Philosophy

Existentialism, the philosophical discourse which Sartre developed,  with a core foundation of  existence precedes essence  has become popular and widespread during the post war era. It s an idea, which criticized traditional metaphysics because throughout the history of philosophy, it was always believed that the essence of a thing is more fundamental than its mere existence and therefore,if you want to understand a thing, what you must do is learn more about the first.
    Sartre begins by posing a problem against the traditional background of philosophy. It is, for Sartre, how to characterize the relation of object to subject. Subjectivist philosophies lose the object in the subject, objectivist philosophies on the other hand divide it from the subject. The realtion between the two must be seen as complex, unstable and dialectical. This unstable relation between the two is what  Sartre  calls being for-itself and being in-itself.
    It should be distinguished that Sartre does not relate this principle universally, but only to humanity. Sartre contests that there were two kinds of being. The first is being-in-itself which is characterized as fixed, complete, and having absolutely no reason for its being it just is. This describes the world of external objects. The second is being-for-itself, which is characterized as dependent upon the former for its existence. It has no absolute, fixed, eternal nature and describes the state of humanity.
     Sartre opposed the divine outlook on the world and on human nature with a human outlook that has no divine element. For that, when God thought about creating the world, he conceived it first. Then God made everything and gave existence to the essences.   But because Sartre did not believe in God, so there was no use for the essence of humanity to be before human existence. Existence comes first to us and  essence comes later and it is the latter that is whatever we decide it is going to be. So, from our standpoint, things are just the opposite of what they would be for people who believed in God. Now it is existence precedes essence. That is existentialism. As Sartre said, thee appearance is not supported by any existent different from itself it has its own being (Sartre 1968).

     Sartre s focus is not so much of the distinction between essence and existence but the non-appearance of God. For him, the absence of God has a much massive significance than the metaphysics of creation, which is, without God there is no purpose and no meaning in the world.  According to Sartre
    If God is I and if he is the Other, then what guarantees my own existence If creation is held to be continous, I remain always suspended between a distinct existence and a pantheistic fusion with the Creator Being......then nothing really guarantees my existence to God he is now united to me only by a relation of exteririty, as the sculptor is related to the finish statue. (314-315)
This is the foundational proposition for Existentialism. A world without purpose and meaning is senseless, worthless, meaningless and null.
Nietzsche influence on Existentialism
     Nietzsche, one of the main influence of existentialism, was focused on the subjective human experience rather than the objective truths of mathematics and science, which he assumed to be too far-out and observational to truly get at the human experience.
    For Nietzsche, God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.(Nietzsche 1887) This shows the core of the challenge from Nietzsche to the very foundations of traditional morality that was always been imposed by Christianity. For Him man had rested on the values and dogmas of Christian morality for so long and advocate the proposition that it was time to be release from the constraints of Christianitys ethical principles and endeavored to redefine mankinds moral values.
    The worship of God only superficially satisfied the fundamental human need for the transcendence of ones own finite state. Nietzsches claim was that the death of God is a way of saying that man will no longer be able to believe in any such cosmic being since Christians themselves can longer identify to it. He believed that the absence of god would reject of absolute values and ultimately denounce any binding objective and universal moral law.
    Nietzsches daring challenge was aimed directly at the established traditions of morality, and the core of this was the idea that if one was to remove the metaphysical foundation for the Christian belief system, particularly with the existence of god, then  nothing is left  important.
    As a firm believer that mans essence is  creative expression, Nietzsche believed that destroying the belief in God would enable the full advancement of mankinds creative abilities which will lead to the not having God as an obstacle. T
Existentialism in Maslow s Needs
    We can compare Maslow s Hierarchy of needs to existentialism because he has been a very inspirational  for people who were tired of the mechanistic messages of the behaviorists and physiological psychologists and were looking for meaning and purpose in their lives, even a higher, more mystical meaning.
    Maslow was one of the first in that movement to bring the human being back into psychology, and the person back into personality. He theorizes a design saying when a person met their needs, they eventually can achieve  their higher self. Just like Sartre and Nietzsche, he  believes that when you find your purpose, you will find your higher self..