What does existentialism mean?

Question

I have to write a report on the meaning of existentialism and I don't know how to start.

Answer 1

Existentialism has grown to mean more than just the study of why we exist. The philosophy embrases the tragedy of a life without meaning leading to our inevitable pointless deaths. The movement also discounts the possiblity of a God. Quite depressing, really.

Answer 2

Probably some of the best info you will find on Existentialism is at the back of the book "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand. She actually founded an institute in CA that is still active. The book itself embodies the principals.
I believe Jean Paul Sarte' initially began the style of writing they
refer to as Existentialism.

Answer 3

is a term that has been applied to the work of a number of nineteenth and twentieth century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, took the human subject — not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual and his or her conditions of existence — as a starting point for philosophical thought. Existential philosophy is the "explicit conceptual manifestation of an existential attitude"[5] that begins with a sense of disorientation and confusion in the face of an apparently meaningless or absurd world. Many existentialists have also regarded traditional systematic or academic philosophy, in both style and content, as too abstract and remote from concrete human experience.

Answer 4

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.

There are several philosophical positions all related to existential philosophy but the main identifiable common proposition is that existence precedes essence, i.e. that a man exists before his existence has value or meaning. This value or meaning, and the value or meaning of the world around him, man defines himself in his own subjectivity, and wanders between choice, freedom, and existential angst. Existentialism often is associated with anxiety, dread, awareness of death, and freedom. Famous existentialists include Sartre, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Camus, Fanon and de Beauvoir.

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 use

Answer 5

Existentialism is seeking out why you exist.

Answer 6

yeah.... what he said.... <--..........


google.com

wikipedia.com

I <3 Huckabees....

look for different interpretations through stories and movies... you'll adapt it to your own interpretation so you can better understand and pass it along...

pretty interesting theory...

Answer 7

try being and nothingness at wikipedia