ABSTRACT
Everyday consciousness is a liar, and most people have insights to this effect at least once a week. The question is simply how to give such insights a philosophical status, and how to investigate them. The new existentialism consists of a phenomenological examination of consciousness, with the emphasis upon the problem of what constitutes human values. The analysis of consciousness is only half the task. The other half consists in the analysis of language. In this field, Ludwig Wittgenstein was the great forerunner. The ‘new existentialism’ concentrates upon a phenomenological account of perceptive-consciousness and value-consciousness, it has inbuilt safeguards in its active and permanent preoccupation with language. Wittgenstein’s intention was apparently negative; he wished to show that most philosophy is a misunderstanding of language. The point should be made that a phenomenology of language is as vital to the development of a new existentialism as the phenomenology of values.
