies coiled in the heart of Being like a worm. If so, then, it cannot derive from itself the necessary force to nihilate itself because, to nihilate itself, it must “be”. But Nothingness is “not”. If we can speak of it, it is only because it possesses an appearance of being—a borrowed being. Nothingness does not hilate itself as Kuhn had said. Nothingness is nihilated. It follows, therefore, that there must exist a being of which the property is to nihilate Nothingness, to support it in its being, a being by which Nothingness comes to things. Sartre says: “Man is the being through whom Nothingness comes to the world.” Man, whom he terms as Being-for-itself, “is” what it “is not” and “is not” what it “is”. Human consciousness is not what it is conscious of, but its hilation. Further, the human individual is at any moment projected into the future and the past by memories and hopes. A man’s being and personality is made up by his adjustments in the world which, in turn, is the result of his past history and future plans ; take away that and you turn, the man into a different type of personality. But future and past are not. In this sense human consciousness is what it is not and is not what it is. Freedom is another name for consciousness or human being. There is no restriction or compulsion upon the self to be this or that. It chooses itself freely. But at the same time it exists as the negation of Being.

Sartre is very much indebted to Heidegger when he says that Nothingness is given to the human individual, not through concepts or relations, but through a specific experience or mood. But while Heidegger says it is dread, Sartre says it is anguish. Anguish is precisely my consciousness of being my own future in the mode of non-Being: it is the realisation that a Nothingness slips in between myself and my past and future. Nothing is responsible and accounts for my decisions. In other words, the Being-for-itself at any moment exists in the form of anguish, because the realization of non-Being and free choice to be this or that is the same thing.

But in spite of all this description we cannot help posing a fundamental question: How did Nothingness come to the world where Only Being exists? The rise of human consciousness is the break in the unbroken and undifferentiated being. It is just like a negation in the heart of Being; may we not conceive it in the form of a bubble where non-Being or empty space appears in the heart of Being ? So the consciousness exists only as the negation of Being. But after the question “How” has been answered, the question “Why” at once appears. Why did the break occur? What caused it? What was the necessity of such a break and differentiation in the immutable identity of Being? This problem he has discussed in the last chapter of his book Being and Nothingness. In fact, Sartre did realise that he owed such an explanation’. He held out a promise to us by saying that the question would be replied if we answered the more fundamental question.

Why is Being there? But this promise is never fulfilled.

Sartre has failed to reconcile two types of statements. (1) He always says that consciousness and freedom mean the same thing. In other words, consciousness is undetermined. (2) But again in the concluding chapter he suggests that Nothingness is made-to be by the in-itself or Being. In other words, consciousness is determined. As such it cannot be free.

There is another difficulty with the philosophy of Sartre. Consciousness, being the for-itself is Nothingness and is in desire of Being or in-itself. This means that if the for-itself desires objects, it desires Being directly in the sense that it wants to assimilate or be assimilated with Being and thus become one with it, and become, through synthesis, in-itself-for-itself. But it is a self-contradictory ideal. It means also that the fulfillment of desires and the attainment of the ideals is carrying the world back to the original position when if was a block immutable universe, with no break or differentiation (inasmuch as differentiation and. break occurred due to the nihilation of Being in consciousness).

Is not Sartre advocating a static universe where movement and differentiation are but transitory and unreal? Is he not advocating devolution? There is a tinge of nihilism in this, for only death synthesises for-itself and in-itself. There is also a tinge of Eastern mysticism, for the synthesis can be regained in the merger of the individual in the Absolute. Anyhow it is not a -healthy philosophy.

Sartre’s synthesis of for-itself and -in-itself into an in-itself‑ for-itself is God according to him, but God does not exist. God is the future of man, an open possibility. Man is a passion to be Good. His whole life is a pursuit to become God. But it is a vain passion and a futile pursuit—a race towards an Eldorado, in so far as God, the ideal, does not exist. We are not here concerned with the religious significance of his conception of God. There is another point in this connection. Sartre talks as if the synthesis of for-itself and in-itself is the goal and as such it must be taking place or must take place. Then all will become in-itself-for-itself. Now is it not against the tone of the existentialistic philosophy that the synthesis of for-itself which is Nothing and in-itself which is Being should take place? Doesn’t it render all the criticism of Sartre against Hegel superfluous? Isn’t the constant desire of for-itself to merge back into in-itself an irrational desire for death? Therefore, isn’t it escapism and nihilism?

All these and a number of other objections can be levelled against the existentialistic conception of Nothingness. One thing must be admitted, however, that the credit goes to the existentialists for rightly breaking with the tradition of conceiving Nothingness as somehow or the other existing. They have gained a point in adopting a right sort of attitude about Nothing by saying that Nothingness or non-Being nihilates. It is a better way of expressing the fact than the traditional way of saying that “Nothing is nothing.” But the fault lies in their working out of the concept in detail: in short, the fault lies with the curious philosophizing about Nothingness.