This argument can be best understood from Sartre's example of the pen-knife:

It has been made by a craftsman who has a clear understanding of the pen-knife’s purpose and builds accordingly. It must be built of the correct materials, easy to hold and sharp enough to cut paper. It isn’t intended to cut a steak or anything else beyond its purpose. The craftsman knows what the pen-knife will be used for, before it is created. The pen-knife’s essence is known before its existence.

Sartre’s is saying that humans are the opposite. There is no human essence or purpose. He says: A human materialises in the world, encounters himself, and only afterwards defines himself’

Introduction

Albert Camus addresses a reality of our lives that we must come to terms with…the absurd. According to Camus, life has no meaning or purpose and the idea of the absurd surfaces when we believe that there is a meaning: We are searching, hoping, believing in something that is not there to begin with…”The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world”

Camus maintains that to achieve a fulfilled happy life we must revolt against the idea that there is a meaning and that life should be lived according to our passionate and intuitive responses in coming to terms with the world.

Soren Kierkergaard (1813–1855) was a Lutheran Christian that attempted to show the power of faith over the quest for knowledge and certainty. Through the ages, philosophers have attempted to come to a conclusion if knowledge is attainable and in doing so, moving past the stages of doubt and faith as an insufficient conclusion. However, Kierkegaard believes that we are making a mistake by looking for knowledge because knowledge is beyond the scope of human faculty; humans don’t have the tools to know everything. In terms of God, we cannot decide objectively if they exist but we can decide this matter on subjective grounds.

This is where faith comes in. Faith is a deeply personal subjective experience that involves trust, risk and a leap beyond rational certainty. It’s a passionate commitment to a belief in the absence of conclusive evidence. It’s an independent status, it lies beyond the ethical and cannot be explained in universal or rational terms. It’s not a primitive faculty, it constitutes the highest passion.

This commitment to faith enables us to have a more profound encounter with the truth and the truth is God

Kierkegaard believed that in order to understand ourselves and the world, the best place to look is within ourselves as humans. The scientists and philosophers looking for objective knowledge were wasting their time as it wasn’t possible. Instead, we can make sense of things by looking at our actions and decisions, and the choices we are able to make. Kierkegaard concludes that we have absolute freedom to make any choice we want, there’s nothing to stop us from being immoral, responsible, kind, negligent or apathetic. We can do anything or nothing.

However, what comes from this realisation of freedom is anxiety. Anxiety is the possibility of freedom, anxiety makes us realise that our freedom is real.

For example: A woman stands at the top of a tall building looking over the edge. She experiences 2 kinds of fear: the fear of falling and the fear brought on by the impulse to throw herself off the edge. The second type of fear described here is the realisation that she’s able to throw herself off if she wanted to.

Anxiety is therefore the consequence of us knowing the absolute freedom we have. It’s the dizziness that comes with making decisions about the future and the sheer possibilities that come with it. However, anxiety is not all bad. It can cause despair but it makes us more aware of the choices, rather than mindlessly making decisions. It makes us more responsible and brings about self-awareness.

But what can we done about this? Kierkegaard believes that we can calm anxiety through faith: The highest passion that drives us to have a more profound encounter with truth and with God. This allows us to better understand our anxiety and ultimately utilise it.