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Although he forcefully separated himself from existentialism. J., 2008, Albert Camus: From the Absurd to Revolt. Preview the PDF version of this entry at. From Rationalism To Existentialism Pdf Reader. Philosophy: A Quick History of Philosophy. Sartre claimed that a central proposition of Existentialism is that existence precedes essence, which means that the most important consideration for individuals is. Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates. From Rationalism To Existentialism Pdf Merge'>From Rationalism To Existentialism Pdf Merge. Hopper Motorplex. The Code is: (P0. Turbo/Supercharger Underboost) Thanks! Download Amiri Baraka The Dutchman Pdf Creator. Sprinter Cdi Workshop Manual Complete factory workshop service repair manual in PDF format for the Mercedes Benz, Freightliner.

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• Although it has much in common with Nihilism, Existentialism is more a reaction against traditional philosophies, such as Rationalism, Empiricism and Positivism, that seek to discover an ultimate order and universal meaning in metaphysical principles or in the structure of the observed world.
• What a strange fate has befallen rationalism! Men emancipated. Existentialism, pp. 14-18, 21-2, 25-8, 34-5, 42-5, 60--1. Condemned, because he did not create himself, yet, in other respects is free; because, once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does. The existentialist does not believe.
• Home » Articles » Existentialism, Empiricism, and Rationalism. Existentialism, Empiricism, and Rationalism. Posted on October 5, 2013 March 11, 2018. Share this: Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window). Thomas Wartenberg, in his great introduction to existentialism.

• 5Leads of Existentialism by published philosophers

The Lede

It used to be okay, but now that countless amateurs have crawled over it, it's shit again.

Restoring older version which had consensus.KD Tries Again (talk) 05:25, 10 October 2011 (UTC)KD Tries Again

Same again.KD Tries Again (talk) 16:30, 20 March 2012 (UTC)KD Tries Again

Criticism Section: Grammatical confusion

There is some pronoun confusion in the following paragraph:

Logical positivists, such as Carnap and Ayer, say Existentialists frequently are confused about the verb 'to be' in their analyses of 'being'.[70] They argue that the verb is transitive, and pre-fixed to a predicate (e.g., an apple is red): without a predicate, the word is meaningless.

It is not clear to me who the subject of the second sentence is. Which of the two parties argues that the verb 'to be' is transitive, the Logical Positivists or the Existentialists? Also, the comma after transitive is in error. I'll go ahead and remove that for you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 136.1.1.105 (talk) 05:19, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Definition of Existentialism

I think the definition of existentialism in the introduction is pretty vague, and not very helpful. Can we go with the epistemological distinction that an existentialist is someone who ontologically places existence before essence ? This certainly served as the formal definition to Jaspers and Satre, and was how Heidegger described his own philosophy (although he didn't like being labelled as an existentialist). I think it's pretty much applicable to the metaphysical sides of Nietzsche and Kirkegaard as well. We need to contrast Existentialism with the style of philosophy which preceded it, the Cartesian metaphysics, in the introduction. Also, I think Hegel's influence on the existentialists, especially Nietzche and Heidegger, needs to be made more clear. Anyone disagree ? Heideggerist (talk) 09:53, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

That's quite a lot for just an intro. However, we can definitely add those to the main article; the 'Concepts' section does go into the existence preceding essence idea. Poor Yorick (talk) 12:18, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

So let's base the whole deffinition on one man's opinion. I think not. When you provide some evidence then you can add it in.--72.74.114.109 (talk) 14:01, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, what to say.... I just started reading the Existence article, but it immediately deviates to 'existence of god'... ...--- It seems this article of Existentialism, should really be ReNamed to Existentialism philosophy, since it's based on a literary history, or (simultaneously) a History of the 'state of the world', as the 'Earth sociology' has been evolving... Apparently, nobody bothered to put a HatNote on the page header to see the article Existence, since it is the topic were supposedly elucidating... (the Existence Article, has a See also to 'Existentialism' article, but not Vice-Versa).
I've started reading this 'Existentialism' article more than once, but refuse to read about the 'History of Existentialist philosophy', or Authors, or History of Existental literature. I'm kind-of assuming the article on 1—existence (with authors back to the Greeks, but probably also the 'Whole Topic' of the Epic of Gilgamesh, or the Egyptian writing Topics, (both kingdom-regions-(Egypt-Mesopotam.) over thousands of years))... and 2—Existentialism philosophy are basically the same topic.... So how about a hatnote or See also to existence or a ReName to Existential philosophy-------
I think maybe trying to get to what 'Existentialism' and 'Existence' are,.... would be served better by two small articles, that then split into to the OVER-wordy, OVER-topic-ed, OVER-opinioned (by History of cilvilization authors, over the centuries, millenia)... All of the discussions have NO CONCLUSIONS, only lead to more discussion, and much to various religions, and cultures... (In other words, (I will not waste precious existence time, trying to sort out literally centuries, of words, or DEBATES.)
(NOTE) --Existential (disambiguation) redirects to Existentialism. I would make the two smaller articles of Existentialism philosophy, and Existence, and also a page for 'Existential (disambiguation)', and break out all the other History of XXXXXX articles required) ---Mmcannis (talk) 04:00, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

In reply to Mmcanniss-- Existentialism is not by any means synonymous to Existence. In case you are unaware, Existentialism refers to a specific philosophy developed in the early to mid 20th century. It does not refer to, say, for example, the Dharmic view of existence, or European views. Existentialism is, in part, a philosophy which explores the topic of existence. But it is not the philosophy of existence (despite what the name might imply). I hope that clarifies.76.183.208.36 (talk) 03:01, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Lede sentence

OK, let's try a few ledes to 'define' Existentialism.

• Existentialism is a philosophical and cultural movement which maintains that a complete understanding of human existence, authentically including actions and feelings, requires new categories and concepts that are not found in the existing sciences and moral theories, ancient and modern.^[1]--JimWae (talk) 10:39, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
• Existentialism is a term applied to the work of a number of late 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences,[1][2][3] shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual.[4] In existentialism, the individual's starting point is characterized by what has been called 'the existential attitude', or a sense of disorientation and confusion in the face of an apparently meaningless or absurd world.[5] Many existentialists have also regarded traditional systematic or academic philosophies, in both style and content, as too abstract and remote from concrete human experience. -- from 2012-MAR-23
• Existentialism is generally considered by scholars^{[failed verification]} to be the group of philosophies which hold that the essence of a human is preceded by^[vague] his (or her) existence.^[1] There is no general consensus among scholars on the definition nor on how one should use the term as a historical category.^{[contradictory]} The views of existentialist philosophers are generally considered to be profoundly different from each another relative to other philosophies.^[1][2][3]< ---- paragraph break --- >The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines existentialism as the philosophical theory which holds that human existence cannot be understood only by natural science, theories of morality, or both.^[1] Philosopher John Macquarrie defines existentialism as the philosophy which holds that philosophical thinking begins with the thinking human subject.^[4] Some scholars argue^{[failed verification]} that the use of the term should be restricted to the philosophical views of Jean-Paul Sartre.^[1] Other scholars argue that the term should be used to refer to the cultural movement in Europe in the 1940s and 1950s associated with the works of philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Albert Camus. - current as of 2012-APR-13 ( --JimWae (talk) 22:26, 13 April 2012 (UTC) )

(This is with great gratitude to both Byelf2007 and JimWae for their recent excellent work---rescuing this critical article from the sloughs of despond, moribund, mal-organize and inpenetrable.)

Existentialism by now covers many concepts not discussed by Sarte; its modern definition in Wikipedia should not be limited by his famous thesis. The first lede offered above by JimWae is by far the most apt of the three; it provides readability, conciseness and breadth of scope for further development. --Jbeans (talk) 09:47, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps something like this: --JimWae (talk) 11:04, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Existentialism is a philosophical and cultural movement which maintains that a complete understanding of human existence, authentically including actions and feelings, requires new categories and concepts that are not found in the existing sciences and moral theories, ancient and modern.^[1][5]

Existentialism originated in the late 19th-century as a reaction against the abstract rationalism of Hegel and Kant, with its seminal authors rejecting claims that achieving objective knowledge could ever fully satisfy the needs of humans.^[6] In the 20th Century, despite other profound doctrinal differences,^[1][7] its advocates continued to regard traditional, systematic, and academic philosophy, in both style and content, as too abstract and remote from concrete human experience.^[8][9]

I agree with the 'something like this'---and offer these mods; (I favor less words and more simple as more readable, bless wikipedia---but do the refs still work?):

Existentialism is a philosophical and cultural movement; it maintains that understanding human existence requires new categories and concepts not found in the existing sciences and moral theories, ancient and modern.^[1][10]

Existentialism originated in the late 19th-century as a reaction against the abstract rationalism of Hegel and Kant, with its seminal authors rejecting claims that achieving objective knowledge could ever fully satisfy the needs of humans.^[11] In the 20th Century, despite other profound doctrinal differences among themselves,^[1][12]its advocates continued to regard the traditional philosophies as too remote from modern human experience, and as too abstract to guide the layman seeker.^[13][14]

end comment.--Jbeans (talk) 09:38, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

How about this:

• ' Existentialism is generally considered by scholars [of philosophy] to refer to the group of philosophies which hold that a comprehensive understanding of human existence requires concepts other than natural science and morality.[citations] '

OR

• ' Existentialism is generally considered by scholars [of philosophy] to refer to the group of philosophies which hold that a comprehensive understanding of human existence requires concepts other than natural science and morality, and that the essence of a human is determined by its existence.[citations] '

As for the Stanford link, I said it defines existentialism as 'the philosophical theory which holds that human existence cannot be understood only by natural science, theories of morality, or both.' because from what I can tell that's what it does define it as in its article, albeit in a very roundabout way:

It says (after explaining how there's no general consensus for the definition) that ' “Existentialism”, therefore, may be defined as the philosophical theory which holds that a further set of categories, governed by the norm of authenticity, is necessary to grasp human existence. '

And what are these 'further set'? In the previous paragraph, the article says: 'On the existential view, to understand what a human being is it is not enough to know all the truths that natural science...could tell us' and also 'Nor can such an understanding be gained by supplementing our scientific picture with a moral one.'

Therefore, what the article says in the next paragraph is, in effect: “Existentialism”, therefore, may be defined as the philosophical theory which holds that a set of categories, governed by the norm of authenticity, and not including natural science and morality, are necessary to grasp human existence, and this does not preclude the possibility that you need natural science and morality in addition to whatever these other categories are (all we really know here is that natural science and morality aren't enough).

I hope this all gets us a little closer to a solution. It is because of the lack of general consensus that I want us to nail down a definition we're all happy with. Otherwise, going with 'variously defined by sources/no general agreement' at the beginning seems preferable, as much as I'd like a specific definition. I don't want us to go with one source or just stick prominent ones together. Byelf2007 (talk) 15 April 2012

Much preferred the previous lede, which had been stable for quite some time. 'Existentialism is variously defined by sources' does not strike me as an encyclopedic lede sentence. Most of the suggestions above are too vague for readers who come to the page wanting to know something about the subject ('...a comprehensive understanding of human existence requires concepts other than natural science and morality' -- really? like what?; '...understanding human existence requires new categories and concepts not found in the existing sciences and moral theories' -- well, how does that distinguish it from Platonism, Hegelianism, or any other new start in philosophy? What was wrong with the old lede which said was existentialism was? Are we tinkering for the sake of it?KD Tries Again (talk) 23:12, 15 April 2012 (UTC)KD Tries Again

I agree that starting with 'variously defined by sources' is a bad idea. Byelf2007 (talk) 17 April 2012

The definition presently given: Existentialism is generally defined as the group of philosophies which hold that the essence of a human is determined by its existence' is not helpful to the reader - it is jargon - ALTERED semi-famous jargon, but jargon. This also focusses too much on Sartre. As asked BEFORE, what are some of the philosophies that belong to this 'group of philosophies'? The pronoun 'its' is a poor word choice - does it refer to people or essence? Right now, it reads as saying 'an essence is determined by that essences' existence'. Fixing that one thing, however, does not fix the many problems here. Also, this fails verification, since sources cited do not define existentialism this way - and changing 'precedes' to 'determines' is editorial synthesis.

If there is no general consensus then HOW -- ON WHAT BASIS -- is it 'generally defined as' X? The reader is owed some account of this discrepancy. Failing that, he should not be burdened with any statement about how it is 'generally defined' -- PARTICULARLY not when that 'definition' is the ALTERED jargon of ONE author (Sartre). --JimWae (talk) 21:27, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

How about this?

Existentialism is generally defined as the group of philosophies which hold that the essence--explanation of what this means--of a human is determined by its existence--explanation of what this means.

I don't want to start off with 'variously defined by sources', preferring some sort of definition that is 'generally' agreed upon. Would my idea work? It's been pointed out by 'KD Tries Again' that 'concepts other than natural science and morality' isn't enough for us to distinguish what is generally considered 'existentialism' from other philosophies/groups of philosophies. Byelf2007 (talk) 17 April 2012

Existentialism started out (and continued) as a reaction against systematic philosophies. It is questionable that its proponents ever AGREED on what those other concepts ought to be, BUT among the ones proposed are those contained in the themes of dread, boredom, alienation, the absurd, freedom, commitment, nothingness. Whether it was a failed 'research project' or not is beside the point. Whether all the 'researchers' reached the same conclusion about what was needed or not also does not mean we cannot find common intentions and themes among the 'researchers'. It was a movement, and perhaps a 'philosophy' - but, very possibly, not. Treat it as a movement (even as a cultural AND philosophic one) and some of the issues do not come up.--JimWae (talk) 21:47, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

I've questioned 'group of philosophies' several times now, with nothing addressed in response to that.--JimWae (talk) 21:52, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Something like:

Existentialism is a philosophical and cultural movement that began in the mid-19th century, in reaction to then-existing systematic philosophies, sciences and moral theories.^[1][15] Its thinkers searched for new categories and concepts which would authentically include actions and feelings in an attempt to more fully understand human existence.^[1][15] Common themes have included dread, boredom, alienation, the absurd, uncertainty, freedom, commitment, and nothingness.^[1]

-- or *like* what it was 2012-MAR-23--JimWae (talk) 22:05, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

WP:LEDE does not require the 1st sentence give a complete def - but does support doing so by the end of the 1st paragraph --JimWae (talk) 22:19, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

How about this? (I'm trying to have this be as precise and concise as possible)

Existentialism is generally considered ['by X', or perhaps we insert nothing here] to be a philosophical movement that began in the 19th century as a reaction to existing systematic philosophies.^[1][15] Its original thinkers opposed the notion of the dominant philosophies of the time that only morality and natural science were required to fully understand human existence. Existentialists argued that additional concepts were required to better understand human existence.^[1][15] There is no general consensus ['among X', or perhaps we insert nothing here] on the definition of the term. Existentialists generally argue that philosophical thinking begins with the individual rather than the universal.[citations] Common concepts used in existentialist thought include essence, the absurd, freedom, nothingness, authenticity, and the other.[citations] Common issues covered in existentialist thought include angst, despair, dread, boredom, alienation, uncertainty, and commitment.^[1]

A few points--

• on 'cultural movement' - I'm not sure if existentialism is really generally considered to be a cultural movement. I think we want a definition that will be as accurate as possible, which means that it needs to be a popular as possible, which means that it ought to be shorter whenever doing so doesn't leave us with a lot less accuracy (the longer the definition, the more controversial it's going to be). It's my understanding that existentialism as a cultural thing is pretty much mid-20th century Europe, but most people don't use the term that way. (we also already cover how some use the term to refer to it as the cultural Europe thing).

• on 'which would authentically include actions and feelings' - this is kinda vague (without contextual info). I don't think we want to put this in until the reader would know what it means from reading the article.

• We ought to establish that there is no general consensus (meaning *vast* majority) on the definition of the term in the lead as soon as possible (in the lead).

• The litany at the end 'common themes' concerns a few phenomenon, but I wouldn't call them themes. Furthermore, I'm not sure why we'd want to cover 'themes'. I think it would be better to be more precise, which means covering common concepts. For example, the current list in the 'concepts' section of the article provides a better idea of what existentialism is rather than the litany. I also think it's good to put emphasis on what concepts existentialists focus on/promote, instead of just issues they talk about a lot. It's accurate to say 'Existentialists talk a lot about how hard it is being human and dealing with all that human stuff....the anguish! We are doomed!', but that doesn't provide us with a good idea of what makes existentialism existentialism--in other words, what sets it apart from other philosophies which emphasize the 'it's hard being human' issues. Byelf2007 (talk) 18 April 2012

References

1. ^ ^{abcdefghijklmno}Crowell, Steven (October 2010). 'Existentialism'. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 2012-04-12.
2. ^John Macquarrie, Existentialism, New York (1972), pp. 18–21.
3. ^Oxford Companion to Philosophy, ed. Ted Honderich, New York (1995), p. 259.
4. ^John Macquarrie, Existentialism, New York (1972), pp. 14–15.
5. ^John Macquarrie, Existentialism, New York (1972), pp. 14–15.
6. ^Oxford Companion to Philosophy, ed. Ted Honderich, New York (1995), p. 277.
7. ^John Macquarrie, Existentialism, New York (1972), pp. 18–21.
8. ^Ernst Breisach, Introduction to Modern Existentialism, New York (1962), p. 5.
9. ^Walter Kaufmann, Existentialism: From Dostoyevesky to Sartre, New York (1956) p. 12.
10. ^John Macquarrie, Existentialism, New York (1972), pp. 14–15.
11. ^Oxford Companion to Philosophy, ed. Ted Honderich, New York (1995), p. 277.
12. ^John Macquarrie, Existentialism, New York (1972), pp. 18–21.
13. ^Ernst Breisach, Introduction to Modern Existentialism, New York (1962), p. 5.
14. ^Walter Kaufmann, Existentialism: From Dostoyevesky to Sartre, New York (1956) p. 12.
15. ^ ^abcdJohn Macquarrie, Existentialism, New York (1972), pp. 14–15.

Leads of Existentialism by published philosophers

Here guys, to help construct a good lead, here's some examples of book explanations used by some professional philosophers. The first three are professional philosophers that don't specialize in existentialism, the rest are philosophers that do; choose your poison :) 204.209.209.129 (talk) 02:31, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Existentialism refers to any philosophy that assers that the most important philosophical matters involve fundamental questions of meaning and choice as they affect actual-existing-individuals. Existential themes include choice, freedom, identity, alienation, inauthenticity, despair and awareness of our own mortality.Archtypes of Wisdom: An Introduction to Philosophy, Douglas J. Soccio, p. 395

Existentialism is a kind of philosophy that begins from the concrete reality of the human individual's existence in the world. What is shared by all humans in their day to day life becomes a foundation for knowledge and the nature of reality. Existentialism is focused on human experience from the first person, some 'me' or 'I'.
The Handy Philosophy Answer Book, Naomi Zack, p. 256

Existentialism is a key movement in philosophy that can be traced back to the work of Søren Kierkegaard. Against Hegel's systematic philosophy, Kierkegaard argued that the lived experience of the 'singular individual' formed a special mode of being that resisted capture by scientific or essentialist claims about human nature. It is this emphasis on the primacy of first person experience that characterizes existentialism, in both its literary and philosophical manifestations.
The Continuum Companion to Continental Philosophy, John Mullarkey, Beth Lord (eds.), p. 291

Though they may disagree about the details, the existentialists are linked by their commitment to the common themes of freedom, choice, authenticity, alienation, and rebellion.
Basic Writings of Existentialism, Gordon Marino, pp. xiv

Existentialism addresses questions that arise for individuals in the course of actually living out their lives. The emphasis in exisentialism, as the name suggests, is on the concrete nature of existence. An inquiry of this sort is needed, existentialists claim, because the standard way of thinking about human beings - the conception of humans as members of a species or instances of a natural kind - generally leaves out of account such dimensions of life as passion, integrity, authenticity, and commitment. The feeling that mainstream approaches to human phenomena leave something important out of account was expressed by Søren Kierkegaard over 150 years ago. 'To be a human being means to belong to a race endowed with reason, to belong to it as a specimen, so that the race or species is higher than the individual, which is to say that there are no more indivdiuals but only specimens.'
The Existentialists, Charles B. Guignon, p. 1

The term 'existentialism' has traditionally been notoriously difficult to define due to the fact that the word has been attached to the work of so many different thinkers with such diverse agendas and writings. However, there can be no doubt that most of the thinkers who are usually associated with the existentialist tradition, for whatever their actual doctrines, were in one way or another influenced by the writings of Kierkegaard. ... Perhaps most significantly his rejection of German idealism as a model for philosophical analysis and his focus instead on the lived experience of the individual were key sources of inspiration for the existentialist writers. They too sought to develop a new kind of philosophy that was more in touch with the actual problems of human life and existence, while rejecting what they regarded as abstract conceptual analysis for its own sake.
Kierkegaard and Existentialism, Jon Stewart, p. ix

What is Existentialism? It is perhaps the most misunderstood of modern philosophic positions —- misunderstood by reason of its broad popularity and general unfamiliarity with its origins, representatives, and principles. Existential thinking does not originate with Jean-Paul Sartre. It has prior religious, literary, and philosophic origins. In its narrowest formulation it is a metaphysical doctrine, arguing as it does that any definition of man’s essence must follow, not precede, an estimation of his existence. In Heidegger, it affords a view of being in its totality; in Kierkegaard an approach to that inwardness indispensable to authentic religious experience; for Dostoevsky, Kafka, and Rilke the existential situation bears the stamp of modern man’s alienation, up-rootedness, and absurdity; to Sartre it has vast ethical and political implications.
Existentialism From Dostoyevsky to Sartre, Walter Kaufmann, p. 326

Existentialism is a philosophy that takes as its starting point the individual's existence. Everything that it has to say, and everything that it believes can be said of significance - about the world we inhabit, our feelings, thoughts, knowledge, ethics, - stems from this central founding idea. Hence what sets it apart from most other philosophies is that it begins with the individual rather than the universal and so does not aim to arrive at general truths: its insistence on personal insights as the only means to real understanding entails that it makes no claims to objective knowledge.
Existentialism: A Guide for the Perplexed, Steven Earnshaw, p. 1

Thank you very much. I'm glad we have so many more sources. This means we're now better able to come up with a good definition. Of course, it also means we have more work to do to achieve this. The anguish! Byelf2007 (talk) 18 April 2012

More on lede

Instead of saying 'there is no general consensus....', the last sentence of the defintional paragraph (i.e. the 1st) could say that some scholars have remarked that existentialism is difficult to define - and then provide 2 sources that say that--JimWae (talk) 04:46, 18 April 2012 (UTC)--JimWae (talk) 04:46, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

I guess we don't have to put in 'no general consensus' (because we've got a paragraph of various definitions anyway), but if we don't, we MUST have a definition that says 'Existentialism is generally defined as...' instead of 'Existentialism is...' Otherwise, the reader might conclude 'Well, this article says it's been notoriously difficult to define existentialism, but the article still defines existentialism as thus and so, therefore, I will believe existentialism IS thus and so, just like the wikipedia definition of everything else is correct, and that there therefore is a general consensus on the term, because, otherwise, why would wikipedia say it's thus and so if there's isn't a general consensus about it?' Byelf2007 (talk) 18 April 2012

It qualifies as a cultural movement because it also appears in other fields besides philosophy - literature (novels, poems - even comic books ), psychology, religion, theatre/film/drama, ... -- even art (painting). That is one way that Ex-m differs from other movements within philosophy --JimWae (talk) 04:49, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

It depends on the definition. However, if there is a general agreement by sources that existentialism is also cultural, then that's fine. Byelf2007 (talk) 18 April 2012

Comparison with Transhumanism

Transhumanism is a featured philosophy article which uses the 3 paragraph approach: Definition, History, Legacy (Critics/Supporters)I think Existentialism should continue to go that route. Definition is the hardest obviously, but distillation of the above references suggest focusing on how existentialism is an individual-centred philosophy rather than an abstract one, and how it takes existence as its starting point. History should continue briefly discussing Kierkegaard's role in forming existential philosophy against the backdrop of Hegel's idealism. And legacy should discuss the critics and supporters of existentialism 204.209.209.129 (talk) 03:13, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

We basically already have this except we have a '1.5 paragraph' on the various definitions because there are so many. If we combined the 1.5 paragraph with another, we'd end up with a very long paragraph which would look strange. Byelf2007 (talk) 18 April 2012

My attempt on a lede

Existentialism is a philosophical and cultural movement that began in the early 19th century, rejecting then-prevalent systematic philosophy and theology. Its seminal figures reject the reduction of human existence to an object of knowledge and argue that the starting point of philosophical thinking must begin with the individual and its lived experiences. Beyond this general definition, existentialists disagree among themselves on how to approach thinking about existence.

The early 19th century philosopher Søren Kierkegaard is considered the father of existentialism.^[1][2] He maintained that the individual is solely responsible for giving his or her own life meaning and for living that life passionately and sincerely,^[3][4] in spite of many existential obstacles and distractions including despair, angst, absurdity, alienation, and boredom.^[5] Subsequent existentialist philosophers retain the emphasis on the individual, but differ, in varying degrees, on how one achieves and what constitutes a fulfilling life, what obstacles must be overcome, and what external and internal factors are involved, including the potential consequences of the existence^[6][7] or non-existence of God.^[8][9]

Existentialism became popular after World War II and has attracted many supporters and detractors from a wide range of disciplines. Supporters use existential ideas in many other fields besides philosophy such as theology, drama, art, literature, and psychology. Detractors assert that existentialists confuse their use of terminology and contradict themselves.^[10][11]

Suggestions? Comments? 204.209.209.129 (talk) 06:08, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

This is good, but I have a few objections:

• This is an article about a particular thing. I think it therefore ought to have a particular definition right away. Saying existentialism is 'a...X' doesn't enable us to differentiate it from another philosophy that can be defined the same way, yet is generally considered to not be existentialist (if such a philosophy exists). However, I'm aware that this isn't requisite according to wikipedia policy.
• It isn't made clear (explicitly at least) that existentialists rejected X idea which was also prevalent at the time.
• It should be 'rejected' not 'reject', and 'argued' not 'argue'.
• 'Theology' is redundant because all theology is philosophy.
• 'Beyond this general definition' That sounds weak. It's not a general definition anyway.
• History should be in the 'history paragraph' if we go with my preferred lead paragraph.
• I think saying Kierkegaard was a 'father' or 'forefather' is silly and sexist. I prefer 'creator' or 'founder'.
• There is no way to argue Kierkegaard is the 'official' creator of existentialism, because of the various definitional issues we've discussed, so he's 'generally considered' the creator.
• There was elimination of content.

How about this?

Existentialism is generally considered to be a philosophical and cultural movement that began in the early 19th century, rejecting the views of then-prevalent systematic philosophy on the nature of human existence. Its seminal figures rejected the reduction of human existence to an object of knowledge and argued that the starting point of philosophical thinking must begin with the individual and its lived experiences. Beyond this definition, existentialists disagree among themselves on how to approach thinking about existence.[sources]

The term existentialism was never used by its seminal figures, which has made the issue of defining the term a matter of scholarly debate. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines existentialism as the philosophical theory which holds that human existence cannot be understood only by natural science, theories of morality, or both.^[12][additional precise definitions] Other scholars argue that the term should be used to refer to the cultural movement in Europe in the 1940s and 1950s associated with the works of philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Albert Camus.^[12] The term is often used to be synonymous with the philosophical views of Jean-Paul Sartre.^[12]

The early 19th century philosopher Søren Kierkegaard is generally considered the founder of existentialism.^[13][2] Existentialism became popular after World War II and has attracted many supporters and detractors from a wide range of disciplines.^[14] Supporters use existential ideas in many other fields besides philosophy such as theology, drama, art, literature, and psychology.

The views of existentialist philosophers are generally considered by scholars to be profoundly different from each another relative to other philosophies.^[12][15][16] Existentialists generally regard traditional systematic or academic philosophies, in both style and content, as too abstract and remote from concrete human experience.^[17][18] Criticisms of existentialist philosophers include the assertions that they confuse their use of terminology and contradict themselves.^[19][20][21]

or this? (my preference; first paragraph only)

Existentialism is generally considered to be the philosophical and cultural movement that holds that the starting point of philosophical thinking must begin with the individual and its lived experiences, rejecting the reduction of human existence to an object of knowledge. Beyond this definition, existentialists disagree among themselves on how to approach thinking about existence.[sources]

Byelf2007 (talk) 18 April 2012

Hi, 204 here, as an account Archer47.

The term existentialism was never used by its seminal figures, which has made the issue of defining the term a matter of scholarly debate. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines existentialism as the philosophical theory which holds that human existence cannot be understood only by natural science, theories of morality, or both.^[12][additional precise definitions] Other scholars argue that the term should be used to refer to the cultural movement in Europe in the 1940s and 1950s associated with the works of philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Albert Camus.^[12] The term is often used to be synonymous with the philosophical views of Jean-Paul Sartre.^[12]

This paragraph doesn't belong in the lede. Existentialism was used by a few seminal figures including Sartre in Existentialism is a Humanism. Saying 'The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines existentialism as...' is like Encyclopedia Britannica writing: 'Existentialism is X. Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia defines existentialism as...'. That's pretty unseemly, to me anyway. Debates about usage of the term belongs in the etymology section which should talk about the origin of a word and the development of its meaning, which is pretty much what's at issue.

The early 19th century philosopher Søren Kierkegaard is generally considered the founder of existentialism.^[22][2] Existentialism became popular after World War II and has attracted many supporters and detractors from a wide range of disciplines.^[23] Supporters use existential ideas in many other fields besides philosophy such as theology, drama, art, literature, and psychology.

We should keep what the founder of existentialism wrote, as well as what his philosophical descendants agreed and disagreed with.

The views of existentialist philosophers are generally considered by scholars to be profoundly different from each another relative to other philosophies.^[12][24][25] Existentialists generally regard traditional systematic or academic philosophies, in both style and content, as too abstract and remote from concrete human experience.

The first sentence can be subsumed in the first paragraph sentence: Beyond this definition, existentialists disagree among themselves (and other philosophies?) on how to approach thinking about existence,The second sentence can be subsumed when talking about Existentialism rejecting systematic philosophies.

• This is an article about a particular thing. I think it therefore ought to have a particular definition right away. Saying existentialism is 'a...X' doesn't enable us to differentiate it from another philosophy that can be defined the same way, yet is generally considered to not be existentialist (if such a philosophy exists). However, I'm aware that this isn't requisite according to wikipedia policy.

The definition should be in the first paragraph, not necessarily the first sentence. It flows better (to me anyway) at what Existentialism rejected and what it put forth instead.

• It isn't made clear (explicitly at least) that existentialists rejected X idea which was also prevalent at the time.

Kierkegaard rejected Hegelianism as the prime systematic philosophy at the time, we can put that in

• It should be 'rejected' not 'reject', and 'argued' not 'argue'.

no objection

• 'Theology' is redundant because all theology is philosophy.

no objection

• 'Beyond this general definition' That sounds weak. It's not a general definition anyway.

no objection to removing 'general'

• History should be in the 'history paragraph' if we go with my preferred lead paragraph.

History section should be detailed, the Transhumanism featured article goes Definition, History, Legacy, and goes into a big discussion on history and even etymology. That's fine enough for featured status, I'll go with that.

• I think saying Kierkegaard was a 'father' or 'forefather' is silly and sexist. I prefer 'creator' or 'founder'.

founder is fine, father and founder are the terms philosophers use; definitely not creator or forefather.

• There is no way to argue Kierkegaard is the 'official' creator of existentialism, because of the various definitional issues we've discussed, so he's 'generally considered' the creator.

Reliable sources overwhelming point to Kierkegaard as the first existentialist or the father/founder of existentialism.

• There was elimination of content.

What's with the Heidegger Google books highlight long url in the ref?

But%20the%20reversal%20of%20a%20metaphysical%20statement%20remains%20a%20metaphysical%20statement.%20With%20it%2C%20he%20stays%20with%20metaphysics%2C%20in%20oblivion%20of%20the%20truth%20of%20Being.&pg=PA208#v=onepage&q=But%20the%20reversal%20of%20a%20metaphysical%20statement%20remains%20a%20metaphysical%20statement.%20With%20it,%20he%20stays%20with%20metaphysics,%20in%20oblivion%20of%20the%20truth%20of%20Being.&f=falseThat's pretty unwieldly. The link as well as the search term in another ref would be ok.

Regards,Archer47 (talk) 07:38, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

References

1. ^Marino, Gordon. Basic Writings of Existentialism (Modern Library, 2004, p. ix, 3).
2. ^ ^abcMcDonald, William. 'Søren Kierkegaard'. In Edward N. Zalta (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2009 Edition).
3. ^Watts, Michael. Kierkegaard (Oneworld, 2003, pp.4-6).
4. ^Lowrie, Walter. Kierkegaard's attack upon 'Christendom' (Princeton, 1968, pp. 37-40).
5. ^Corrigan, John. The Oxford handbook of religion and emotion (Oxford, 2008, pp. 387-88).
6. ^Livingston, James et al. Modern Christian Thought: The Twentieth Century (Fortress Press, 2006, Chapter 5: 'Christian Existentialism').
7. ^Martin, Clancy.'Religious Existentialism' in Companion to Phenomenology and Existentialism (Blackwell, 2006, pp. 188-205).
8. ^Robert C. Solomon, Existentialism (McGraw-Hill, 1974, pp. 1–2).
9. ^D.E. Cooper Existentialism: A Reconstruction (Basil Blackwell, 1999, p. 8).
10. ^Carnap, Rudolf, Uberwindung der Metaphysik durch logische Analyse der Sprache [Overcoming Metaphysics by the Logical Analysis of Speech], Erkenntnis (1932), pp.219–241. Carnap's critique of Heidegger's 'What is Metaphysics'.
11. ^Marcuse, Herbert. 'Sartre's Existentialism'. Printed in Studies in Critical Philosophy. Translated by Joris De Bres. London: NLB, 1972. p. 161
12. ^ ^abcdefghCrowell, Steven (October 2010). 'Existentialism'. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 2012-04-12.
13. ^Marino, Gordon. Basic Writings of Existentialism (Modern Library, 2004, p. ix, 3).
14. ^Guignon, Charles B. and Derk Pereboom. Existentialism: basic writings (Hackett Publishing, 2001, p. xiii).
15. ^John Macquarrie, Existentialism, New York (1972), pp. 18–21.
16. ^Oxford Companion to Philosophy, ed. Ted Honderich, New York (1995), p. 259.
17. ^Ernst Breisach, Introduction to Modern Existentialism, New York (1962), p. 5.
18. ^Walter Kaufmann, Existentialism: From Dostoyevesky to Sartre, New York (1956) p. 12.
19. ^Carnap, Rudolf, Uberwindung der Metaphysik durch logische Analyse der Sprache [Overcoming Metaphysics by the Logical Analysis of Speech], Erkenntnis (1932), pp.219–241. Carnap's critique of Heidegger's 'What is Metaphysics'.
20. ^Marcuse, Herbert. 'Sartre's Existentialism'. Printed in Studies in Critical Philosophy. Translated by Joris De Bres. London: NLB, 1972. p. 161
21. ^Martin Heidegger, 'Letter on Humanism', in Basic Writings: Nine Key Essays, plus the Introduction to Being and Time, trans. David Farrell Krell (London, Routledge; 1978), 208. Google Books
22. ^Marino, Gordon. Basic Writings of Existentialism (Modern Library, 2004, p. ix, 3).
23. ^Guignon, Charles B. and Derk Pereboom. Existentialism: basic writings (Hackett Publishing, 2001, p. xiii).
24. ^John Macquarrie, Existentialism, New York (1972), pp. 18–21.
25. ^Oxford Companion to Philosophy, ed. Ted Honderich, New York (1995), p. 259.

Szymczyk's Toilet: The Novel (again)

This self-published, utterly non notable book was added to the article in 2005 (or earlier), and removed then: Talk:Existentialism/Archive 1#Dear ?, Please stop spamming this article!. It was again added in 2007, and removed after Talk:Existentialism/Archive 2#Szymczyk's Toilet: The Novel.. However, as far as I can tell, it was again added in 2007[1], and has stayed in the article (both in the body, and as further reading) until moments ago, when I removed it again. Can people please keep an eye open for this spam and remove it on sight if it reappears? It's rather sad that this redlinked, self-published author and novel stood for four years in this article without any apparent problem, and despite two previous discussions about it. Fram (talk) 07:42, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

This book is currently taught in college Existentialism courses. Maybe a new talk concerning its entry is in order.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1686610.Toilet— Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.215.194.245 (talk) 04:56, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Kierkegaard

I am thinking 'progenitor'. Geez, I've nearly become an existentialist 'again'. Life is not all about truth and doing the right thing. Other things make us happy besides seeking truth & being good, and sometimes we 'hurt'. I am sure this is important in human relations and psychology. I'm not sure what it's got to do with philosophy, tho'. Btw, how much Existentialist literature is about being happy? --JimWae (talk) 10:11, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, it's just an answer to Aristotle's assertion that life is all about truth and doing the right thing. That we were all meant to be contemplative philosophers because reason is our best trait and that wisdom necessarily produces happiness. When we get to ideas like 'the rational is the real', we're going too far. Yes, reason is our best trait, but it's not our only trait. And it can't be used to define us, before we were even born. Existential literature is not just about being simply 'happy', if you want that, the aesthetic stage is your best bet. But being 'authentic'; that requires more than just happiness. Archer47 (talk) 10:52, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Aristotle often gets undeserved blame. Doesn't he say happiness is virtuous activity... and aren't there many virtues? Does he really say life (or even happiness) is all about truth and doing the right thing? Wouldn't Kierkegaard have heard that more at church? --JimWae (talk) 11:35, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Kierkegaard often gets undeserved blame too, so join the club. Happiness is not a virtue, it's a telos, and contemplative activity greatly contributes to it. For Aristotle, life is all about truth and doing the right thing, because doing the right thing all the time and truthful contemplation are conducive to achieving happiness. Kierkegaard does agree with the virtues of being ethical and kind, thoughtful and considerate, to love the neighbour and all that; but Kierkegaard doesn't agree with Aristotle that contemplative activity ought to necessarily be our life's work. Where Aristotle writes that man ought to live the contemplative life since that leads to happiness in the Nicomachean Ethics, Kierkegaard writes in his justly famous letter: 'the crucial thing is to find a truth which is truth for me, to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die.' We can choose to be contemplative if we want, but we aren't born to be so. Existence precedes essence, and so forth, etc etc. Archer47 (talk) 13:41, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

If his earliest journals are 1836 and his published works were not until the 1840s, isn't he a *mid*-19th century thinker? --JimWae (talk) 10:38, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

His mid 19th-century 1850s works aren't the ones that contribute to his reputation as 'progenitor/precursor/father' of existentialism, it was the early 19th century 1830/40s works and journals that really cemented his legacy in existentialism. Archer47 (talk) 10:52, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

The Lede again (again)

Existentialism Pdf Download

Existentialism is not 'a' movement, as the historical sections of the article show quite vividly. A number of the leading practitioners were referred to as existentialists only retrospectively, and were working independently - even in ignorance - of each other. This is the reason there are difficulties of definition. The label was applied retrospectively (in particular by Jean Wahl) after Sartre and Camus became famous. The old lede dealt with this by beginning:

Existentialism is a term applied to the work of a number of late 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual. In existentialism, the individual's starting point is characterized by what has been called 'the existential attitude', or 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.

This was accurate, sourced, and had all the necessary qualifications. It's a pity it has been abandoned.KD Tries Again (talk) 21:01, 19 April 2012 (UTC)KD Tries Again

It became a cultural movement (per several sources), even if it did not start that way. Few movements start as movements. WP:LEDE and WP:NOTDIC frown on having articles about 'terms' (though some exceptions might be inevitable)--JimWae (talk) 22:37, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Interestingly, the SEP entry currently cited begins by defining existentialism as 'a term.' I think it's a horrible piece of writing, and I'm uncomfortable that we're mainly using the SEP's words without actually quoting. In any case, the SEP article doesn't define authenticity as anything like 'personality, spirit or character' so I've moved the reference to exclude it.KD Tries Again (talk) 19:36, 25 April 2012 (UTC)KD Tries Again

Re those emendations

1) re 'the lived experience of the individual'; I have seen this phrase in the literature more than once, but can't find it now; it implies same as 'actual' experience of the individual; NB, 'experience' is a plural here, ie, accumulating all the person's experience-lived-to-date. ACCEPT; or AGREE as marked.

2) re Byelf2007> '..'points' ... implies that either ...suffices(s)'; REPLY> does not. The whistled call would apply against the phrase 'EITHER A OR B' >but not as it is, 'A AND B'. (but just between us 'grammarns', both 'A AND B' and 'A OR B' makes the referent subject plural); however, my concern is the 'more-basic': that non-grammarian readers will see it as wikipedians not minding their p's & q's---ie, their subject-verb agreements.

3) re '..then-dominant systematic..' inserts detail (and jargon) not needed here, for the reader of the lede---and which can be explicated in the body; (is there a distinction needed here, as say from 'non-systematic' philosophies'?---if not, why bring it up here?). ACCEPT, but the definite article is needed on the noun 'philosophies'.

4) re we talkin' serious grammer, here: commmaas; (I'm the oldest member of Grammarians Passionately Opposed to Promiscuous Comma-ing in Public, just say 'G'POP'. Motto: Improve your flow---clear out 90 percent of your commas!) The reading-flow is fixed by rewriting sentences, then dropping commas until it sounds right; NB, '..attracting A and influencing B..' is a balanced phrase of two equal parts, which calls for seamless treatment: ie, no comma; nor does the length of '..for living life passionately and sincerely even in view of ... .' require a comma; it flows well without the forced pause.--Jbeans (talk) 10:24, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Deteriorating Lede

The first sentence is now just plain wrong. Existentialism is not 'the' philosophical movement which starts with the experiences of the individual. There are any number of such schools of philosophy. It's one of the commonest strategies in the subject. And then we have 'alternatively' it's something else, ending - as I observed earlier - with a definition of authenticity which can't be derived from the source quoted.

Anyone want to fix this? If not, I'll revert to an earlier version which had some consensus.

Let's not have a lede which is just completely misleading.KD Tries Again (talk) 14:25, 3 May 2012 (UTC)KD Tries Again

The expansion on 'authenticity' is well-sourced & consistent with the expansion in the Stanford article --JimWae (talk) 18:42, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

2> You have left out some important word regarding the 1st sentence. 3>The earlier lede also said 'who shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject' (without the 'must'). I do agree neither 1st sentence 'picks out' existentialism as well as the current 2nd sentence does. --JimWae (talk) 18:46, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

It appears to me that we can and ought to exercise some common sense with respect to getting a good definition. I believe the definition I just wrote (basically sticking the two together) is the most accurate definition for the term or at least very close. Byelf2007 (talk) 3 May 2012

This is an improvement. KD Tries Again (talk) 14:23, 7 May 2012 (UTC)KD Tries Again

Definition catch-all

Somewhere towards the end of the lede or in the section Definitional issues should be the observation: In the true spirit of existentialism the definition should be determined by the individual.— Preceding unsigned comment added by SpainWon (talk • contribs) 04:14, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

I would like to propose a new first sentence, definition for 'Existentialism' in order to more briefly, accurately define it.

The best definition I can come up with for 'Existentialism':

Existentialism is the art of attempting to philosophically rationalize psychological depression and anxiety. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.14.114.220 (talk) 19:41, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

That's funny, but please don't vandalize this site. Byelf2007 (talk) 15 August 2012

Nolan's Batman

Can some one make it clear to me if Nolan's Batman Series has existentialism themes ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.234.27.223 (talk) 20:11, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Capitalization

I see some inconsistency in capitalization of Existentialism. Many style mavens say not to, but it seems to me Existentialism is very much in the same category as Impressionism, which nearly everybody capitalizes. Similarly the adjective form does not seem to call for capitalization, ie: impressionistic, existentialist. --JimWae (talk) 20:48, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

From Rationalism To Existentialism Pdf Creator Pdf

Who coined the word 'existential'

It is my understanding that the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge first used the word 'existential' around the year 1800. He was known to have contacts with the German romantic poets of his day. Gene Harter (talk) 23:19, 9 April 2013 (UTC)— Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.192.243.23 (talk) 23:09, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Earlier. Appears to be seventeenth century in English.KD Tries Again (talk) 18:01, 1 May 2013 (UTC)KD Tries Again

From Kierkegaard to Zoroaster: a lightning tour?

In its current version [2] the lead seems to have an issue with undue weight. Pace Heidegger, Camus, Sartre et al, it leaps from Kierkegaard to Zoroaster to conclude 'However, God, in his eternal knowledge...'

The unsourced content on Zoroastrianism does not currently appear anywhere else on the page. I feel it's better to move it here, broadly per WP:LEAD:

Existentialism, in its simple form, can be traced back to Zoroastrianism. Free will is the essence of Zoraster's teachings. Man, in the mixed state (of good and evil), is free to choose to be on the side of Ahura Mazda (the Wise Lord, the Good Spirit and the creator of all good)or to follow Ahriman, the Evil Spirit, who is the creator of all evil in the world. However, God, in his eternal knowledge, knows that at the end, man will choose good over evil.

86.161.251.139 (talk) 10:25, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

project philosophy?

shouldn't this article be within the scope of the WikiProject Philosophy and as such have the template? 68.174.97.122 (talk) 17:13, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

It should and it does. Do you not see it up near the top of this page? Greg Bard (talk) 20:19, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

ooooh, i see the one-liner at the top of this page, but i expected a sort of info-box on the article page itself as some projects have, or at the bottom, one of those little outline type navigation trees. not a big deal, but I was looking to navigate my way around and touch on the major schools of thought or something. 68.174.97.122 (talk) 04:58, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

At the bottom of most major articles there is a navigation template (or two). You may need to 'unhide' it. Usually, we don't use the talk page for navigating.Greg Bard (talk) 06:46, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Ambiguities

Under the heading 'General criticisms'^[1]...

If anyone knows the original antecedents of the above stated ambiguous, anaphoric language, please help by clarifying their meaning! Merci d'avance! (76.101.85.113 (talk) 23:57, 13 November 2013 (UTC))

Missing Text

Unless I am mistaken, there is a significant amount of missing text in the section 'Existentialism and Religion'. Did it get accidentally deleted? Is an older version archived, or can the original editor reconstruct it? Barry M. Lamont 20:19, 25 April 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Barry M. Lamont (talk • contribs) P.S.: I'm not sure why this was listed as 'unsigned', since I DID sign it, and everything is properly set on my User Page! Barry M. Lamont 20:30, 25 April 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Barry M. Lamont (talk • contribs)

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Concepts: Facticity

In the second paragraph of this block (Facticity; under Concepts), there is an analogy made to two men, one who can't remember anything and one who remembers everything. They both have commited crimes, but where the one man doesn't remember them and is thus able to live a normal life, the other feels 'trapped' by his past in that he can't escape who he is as a criminal. Thus, the second man continues to commit crimes. This is posited as a way to illustrate the concept of facticity; how facticity holds us, but at the same time frees us in that we have the freedom to choose who we will be in spite of our pasts.

My question is: is there a literary source for the analogy of the two men?

The writer Gene Wolfe did two book series (The Book of the New Sun / Latro in the Mist), one in which the narrator was the protagonist and was making a record after the fact with his perfect memory (New Sun), and the other in which the story was the narrator's daily log because he lost all memory each night (Latro). The analogy fits these two charcters perfectly: Severian who is 'haunted by memory,' and Latro who becomes a normal dude because he can't remember his life on the battlefield.

Again, is there any source for this analogy?

2601:1C0:5400:E7C0:8C23:2ED9:AABF:80E4 (talk) 23:42, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

existential questions

Can this, or a separate article, provide a list of common existential questions? Thanks! --Lbeaumont (talk) 17:10, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

A starting point may be: http://www.emotionalcompetency.com/existential.htm I recognize that this does not pass muster as a reliable reference, but it may be helpful in beginning the discussion and research. --Lbeaumont (talk) 17:16, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

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Mention Descartes

I believe mentioning René Descartes would add value to this article, something like a compare/contrast paragraph. Not necessarily as someone relevant to the foundation of this topic, but rather clarify the confusion. In the traditional sense, Descartes might not be an 'existentialist', if so explaining why would be helpful for readers. For reference (a peer reviewed source): http://www.iep.utm.edu/existent/ ---- Joedf (talk) 16:59, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

Word Styling

The beginning of this entry reads more like an essay or an article than part of an encyclopedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.170.58.131 (talk) 08:28, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

1. ^http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existentialism#Criticisms

Christian Existentialism Pdf

Existentialism (/ˌɛɡzɪˈstɛnʃəlɪzəm/)^[1] is the philosophical study that begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual.^[2] It is associated mainly with certain 19th and 20th-century European philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences,^[3][4][5] shared the belief in that beginning of philosophical thinking.

While the predominant value of existentialist thought is commonly acknowledged to be freedom, its primary virtue is authenticity.^[6] In the view of the existentialist, the individual's starting point is characterized by what has been called 'the existential attitude', or a sense of disorientation, confusion, or dread in the face of an apparently meaningless or absurd world.^[7] Many existentialists have also regarded traditional systematic or academic philosophies, in both style and content, as too abstract and remote from concrete human experience.^[8][9]

Søren Kierkegaard is generally considered to have been the first existentialist philosopher,^[3][10][11] though he did not use the term existentialism.^[12] He proposed that each individual—not society or religion—is solely responsible for giving meaning to life and living it passionately and sincerely, or 'authentically'.^[13][14]

Existentialism became popular in the years following World War II, thanks to Sartre who read Heidegger while in a POW camp, and strongly influenced many disciplines besides philosophy, including theology, drama, art, literature, and psychology.^[15]

• 3Concepts
• 7History
  • 7.119th century
• 8Influence outside philosophy
  • 8.1Art
• 9Criticisms
• 11References
• 13External links

Etymology[edit]

The term 'existentialism' (French: L'existentialisme) was coined by the French Catholic philosopher Gabriel Marcel in the mid-1940s.^[16][17][18] At first, when Marcel applied the term to Jean-Paul Sartre at a colloquium in 1945, Sartre rejected it.^[19] Sartre subsequently changed his mind and, on October 29, 1945, publicly adopted the existentialist label in a lecture to the Club Maintenant in Paris. The lecture was published as L'existentialisme est un humanisme (Existentialism is a Humanism), a short book that did much to popularize existentialist thought.^[20] Marcel later came to reject the label himself in favour of the term Neo-Socratic, in honor of Kierkegaard's essay 'On The Concept of Irony'.

Some scholars argue that the term should be used only to refer to the cultural movement in Europe in the 1940s and 1950s associated with the works of the philosophers Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Albert Camus.^[3] Other scholars extend the term to Kierkegaard, and yet others extend it as far back as Socrates.^[21] However, the term is often identified with the philosophical views of Sartre.^[3]

Definitional issues and background[edit]

The labels existentialism and existentialist are often seen as historical conveniences inasmuch as they were first applied to many philosophers in hindsight, long after they had died. In fact, while existentialism is generally considered to have originated with Kierkegaard, the first prominent existentialist philosopher to adopt the term as a self-description was Jean-Paul Sartre. Sartre posits the idea that 'what all existentialists have in common is the fundamental doctrine that existence precedes essence', as scholar Frederick Copleston explains.^[22] According to philosopher Steven Crowell, defining existentialism has been relatively difficult, and he argues that it is better understood as a general approach used to reject certain systematic philosophies rather than as a systematic philosophy itself.^[3] Sartre himself, in a lecture delivered in 1945, described existentialism as 'the attempt to draw all the consequences from a position of consistent atheism'.^[23]

Although many outside Scandinavia consider the term existentialism to have originated from Kierkegaard himself^[who?], it is more likely that Kierkegaard adopted this term (or at least the term 'existential' as a description of his philosophy) from the Norwegian poet and literary critic Johan Sebastian Cammermeyer Welhaven.^[24] This assertion comes from two sources. The Norwegian philosopher Erik Lundestad refers to the Danish philosopher Fredrik Christian Sibbern. Sibbern is supposed to have had two conversations in 1841, the first with Welhaven and the second with Kierkegaard. It is in the first conversation that it is believed that Welhaven came up with 'a word that he said covered a certain thinking, which had a close and positive attitude to life, a relationship he described as existential'.^[25] This was then brought to Kierkegaard by Sibbern.

The second claim comes from the Norwegian historian Rune Slagstad, who claims to prove that Kierkegaard himself said the term 'existential' was borrowed from the poet. He strongly believes that it was Kierkegaard himself who said that 'Hegelians do not study philosophy 'existentially'; to use a phrase by Welhaven from one time when I spoke with him about philosophy'.^[26]

Concepts[edit]

Existence precedes essence[edit]

Sartre argued that a central proposition of Existentialism is that existence precedes essence, which means that the most important consideration for individuals is that they are individuals—independently acting and responsible, conscious beings ('existence')—rather than what labels, roles, stereotypes, definitions, or other preconceived categories the individuals fit ('essence'). The actual life of the individuals is what constitutes what could be called their 'true essence' instead of there being an arbitrarily attributed essence others use to define them. Thus, human beings, through their own consciousness, create their own values and determine a meaning to their life.^[27] Although it was Sartre who explicitly coined the phrase, similar notions can be found in the thought of existentialist philosophers such as Heidegger, and Kierkegaard:

The subjective thinker’s form, the form of his communication, is his style. His form must be just as manifold as are the opposites that he holds together. The systematic eins, zwei, drei is an abstract form that also must inevitably run into trouble whenever it is to be applied to the concrete. To the same degree as the subjective thinker is concrete, to the same degree his form must also be concretely dialectical. But just as he himself is not a poet, not an ethicist, not a dialectician, so also his form is none of these directly. His form must first and last be related to existence, and in this regard he must have at his disposal the poetic, the ethical, the dialectical, the religious. Subordinate character, setting, etc., which belong to the well-balanced character of the esthetic production, are in themselves breadth; the subjective thinker has only one setting—existence—and has nothing to do with localities and such things. The setting is not the fairyland of the imagination, where poetry produces consummation, nor is the setting laid in England, and historical accuracy is not a concern. The setting is inwardness in existing as a human being; the concretion is the relation of the existence-categories to one another. Historical accuracy and historical actuality are breadth. Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Postscript, Hong pp. 357–58)

Some interpret the imperative to define oneself as meaning that anyone can wish to be anything. However, an existentialist philosopher would say such a wish constitutes an inauthentic existence – what Sartre would call 'bad faith'. Instead, the phrase should be taken to say that people are (1) defined only insofar as they act and (2) that they are responsible for their actions. For example, someone who acts cruelly towards other people is, by that act, defined as a cruel person. Furthermore, by this action of cruelty, such persons are themselves responsible for their new identity (cruel persons). This is as opposed to their genes, or human nature, bearing the blame.

As Sartre says in his lecture Existentialism is a Humanism: '... man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world—and defines himself afterwards'. The more positive, therapeutic aspect of this is also implied: a person can choose to act in a different way, and to be a good person instead of a cruel person.^[28]

Sartre's definition of existentialism was based on Heidegger's magnum opus Being and Time. In the correspondence with Jean Beaufret later published as the Letter on Humanism, Heidegger implies that Sartre misunderstood him for his own purposes of subjectivism, and that he did not mean that actions take precedence over being so long as those actions were not reflected upon.^[29] Heidegger commented that 'the reversal of a metaphysical statement remains a metaphysical statement', meaning that he thought Sartre had simply switched the roles traditionally attributed to essence and existence without interrogating these concepts and their history in the way that Heidegger claimed to have done.^[30]

The absurd[edit]

The notion of the absurd contains the idea that there is no meaning in the world beyond what meaning we give it. This meaninglessness also encompasses the amorality or 'unfairness' of the world. This conceptualization can be highlighted in the way it opposes the traditional Abrahamic religious perspective, which establishes that life's purpose is about the fulfillment of God's commandments.^[31] Such a purpose is what gives meaning to people's lives. To live the life of the absurd means rejecting a life that finds or pursues specific meaning for man's existence since there is nothing to be discovered. According to Albert Camus, the world or the human being is not in itself absurd. The concept only emerges through the juxtaposition of the two, where life becomes absurd due to the incompatibility between human beings and the world they inhabit.^[31] This view constitutes one of the two interpretations of the absurd in existentialist literature. The second view, which was first elaborated by Søren Kierkegaard, holds that absurdity is limited to actions and choices of human beings. These are considered absurd since they issue from human freedom, undermining their foundation outside of themselves.^[32]

The notion of the absurd in existentialism contrasts with the claim that 'bad things don't happen to good people'; to the world, metaphorically speaking, there is no such thing as a good person or a bad person; what happens happens, and it may just as well happen to a 'good' person as to a 'bad' person.^[33] Because of the world's absurdity, at any point in time, anything can happen to anyone, and a tragic event could plummet someone into direct confrontation with the Absurd. The notion of the Absurd has been prominent in literature throughout history. Many of the literary works of Søren Kierkegaard, Samuel Beckett, Franz Kafka, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Eugène Ionesco, Miguel de Unamuno, Luigi Pirandello,^{[34][35][36][37]}Jean-Paul Sartre, Joseph Heller and Albert Camus contain descriptions of people who encounter the absurdity of the world.

It is in relation to the concept of the devastating awareness of meaninglessness that Albert Camus claimed that 'there is only one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide' in his The Myth of Sisyphus. Although 'prescriptions' against the possibly deleterious consequences of these kinds of encounters vary, from Kierkegaard's religious 'stage' to Camus' insistence on persevering in spite of absurdity, the concern with helping people avoid living their lives in ways that put them in the perpetual danger of having everything meaningful break down is common to most existentialist philosophers. The possibility of having everything meaningful break down poses a threat of quietism, which is inherently against the existentialist philosophy.^[38] It has been said that the possibility of suicide makes all humans existentialists. The ultimate hero of absurdism lives without meaning and faces suicide without succumbing to it.^[39]

Facticity[edit]

Facticity is a concept defined by Sartre in Being and Nothingness as the in-itself, which delineates for humans the modalities of being and not being. This can be more easily understood when considering facticity in relation to the temporal dimension of our past: one's past is what one is, in the sense that it co-constitutes oneself. However, to say that one is only one's past would be to ignore a significant part of reality (the present and the future), while saying that one's past is only what one was, would entirely detach it from oneself now. A denial of one's own concrete past constitutes an inauthentic lifestyle, and the same goes for all other kinds of facticity (having a human body—e.g., one that does not allow a person to run faster than the speed of sound—identity, values, etc.).^[40]

Facticity is both a limitation and a condition of freedom. It is a limitation in that a large part of one's facticity consists of things one could not have chosen (birthplace, etc.), but a condition of freedom in the sense that one's values most likely depend on it. However, even though one's facticity is 'set in stone' (as being past, for instance), it cannot determine a person: the value ascribed to one's facticity is still ascribed to it freely by that person. As an example, consider two men, one of whom has no memory of his past and the other who remembers everything. They both have committed many crimes, but the first man, knowing nothing about this, leads a rather normal life while the second man, feeling trapped by his own past, continues a life of crime, blaming his own past for 'trapping' him in this life. There is nothing essential about his committing crimes, but he ascribes this meaning to his past.

However, to disregard one's facticity when, in the continual process of self-making, one projects oneself into the future, that would be to put oneself in denial of oneself, and thus would be inauthentic. In other words, the origin of one's projection must still be one's facticity, though in the mode of not being it (essentially). An example of one focusing solely on one's possible projects without reflecting on one's current facticity:^[40] if one continually thinks about future possibilities related to being rich (e.g. a better car, bigger house, better quality of life, etc.) without considering the facticity of not currently having the financial means to do so. In this example, considering both facticity and transcendence, an authentic mode of being would be considering future projects that might improve one's current finances (e.g. putting in extra hours, or investing savings) in order to arrive at a future-facticity of a modest pay rise, further leading to purchase of an affordable car.

Another aspect of facticity is that it entails angst, both in the sense that freedom 'produces' angst when limited by facticity, and in the sense that the lack of the possibility of having facticity to 'step in' for one to take responsibility for something one has done, also produces angst.

Another aspect of existential freedom is that one can change one's values. Thus, one is responsible for one's values, regardless of society's values. The focus on freedom in existentialism is related to the limits of the responsibility one bears, as a result of one's freedom: the relationship between freedom and responsibility is one of interdependency, and a clarification of freedom also clarifies that for which one is responsible.^[41][42]

Authenticity[edit]

Many noted existentialist writers consider the theme of authentic existence important. Authentic existence involves the idea that one has to 'create oneself' and then live in accordance with this self. What is meant by authenticity is that in acting, one should act as oneself, not as 'one's acts' or as 'one's genes' or any other essence requires. The authentic act is one that is in accordance with one's freedom. As a condition of freedom is facticity, this includes one's facticity, but not to the degree that this facticity can in any way determine one's transcendent choices (in the sense that one could then blame one's background [facticity] for making the choice one made [chosen project, from one's transcendence]). The role of facticity in relation to authenticity involves letting one's actual values come into play when one makes a choice (instead of, like Kierkegaard's Aesthete, 'choosing' randomly), so that one also takes responsibility for the act instead of choosing either-or without allowing the options to have different values.^[43]

In contrast to this, the inauthentic is the denial to live in accordance with one's freedom. This can take many forms, from pretending choices are meaningless or random, through convincing oneself that some form of determinism is true, to a sort of 'mimicry' where one acts as 'one should'.

How 'one should' act is often determined by an image one has, of how one such as oneself (say, a bank manager, lion tamer, prostitute, etc.) acts. In Being and Nothingness, Sartre relates an example of a 'waiter' in bad faith: he merely takes part in the 'act' of being a typical waiter, albeit very convincingly.^[44] This image usually corresponds to some sort of social norm, but this does not mean that all acting in accordance with social norms is inauthentic: The main point is the attitude one takes to one's own freedom and responsibility, and the extent to which one acts in accordance with this freedom.

The Other and the Look[edit]

The Other (when written with a capital 'O') is a concept more properly belonging to phenomenology and its account of intersubjectivity. However, the concept has seen widespread use in existentialist writings, and the conclusions drawn from it differ slightly from the phenomenological accounts. The experience of the Other is the experience of another free subject who inhabits the same world as a person does. In its most basic form, it is this experience of the Other that constitutes intersubjectivity and objectivity. To clarify, when one experiences someone else, and this Other person experiences the world (the same world that a person experiences)—only from 'over there'—the world itself is constituted as objective in that it is something that is 'there' as identical for both of the subjects; a person experiences the other person as experiencing the same things. This experience of the Other's look is what is termed the Look (sometimes the Gaze).^[45]

While this experience, in its basic phenomenological sense, constitutes the world as objective, and oneself as objectively existing subjectivity (one experiences oneself as seen in the Other's Look in precisely the same way that one experiences the Other as seen by him, as subjectivity), in existentialism, it also acts as a kind of limitation of freedom. This is because the Look tends to objectify what it sees. As such, when one experiences oneself in the Look, one doesn't experience oneself as nothing (no thing), but as something. Sartre's own example of a man peeping at someone through a keyhole can help clarify this: at first, this man is entirely caught up in the situation he is in; he is in a pre-reflexive state where his entire consciousness is directed at what goes on in the room. Suddenly, he hears a creaking floorboard behind him, and he becomes aware of himself as seen by the Other. He is thus filled with shame for he perceives himself as he would perceive someone else doing what he was doing, as a Peeping Tom. For Sartre, this phenomenological experience of shame establishes a proof for the existence of other minds and defeats the problem of solipsism. For the conscious state of shame to be experienced, one has to become aware of oneself as an object of another look, proving a priori, that other minds exist.^[46] The Look is then co-constitutive of one's facticity.

Another characteristic feature of the Look is that no Other really needs to have been there: It is quite possible that the creaking floorboard was nothing but the movement of an old house; the Look is not some kind of mystical telepathic experience of the actual way the other sees one (there may also have been someone there, but he could have not noticed that the person was there). It is only one's perception of the way another might perceive him.

Angst and dread[edit]

'Existential angst', sometimes called existential dread, anxiety, or anguish, is a term that is common to many existentialist thinkers. It is generally held to be a negative feeling arising from the experience of human freedom and responsibility. The archetypical example is the experience one has when standing on a cliff where one not only fears falling off it, but also dreads the possibility of throwing oneself off. In this experience that 'nothing is holding me back', one senses the lack of anything that predetermines one to either throw oneself off or to stand still, and one experiences one's own freedom. Angst, according to the modern existentialist, Adam Fong, is the sudden realization of a lack of meaning, often while one completes a task that initially seems to have intrinsic meaning.^[33]

It can also be seen in relation to the previous point how angst is before nothing, and this is what sets it apart from fear that has an object. While in the case of fear, one can take definitive measures to remove the object of fear, in the case of angst, no such 'constructive' measures are possible. The use of the word 'nothing' in this context relates both to the inherent insecurity about the consequences of one's actions, and to the fact that, in experiencing freedom as angst, one also realizes that one is fully responsible for these consequences. There is nothing in people (genetically, for instance) that acts in their stead—that they can blame if something goes wrong. Therefore, not every choice is perceived as having dreadful possible consequences (and, it can be claimed, human lives would be unbearable if every choice facilitated dread). However, this doesn't change the fact that freedom remains a condition of every action.

Despair[edit]

Despair, in existentialism, is generally defined as a loss of hope.^[47] More specifically, it is a loss of hope in reaction to a breakdown in one or more of the defining qualities of one's self or identity. If a person is invested in being a particular thing, such as a bus driver or an upstanding citizen, and then finds their being-thing compromised, they would normally be found in a state of despair—a hopeless state. For example, a singer who loses the ability to sing may despair if they have nothing else to fall back on—nothing to rely on for their identity. They find themselves unable to be what defined their being.

What sets the existentialist notion of despair apart from the conventional definition is that existentialist despair is a state one is in even when they are not overtly in despair. So long as a person's identity depends on qualities that can crumble, they are in perpetual despair—and as there is, in Sartrean terms, no human essence found in conventional reality on which to constitute the individual's sense of identity, despair is a universal human condition. As Kierkegaard defines it in Either/Or: 'Let each one learn what he can; both of us can learn that a person’s unhappiness never lies in his lack of control over external conditions, since this would only make him completely unhappy.'^[48] In Works of Love, he says:

When the God-forsaken worldliness of earthly life shuts itself in complacency, the confined air develops poison, the moment gets stuck and stands still, the prospect is lost, a need is felt for a refreshing, enlivening breeze to cleanse the air and dispel the poisonous vapors lest we suffocate in worldliness. ... Lovingly to hope all things is the opposite of despairingly to hope nothing at all. Love hopes all things—yet is never put to shame. To relate oneself expectantly to the possibility of the good is to hope. To relate oneself expectantly to the possibility of evil is to fear. By the decision to choose hope one decides infinitely more than it seems, because it is an eternal decision. pp. 246–50

Opposition to positivism and rationalism[edit]

Existentialists oppose definitions of human beings as primarily rational, and, therefore, oppose positivism and rationalism. Existentialism asserts that people actually make decisions based on subjective meaning rather than pure rationality. The rejection of reason as the source of meaning is a common theme of existentialist thought, as is the focus on the feelings of anxiety and dread that we feel in the face of our own radical freedom and our awareness of death. Kierkegaard advocated rationality as a means to interact with the objective world (e.g., in the natural sciences), but when it comes to existential problems, reason is insufficient: 'Human reason has boundaries'.^[49]

Like Kierkegaard, Sartre saw problems with rationality, calling it a form of 'bad faith', an attempt by the self to impose structure on a world of phenomena—'the Other'—that is fundamentally irrational and random. According to Sartre, rationality and other forms of bad faith hinder people from finding meaning in freedom. To try to suppress their feelings of anxiety and dread, people confine themselves within everyday experience, Sartre asserts, thereby relinquishing their freedom and acquiescing to being possessed in one form or another by 'the Look' of 'the Other' (i.e., possessed by another person—or at least one's idea of that other person).

Religion[edit]

An existentialist reading of the Bible would demand that the reader recognize that they are an existing subject studying the words more as a recollection of events. This is in contrast to looking at a collection of 'truths' that are outside and unrelated to the reader, but may develop a sense of reality/God. Such a reader is not obligated to follow the commandments as if an external agent is forcing these commandments upon them, but as though they are inside them and guiding them from inside. This is the task Kierkegaard takes up when he asks: 'Who has the more difficult task: the teacher who lectures on earnest things a meteor's distance from everyday life—or the learner who should put it to use?'^[50]

Confusion with nihilism[edit]

Although nihilism and existentialism are distinct philosophies, they are often confused with one another as both are rooted in the human experience of anguish and confusion stemming from the apparent meaninglessness of a world in which humans are compelled to find or create meaning.^[51] A primary cause of confusion is that Friedrich Nietzsche is an important philosopher in both fields. Existentialist philosophers often stress the importance of Angst as signifying the absolute lack of any objective ground for action, a move that is often reduced to a moral or an existential nihilism. A pervasive theme in the works of existentialist philosophy, however, is to persist through encounters with the absurd, as seen in Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus ('One must imagine Sisyphus happy'),^[52] and it is only very rarely that existentialist philosophers dismiss morality or one's self-created meaning: Kierkegaard regained a sort of morality in the religious (although he wouldn't himself agree that it was ethical; the religious suspends the ethical), and Sartre's final words in Being and Nothingness are 'All these questions, which refer us to a pure and not an accessory (or impure) reflection, can find their reply only on the ethical plane. We shall devote to them a future work.'^[44]

History[edit]

19th century[edit]

Kierkegaard and Nietzsche[edit]

Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche were two of the first philosophers considered fundamental to the existentialist movement, though neither used the term 'existentialism' and it is unclear whether they would have supported the existentialism of the 20th century. They focused on subjective human experience rather than the objective truths of mathematics and science, which they believed were too detached or observational to truly get at the human experience. Like Pascal, they were interested in people's quiet struggle with the apparent meaninglessness of life and the use of diversion to escape from boredom. Unlike Pascal, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche also considered the role of making free choices, particularly regarding fundamental values and beliefs, and how such choices change the nature and identity of the chooser.^[53] Kierkegaard's knight of faith and Nietzsche's Übermensch are representative of people who exhibit Freedom, in that they define the nature of their own existence. Nietzsche's idealized individual invents his own values and creates the very terms they excel under. By contrast, Kierkegaard, opposed to the level of abstraction in Hegel, and not nearly as hostile (actually welcoming) to Christianity as Nietzsche, argues through a pseudonym that the objective certainty of religious truths (specifically Christian) is not only impossible, but even founded on logical paradoxes. Yet he continues to imply that a leap of faith is a possible means for an individual to reach a higher stage of existence that transcends and contains both an aesthetic and ethical value of life. Kierkegaard and Nietzsche were also precursors to other intellectual movements, including postmodernism, and various strands of psychotherapy. However, Kierkegaard believed that individuals should live in accordance with their thinking.

Dostoyevsky and Sartre[edit]

The first important literary author also important to existentialism was the Russian Fyodor Dostoyevsky.^[54] Dostoyevsky's Notes from Underground portrays a man unable to fit into society and unhappy with the identities he creates for himself. Jean-Paul Sartre, in his book on existentialism Existentialism is a Humanism, quoted Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov as an example of existential crisis. Sartre attributes Ivan Karamazov's claim, 'If God did not exist, everything would be permitted'^[55] to Dostoyevsky himself, though this quote does not appear in the novel.^[56] However, a similar sentiment is explicitly stated when Alyosha visits Dimitri in prison. Dimitri mentions his conversations with Rakitin in which the idea that 'Then, if He doesn't exist, man is king of the earth, of the universe' allowing the inference contained in Sartre's attribution to remain a valid idea contested within the novel.^[57] Other Dostoyevsky novels covered issues raised in existentialist philosophy while presenting story lines divergent from secular existentialism: for example, in Crime and Punishment, the protagonist Raskolnikov experiences an existential crisis and then moves toward a Christian Orthodox worldview similar to that advocated by Dostoyevsky himself.^[58]

Introduction To Existentialism Pdf

Early 20th century[edit]

In the first decades of the 20th century, a number of philosophers and writers explored existentialist ideas. The Spanish philosopher Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo, in his 1913 book The Tragic Sense of Life in Men and Nations, emphasized the life of 'flesh and bone' as opposed to that of abstract rationalism. Unamuno rejected systematic philosophy in favor of the individual's quest for faith. He retained a sense of the tragic, even absurd nature of the quest, symbolized by his enduring interest in Cervantes' fictional character Don Quixote. A novelist, poet and dramatist as well as philosophy professor at the University of Salamanca, Unamuno wrote a short story about a priest's crisis of faith, Saint Manuel the Good, Martyr, which has been collected in anthologies of existentialist fiction. Another Spanish thinker, Ortega y Gasset, writing in 1914, held that human existence must always be defined as the individual person combined with the concrete circumstances of his life: 'Yo soy yo y mi circunstancia' ('I am myself and my circumstances'). Sartre likewise believed that human existence is not an abstract matter, but is always situated ('en situation').

Although Martin Buber wrote his major philosophical works in German, and studied and taught at the Universities of Berlin and Frankfurt, he stands apart from the mainstream of German philosophy. Born into a Jewish family in Vienna in 1878, he was also a scholar of Jewish culture and involved at various times in Zionism and Hasidism. In 1938, he moved permanently to Jerusalem. His best-known philosophical work was the short book I and Thou, published in 1922. For Buber, the fundamental fact of human existence, too readily overlooked by scientific rationalism and abstract philosophical thought, is 'man with man', a dialogue that takes place in the so-called 'sphere of between' ('das Zwischenmenschliche').^[59]

Two Russian thinkers, Lev Shestov and Nikolai Berdyaev, became well known as existentialist thinkers during their post-Revolutionary exiles in Paris. Shestov, born into a Ukrainian-Jewish family in Kiev, had launched an attack on rationalism and systematization in philosophy as early as 1905 in his book of aphorisms All Things Are Possible.

Berdyaev, also from Kiev but with a background in the Eastern Orthodox Church, drew a radical distinction between the world of spirit and the everyday world of objects. Human freedom, for Berdyaev, is rooted in the realm of spirit, a realm independent of scientific notions of causation. To the extent the individual human being lives in the objective world, he is estranged from authentic spiritual freedom. 'Man' is not to be interpreted naturalistically, but as a being created in God's image, an originator of free, creative acts.^[60] He published a major work on these themes, The Destiny of Man, in 1931.

Gabriel Marcel, long before coining the term 'existentialism', introduced important existentialist themes to a French audience in his early essay 'Existence and Objectivity' (1925) and in his Metaphysical Journal (1927).^[61] A dramatist as well as a philosopher, Marcel found his philosophical starting point in a condition of metaphysical alienation: the human individual searching for harmony in a transient life. Harmony, for Marcel, was to be sought through 'secondary reflection', a 'dialogical' rather than 'dialectical' approach to the world, characterized by 'wonder and astonishment' and open to the 'presence' of other people and of God rather than merely to 'information' about them. For Marcel, such presence implied more than simply being there (as one thing might be in the presence of another thing); it connoted 'extravagant' availability, and the willingness to put oneself at the disposal of the other.^[62]

Marcel contrasted secondary reflection with abstract, scientific-technical primary reflection, which he associated with the activity of the abstract Cartesian ego. For Marcel, philosophy was a concrete activity undertaken by a sensing, feeling human being incarnate—embodied—in a concrete world.^[61][63] Although Jean-Paul Sartre adopted the term 'existentialism' for his own philosophy in the 1940s, Marcel's thought has been described as 'almost diametrically opposed' to that of Sartre.^[61] Unlike Sartre, Marcel was a Christian, and became a Catholic convert in 1929.

In Germany, the psychologist and philosopher Karl Jaspers—who later described existentialism as a 'phantom' created by the public^[64]—called his own thought, heavily influenced by Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, Existenzphilosophie. For Jaspers, 'Existenz-philosophy is the way of thought by means of which man seeks to become himself...This way of thought does not cognize objects, but elucidates and makes actual the being of the thinker'.^[65]

Jaspers, a professor at the University of Heidelberg, was acquainted with Martin Heidegger, who held a professorship at Marburg before acceding to Husserl's chair at Freiburg in 1928. They held many philosophical discussions, but later became estranged over Heidegger's support of National Socialism (Nazism). They shared an admiration for Kierkegaard,^[66] and in the 1930s, Heidegger lectured extensively on Nietzsche. Nevertheless, the extent to which Heidegger should be considered an existentialist is debatable. In Being and Time he presented a method of rooting philosophical explanations in human existence (Dasein) to be analysed in terms of existential categories (existentiale); and this has led many commentators to treat him as an important figure in the existentialist movement.

After the Second World War[edit]

Following the Second World War, existentialism became a well-known and significant philosophical and cultural movement, mainly through the public prominence of two French writers, Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, who wrote best-selling novels, plays and widely read journalism as well as theoretical texts.^[67] These years also saw the growing reputation of Heidegger's book Being and Time outside Germany.

Sartre dealt with existentialist themes in his 1938 novel Nausea and the short stories in his 1939 collection The Wall, and had published his treatise on existentialism, Being and Nothingness, in 1943, but it was in the two years following the liberation of Paris from the German occupying forces that he and his close associates—Camus, Simone de Beauvoir, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and others—became internationally famous as the leading figures of a movement known as existentialism.^[68] In a very short period of time, Camus and Sartre in particular became the leading public intellectuals of post-war France, achieving by the end of 1945 'a fame that reached across all audiences.'^[69] Camus was an editor of the most popular leftist (former French Resistance) newspaper Combat; Sartre launched his journal of leftist thought, Les Temps Modernes, and two weeks later gave the widely reported lecture on existentialism and secular humanism to a packed meeting of the Club Maintenant. Beauvoir wrote that 'not a week passed without the newspapers discussing us';^[70] existentialism became 'the first media craze of the postwar era.'^[71]

By the end of 1947, Camus' earlier fiction and plays had been reprinted, his new play Caligula had been performed and his novel The Plague published; the first two novels of Sartre's The Roads to Freedom trilogy had appeared, as had Beauvoir's novel The Blood of Others. Works by Camus and Sartre were already appearing in foreign editions. The Paris-based existentialists had become famous.^[68]

Sartre had traveled to Germany in 1930 to study the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger,^[72] and he included critical comments on their work in his major treatise Being and Nothingness. Heidegger's thought had also become known in French philosophical circles through its use by Alexandre Kojève in explicating Hegel in a series of lectures given in Paris in the 1930s.^[73] The lectures were highly influential; members of the audience included not only Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, but Raymond Queneau, Georges Bataille, Louis Althusser, André Breton, and Jacques Lacan.^[74] A selection from Heidegger's Being and Time was published in French in 1938, and his essays began to appear in French philosophy journals.

Heidegger read Sartre's work and was initially impressed, commenting: 'Here for the first time I encountered an independent thinker who, from the foundations up, has experienced the area out of which I think. Your work shows such an immediate comprehension of my philosophy as I have never before encountered.'^[75] Later, however, in response to a question posed by his French follower Jean Beaufret,^[76] Heidegger distanced himself from Sartre's position and existentialism in general in his Letter on Humanism.^[77] Heidegger's reputation continued to grow in France during the 1950s and 1960s. In the 1960s, Sartre attempted to reconcile existentialism and Marxism in his work Critique of Dialectical Reason. A major theme throughout his writings was freedom and responsibility.

Camus was a friend of Sartre, until their falling-out, and wrote several works with existential themes including The Rebel, Summer in Algiers, The Myth of Sisyphus, and The Stranger, the latter being 'considered—to what would have been Camus's irritation—the exemplary existentialist novel.'^[78] Camus, like many others, rejected the existentialist label, and considered his works concerned with facing the absurd. In the titular book, Camus uses the analogy of the Greek myth of Sisyphus to demonstrate the futility of existence. In the myth, Sisyphus is condemned for eternity to roll a rock up a hill, but when he reaches the summit, the rock will roll to the bottom again. Camus believes that this existence is pointless but that Sisyphus ultimately finds meaning and purpose in his task, simply by continually applying himself to it. The first half of the book contains an extended rebuttal of what Camus took to be existentialist philosophy in the works of Kierkegaard, Shestov, Heidegger, and Jaspers.

Simone de Beauvoir, an important existentialist who spent much of her life as Sartre's partner, wrote about feminist and existentialist ethics in her works, including The Second Sex and The Ethics of Ambiguity. Although often overlooked due to her relationship with Sartre,^[79] de Beauvoir integrated existentialism with other forms of thinking such as feminism, unheard of at the time, resulting in alienation from fellow writers such as Camus.^[58]

Paul Tillich, an important existentialist theologian following Kierkegaard and Karl Barth, applied existentialist concepts to Christian theology, and helped introduce existential theology to the general public. His seminal work The Courage to Be follows Kierkegaard's analysis of anxiety and life's absurdity, but puts forward the thesis that modern humans must, via God, achieve selfhood in spite of life's absurdity. Rudolf Bultmann used Kierkegaard's and Heidegger's philosophy of existence to demythologize Christianity by interpreting Christian mythical concepts into existentialist concepts.

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Maurice Merleau-Ponty, an existential phenomenologist, was for a time a companion of Sartre. Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception (1945) was recognized as a major statement of French existentialism.^[80] It has been said that Merleau-Ponty's work Humanism and Terror greatly influenced Sartre. However, in later years they were to disagree irreparably, dividing many existentialists such as de Beauvoir,^[58] who sided with Sartre.

Colin Wilson, an English writer, published his study The Outsider in 1956, initially to critical acclaim. In this book and others (e.g. Introduction to the New Existentialism), he attempted to reinvigorate what he perceived as a pessimistic philosophy and bring it to a wider audience. He was not, however, academically trained, and his work was attacked by professional philosophers for lack of rigor and critical standards.^[81]

Influence outside philosophy[edit]

Art[edit]

Film and television[edit]

Stanley Kubrick's 1957 anti-war filmPaths of Glory 'illustrates, and even illuminates...existentialism' by examining the 'necessary absurdity of the human condition' and the 'horror of war'.^[82] The film tells the story of a fictional World War I French army regiment ordered to attack an impregnable German stronghold; when the attack fails, three soldiers are chosen at random, court-martialed by a 'kangaroo court', and executed by firing squad. The film examines existentialist ethics, such as the issue of whether objectivity is possible and the 'problem of authenticity'.^[82]Orson Welles' 1962 film The Trial, based upon Franz Kafka's book of the same name (Der Process), is characteristic of both existentialist and absurdist themes in its depiction of a man (Joseph K.) arrested for a crime for which the charges are neither revealed to him nor to the reader.

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Neon Genesis Evangelion is a Japanese science fiction animation series created by the anime studio Gainax and was both directed and written by Hideaki Anno. Existential themes of individuality, consciousness, freedom, choice, and responsibility are heavily relied upon throughout the entire series, particularly through the philosophies of Jean-Paul Sartre and Søren Kierkegaard. Episode 16's title, 'The Sickness Unto Death, And...' (死に至る病、そしてShi ni itaru yamai, soshite) is a reference to Kierkegaard's book, The Sickness Unto Death.

Some contemporary films dealing with existentialist issues include Melancholia, Fight Club, I Heart Huckabees, Waking Life, The Matrix, Ordinary People, and Life in a Day.^[83] Likewise, films throughout the 20th century such as The Seventh Seal, Ikiru, Taxi Driver, the Toy Story films, The Great Silence, Ghost in the Shell, Harold and Maude, High Noon, Easy Rider, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, A Clockwork Orange, Groundhog Day, Apocalypse Now, Badlands, and Blade Runner also have existentialist qualities.^[84]

Notable directors known for their existentialist films include Ingmar Bergman, François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Michelangelo Antonioni, Akira Kurosawa, Terrence Malick, Stanley Kubrick, Andrei Tarkovsky, Hideaki Anno, Wes Anderson, Gaspar Noé, Woody Allen, and Christopher Nolan.^[85]Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York focuses on the protagonist's desire to find existential meaning.^[86] Similarly, in Kurosawa's Red Beard, the protagonist's experiences as an intern in a rural health clinic in Japan lead him to an existential crisis whereby he questions his reason for being. This, in turn, leads him to a better understanding of humanity. The French film, Mood Indigo (directed by Michel Gondry) embraced various elements of existentialism.^{[citation needed]} The film The Shawshank Redemption, released in 1994, depicts life in a prison in Maine, United States to explore several existentialist concepts.^[87]

Literature[edit]

Existential perspectives are also found in modern literature to varying degrees, especially since the 1920s. Louis-Ferdinand Céline's Journey to the End of the Night (Voyage au bout de la nuit, 1932) celebrated by both Sartre and Beauvoir, contained many of the themes that would be found in later existential literature, and is in some ways, the proto-existential novel. Jean-Paul Sartre's 1938 novel Nausea^[88] was 'steeped in Existential ideas', and is considered an accessible way of grasping his philosophical stance.^[89] Between 1900 and 1960, other authors such as Albert Camus, Franz Kafka, Rainer Maria Rilke, T.S. Eliot, Herman Hesse, Luigi Pirandello,^{[34][35][37][90][91][92]}Ralph Ellison,^{[93][94][95][96]} and Jack Kerouac, composed literature or poetry that contained, to varying degrees, elements of existential or proto-existential thought. The philosophy's influence even reached pulp literature shortly after the turn of the 20th century, as seen in the existential disparity witnessed in Man's lack of control of his fate in the works of H.P. Lovecraft.^[97] Since the late 1960s, a great deal of cultural activity in literature contains postmodernist as well as existential elements. Books such as Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) (now republished as Blade Runner) by Philip K. Dick, Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk and Formless Meanderings by Bharath Srinivasan^[98] all distort the line between reality and appearance while simultaneously espousing existential themes.

Theatre[edit]

Jean-Paul Sartre wrote No Exit in 1944, an existentialist play originally published in French as Huis Clos (meaning In Camera or 'behind closed doors'), which is the source of the popular quote, 'Hell is other people.' (In French, 'L'enfer, c'est les autres'). The play begins with a Valet leading a man into a room that the audience soon realizes is in hell. Eventually he is joined by two women. After their entry, the Valet leaves and the door is shut and locked. All three expect to be tortured, but no torturer arrives. Instead, they realize they are there to torture each other, which they do effectively by probing each other's sins, desires, and unpleasant memories.

Existentialist themes are displayed in the Theatre of the Absurd, notably in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, in which two men divert themselves while they wait expectantly for someone (or something) named Godot who never arrives. They claim Godot is an acquaintance, but in fact, hardly know him, admitting they would not recognize him if they saw him. Samuel Beckett, once asked who or what Godot is, replied, 'If I knew, I would have said so in the play.' To occupy themselves, the men eat, sleep, talk, argue, sing, play games, exercise, swap hats, and contemplate suicide—anything 'to hold the terrible silence at bay'.^[99] The play 'exploits several archetypal forms and situations, all of which lend themselves to both comedy and pathos.'^[100] The play also illustrates an attitude toward human experience on earth: the poignancy, oppression, camaraderie, hope, corruption, and bewilderment of human experience that can be reconciled only in the mind and art of the absurdist. The play examines questions such as death, the meaning of human existence and the place of God in human existence.

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Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead is an absurdisttragicomedy first staged at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1966.^[101] The play expands upon the exploits of two minor characters from Shakespeare'sHamlet. Comparisons have also been drawn to Samuel Beckett's Waiting For Godot, for the presence of two central characters who appear almost as two halves of a single character. Many plot features are similar as well: the characters pass time by playing Questions, impersonating other characters, and interrupting each other or remaining silent for long periods of time. The two characters are portrayed as two clowns or fools in a world beyond their understanding. They stumble through philosophical arguments while not realizing the implications, and muse on the irrationality and randomness of the world.

Jean Anouilh's Antigone also presents arguments founded on existentialist ideas.^[102] It is a tragedy inspired by Greek mythology and the play of the same name (Antigone, by Sophocles) from the 5th century BC. In English, it is often distinguished from its antecedent by being pronounced in its original French form, approximately 'Ante-GŌN.' The play was first performed in Paris on 6 February 1944, during the Nazi occupation of France. Produced under Nazi censorship, the play is purposefully ambiguous with regards to the rejection of authority (represented by Antigone) and the acceptance of it (represented by Creon). The parallels to the French Resistance and the Nazi occupation have been drawn. Antigone rejects life as desperately meaningless but without affirmatively choosing a noble death. The crux of the play is the lengthy dialogue concerning the nature of power, fate, and choice, during which Antigone says that she is, '... disgusted with [the]...promise of a humdrum happiness.' She states that she would rather die than live a mediocre existence.

Critic Martin Esslin in his book Theatre of the Absurd pointed out how many contemporary playwrights such as Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco, Jean Genet, and Arthur Adamov wove into their plays the existentialist belief that we are absurd beings loose in a universe empty of real meaning. Esslin noted that many of these playwrights demonstrated the philosophy better than did the plays by Sartre and Camus. Though most of such playwrights, subsequently labeled 'Absurdist' (based on Esslin's book), denied affiliations with existentialism and were often staunchly anti-philosophical (for example Ionesco often claimed he identified more with 'Pataphysics or with Surrealism than with existentialism), the playwrights are often linked to existentialism based on Esslin's observation.^[103]

Psychoanalysis and psychotherapy[edit]

A major offshoot of existentialism as a philosophy is existentialist psychology and psychoanalysis, which first crystallized in the work of Otto Rank, Freud's closest associate for 20 years. Without awareness of the writings of Rank, Ludwig Binswanger was influenced by Freud, Edmund Husserl, Heidegger, and Sartre. A later figure was Viktor Frankl, who briefly met Freud as a young man.^[104] His logotherapy can be regarded as a form of existentialist therapy. The existentialists would also influence social psychology, antipositivist micro-sociology, symbolic interactionism, and post-structuralism, with the work of thinkers such as Georg Simmel^[105] and Michel Foucault. Foucault was a great reader of Kierkegaard even though he almost never refers this author, who nonetheless had for him an importance as secret as it was decisive.^[106]

An early contributor to existentialist psychology in the United States was Rollo May, who was strongly influenced by Kierkegaard and Otto Rank. One of the most prolific writers on techniques and theory of existentialist psychology in the USA is Irvin D. Yalom. Yalom states that

Aside from their reaction against Freud's mechanistic, deterministic model of the mind and their assumption of a phenomenological approach in therapy, the existentialist analysts have little in common and have never been regarded as a cohesive ideological school. These thinkers—who include Ludwig Binswanger, Medard Boss, Eugène Minkowski, V. E. Gebsattel, Roland Kuhn, G. Caruso, F. T. Buytendijk, G. Bally and Victor Frankl—were almost entirely unknown to the American psychotherapeutic community until Rollo May's highly influential 1958 book Existence—and especially his introductory essay—introduced their work into this country.^[107]

A more recent contributor to the development of a European version of existentialist psychotherapy is the British-based Emmy van Deurzen.

Anxiety's importance in existentialism makes it a popular topic in psychotherapy. Therapists often offer existentialist philosophy as an explanation for anxiety. The assertion is that anxiety is manifested of an individual's complete freedom to decide, and complete responsibility for the outcome of such decisions. Psychotherapists using an existentialist approach believe that a patient can harness his anxiety and use it constructively. Instead of suppressing anxiety, patients are advised to use it as grounds for change. By embracing anxiety as inevitable, a person can use it to achieve his full potential in life. Humanistic psychology also had major impetus from existentialist psychology and shares many of the fundamental tenets. Terror management theory, based on the writings of Ernest Becker and Otto Rank, is a developing area of study within the academic study of psychology. It looks at what researchers claim are implicit emotional reactions of people confronted with the knowledge that they will eventually die.

Also, Gerd B. Achenbach has refreshed the Socratic tradition with his own blend of philosophical counseling. So did Michel Weber with his Chromatiques Center in Belgium.

Criticisms[edit]

General criticisms[edit]

Walter Kaufmann criticized 'the profoundly unsound methods and the dangerous contempt for reason that have been so prominent in existentialism.'^[108]Logical positivist philosophers, such as Rudolf Carnap and A. J. Ayer, assert that existentialists are often confused about the verb 'to be' in their analyses of 'being'.^[109] Specifically, they argue that the verb 'is' is transitive and pre-fixed to a predicate (e.g., an apple is red) (without a predicate, the word 'is' is meaningless), and that existentialists frequently misuse the term in this manner. Colin Wilson has stated in his book The Angry Years that existentialism has created many of its own difficulties: 'we can see how this question of freedom of the will has been vitiated by post-romantic philosophy, with its inbuilt tendency to laziness and boredom, we can also see how it came about that existentialism found itself in a hole of its own digging, and how the philosophical developments since then have amounted to walking in circles round that hole'.^[110]

Sartre's philosophy[edit]

Many critics argue Jean-Paul Sartre's philosophy is contradictory. Specifically, they argue that Sartre makes metaphysical arguments despite his claiming that his philosophical views ignore metaphysics. Herbert Marcuse criticized Sartre's 1943 Being and Nothingness for projecting anxiety and meaninglessness onto the nature of existence itself: 'Insofar as Existentialism is a philosophical doctrine, it remains an idealistic doctrine: it hypostatizes specific historical conditions of human existence into ontological and metaphysical characteristics. Existentialism thus becomes part of the very ideology which it attacks, and its radicalism is illusory'.^[111]

In Letter on Humanism, Martin Heidegger criticized Sartre's existentialism:

Existentialism says existence precedes essence. In this statement he is taking existentia and essentia according to their metaphysical meaning, which, from Plato's time on, has said that essentia precedes existentia. Sartre reverses this statement. But the reversal of a metaphysical statement remains a metaphysical statement. With it, he stays with metaphysics, in oblivion of the truth of Being.^[112]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

Citations[edit]

1. ^Oxford University Press, 'Oxford Dictionary: 'existentialism', Oxford English Dictionary, Retrieved 22 August 2014.
2. ^John Macquarie, Existentialism, New York (1972), pp. 14–15.
3. ^ ^abcdeCrowell, Steven (October 2010). 'Existentialism'. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
4. ^John Macquarrie, Existentialism, New York (1972), pp. 18–21.
5. ^Oxford Companion to Philosophy, ed. Ted Honderich, New York (1995), p. 259.
6. ^Flynn, Thomas (2006). Existentialism - A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press Inc. p. xi. ISBN0-19-280428-6.
7. ^Robert C. Solomon, Existentialism (McGraw-Hill, 1974, pp. 1–2).
8. ^Ernst Breisach, Introduction to Modern Existentialism, New York (1962), p. 5.
9. ^Walter Kaufmann, Existentialism: From Dostoyevesky to Sartre, New York (1956) p. 12.
10. ^Marino, Gordon. Basic Writings of Existentialism (Modern Library, 2004, p. ix, 3).
11. ^McDonald, William. 'Søren Kierkegaard'. In Edward N. Zalta (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2009 Edition).
12. ^However he did title his 1846 book Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, (Subtitle) A Mimical-Pathetic-Dialectical Compilation an Existential Contribution, and mentioned the term on pages 121–22, 191, 350–51, 387 ff of that book.
13. ^Watts, Michael. Kierkegaard (Oneworld, 2003, pp. 4–6).
14. ^Lowrie, Walter. Kierkegaard's attack upon 'Christendom' (Princeton, 1969, pp. 37–40).
15. ^Guignon and Pereboom, Derk, Charles B. (2001). Existentialism: basic writings. Hackett Publishing. p. xiii. ISBN9780872205956.
16. ^D.E. Cooper Existentialism: A Reconstruction (Basil Blackwell, 1990, p. 1)
17. ^Thomas R. Flynn, Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press), 2006, p. 89
18. ^Christine Daigle, Existentialist Thinkers and Ethics (McGill-Queen's press, 2006, p. 5)
19. ^Ann Fulton, Apostles of Sartre: Existentialism in America, 1945–1963 (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1999) 18–19.
20. ^L'Existentialisme est un Humanisme (Editions Nagel, 1946); English Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism and Humanism (Eyre Methuen, 1948)
21. ^Crowell, Steven. The Cambridge Companion to Existentialism, Cambridge, 2011, p. 316.
22. ^Copleston, F.C. (2009). 'Existentialism'. Philosophy. 23 (84): 19–37. doi:10.1017/S0031819100065955. JSTOR4544850.
23. ^See James Wood's introduction to Sartre, Jean-Paul (2000). Nausea. London: Penguin Classics. ISBN978-0-141-18549-1. Quote on p. vii.
24. ^Tidsskrift for Norsk Psykologforening, Vol 45, nummer 10, 2008, side 1298–1304, Welhaven og psykologien: Del 2. Welhaven peker fremover (in Norwegian)
25. ^Lundestad, 1998, p. 169
26. ^Slagstad, 2001, p. 89
27. ^(in French) (Dictionary) 'L'existencialisme' – see 'l'identité de la personne'
28. ^Baird, Forrest E.; Walter Kaufmann (2008). From Plato to Derrida. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall. ISBN0-13-158591-6.
29. ^Heidegger, Martin (1993). Basic Writings: From Being and Time (1927) to The Task of Thinking (1964). Edited by David Farrell Krell (Revised and expanded ed.). San Francisco, California: Harper San Francisco. ISBN0060637633. OCLC26355951.
30. ^Heidegger, Martin (1993). Basic Writings: From Being and Time (1927) to The Task of thinking (1964). Edited by David Farrell Krell (Revised and expanded ed.). San Francisco, California: Harper San Francisco. p. 243. ISBN0060637633. OCLC26355951.
31. ^ ^abWartenberg, Thomas (2008). Existentialism: A Beginner's Guide. Oxford: One World. ISBN9781780740201.
32. ^Michelman, Stephen (2010). The A to Z of Existentialism. Lanham, Maryland: The Scarecrow Press, Inc. p. 27. ISBN9780810875890.
33. ^ ^abStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Existentialism, 3.1 Anxiety, Nothingness, the Absurd
34. ^ ^abBassnett, Susan; Lorch, Jennifer (March 18, 2014). Luigi Pirandello in the Theatre. Routledge. Retrieved 26 March 2015.
35. ^ ^abThompson, Mel; Rodgers, Nigel (2010). Understanding Existentialism: Teach Yourself. Hodder & Stoughton.
36. ^Caputi, Anthony Francis (1988). Pirandello and the Crisis of Modern Consciousness. University of Illinois Press.
37. ^ ^abMariani, Umberto (2010). Living Masks: The Achievement of Pirandello. University of Toronto Press. Retrieved 26 March 2015.
38. ^Jean-Paul Sartre. 'Existentialism is a Humanism, Jean-Paul Sartre 1946'. Marxists.org. Retrieved 2010-03-08.
39. ^E Keen (1973). 'Suicide and Self-Deception'. Psychoanalytic Review.
40. ^ ^abStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 'Existentialism', 2.1 Facticity and Transcendence
41. ^Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Existentialism, 3. Freedom and Value
42. ^Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Existentialism, 3.2 The Ideality of Values
43. ^Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 'Existentialism', 2.3 Authenticity
44. ^ ^abJean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, Routledge Classics (2003).
45. ^Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Existentialism, 2.2 Alienation
46. ^Sartre, Jean Paul (1992). 'Chapter 1 part 3'. Being and Nothingness. Translated by Hazel E. Barnes. New York: Washington Square Press. ISBN978-0230006737.
47. ^'despair – definition of despair by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia'. Tfd.com. Retrieved 2010-03-08.
48. ^Either/Or Part II p. 188 Hong
49. ^Søren Kierkegaard's Journals and Papers Vol 5, p. 5
50. ^Kierkegaard, Soren. Works of Love. Harper & Row, Publishers. New York, N.Y. 1962. p. 62
51. ^Alan Pratt (April 23, 2001). 'Nihilism'. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Embry-Riddle University. Retrieved November 18, 2018.
52. ^Camus, Albert. 'The Myth of Sisyphus'. NYU.edu
53. ^Luper, Steven. 'Existing'. Mayfield Publishing, 2000, pp. 4–5 and 11
54. ^Hubben, William. Dostoyevsky, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Kafka, Jabber-wacky, Scribner, 1997.
55. ^Sartre, Jean-Paul. Existentialism is a Humanismhttp://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exist/sartre.htm ; Retrieved 2012-04-01.
56. ^Zizek, Slavoj. 'If there is a God, then everything is permitted'. Archived from the original on 2015-04-17.
57. ^Dostoyevsky Fyodor. 'The Brothers Karamazov'.
58. ^ ^abcRukhsana., Akhter,. Existentialism and its relevance to the contemporary system of education in India : existentialism and present educational scenario. Hamburg. ISBN3954892774. OCLC911266433.
59. ^Maurice S. Friedman, Martin Buber. The Life of Dialogue (University of Chicago press, 1955, p. 85)
60. ^Ernst Breisach, Introduction to Modern Existentialism, New York (1962), pp. 173–76
61. ^ ^abcSamuel M. Keen, 'Gabriel Marcel' in Paul Edwards (ed.) The Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (Macmillan Publishing Co, 1967)
62. ^John Macquarrie, Existentialism (Pelican, 1973, p. 110)
63. ^John Macquarrie, Existentialism (Pelican, 1973, p. 96)
64. ^Karl Jaspers, 'Philosophical Autobiography' in Paul Arthur Schilpp (ed.) The Philosophy of Karl Jaspers (The Library of Living Philosophers IX (Tudor Publishing Company, 1957, p. 75/11)
65. ^Karl Jaspers, 'Philosophical Autobiography' in Paul Arthur Schilpp (ed.) The Philosophy of Karl Jaspers (The Library of Living Philosophers IX (Tudor Publishing Company, 1957, p. 40)
66. ^Karl Jaspers, 'Philosophical Autobiography' in Paul Arthur Schilpp (ed.) The Philosophy of Karl Jaspers (The Library of Living Philosophers IX (Tudor Publishing Company, 1957, p. 75/2 and following)
67. ^Patrick Baert, The Existentialist Moment; The Rise of Sartre as a Public Intellectual (Polity Press, 2015)
68. ^ ^abRonald Aronson, Camus and Sartre (University of Chicago Press, 2004, chapter 3 passim)
69. ^Ronald Aronson, Camus and Sartre (University of Chicago Press, 2004, p. 44)
70. ^Simone de Beauvoir, Force of Circumstance, quoted in Ronald Aronson, Camus and Sartre (University of Chicago Press, 2004, p. 48)
71. ^Ronald Aronson, Camus and Sartre (University of Chicago Press, 2004, p. 48)
72. ^Rüdiger Safranski, Martin Heidgger – Between Good and Evil (Harvard University Press, 1998, p. 343
73. ^Entry on Kojève in Martin Cohen (editor), The Essentials of Philosophy and Ethics(Hodder Arnold, 2006, p. 158); see also Alexandre Kojève, Introduction to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit (Cornell University Press, 1980)
74. ^Entry on Kojève in Martin Cohen (editor), The Essentials of Philosophy and Ethics(Hodder Arnold, 2006, p. 158)
75. ^Martin Hediegger, letter, quoted in Rüdiger Safranski, Martin Heidgger – Between Good and Evil (Harvard University Press, 1998, p. 349)
76. ^Rüdiger Safranski, Martin Heidegger – Between Good and Evil (Harvard University Press, 1998, p. 356)
77. ^William J. Richardson, Martin Heidegger: From Phenomenology to Thought (Martjinus Nijhoff,1967, p. 351)
78. ^Messud, Claire (2014). 'A New 'L'Étranger''. The New York Review of Books. 61 (10). Retrieved 1 June 2014.
79. ^Bergoffen, Debra (September 2010). 'Simone de Beauvoir'. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
80. ^Madison, G. B., in Robert Audi's The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) [p. 559]
81. ^K. Gunnar Bergström, An Odyssey to Freedom University of Uppsala, 1983, p. 92. Colin Stanley, Colin Wilson, a Celebration: Essays and Recollections Cecil Woolf, 1988, p. 43)
82. ^ ^abHolt, Jason. 'Existential Ethics: Where do the Paths of Glory Lead?'. In The Philosophy of Stanley Kubrick. By Jerold J. Abrams. Published 2007. University Press of Kentucky. SBN 0-8131-2445-X
83. ^'Existential & Psychological Movie Recommendations'. Existential-therapy.com. Archived from the original on 2010-01-07. Retrieved 2010-03-08.
84. ^'Existentialism in Film'. Uhaweb.hartford.edu. Retrieved 2010-03-08.
85. ^'Existentialist Adaptations – Harvard Film Archive'. Hcl.harvard.edu. Retrieved 2010-03-08.
86. ^Chocano, Carina (2008-10-24). 'Review: 'Synecdoche, New York''. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2008-11-17.
87. ^For an examination of the existentialist elements within the film, see Philosophy Now, issue 102, accessible here (link), accessed 3 June 2014.
88. ^Sartre, Jean-Paul (2000) [1938]. 'Nausea'. Translated by Baldick, Robert. London: Penguin.
89. ^Earnshaw, Steven (2006). Existentialism: A Guide for the Perplexed. London: Continuum. p. 75. ISBN0-8264-8530-8.
90. ^Cincotta, Madeleine Strong (1989). Luigi Pirandello: The Humorous Existentialist. University of Wollongong Press. Retrieved 26 March 2015.
91. ^Bassanese, Fiora A. (Jan 1, 1997). Understanding Luigi Pirandello. University of South Carolina Press. Retrieved 26 March 2015.
92. ^DiGaetani, John Louis (Jan 25, 2008). Stages of Struggle: Modern Playwrights and Their Psychological Inspirations. McFarland. Retrieved 26 March 2015.
93. ^Graham, Maryemma; Singh, Amritjit (1995). Conversations with Ralph Ellison. University of Mississippi Press. Retrieved 26 March 2015.
94. ^Cotkin, George (2005). Existential American. JHU Press. Retrieved 26 March 2015.
95. ^Thomas, Paul Lee (2008). Reading, Learning, Teach Ralph Ellison. Peter Lang. Retrieved 26 March 2015.
96. ^Jackson, Lawrence Patrick (2007). Ralph Ellison: Emergence of Genius. University of Georgia Press. Retrieved 26 March 2015.
97. ^Gurnow, Michael (2008-10-15). 'Zarathustra . . . Cthulhu . Meursault: Existential Futility in H.P. Lovecraft's 'The Call of Cthulhu''. The Horror Review. Archived from the original on October 6, 2014. Retrieved 2015-02-17.
98. ^Srinivasan, Bharath (2009). Formless Meanderings. Kolkata: Writers Workshop. p. 352. ISBN81-8157-945-4.CS1 maint: Ignored ISBN errors (link)
99. ^The Times, 31 December 1964. Quoted in Knowlson, J., Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett (London: Bloomsbury, 1996), p. 57
100. ^Cronin, A., Samuel Beckett The Last Modernist (London: Flamingo, 1997), p. 391
101. ^Michael H. Hutchins (14 August 2006). 'A Tom Stoppard Bibliography: Chronology'. The Stephen Sondheim Reference Guide. Retrieved 2008-06-23.
102. ^Wren, Celia (12 December 2007). 'From Forum, an Earnest and Painstaking 'Antigone''. Washington Post. Retrieved 2008-04-07.
103. ^Kernan, Alvin B. The Modern American Theater: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1967.
104. ^[Frankl, Viktor: Recollections: An Autobiography. Perseus Publishing, Massachusetts 2000, p. 51]
105. ^Stewart, Jon. Kierkegaard and Existentialism. p. 38
106. ^Flynn, Thomas R. Sartre, Foucault, and Historical Reason, p. 323.
107. ^Yalom, Irvin D. (1980). Existential Psychotherapy. New York: BasicBooks (Subsidiary of Perseus Books, L.L.C. p. 17. ISBN0-465-02147-6. Note: The copyright year has not changed, but the book remains in print.
108. ^Kaufmann, Walter Arnold, From Shakespeare To Existentialism (Princeton University Press 1979), p. xvi
109. ^Carnap, Rudolf, Uberwindung der Metaphysik durch logische Analyse der Sprache [Overcoming Metaphysics by the Logical Analysis of Speech], Erkenntnis (1932), pp. 219–41. Carnap's critique of Heidegger's 'What is Metaphysics'.
110. ^Colin, Wilson, The Angry Years (2007), p. 214
111. ^Marcuse, Herbert. 'Sartre's Existentialism'. Printed in Studies in Critical Philosophy. Translated by Joris De Bres. London: NLB, 1972. p. 161
112. ^Martin Heidegger, 'Letter on Humanism', in Basic Writings: Nine Key Essays, plus the Introduction to Being and Time, trans. David Farrell Krell (London, Routledge; 1978), p. 208. Google Books

Bibliography[edit]

• Albert Camus: Lyrical and Critical Essays. Edited by Philip Thody (interviev with Jeanie Delpech, in Les Nouvelles littéraires, November 15, 1945). p. 345.

Further reading[edit]

• Appignanesi, Richard; Oscar Zarate (2001). Introducing Existentialism. Cambridge, UK: Icon. ISBN1-84046-266-3.
• Appignanesi, Richard (2006). Introducing Existentialism (3rd ed.). Thriplow, Cambridge: Icon Books (UK), Totem Books (USA). ISBN1-84046-717-7.
• Barrett, William (1958). Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy (1st ed.). Doubleday.
• Cooper, David E. (1999). Existentialism: A Reconstruction (2nd ed.). Oxford, UK: Blackwell. ISBN0-631-21322-8.
• Deurzen, Emmy van (2010). Everyday Mysteries: a Handbook of Existential Psychotherapy (2nd ed.). London: Routledge. ISBN978-0-415-37643-3.
• Fallico, Arthuro B. (1962). Art & Existentialism. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.
• Kierkegaard, Søren (1855). Attack Upon Christendom.
• Kierkegaard, Søren (1843). The Concept of Anxiety.
• Kierkegaard, Søren (1846). Concluding Unscientific Postscript.
• Kierkegaard, Søren (1843). Either/Or.
• Kierkegaard, Søren (1843). Fear and Trembling.
• Kierkegaard, Søren (1849). The Sickness Unto Death.
• Kierkegaard, Søren (1847). Works of Love.
• Luper, Steven (ed.) (2000). Existing: An Introduction to Existential Thought. Mountain View, California: Mayfield. ISBN0-7674-0587-0.CS1 maint: Extra text: authors list (link)
• Marino, Gordon (ed.) (2004). Basic Writings of Existentialism. New York: Modern Library. ISBN0-375-75989-1.CS1 maint: Extra text: authors list (link)
• Merleau-Ponty, M. (1962). Phenomenology of Perception [Colin Smith]. New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
• Rose, Eugene (Fr. Seraphim) (1994). Nihilism: The Root of the Revolution of the Modern Age. Saint Herman Press (1 September 1994). ISBN0-938635-15-8. Archived from the original on 2 March 2013.
• Sartre, Jean-Paul (1943). Being and Nothingness.
• Sartre, Jean-Paul (1945). Existentialism and Humanism.
• Stewart, Jon (ed.) (2011). Kierkegaard and Existentialism. Farnham, England: Ashgate. ISBN978-1-4094-2641-7.CS1 maint: Extra text: authors list (link)
• Solomon, Robert C. (ed.) (2005). Existentialism (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN0-19-517463-1.CS1 maint: Extra text: authors list (link)
• Wartenberg, Thomas E. Existentialism: A Beginner's Guide.

External links[edit]

• Existentialism at Curlie
• 'Existentialism'. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
• Existentialism on In Our Time at the BBC
• Crowell, Steven. 'Existentialism'. In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
• What Is an Existential Threat? A threat to existence (see Global catastrophic risk) or to a particular state or group.

Journals and articles[edit]

• Stirrings Still: The International Journal of Existential Literature
• Existential Analysis published by The Society for Existential Analysis