Sartre Meets Ivan

An Exploration of Existentialism in The Brothers Karamazov

In Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre, Walter Kaufmann wrote, “I can see no reason for calling Dostoevsky an existentialist, but I do think that Part One of Notes from the Underground is the best overture for existentialism ever written.” While this essay will not deal with Dostoevsky’s Notes from the Underground, it will explore a later movement of the symphony that followed this overture and how its instruments sounded notes of an existential tone — that is, the existential themes in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, explored primarily through Ivan Karamazov. While I will mainly base my essay on French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, I will begin by noting the fundamental ideas and ethos of existentialist thinker Soren Kierkegaard, who arguably introduced existentialism to the academy. I do this to give the reader a sense of where existentialism began and to contrast Sartre’s atheistic existentialism with Kierkegaard’s theistic existentialism. Dostoevsky, while investigating strains of atheism in The Brothers Karamazov, is no doubt strongly influenced by Christianity. Thus, it is helpful to understanding the certain strains of atheistic and theistic evolution in his writing by first examining those branches of existentialism. After doing this, I intend to place Ivan Karamazov in the framework of Sartre’s thoughts.

Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) disagreed with traditional philosophy’s tendency to “divorce mind from life” by contemplating ideas without living those ideas. His writings reflect an alarming self-consciousness; he explores every thought and every feeling, and is almost neurotically alive to other people and their judgments. This, he felt, is existing. “[All men] have forgotten what it is to exist,” wrote Jean Wahl, echoing the thoughts of Kierkegaard. These men are best represented by Kierkegaard’s chief opponent, the professor — the man who expounds but does not experience, who pontificates but does not live. This man is the opposite of the existential man, who, in Kierkegaard’s view, is he “who is in an infinite relationship with himself and has an infinite interest in himself and his destiny.”

This existential emphasis placed on the individual — on looking inward at one’s actual thoughts and existence — is meant to encourage humans to explore “the roots of our own existence.” To Kierkegaard, existentialist philosophers are not content to sit isolated in the Academy and write papers. They do, indeed, sit alone and write papers, but they only sit and write when first they have experienced the world. They are those who reunite mind and life. “[An existential philosopher’s] central subject is the unique experience of the single one, the individual, who chooses to place himself on trial before the gravest question of civilization” To Kierkegaard and other existentialists, the question considered no less than the realities of existence and their implications on how a person should live.

But Kierkegaard did not call himself an existentialist — he did not even consider himself a philosopher. Thus, while his writings planted the seed of existentialism, they will not be the principal foundation for my paper’s explanation of existentialism. I referenced him only to place the beginning of existentialism in its proper context and provide a theistic perspective of existentialism. Rather than he who shunned the term “existentialist,” I will mainly explore the thoughts of one of the only persons to accept the label of existentialism for his philosophy — Jean-Paul Sartre. I will primarily look at his essay “Existentialism is a Humanism,” because it, responding to charges brought against existentialism, sets out from the beginning to explain existentialism’s fundamental ideas. These fundamental ideas will then serve as the looking glass through which we view Ivan Karamazov.

Sartre builds the ideas in his essay from an initial premise, a claim, he wrote, that is the most significant thought that connects different thinkers of existentialism. “What [existentialist thinkers] have in common is that they think that existence precedes essence, or, if you prefer, that subjectivity must be the starting point.” To illustrate the idea of existence preceding essence, Sartre first explains the alternative idea of essence preceding existence. He invites the reader to imagine a paper-cutter and a craftsman who makes paper-cutters. Necessarily, Sartre writes, the function of a paper-cutter must be prior to its creation in the mind of the craftsman who intends to make a paper-cutter. Knowing the intended function of the paper-cutter, the craftsman then refers to a “known method of production” by which to create a paper-cutter. Thus, concludes Sartre, essence precedes existence in the case of manmade material objects. A purpose is decided for an object before that object comes into existence.

This, writes Sartre, is what conceptions of God the Creator effect. Like the craftsman who makes paper-cutters, God creates humans to fit a specific purpose — like the paper-cutter, humans created by God have the benefit of their essence preceding their existence. And it is a benefit in the mind of Sartre, and also, as we will see later, the mind of Ivan Karamazov. It is a benefit because humans whose essence is determined for them by an outside event are liberated from the responsibility of deciding their own essence. They need only to follow God.

However, Sartre, unlike Keirkegaard, does not believe in God, and the consequences of his atheism encumber him with the burdens of complete responsibility and decision for his being. He writes, “Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself.” Without a God to define essence and purpose for man, man is thrown into the world without purpose and then must determine his existence, an existence that precedes essence. “…at first [man] is nothing. Only afterward will he be something, and he himself will have made what he will be.” Thus, the full responsibility of man’s existence is with man. Man must make his own self, or, choose his own self. But Sartre continues to say that in choosing own self, man chooses all men. How can this be?

Sartre writes that man choosing himself is essentially man choosing what he ought to be. Since a person chooses what he ought to be based on what he values, in the process of choosing himself, a person affirms which actions and feelings he values. Every person, if responsible for and aware of his existence, believes what he values to be the best thing for a person — for who values what he recognizes as bad or even less than best? Thus, a person’s choosing an action declares the action to be the best for everyone. “[Man’s] actions involve all humanity,” writes Sartre. “In choosing myself, I choose man.”

However, in man’s process of making himself, he is without guide. “Neither within him nor without does he find anything to cling to.” Thus, a person is completely without guide for his actions and feelings; he is a ship lost at sea that must — without compass or lighthouse — find his way home. Likewise, a person must — without God or human nature — determine his existence, but without God or human nature, he cannot base his decisions on anything. For on what can someone base the purpose of his life if he is without an absolute? His actions, then, would seem to be arbitrary, insofar as he must craft reasons and systems without recourse to outside authorities when deciding them. “Thus, existentialism’s first move is to make every man aware of what he is and to make the full responsibility of his existence rest on him.”

This is sufficient, I think, for the purposes of our inquiry. I will now comment on Keirkegaard and Sartre’s existential ideas as demonstrated in The Brothers Karamazov, a work that existentializes existentialism — that is, a work that brings the ideas of existentialism into life. I will base my exploration on Ivan Karamazov and Smerdyakov, the character who existentializes Ivan’s thoughts.

We first hear Ivan’s thoughts in Father Zossima’s cell, when the Karamazov family meets for a hearing of the money disputed between Fyodor and Dmitri. Postponing the topic of the disputed money while Zossima visits peasant women near the monastery gates, the group converses about an article Ivan recently published on the jurisdiction of ecclesiastical courts. In the article, Ivan suggests the unification of Church and State, and presents two ways for doing this: either the Church must become the State, or the State must become the Church. However, while the article clearly advocates unification of Church and State, we first observe Ivan’s mental uncertainty in his presentation of the article to the Russian monks. He cannot decide if he does or does not believe the ideas he wrote. “Ivan refuses to make a choice; he attempts to reconcile the irreconcilable.” Throughout the novel, Ivan is plagued by his tormenting, analytical mind that refuses to let him rest content in an idea. This is a situation of Sartre’s anguish, the anguish that accompanies a person when he realizes the weight of his decisions and his inability to base his decisions on a known Good.

Sartre wrote that willful action is the remedy for this anguish. “[Anguish] is not a curtain separating us from action, but is part of action itself.” However, Ivan wallows in his indecision, and the torment that results eventually leads to his mental and, consequently, physical breakdown. He is the unfortunate result of existential anguish. I will return to this anguish after further exploration of Ivan’s article.

Ivan’s consideration of Church and State leads to what Richard Peace calls Ivan’s main theme in his article: “the diverse elements of Church and State in the sphere of justice.” Peace writes that State justice is “a purely mechanical process; the cutting off of an infected limb.” This, however, proves insufficient at stopping crime. Another criminal, even two, will take the place of the amputated criminal. Instead of State justice, Zossima sides with Church justice. “… if anything can reform the criminal and make a new man out of him, it is only the law of Christ, which manifests itself in an awareness of a man’s own conscience.” Thus, instead of “cutting off an infected limb,” justice built on the Church would and must excommunicate the offender, Ivan reasons, for an offense against a Church justice system is an offense against God. Indeed, “there could be no deeper despair,” says Zossima. However, he goes on to suggest that instead of excommunication, mercy should be extended to offenders. “…there should be someone, after all, to take pity on him.” Ivan, meanwhile, sits aloof.

Before continuing, I want to pause and consider Ivan’s intentions in writing such an article. I refer back to my comment that it would be beneficial for humans if their essence preceded their existence. If born with an inherent purpose, we would, like a paper-cutter, be free of the anguish that accompanies the responsibility to decide our existence — we would know that we were made to cut paper, or, as Sartre and Dostoevsky consider, to follow God. This would relieve us of all indecision and give complete purpose to our lives. But what, then, does it mean to follow God? Cutting paper is a simple purpose to understand, but following God necessitates interpretation as to which actions qualify as following God and which actions do not. This necessity to interpret, like our necessity to decide our existence in the absence of God, leads also to anguish. Indeed, Kierkegaard wrote that Abraham, in realizing and interpreting God’s command to sacrifice his son Isaac, underwent existential anguish. Sartre, explaining the cause of Abraham’s anguish, wrote, “But everyone might first wonder, ‘Is it really an angel, and am I really Abraham? What proof do I have?’” Thus we see that, even with God’s existence, we are condemned to existential anguish, because God’s will is not clearly defined.

Perhaps, though, if God’s will were the same as man’s law — that is, if God’s will was the governmental law on earth — it would be easier to understand. Kierkegaard’s Abraham would know God intended him to sacrifice Isaac because God’s will would be voiced through the government, and he would find on that fateful day a decree on his doorstep: Abraham — Sacrifice your first born son, Isaac. Sincerely, The Government of God. This, then, would relieve us from having to interpret God’s will, for it would be apparent in governmental laws. Likewise, we would know that we were with God if still a part of the State, for the State would be God’s State. Conversely, it would be obvious if we were apart from God, for we would be condemned or even excommunicated by the State.

But why would Ivan wish God’s will to be made apparent in the State? Let us examine a comment he made during his witness at Dmitri’s trial. “… I, for my part, would give a quadrillion quadrillions for two seconds of happiness.” During the peak of his mental breakdown, Ivan exposes his innermost desire: to be happy. However, happiness cannot come while wallowing in existential anguish. The man “condemned at every moment to invent man,” as Sartre wrote, does not feel happiness as Ivan wants to feel happiness. Ivan longs for happiness in release, in the escape from responsibility, in the complete removal of the anguish of responsibility — he longs for the type of happiness that only a Grand Inquisitor can provide. Ivan’s dream is “the dream of a world remade in the image of him. This dream is the legend of the Grand Inquisitor.”

But before commenting further on the Grand Inquisitor, I will first consider the chapter preceding it, “Rebellion,” that shows Ivan with his fist raised against God, questioning His authority and justice — a fundamental existential move. If God created the earth, Ivan feels, then God is malicious, for the world is unjust. Ivan rejects the world on account of its injustice against innocent children, and he rejects the reasoning of another world to explain innocent suffering. “…[innocent suffering happens] because [children] are paying for the sins of their fathers who ate the apple. But that is the reasoning of another world and it’s incomprehensible to the human heart here on earth.” Ivan wants no part in a world that sins against the innocent, and so by rejecting the world, he effectively rejects God, the creator of the world.

On the one hand rejecting divine reasoning, Ivan also rejects Euclidian reasoning, calling it “nonsense.” “What good does it do me to know… that every effect is determined by a cause, which itself is an effect of some other cause, and so on…” Thus, Ivan rejects rational justification and divine reasoning as permissible ways to understand the world, but still he appeals for justice. This relentless call for justice in a world without absolutes, Sartre would say, is impossible, for no a priori Good can exist without God. “All possibility of finding values in a heaven of ideas disappears along with Him.” This is not to say that Sartre advocates discovering justice in God, for this would be a false escape from responsibility; God does not exist.

But Ivan crafts a foundation for his Godless justice — he creates the Grand Inquisitor, a man who, in refashioning Christianity, becomes “the truth Christ had failed to erect.” The Grand Inquisitor recognizes human nature as incompatible with Christ’s commands. Simply, these commands exceed human strength. Humanity is “weak, corrupt, worthless, and restless,” incapable of living for Christ.” Christ’s mistake, the Grand Inquisitor says, was to give humans freedom.

While Christ grants humans the existential freedom that Sartre advocates — the freedom and accompanying responsibility to decide one’s existence — the Grand Inquisitor, who creates a world that existentializes Ivan’s imagined world of Church and State unification, removes responsibility from humans, and thus enables human happiness. For, says the Grand Inquisitor, “There is nothing a free man is so anxious to do as to find something to worship.” Thus, Ivan crafts a world in which people can live free from deliberating about their existence. As stated before, Sartre views such a world as a false escape and such a desire as evidence of weakness. Humanity must accept the responsibility of its freedom.

But underlying the story of the Grand inquisitor and the happiness possible in a world without existential responsibility is a stark reality that the reader sees through Smerdyakov, Fyodor’s illegitimate child. Indeed, the foundation on which the Grand Inquisitor built his political system leads to a damning extension — if God does not exist, everything is permissible. More specifically, if there is no immortality, every action is possible and allowed.

While Ivan promotes the idea that all is permissible if God is dead, he does not act on his thoughts, but Smerdyakov does. Effectively, Smerdyakov existentializes Ivan’s thoughts, just as Dostoevsky existentializes Sartre’s thoughts — each brings what is abstract into real situations. “Reality confronts Ivan with Smerdyakov.”

Sartre calls Dostoevsky’s claim that all is permissible if God does not exist “the starting point of existentialism.” However, Sartre does not reason the claim to the conclusion that Dostoevsky shows through Smerdyakov. Sartre thinks that, if God does not exist, people become forlorn, because they are without excuse in deciding their existence. But, instead of choosing evil, a person without God will realize his responsibility and, understanding that he acts on behalf of all mankind, do what he perceives as good.

But it is this exact moral subjectivity upon which Dostoevsky pounces. Smerdyakov, acting from Ivan’s ideas, calculatingly murders Fyodor. The horror of his action becomes apparent to the reader when Smerdyakov falls ill and eventually commits suicide. Further, Ivan suffers a mental breakdown once he realizes his thoughts motivated Smerdyakov’s horrendous act. To Dostoevsky, the premise that all is permissible if God is dead extends to no existential good, but only to a perverse, twisted perspective.

As a last comment, I want to suggest to what end Sartre would decide Ivan’s responsibility for the death of his father. I call attention to one particular passage: “…[a possibility] has value only because it is chosen.” Ivan plants the intellectual seed in Smerdyakov that effects the murder of Fyodor; he gifts Smerdyakov the possibility to consider the world from a Godless paradigm. But Ivan in no way chooses the death of his father. The reader does not even know if Ivan wishes the death of his father — but even if he did, his wish would not make him responsible, for a wish, choice, or possibility has value “only because it is chosen.” Thus, the responsibility of Fyodor’s death, according to Sartre, rests solely on Smerdyakov.