Introduction

This assignment is going to give out a brief discussion on Existentialism and to start with
Existentialism is a philosophy that emphasizes individual existence, freedom and choice. It is the
view that humans define their own meaning in life, and try to make rational decisions despite
existing in an irrational universe. It focuses on the question of human existence, and the feeling
that there is no purpose or explanation at the core of existence. It holds that, as there is no God or
any other transcendent force, the only way to counter this nothingness (and hence to
find meaning in life) is by embracing existence. Thus, Existentialism believes that individuals are
entirely free and must take personal responsibility for themselves (although with this
responsibility comes angst, a profound anguish or dread). It therefore
emphasizes action, freedom and decision as fundamental, and holds that the only way to rise
above the essentially absurd condition of humanity (which is characterized
by suffering and inevitable death) is by exercising our personal freedom and choice (a complete
rejection of Determinism).

According to John Macquarie, Existentialism, New York (1972). States that existentialism as a
movement is used to describe those who refuse to belong to any school of thought, repudiating of
the adequacy of any body of beliefs or systems, claiming them to be superficial, academic and
remote from life. 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. It asserts that people actually make decisions based on what
has meaning to them, rather than what is rational. Existentialism originated with the 19th Century
philosophers Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche, although neither used the term in their
work. In the 1940s and 1950s, French existentialists such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert
Camus (1913 - 1960), and Simone de Beauvoir (1908 - 1986) wrote scholarly and fictional works
that popularized existential themes, such as dread, boredom, alienation, the absurd, freedom,
commitment and nothingness. Unlike René Descartes, who believed in the primacy
of consciousness, Existentialists assert that a human being is "thrown into" into a concrete,
inveterate universe that cannot be "thought away", and therefore existence ("being in the
world") precedes consciousness, and is the ultimate reality. Existence, then, is prior to essence
(essence is the meaning that may be ascribed to life), contrary to traditional philosophical views
dating back to the ancient Greeks. As Sartre put it: "At first [Man] is nothing. Only afterward will
he be something, and he himself will have made what he will be."

Kierkegaard saw rationality as a mechanism humans use to counter their existential anxiety,
their fear of being in the world. Sartre saw rationality as a form of "bad faith", an attempt by the
self to impose structure on a fundamentally irrational and random world of phenomena ("the
other"). This bad faith hinders us from finding meaning in freedom, and confines us within
everyday experience. Kierkegaard also stressed that individuals must choose their own
way without the aid of universal, objective standards. Friedrich Nietzsche further contended that
the individual must decide which situations are to count as moral situations. Thus, most
Existentialists believe that personal experience and acting on one's own convictions are essential
in arriving at the truth, and that the understanding of a situation by someone involved in that
situation is superior to that of a detached, objective observer (similar to the concept
of Subjectivism). Existentialism is a tradition of philosophical inquiry associated mainly with
certain 19th and 20th-century European 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. While the
predominant value of existentialist thought is commonly acknowledged to be freedom, its
primary virtue is authenticity. 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. Many
existentialists have also regarded traditional systematic or academic philosophies, in both style
and content, as too abstract and remote from concrete human experience.

According to Crowell, Steven (October 2010). States that, when an individual's longing for
order collides with the real world's lack of order, the result is absurdity. Human beings are
therefore subjects in an indifferent, ambiguous and absurd universe, in which meaning is not
provided by the natural order, but rather can be created (however provisionally and unstable) by
human actions and interpretations. Existentialism can be atheistic, theological (or theistic)
or agnostic. Some Existentialists, like Nietzsche, proclaimed that "God is dead" and that the
concept of God is obsolete. Others, like Kierkegaard, were intensely religious, even if they did not
feel able to justify it. The important factor for Existentialists is the freedom of choice to believe or
not to believe. Existentialist-type themes appear in early Buddhist and Christian writings
(including those of St. Augustine and St.Thomas Aquinas). In the 17th Century, Blaise
Pascal suggested that, without a God, life would be meaningless, boring and miserable, much as
later Existentialists believed, although, unlike them, Pascal saw this as a reason for
the existence of a God. His near-contemporary, John Locke, advocated individual
autonomy and self-determination, but in the positive pursuit
of Liberalism and Individualism rather than in response to an Existentialist experience.
Existentialism in its currently recognizable form was inspired by the 19th Century Danish
philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, the German philosophers Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin
Heidegger, Karl Jaspers (1883 - 1969) and Edmund Husserl, and writers like the Russian Fyodor
Dostoevsky (1821 - 1881) and the Czech Franz Kafka (1883 - 1924). It can be argued that Georg
Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Schopenhauer were also important influences on the development
of Existentialism, because the philosophies of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche were written
in response or in opposition to them. Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, like Pascal before them, were
interested in people's concealment of the meaninglessness of life and their use of diversion to
escape from boredom. However, unlike Pascal, they considered the role of making free choices on
fundamental values and beliefs to be essential in the attempt to change the nature and identity of
the chooser. In Kierkegaard's case, this results in the "knight of faith", who puts complete faith in
himself and in God, as described in his 1843 work "Fear and Trembling". In Nietzsche's case, the
much-maligned "Übermensch" (or "Superman") attains superiority and transcendence without
resorting to the "other-worldliness" of Christianity, in his books "Thus Spake Zarathustra" (1885)
and "Beyond Good and Evil" (1887).
Conclusion

In conclusion this assignment has briefly given out a discussion on existentialism is a philosophy
that emphasizes individual existence, freedom and choice. It is the view that humans define their
own meaning in life, and try to make rational decisions despite existing in an irrational universe.
It focuses on the question of human existence, and the feeling that there is no
purpose or explanation at the core of existence. It holds that, as there is no God or any
other transcendent force, the only way to counter this nothingness (and hence to find meaning in
life) is by embracing existence. Thus, Existentialism believes that individuals are entirely free and
must take personal responsibility for themselves (although with this responsibility comes angst, a
profound anguish or dread).
Reference

Crowell, Steven (October 2010). "Existentialism". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

John Macquarie, Existentialism, New York (1972). Oxford Companion to Philosophy, ed. Ted
Honderich, New York (1995).

John Macquarie, Existentialism, New York (1972).

Flynn, Thomas (2006). Existentialism - A Very Short Introduction. New York:

Robert C. Solomon, Existentialism (McGraw-Hill, 1974)

Ernst Breisach, Introduction to Modern Existentialism, New York (1962).

Walter Kaufmann, Existentialism: From Dostoyevsky to Sartre, New York (1956).

Marino, Gordon. Basic Writings of Existentialism (Modern Library, 2004.

McDonald, William. "Søren Kierkegaard". In Edward N. Zalta. Stanford Encyclopedia of

Philosophy (summer 2009 Edition).