Hardy’s Position vis-à-vis Idealism, Naturalism and Existentialism

Abstract

Man’s state of alienation in the world of Nature is almost an indisputable metaphysical fact. But he cannot easily face the absurd in undimmed lucidity, endure its anguish or rejoice in the amor fati. Therefore, to allay his spirit homesick for harmony, man has developed various notions of ontological harmony. The actual harmony of the primal paradise of Nature where he belonged once, now lost to him, real still for animals and lower forms of life, is defined here as primal harmony. Another kind of harmony in keeping with the demands of human consciousness is defined as the aspirational one, for it has never been nor is ever likely to become real like primal harmony. It has always existed in wishful philosophy and religion. The rigid scheme of Nature which Naturalism has offered, reducing multiple phenomena to one single stuff of matter governed in its mutations and movements by uniform, infallible causal laws, is defined here as speculative primal as distinct from actual primal harmony. It is also, like aspirational harmony, an intellectually-conceived notion in the abstract.