Existentialism

From Conservapedia
This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Soonlaypale (Talk | contribs) at 01:19, October 19, 2007. It may differ significantly from current revision.

Jump to: navigation, search

Existentialism is both a broad philosophical movement and a cultural movement. One of it's central concepts is that a human being's "existence preceeds essence." Generally, this says that we do not have funadamental attributes, and that humans must develop these attributes as their lives progress.

Philosophical Movement

The earliest existentialists were the devout Christian Soren Kierkegaard and the vocal atheist Friedrich Nietzsche. The movement did not, however, develop its name or popularity until the 20th century when it was popularized by a number of thinkers—ranging from the atheist Jean Paul Sartre to the Jewish thinker Marten Buber. [1] At its core, existentialism seeks to understand what it means to be human. For some existentialists, the answer is to be found in giving ourselves totally to God, for others the answer is that we must make our own meaning in the world. There is, to date, no agreement among existentialists as to which of these answers is correct, but academic debate remains vigorous. [2]


Cultural Movement

Many existentialist are hippies, atheists, and heathens. Because of this, the best course of action would be, rather then to take any course of individual investigation into the works of Sartre, Albert Camus, or any other of the major existentialist thinkers, it would be best to simply ignore them and hope they go away.

Reference

  1. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy[1]
  2. Existentialism Today[2]