WE LL-1 NT EN T
I 0
NED
I
WELL-EQUIPPED
mon values which make for intimacy, and sanity, and the quick give
and take of familiar intercourse."
Frank Jones
FASCINATION AND PHILOSOPHY
DREADFUL FREEDOM: A Critique of Existentialism.
By
Marjorie Grene.
The University of Chicago Press. $2.75.
For Marjorie Grene, Existentialism is, above all, the expression
of a spiritual predicament in which our generation finds itself. The
dominant experience of this generation has been, according to the author,
the utter collapse of all belief in transcendent, absolute values. As a
result, man now finds himself alone; neither the God of supernatural
revelation nor the gods of science and social action are there to guide
and comfort him. Thus, he has become free, but free in a dread-pro–
voking sense; he must chart his course without a compass in the void
of a starless night.
The importance of Existentialism, as seen by Mrs. Grene, is that it
faces this conclusion without evasion and flinching. Existentialism alone,
among present-day philosophies, confronts man with a true picture of
his desperate spiritual condition-or rather, this is done by one branch
of Existentialism only, the "atheistic" Existentialism of Heidegger and
Sartre. All other philosophies now in vogue, including pragmatism, log–
ical positivism, and nonatheistic Existentialism, seek to gain acceptance
by offering cheap and gratuitous comfort rather than by facing the
facts honestly.
This does not mean, however, that the author unreservedly endorses
atheistic Existentialism. On the contrary, she seems convinced that such
a complete denial of absolute values cannot
be
the last word of philoso–
phy. But she somehow finds herself unable to find a logically vulnerable
point
in
the Existentialist position. She feels about Existentialism as most
people do about Hume: "He can't
be
right, but damned if I see where
he's wrong." Hence such curiously half-retracted judgments as that the
analyses of Heidegger and Sartre are,
"if
not valid, at least terribly rele–
vant to the dilemma of those who can find comfort in no creed of God
or science" (p. 47), or that it is its emphasis upon dread and despair
that "gives the movement such significance, however transient, as it
obviously does have" (p. 138). In other words, Existentialism is signifi–
cant in a transient way; it will remain triumphant until such time as
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