can anyone give me a quick rundown on the tenets of Existentialism?

Answer 1

Sartes sais it best: existence proceeds essence. This means that we are not defined by society, but we define ourself. This responsibility of defining ourself implies we have freewill and so are responsible for who we are and become.

If you don't like the summation then here is another definition:


Existentialism is a philosophical movement that is generally considered a study that pursues meaning in existence and seeks value for the existing individual. Existentialism, unlike other fields of philosophy, does not treat the individual as a concept, and values individual subjectivity over objectivity. As a result, questions regarding the meaning of life and subjective experience are seen as being of paramount importance, above all other scientific and philosophical pursuits. Existentialism often is associated with anxiety, dread, awareness of death, and freedom. Famous existentialists include Sartre, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Camus, and Heidegger.

Existentialism emphasizes action, freedom, and decision as fundamental to human existence and is fundamentally opposed to the rationalist tradition and to positivism. That is, it argues against definitions of human beings either as primarily rational, knowing beings who relate to reality primarily as an object of knowledge, or for whom action can or ought to be regulated by rational principles, or as beings who can be defined in terms of their behavior as it looks to or is studied by others. More generally it rejects all of the Western rationalist definitions of being in terms of a rational principle or essence or as the most general feature that all existing things share in common. Existentialism tends to view human beings as subjects in an indifferent, objective, often ambiguous, and "absurd" universe in which meaning is not provided by the natural order, but rather can be created, however provisionally and unstably, by human beings' actions and interpretations.

Although there are certain common tendencies among existentialist thinkers, there are major differences and disagreements among them, and not all of them even affiliate themselves with or accept the validity of the term "existentialism". In German, the phrase Existenzphilosophie (philosophy of existence) is also used.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existentialism

Answer 2

Soren kierkegaard is probably the most famous author/philosopher of existentialism. It's mostly about selfishness, or the idea that no one else matters in the world but yourself.
It's about "live for today, for tomorrow I may die".

Answer 3

It's the study of existance and the freedoms, responsibilities, and loneliness of the individual in the wide wide world.