The existential alternative

pp. 34-55

in: G. A. Rauche, Contemporary philosophical alternatives and the crisis of truth, Berlin, Springer, 1970

Abstract

It seems that the matter of this philosophical alternative for coping with the crisis of truth does not show the same uniformity as does the functionalistic alternative. This is the reason why we call it not the existentialist but the existential alternative. By this is meant the kind of philosophical thinking that takes its start from the phenomenon of human existence or, more accurately, from the phenomenon of man's Dasein (being-there). For whether one takes Heidegger's Fundamental Ontology, Jaspers's Philosophy of Existence or Sartre's Existentialism, to mention the three most outstanding representatives of the existential alternative for trying to overcome the crisis of truth, all three varieties of existential thinking have this in common that they start from man's being-there. Also, these three approaches within the existential alternative regard anxiety as their Grundbefindlichkeit (fundamental mood) or as their basic existential phenomenon of human existence.