EXISTENTIALISM

19-20TH CENTURY
• Existentialism - A philosophy that emphasises individual existence 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 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 is by embracing existence.

• Existentialism believes that individuals are entirely free and must take personal responsibility
for themselves.

• It asserts that people actually make decisions based on what has meaning to them, rather than
what is rational.
• Existentialism is a philosophical theory that people are free agents who have control over their
choices and actions.

• Existentialists believe that society should not restrict an individual’s life or actions and that
these restrictions inhibit free will and the development of that person’s potential

• Existentialism has common traits with Essentialism/ Nihilism (Everything has an essence) bt
the difference is Essentialism proposes that everything has an essence even before they are
born whilst Existentialism believes that essence can only be found through actions after birth.
 QUESTIONS CAN BE EXISTENTIAL

• Who am I?

• What is my real identity?

• What is the meaning of life?

• What is my purpose?

NOT SUPPORTED BY EXISTENTIALISM

• Wealth, pleasure, or honor make the good life

• social values and structure control the individual

• “I want my way now” or “ It is not my fault” mentality

• Søren Kierkegaard➢ Danish philosopher, theologian, and
cultural critic who was a major influence
on existentialism and Protestant theology in the 20th century.

• ➢ Kierkegaard is generally considered the father

of existentialism.

• ➢ His wide-ranging works had lasting influence

in philosophy, Protestant theology, literature, and cultural
criticism.

• ➢ He wrote, Kierkegaard entered university in order to study

theology but devoted himself to literature
and philosophy instead.
• Friedrich Nietzsche was a German philosopher,
essayist, and cultural critic.
Friedrich Nietzsche
• Friedrich Nietzsche was one of the most influential of (1844-1900)
all modern existentialist and postmodernist thinkers.
He is considered the father of Nihilism, which teaches
that there is no ultimate meaning to human existence.

• Nietzsche was born in 1844 in the Prussian province

of Saxony. His father was Carl Ludwig, a Lutheran
pastor and teacher. He died in 1900 at the age of 56
insane and infected with syphilis.

• Nietzsche’s existential philosophy included such

things as:

• Popularized the idea that God is dead.

Insisted that without God, life is meaningless.
Was convinced that Christian virtues made weak
people. Did not believe in values or truth.
Believed that all people should strive to be a
superman. Personal power was essential.
• Martin Heidegger (1889–1971) Heidegger was a
theology student before he became a
phenomenologist, and his concerns were Martin Heidegger
existentialist concerns, questions about how to live
and how to live "authentically," that is, with integrity,
in a politically and technologically seductive and
dangerous world.

• Heidegger is widely acknowledged to be one of the

most original and important philosophers of the 20th
century, while remaining one of the most
controversial.

• Heidegger’s main interest was ontology or the study

of being. In his fundamental treatise, Being and
Time, he attempted to access being (Sein) by means
of phenomenological analysis of human existence
(Dasein) in respect to its temporal and historical
character.

• Instead of looking for a full clarification of the

meaning of being, he tried to pursue a kind of
thinking which was no longer “metaphysical.”
• Jean-Paul Sartre, (born June 21, 1905, Paris, France—died April
15, 1980, Paris), French novelist, playwright, and exponent of
Existentialism—a philosophy acclaiming the freedom of the
individual human being. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for
Literature in 1964, but he declined it.

• While he is still a student he formed with Simone de Beauvoir a

union that remained a settled partnership in life. Simone de
Beauvoir’s memoirs, Mémoires d’une jeune fille rangée (1958;
Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter) and La Force de l’âge (1960;
The Prime of Life), provide an intimate account of Sartre’s life
from student years until his middle 50s.

• Twice this career was interrupted, once by a year of study in

Berlin and the second time when Sartre was drafted in 1939 to
serve in World War II.

• Sartre places human consciousness, or no-thingness (néant), in

opposition to being, or thingness (être). Consciousness is not-
matter and by the same token escapes all determinism

• he had refused to wear a tie, as if he could shed his social class

with his tie and thus come closer to the worker.
• Simone Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand De Beauvior was a French writer,
intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist and social
theorist. Though she did not consider herself a philosopher, she had a significant
influence on both feminist existentialism and feminist theory.

• De Beauvoir wrote novels, essays, biographies, autobiography and monographs

on philosophy, politics, and social issues. She was known for her 1949 treatise
The Second Sex, a detailed analysis of women's oppression and a foundational
tract of contemporary feminism; and for her novels, including She Came to Stay
and The Mandarins. She was also known for her lifelong relationship with
French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre.

• Simone de Beauvoir was born Simone Lucie-Ernestine-Marie-Bertrand de

Beauvoir on January 9, 1908, in Paris, France. The eldest daughter in a
bourgeois family, De Beauvoir was raised strictly Catholic. She was sent to
convent schools during her youth and was so devoutly religious that she
considered becoming a nun. However, at the age of 14, the intellectually curious
De Beauvoir had a crisis of faith and declared herself an atheist. She thus
dedicated herself to the study of existence, shifting her focus instead to math,
literature and philosophy.

• De Beauvoir’s first major published work was the 1943 novel She Came to Stay,
which used the real-life love triangle between De Beauvoir, Sartre and a student
named Olga Kosakiewicz to examine existential ideals, specifically the
complexity of relationships and the issue of a person's conscience as related to
“the other.” She followed up the next year with the philosophical essay Pyrrhus
and Cineas, before returning to fiction with the novels The Blood of Others
(1945) and All Men Are Mortal (1946), both of which were centered on her
ongoing investigation of existence.