Sartre claims that existence
precedes “essence,” that “being-in-itself” is thrust upon us, that we have our
subsequent brief existence to create our identities or “essences” (our “beings-for-itself”).[1]
The
great American pragmatist William James also notes that we are thrust into a
swirl of experience which we try to predict and organize with concepts and
theories as our “tools.”[2]
Many years before James and Sartre, Shakespeare’s
Macbeth, Lear, Hamlet, Jaques, and other diverse characters also opine on one’s
brief moments thrust upon life’s “stage.”
Lear’s naked babe, for example, cries when tossed upon that “stage.” Interestingly, the infant has feeling and tears
for coming to a “great stage of fools”[3]
even though it presumably lacks language and concepts such as “stage” or
“fool.” Shakespeare’s babe suggests a
pre-conceptual link to the swirl of experience—a feeling link which James’s concepts
and theories for predicting and navigating experience could then supplement and
build upon. (For those interested in feeling and emotional connections to the
world, I have explored the subject further in my Cognitive Emotion and the Law .)
Lear’s babe also gives us moral as
well as epistemic insight. The infant “comes to” rather than “brings”
foolishness to a “great stage of fools.”
Not choosing to navigate this swirl of experience, the babe can’t be a
fool for just being born--any foolishness it may display must come after mere
birth itself. As Emily Dickinson also notes,
mortals born into the swirl aren’t given an initial “Skipper’s” or “Buccaneer’s”
choice in the matter:
