Functional Empiricism as the Resolution of Existentialism
Abstract
Existentialism teaches us that in the face of meaninglessness and metaphysical uncertainty, one must take a leap—a personal act of will, freedom, and self-definition. Functional Empiricism does not reject this legacy; it resolves it. By integrating the existential “leap” with a model of empirical testing, Functional Empiricism offers not merely a continuation of existential thought, but its operational fulfilment. It brings together subjective choice and objective verification. In doing so, it preserves the vitality of existential freedom while offering a framework for navigating life that is dynamic, adaptive, and ethically rigorous. This essay traces its roots in existentialism, with special attention to Simone de Beauvoir and the often-neglected women of existential philosophy, and shows how Functional Empiricism provides the next necessary step—a system not of despair, but of conscious becoming.
1. The Existential Void and the Call to Leap
The existentialist begins in a world bereft of certainty. As Jean-Paul Sartre famously wrote, “Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself” (Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism, 1946). Simone de Beauvoir, whose work grounds existentialism in both personal and political life, notes in The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947):
“To will oneself free is also to will others free.”
This is no idle abstraction—it is a demand for action in the face of ambiguity. The existentialist must leap, as Kierkegaard first proposed: not into certainty, but into the unknown, and in doing so, forge a self.
However, the existential leap is, by nature, unstable. It asserts the necessity of subjective meaning, but offers little guidance on how to distinguish fruitful leaps from self-delusions. In Sartre’s nausea and Camus’s absurdity, the void is present but unanswerable. Even de Beauvoir’s ethics rely heavily on a will-to-transcendence without any mechanism for testing one’s direction against reality.
Here is where Functional Empiricism offers resolution.
2. Functional Empiricism as Existential Fulfilment
Functional Empiricism takes the existentialist leap seriously—it affirms that we must begin by creating hypotheses, as acts of free will, grounded in subjective insight and interpretation. But it then insists: these hypotheses must be tested.
In psychological empiricism, the internal narrative—our belief, our hope, our philosophical stance—is treated not as dogma, but as provisional truth. We ask: Does this belief improve my clarity? Does it improve my relationships? Does it increase my resilience under pressure?
This testing is not scientific in the detached sense—it is deeply personal, lived, and embodied. It is, in fact, existential testing. It mirrors what de Beauvoir describes when she writes:
“One’s life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation and compassion.” (The Ethics of Ambiguity)
This attribution of value is itself a hypothesis. Functional Empiricism grants us the power to form such hypotheses—existential assertions—but gives us the tools to refine them through reality.
3. Women of Existentialism and the Empirical Turn
While Sartre and Camus described the void, it was Simone de Beauvoir and other women philosophers—such as Gabrielle Suchon, and later Iris Marion Young—who grounded existential freedom in the body, in lived oppression, and in choice under constraint.
De Beauvoir’s insight in The Second Sex (1949) that “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman” is not only a sociological observation; it is an existential hypothesis about identity. That identity, in a Functional Empiricist view, can be tested in life: How does one’s conception of gender affect one’s agency, experience, and sense of meaning?
This iterative testing of identity claims allows Functional Empiricism to avoid both essentialism and nihilism. We do not presume a fixed self, nor do we despair in its absence. We become through propositions we test.
4. The Leap Beyond Faith: From Kierkegaard to Operational Becoming
The existential leap, in Kierkegaard’s original Christian vision, was a leap of faith—irrational but necessary. Functional Empiricism retains the existential need to leap (to act, to choose, to posit meaning), but adds:
We leap, yes—but then we measure the arc and the landing.
This moves the existentialist out of mere metaphysical defiance and into empirical navigation.
Instead of living in perpetual ambiguity, we now live in a process of continual clarification. This is not certainty, but adaptive confidence. It echoes what Beauvoir calls:
“a moral attitude in which the freedom of the other is as important as my own.”
Functional Empiricism makes this attitude testable. Are your values producing the freedom you intended? Is your hypothesis of justice, or love, or truth, effective in the real world?
5. From Continuation to Resolution
Functional Empiricism is not a rejection of existentialism. It is its resolution—its operationalisation. Where existentialism leaves us standing on the cliff’s edge, eyes fixed on the abyss, Functional Empiricism hands us the rope, the harness, and a path down.
We still leap—but we leap with feedback. We still choose—but we evaluate the consequences. In doing so, we honour Beauvoir’s insight that:
“To be moral is to make one’s life a function of others’ lives.”
And we take it further: we make one’s thought a function of life’s feedback. In this way, Functional Empiricism becomes not just a framework for knowledge—but for becoming.
References
- Beauvoir, S. de. (1947). The Ethics of Ambiguity.
- Beauvoir, S. de. (1949). The Second Sex.
- Sartre, J.-P. (1946). Existentialism Is a Humanism.
- Camus, A. (1942). The Myth of Sisyphus.
- Kierkegaard, S. (1843). Fear and Trembling.
- Young, I. M. (1980). Throwing Like a Girl: A Phenomenology of Feminine Body Comportment.