What is the first question/idea that comes to your mind when you hear the word "Existentialism"?

Question

Any literary characters that are existentialist?
thanks!

Answer 1

Existence.

That guy, the axe murderer, in crime and punishment.

Uhhmm... I just looked at the answers above and I realized how few people know what existentialism is.

Yes existence precedes essence. Basically, things exist first. Its essence, "what" it is is defined later. Whether this is defined by us (Nietzsche) or by God (Kierkegaard) is another question.

Perhaps the first word that should come to mind when people say existentialism is not "existence" as I said earlier, but angst. As that is experienced by both Christian and Atheist existentialists.

Without God, man is left to give meaning to the world. His meaning, whatever it wants. Man is now responsible for everything. Is it moral to murder an old woman with an axe? Heck yeah if you want to. So can you do it? Can you break free of the social norms that is keeping you from enjoying it? More importantly can you do it for no reason at all, then bear the consequences? Can you overcome the lord of the flies, and go where no one else dared?

And so the atheist existentialists accuse the christians of weakness. They believe (in God) because they do not want the responsiblity for the moral code that they adhere to. They cannot stand the angst.

But maybe its the atheist who cannot stand it? Kierkegaard told the story of Abraham and Isaac when God told Abraham to kill his son and offer him as a sacrifice. To prove Abraham's faith, he did as he was told. But in the last minute, God stopped him. By the very act of giving up his son, it was given back to him. The angst of the christian existentialist is that he puts his soul not in his own hands but in that of God. And in the very act of giving it up, it is given back to him.

Hans Christian Andersen is a very existentialist writer. He is a Christian existentialist. Forget the little mermaid in the Disney Cartoon. Remember that his little mermaid died in the end, but in the very act of giving up her life for the man she loved, she was transformed into something eternal and lived forever.

So which existentialism is more likely to be true? Neither. There is no proof either way. And how can there be in the extremely relative existentialism. You simply have the burden of your choice. To take the leap of faith or to become god in your own universe of meaning.

Answer 2

Crime and Punishment.

Hey, it was the first Existentialist novel I ever read. :) Loved it, too. I also liked The Stranger (as someone referenced with Meursault), but that novel is often considered Absurdist, instead.

I think Kierkegaard (you know, the author) is often considered an Existentialist as well.

Answer 3

First question: What exists to concur, naturally and accepted as not.....???

idea: Sophistry designed to explain the existence of some "thing" unknown, unseen, and challenged as to its presence and its location in the vast universe..

That's what come to my mind when I hear the term: existentialism.....


**ME??.... I believe in the presence of God.....!!! I don't "concur in some "thing" accepted as not but of myself that it is......

**Just adding this because someone must think I am among those who do not know what existentialism is: It is the "empirical" belief that one is as a free agent in aworld of decision a part from a "god"......

Your sister,
Ginger

Answer 4

If I want to be an existentialist, do I have to own a beret?

Answer 5

Meursault from The Stranger.

Answer 6

First question: how is this word pronounced?
First idea: sounds like a futuristic form of capitalism.

That's sad, I know.

Answer 7

That existence precedes essence.

Answer 8

The concept of existing..

Answer 9

existence preceeds essence.