Colin asked:

What is a clear and concise definition of existentialism? All of the definitions I have read up to this
point have only left me confused. I had a professor in college, Harvey Rabbin, who said that squirrels
can not have existential thoughts because they do not contemplate their own deaths. I have just
started the first Philosophy class to be offered at my high school, and I have foundthat high-school
students are very receptive to philosophy. Is Philosophy offered in secondary school in England?

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Philosophy is now offered as one of the 'Advanced' level or pre-university exams for secondary
school students in England. However, there are still many schools who do not offer this subject. One
of the problems is that the format of the A-level course, with its 'set texts', is not best calculated to
excite the interest of school students. At Haileybury College, in Hertfordshire, Pathways program A,
The Possible World Machineis being used for an 'Upper Sixth Form' course which I hope will be the
pilot scheme for many similar school courses elsewhere.

Why does the contemplation of one's own death play such a pivotal role in existentialist philosophy?
The key idea lies in the contrast between the traditional view of the self as essentially a 'subject of
experience' (the view you find in Descartes, for example) and the view of the self as being in the
world and living a life. Sartre in his introductory text Existentialism and Humanismgives the capsule
definition of existentialism as the view that 'existence is prior to essence'. Here the intended contrast
is with the philosopher Hegel.

There are no general or 'essential' truths that can be discovered about my nature or the way I ought
to live, as Plato and Kant believed. Nothing follows about how I ought to live from the fact that I am a
'rational being'. All that remains is the determination to be 'authentic' (Heidegger), or not to live in 'bad
faith' (Sartre). To realize that one is a 'being towards death', according to Heidegger, is to see the
project of creating a life for myself as something to which I am ultimately answerable, not to others,
not to God, but only to myself.

However, I believe that there is a deeper, root vision involved in the existentialist approach which is
less to do with ethics than with metaphysics. You can get a glimpse of this vision simply by
considering what it would make to render the proposition, 'I am CG' true. That proposition means
nothing to me and everything to you. While the proposition, 'I am GK' means everything to me and
nothing to you. This is the paradox which I grapple with in my book Naive Metaphysics.Existentialism
points to an ultimate truth that cannot be grasped objectively, but is only accessible from the
standpoint of a given finite subject. The existentialist philosophy of Sartre and Heidegger is no nearer
than any other in making sense of this paradox.

Geoffrey Klempner