A Critical Consciousness of Choice: An Existential Import

Abstract

The paper attempts to conceptually explore the notion of choice from an existential perspective. Employing the critical theoretical frame of French thinker Jean Paul Sartre, the paper situates choice by exploring its linkages with self, freedom and nothingness. Tracing the phenomenological shift, the paper conceptually highlights the role of an ‘experiencing individual’ at the center of philosophy, where humans are looked upon as agents and creators of both action and its meanings. The premise, ‘Existence precedesEssence’ is deliberated upon with a radical insight that one identity is constituted neither by nature nor by culture, since to ‘exist’ is precisely to constitute such an identity. The concept of ‘Being’ and its intricacies with freedom and nothingness are further explored.The psychological implications of ‘responsibility’, experienced with an encounter with the ‘Others’ has been radically problematized. The final part of the paper throws light on the nature of existential anxiety and conflict using the ideas of a thinkers such as JurgenHarbermas and Jiddu Krishnamurthy. Existential anxiety is discussed as an immanent feature of the human condition. The negation of the crisis is not a solution but only through an existential confrontation with the ideological distortion of the material reality, one can find are solution to this existential dilemma of choice.