1. Georges Gurvitch: The term "existence" introduced by Kierkegaard, and the philosophy of existence of which he was the promoter, had a definite historical significance as weapons against the constructive dialectic and panlogism of Hegel.
Here perhaps Cicero might find an ally. Everything post-Hegel is post-modern and if there is a conservative reaction at all, it is against the utopia of pure objective knowledge. The wish for that has landed into a philosophical quagmire of logical antitheses mined from the verb "to be." Those who refused to give up chasing the holy grail of objectivity became fancy to the point of sham. (It already begins with Kant). Nietzsche sniffed out their pretense and gave up the game (see MacIntyre, Three Rival Versons). Insofar as Camus shares this, he is preferred by those conserving the good of the ages prior when the human being shared a dignity free from the tyranny of objectivity (The Stranger). He struggled against its political manifestations.
2. Nicolas Berdiaeff Kierkegaard . . . did not wish to create an ontology or a metaphysics, and he did ot believe in the possibility of an ideational philosophy . . . Why is an ontology impossible? Because it is always a knowledge objectifying existence. In an ontology the idea of Being is objectified, and an objectification is already an existence which is alienated in the objectification. So that in ontology--in every ontology--existence vanishes.Of course it doesn't actually vanish, but it is effectively ignored or despised. And this view, when put to use in politics, sidelines the dignity of the individual under a partial ordering principle. The optimistic solutions of such political ideas efface the reality of good and evil and this, I presume, is the plague that Camus shivered under. For the conservative then, Camus held on to a glimmer of hope during a time when politics eclipsed the dignity of humanity.
3. Alexandre Koyré To begin with, I was a little surprised that in his brilliant exposition, M. Wahl spoke so little of a concept--essential, so I believe-to Heidegger: the concept of Anxiety. Existence, according to Heidegger, is subjected to Anxiety; not the multiple anxieties of daily life, but to Anxiety as such. Existence is dominated in its entirety by the fact of Anxiety. This, for the very simple reason that existence is essentially finite . . . It is this inexorable limit--mortality, finitude, death--which determines and characterizes him, plus the fact that he knows it, that he is the only being in the world who knows it. . . .It is this awareness of our mortality, of death, that constitutes decision and acceptance. Heidegger echoes the ancient theme of wisdom: wisdom is always the acceptance of what is.
Of course, such acceptance is only half the story. We may accept death as a fact of life, but our resistence to it is another fact uniquely human. Our sheer wilfulness against it, that we ought not to die, that death is a wrong done to us, that death leaves justice unfinished, this is what gives us humanity. Death presents a moral distinction that cracks the glazed optimism of so many five year plans and speeches prefacing the deportation of flesh. For Koyré the prospect of death and loss presents nothing but anxiety, never mind those who try to carve out a bit of hope in words. Maurice De Gandillac questions whether our understanding of dying is actually grounde in hope.
4. De Gandillac. . . . we discover without a doubt that we are going to die. But is this simply a fact or a sort of right? Can one say that it is our nature to be beings made for death (Heidegger's zum Tode sein)?Gandicallac claims such knowledge--that we die--is more than a fact of existence.
Here is exactly what I mean: Can one think the notion of the tragedy of this finitude in itself if one does not first posit an infinitude or a right to the infinite, a right to immortality? Is it not in an essentially religious perspective, which first posits immortality, that mortality, finitude, takes on its character?
And Gandillac has right somehow to point this out. If there is anything conservative here, it is what claims for human beings a dignity that opposes nature. The ancient Cicero knew this view was essential for politics. Today, when the scientistic ideal capitulates to the uniformity of natural laws, death cannot be just or unjust. And to stress this point, literature classes will repeat the mantra how nature has become "indifferent."