Aprinism: A Worldview

“As mentioned, comparisons with other life-forms are often useful for understanding our human existence. Accordingly, I have derived the word ‘Aprinism’ from the Latin ‘aprinus,’ meaning ‘boar-like.'”

Aprinism

Aprinism is a synthesis of many thoughts I have developed in recent years. We can call it a mindframe. Perhaps it does not deserve to be called a philosophy. It is not terribly systematic, though the parts do fit together quite snugly. This essay seeks to convey its essentials. Toward the end, I will explain why I have coined the word “Aprinism” to describe it.

Essence Precedes Existence

“Existence precedes essence.” So goes the existentialist motto formulated by Jean-Paul Sartre. In human terms, one exists, but his nature is not predetermined. He is free to invent himself from the ground up.

While humans can voluntarily change, experience quickly shows this idea to be largely false. Our character generally shapes our choices, rather than vice versa. Likewise, a large part of one’s essence is genetically predetermined before one is even born, and much of the rest is solidified in early life. Overall, to say that essence precedes existence is more helpful than the reverse. Indeed, a person’s essence can endure even when the person has no (bodily) existence.

Given the fixity of one’s essence, one should choose one’s path in life based on one’s natural inclinations and especially one’s abilities. Fortunately, the two tend to coincide. Hans Morgenthau touches on this in a book chapter where he quotes from one of his high school essays. The youthful Morgenthau cites the proverb: “What one desires in one’s youth one has in abundance in one’s old age.” He supplements this with a passage from Goethe:

“Our desires are presentiments of the abilities that lie within ourselves, harbingers of what we shall be able to accomplish. […] If such a direction is decisively presented by our nature, every step in our development fulfills a part of the original desire, [though sometimes] by a detour[.]”