Existentialism: Remarks on Jean-Paul Sartre's L'Etre ... - Marcuse.org

334 PHILOSOPHY AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH
caused a fundamental gap between the terms of philosophy and the terms of
existence. When Aristotle insisted that philosophy presupposed the
establishment of the arts directed to the necessities of life, he defined not
only the situation of the philosopher but of philosophy itself. The content
of the basic philosophical concepts implies a degree of freedom from the
necessities of life which is enjoyed only by a small number of men. The
general concepts which aim at the structures and forms of being transcend
the realm of necessity and the life of those who are confined to this realm.
Their existence is not on the philosophical level. Conversely, philosophy
does not possess the conceptual instruments for comprehending their
existence, which is the concreteness of the "realite humaine." The concepts
which do adequately describe this concreteness are not the exemplifications
and particularizations of any philosophical concept. The existence
of a slave or of a factory worker or of a salesclerk is not an· "example" of the
concept of being or freedom or life or man. The latter concepts may well
be "applicable" to such formb of existence and "cover" them by their scope,
but this coverage refers only to an irrelevant part or aspect of the reality.
The philosophical concepts abstract necessarily from the concrete existence,
and they abstract from its very content and essence; their generality
transcends the existence qualitatively, into a different genus. Man as such,
as "kind" is the genuine theme of philosophy; his hie et nunc is the iJX7]
(matter, stuff) which remains outside the realm of philosophy. Aristotle's
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