The notion of abandonment is the ground in which the whole existential thinking-philosophizing of Sartre is grounded.
That is, the existentialism of Sartre, in its entirety, emerges from, and is a response to, the conviction that we are abandoned in the world, the conviction that human beings are abandoned and alone in a meaningless and purposeless world.
Abandonment does not mean that we are neglected, ignored, forgotten about, left behind, or disregarded by a certain being, a certain event, someone, or something. According to Sartre, there exists nothing that can carry out such an abandoning.
In other words, we are abandoned not because we are left behind, disregarded, or ignored. We are abandoned because there exists nothing that can ignore us or acknowledge us, leave us behind or hold us within, disregard us or hold us dear. That is, Godlessness is the origin of abandonment, according to Sartre.
We are abandoned in the world because there is no God rendering human existence, life, and the world meaningful and purposeful. Because there is no God, life, existence, and the world lack meaning, value, directions, and purpose. We have always been alone in the universe; we will always be alone in a Godless, purposeless, valueless, and meaningless universe.
The whole existential thinking-philosophizing of Sartre emerges from and is a response to this notion of abandonment because Godlessness is the origin, extent, and destination of Sartre’s existentialism.
For Sartre, neither God nor any god created us. Our origin is neither a higher being nor any being. It is merely a chance that rendered us possible in the first place; it is merely an accident that delivered us into this world.
This means that our essence neither precedes nor forms our existence in the world. This means that there is no essence; that is, there is no essence residing in us, shaping us, or governing us. This is the significance and meaning of Sartre’s argument that “existence precedes essence”.
We exist first and then give rise to, bring about, and render possible meanings, values, and purposes. We exist first, meaninglessly, unnecessarily, purposelessly, accidentally, and superfluously, and then invent ourselves, our meanings, purposes, and values.
According to the existentialism of Sartre, meanings, values, and purposes are there only because we rendered them possible and brought them about in the first place. Meanings arise because of us, through us, and from out of us.
We are abandoned in the world not because God, a certain being, or a specific event left us behind. We are abandoned in the world because we are left to ourselves.
We are abandoned in the world because there is no God from out of which meaning, purpose, and value flow, yet this abandonment is itself the origin of every possible meaning and all genuine purposes and true values.
According to Sartre, meanings, values, and purposes appear in the site originally left empty by the impossibility of God, by the non-existence of God. That is, it is because of Godlessness that we decide to create our own meanings, values, and purposes.
One of Sartre’s arguments for existentialism in Existentialism Is a Humanism is that existentialism is not a pessimistic thinking-philosophizing, but rather an optimistic philosophical attempt at freeing oneself and at making oneself responsible for one’s own freedom.
For Sartre, neither Godlessness nor our abandonment should deliver us into pessimism or despair, for they are themselves what transfer us into our own freedom. To be abandoned is to come face to face with the genuine possibility of free deciding and responsible choosing, according to Sartre.
Because there is no God, and because we are abandoned in the world, we are radically free to invent new meanings, values, and purposes; we are completely free to invent and reinvent ourselves, our projects, and our destinies.
Camus and Life
In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus speaks of two kinds of suicide. The first one is the event of killing oneself; the second one is faith as a philosophical suicide.
In the writings and works of Camus, two forms of hope are placed over against each other: infinite hope and finite hope.
In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus thinks from out the question of suicide, toward and into happiness, whose dwelling place is the heart of Sisyphus. But how could that whose origin is the meaninglessness of existence and the possibility of rendering oneself forever absent encounter itself eventually as happiness and joy?