Existentialism is a form of philosophical inquiry that explores the issue of human existence. Existentialist philosophers explore questions related to the meaning, purpose, and value of human existence. Common concepts in existentialist thought include existential crisis, dread, and anxiety in the face of an absurd world and free will, as well as authenticity, courage, and virtue.
Existentialism Is a Humanism is a 1946 work by the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, based on a lecture by the same name he gave at Club Maintenant in Paris, on 29 October 1945. In early translations, Existentialism and Humanism was the title used in the United Kingdom; the work was originally published in the United States as Existentialism, and a later translation employs the original title.
Authenticity is a concept of personality in the fields of psychology, existential psychotherapy, existentialist philosophy, and aesthetics. In existentialism, authenticity is the degree to which a person's actions are congruent with their values and desires, despite external pressures to social conformity. The conscious self comes to terms with the condition of Geworfenheit, of having been thrown into an absurd world not of their own making, thereby encountering external forces and influences different from and other than the Self. A person’s lack of authenticity is considered bad faith in dealing with other people and with one's self; thus, authenticity is in the instruction of the Oracle of Delphi: “Know thyself.” Concerning authenticity in art, the philosophers Jean Paul Sartre and Theodor Adorno held opposing views and opinions about jazz, a genre of American music; Sartre said that jazz is authentic and Adorno said that jazz is inauthentic. Many musical subcultures require artistic authenticity, lest the community consider an artist to be a poseur for lacking authenticity ; artistic authenticity is integral to many genres of music, including but not limited to genres of rock, club music, and hip-hop.
Robert C. Solomon was a philosopher and business ethicist, notable author, and "Distinguished Teaching Professor of Business and Philosophy" at the University of Texas at Austin, where he held a named chair and taught for more than 30 years, authoring The Passions: Emotions and the Meaning of Life (1976) and more than 45 other books and editions. Critical of the narrow focus of Anglo-American analytic philosophy, which he thought denied human nature and abdicated the important questions of life, he instead wrote analytically in response to the continental discourses of phenomenology and existentialism, on sex and love, on business ethics, and on other topics to which he brought an Aristotelian perspective on virtue ethics. He also wrote A Short History of Philosophy and others with his wife, Professor Kathleen Higgins.
Christian existentialism is a theo-philosophical movement which takes an existentialist approach to Christian theology. The school of thought is often traced back to the work of the Danish philosopher and theologian Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) who is widely regarded as the father of existentialism.
Bad faith is a sustained form of deception which consists of entertaining or pretending to entertain one set of feelings while acting as if influenced by another. It is associated with hypocrisy, breach of contract, affectation, and lip service. It may involve intentional deceit of others, or self-deception.
Existential phenomenology encompasses a wide range of thinkers who take up the view that philosophy must begin from experience like phenomenology, but argues for the temporality of personal existence as the framework for analysis of the human condition.
Nausea is a philosophical novel by the existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, published in 1938. It is Sartre's first novel.
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights for women. Existentialism is a philosophical and cultural movement which holds that the starting point of philosophical thinking must be the individual and the experiences of the individual, that moral thinking and scientific thinking together are not sufficient for understanding all of human existence, and, therefore, that a further set of categories, governed by the norm of authenticity, is necessary to understand human existence. This philosophy analyzes relationships between the individual and things, or other human beings, and how they limit or condition choice.
Hazel Estella Barnes was an American philosopher, author, and translator. Best known for her popularization of existentialism in America, Barnes translated the works of Jean-Paul Sartre as well as writing original works on the subject. After earning her Ph.D. in Classics from Yale in 1941, she spent much of her career at the University of Colorado. In 1979, Barnes became the first woman to be named Distinguished Professor at CU-Boulder. In recognition of her long tenure and service to the University, in 1991 CU established the Hazel Barnes Prize for faculty who best embody "the enriching interrelationship between teaching and research." In 1962, Barnes was the host of a television series, "Self Encounter: A Study in Existentialism", which ran for 10 episodes and appeared on National Public Television.
French philosophy, here taken to mean philosophy in the French language, has been extremely diverse and has influenced Western philosophy as a whole for centuries, from the medieval scholasticism of Peter Abelard, through the founding of modern philosophy by René Descartes, to 20th century philosophy of science, existentialism, phenomenology, structuralism, and postmodernism.
In philosophy, facticity has multiple meanings — from "factuality" and "contingency" to the intractable conditions of human existence.
The proposition that existence precedes essence is a central claim of existentialism, which reverses the traditional philosophical view that the essence of a thing is more fundamental and immutable than its existence. To existentialists, human beings—through their consciousness—create their own values and determine a meaning for their life because the human being does not possess any inherent identity or value. That identity or value must be created by the individual. By posing the acts that constitute them, they make their existence more significant.
Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy is a 1958 book by the philosopher William Barrett, in which the author explains the philosophical background of existentialism and provides a discussion of several major existentialist thinkers, including Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, and Jean-Paul Sartre. Irrational Man helped to introduce existentialism to the English-speaking world and has been identified as one of the most useful books that discuss the subject, but Barrett has also been criticized for endorsing irrationality and for giving a distorted and misleading account of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.
Black existentialism or Africana critical theory is a school of thought that "critiques domination and affirms the empowerment of Black people in the world". Although it shares a word with existentialism and that philosophy's concerns with existence and meaning in life, Black existentialism is "is predicated on the liberation of all Black people in the world from oppression". Black existentialism may also be seen as method, which allows one to read works by African-American writers such as W. E. B. Du Bois, James Baldwin, and Ralph Ellison in an existentialist frame. As well as the work of Civil Rights Activists such as Malcolm X and Cornel West. Lewis Gordon argues that Black existentialism is not only existential philosophy produced by Black philosophers but is also thought that addresses the intersection of problems of existence in black contexts.
Abandonment, in philosophy, refers to the infinite freedom of humanity without the existence of a condemning or omnipotent higher power. Original existentialism explores the liminal experiences of anxiety, death, "the nothing" and nihilism; the rejection of science as an adequate framework for understanding human being; and the introduction of "authenticity" as the norm of self-identity, tied to the project of self-definition through freedom, choice, and commitment. Existential thought bases itself fundamentally in the idea that one's identity is constituted neither by nature nor by culture, since to "exist" is precisely to constitute such an identity. It is from this foundation that one can begin to understand abandonment and forlornness.
Atheistic existentialism is a kind of existentialism which strongly diverged from the Christian existential works of Søren Kierkegaard and developed within the context of an atheistic world view. The philosophies of Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche provided existentialism's theoretical foundation in the 19th century, although their differing views on religion proved essential to the development of alternate types of existentialism. Atheistic existentialism was formally recognized after the 1943 publication of Being and Nothingness by Jean-Paul Sartre and Sartre later explicitly alluded to it in Existentialism is a Humanism in 1946.
Jewish existentialism is a category of work by Jewish authors dealing with existentialist themes and concepts, and intended to answer theological questions that are important in Judaism. The existential angst of Job is an example from the Hebrew Bible of the existentialist theme. Theodicy and post-Holocaust theology make up a large part of 20th century Jewish existentialism.
The Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy (SPEP) is a philosophical society whose initial purpose was to promote the study of phenomenology and existentialism but has since expanded to a wide array of contemporary philosophical pursuits, including critical theory, feminist philosophy, poststructuralism, critical race theory, and increasingly non-Eurocentric philosophies. SPEP was created in 1962 by American philosophers who were interested in Continental philosophy and were dissatisfied with the analytic dominance of the American Philosophical Association. It has since emerged as the second most important philosophical society in the United States. Alan D. Schrift and Shannon Sullivan are the current Executive Co-Directors of SPEP.
The Sovereignty of Good is a book of moral philosophy by Iris Murdoch. First published in 1970, it comprises three previously published papers, all of which were originally delivered as lectures. Murdoch argued against the prevailing consensus in moral philosophy, proposing instead a Platonist approach. The Sovereignty of Good is Murdoch's best known philosophy book.
