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Existentialism is a philosophical movement characterized by an emphasis on individualism, individual freedom, and subjectivity. Existentialism emphasises the idea that existence precedes essence, i.e., that one must be alive in order to create meaning, and that each person is therefore gifted with individual moments to make choices. Camus emphasizes this idea in The Stranger when Meursault exclaims "we are all privileged". It was inspired by the works of Søren Kierkegaard and the German philosophers Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger, and was particularly popular around the mid- 20th century with the works of the French writer and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, writer and philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, and others, including the novelist, essayist, and playwrightA playwright is an author of plays for performance in the theater. The earliest playwrights with surviving works are a group of playwrights from Greece during the 5th century BC, notably Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes. The term dramatis Albert CamusAlbert Camus ( November 7, 1913 January 4, 1960) was a French author and philosopher and one of the principal luminaries (with Jean-Paul Sartre) of existentialism. Early years Albert Camus was born in Mondovi, Algeria to a French Algerian ( pied noir) set. The main tenets of the movement are set out in Sartre's L'Existentialisme est un humanisme, translated as Existentialism is a Humanism.Though many, if not most, existentialists were atheistsAtheist" redirects here. For the music group, see Atheist (band). Atheism is the condition of lacking theistic belief. Etymology The term atheism (French atheisme from athee meaning atheist, from Greek atheos, meaning godless : a-, without; + , theos, mea, Karl JaspersKarl Theodor Jaspers ( February 23, 1883 February 26, 1969), a German psychiatrist and philosopher, had a strong influence on modern theology, psychiatry and philosophy. Biography Jaspers was born in Oldenburg in 1883 to a mother from a local farming comm and Gabriel MarcelGabriel Marcel ( 1889- 1973) was the leading existentialist Christian. Marcel was a devoted Catholic, with an atheistic father. A gentle and flexible man, Marcel was opposed to anti-Semitism and supported closer connections to non-Catholics. Gabriel Marce pursued more theological versions of existentialism. The one-time Marxist Nikolai Berdyaev developed a philosophy of Christian existentialismChristian existentialism as a school of thought was founded by the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. It relied on three major assumptions drawn from Kierkegaard's unique understanding of Christianity. The first was that the universe was fundamentally in his native Russia and later France during the decades preceding World War II.
1 Major concepts in existentialism
1.1 "Existence precedes and rules essence"
Among the most famous and influential existentialist propositions is Sartre's dictum, "existence precedes and rules essence", which is generally taken to mean that there is no pre-defined essence to humanity except that which we make for ourselves. Since Sartrean existentialism does not admit the existence of a god or of any other determining principle, human beings are free to do as they choose.
Since there is no predefined human nature or ultimate evaluation beyond that which humans project onto the world, people may only be judged or defined by their actions and choices, and human choices are the ultimate evaluator. This concept spins from Nietzsche’s concept of eternal return-- the idea that things lose values because they cease to exist. If all things were to continually exist then they would all burden us with a tremendous level of importance, but because things come to pass, and no longer exist, they lose their value.
The concept of Existence preceding essence is important because it describes the only conceivable reality as the judge of good or evil. If things simply “are”, without directive, purpose or overall truth, then truth (or essence) is only the projection of that which is a product of existence, or collective experiences. For truth to exist, existence has to exist before it, making it not only the predecessor but the “ruler” of its own objectivity.
