Existentialism.What do you understand about Existentialism?

Question

Our Instructor in philosophy keeps on saying this word. I dont have any idea what this is.

What is the principle of existentialism?
Who were involve in existentialism?
What trigger them to create existentialism?
Can you give me an example wherein existentialism is shown?cite a situation. thanks a lot

Answer 1

Aloha Patricia,

Existentialism basically says that life has no meaning in and of itself, but that we create our own meaning in our lives.

Wikipedia explains this concept in simple terms: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existentialism

The following people were involved in Existentialism:
Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Kafka, and Dostoevsky. (Above link has links to each of them as well). I highly recommend reading Camus' "The Myth of Sisyphus" or "The Plague". Both are easy reads.

Existentialism is connected to the concept of Absurdism and the notion that life is absurd: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Camus#Summary_of_Absurdism

It is related to the concept of Nihilism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism that life has no meaning.

Existentialism is often tied to the concept of whether or not one believes in God. Some existentialists, like Kierkegaard, believe the "fundamental existentialist question is man's relationship to God", whereas others, like Nietzsche espouse the concept that "God is dead".

A modern example of Existentialism can be found in the movie "Fight Club": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fight_Club Also the play "Waiting for Godot" is another example of Existentialism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waiting_for_Godot

I can understand your confusion as these are not easy terms to grasp. I hope this helps.

Answer 2

Well, I’ll let you read Jean-Paul Sartre on you own.

The core of Existentialism is that “Existence precedes essence.”

So, let’s say you are pondering the question: “Is it human nature to make war?”

A Christian might say: “War is a corruption of human nature. It is a perverse behavior caused by man’s willful disobedience of God’s divine plan.”

An Existentialist would say: “Humans have always made war, so making war is human nature.”

An Existentialist believes an essence (essential human nature) can only come from existence. So even if God made humans to be something besides what we’ve become, human nature must still be defined as what we’ve become.

Plato believed things on earth were poor reflections of perfect forms.
Existentialists reject this notion. Essence cannot proceed existence.

There is no transcendent essence of a dog. The essence of a dog has no meaning beyond the observed behavior in a class of existing creatures.

My suspicion is that Existentialism was triggered by Occam’s Razor; which may be expressed as “Pluralism should not posited without necessity” OR “ The simplest explanation, that explains everything, is most likely true.”

One does not need a transcendental form when simple existence will suffice.

Existentialism is a paradigm. You can’t really ‘show’ it, because it’s a way of viewing things.

If you ask an Existentialist: “What is the meaning of Life?”

They will probably answer: “Life doesn’t have a meaning, only a nature.”

Hope this helps.

Answer 3

Existentialism is based on that idea that as human beings, we create our own destinies simply by existing. In a nutshell: humans define their own reality. It is very different from other philosophical principles in that it does not focus so heavily on the idea of "fate" or "predestination".

Some existential philosophers include: Thoreau, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Camus and many many others.

There are several different types of existentialism. And it is not easy to define it in one answer. Look to the Wikipedia article on existentialism for more info.