existentialism summary

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Søren KierkegaardSøren Kierkegaard, drawing by Christian Kierkegaard, c. 1840; in a private collection.

existentialism, Philosophical movement oriented toward two major themes, the analysis of human existence and the centrality of human choice. Existentialism’s chief theoretical energies are thus devoted to questions about ontology and decision. It traces its roots to the writings of Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche. As a philosophy of human existence, existentialism found its best 20th-century exponent in Karl Jaspers; as a philosophy of human decision, its foremost representative was Jean-Paul Sartre. Sartre finds the essence of human existence in freedom—in the duty of self-determination and the freedom of choice—and therefore spends much time describing the human tendency toward “bad faith,” reflected in humanity’s perverse attempts to deny its own responsibility and flee from the truth of its inescapable freedom.

Simone de Beauvoir Summary

Simone de Beauvoir was a French writer and feminist, a member of the intellectual fellowship of philosopher-writers who have given a literary transcription to the themes of existentialism. She is known primarily for her treatise Le Deuxième Sexe, 2 vol. (1949; The Second Sex), a scholarly and

Karl Jaspers Summary

Karl Jaspers was a German philosopher, one of the most important Existentialists in Germany, who approached the subject from man’s direct concern with his own existence. In his later work, as a reaction to the disruptions of Nazi rule in Germany and World War II, he searched for a new unity of

Martin Heidegger Summary

Martin Heidegger was a German philosopher, counted among the main exponents of existentialism. His groundbreaking work in ontology (the philosophical study of being, or existence) and metaphysics determined the course of 20th-century philosophy on the European continent and exerted an enormous

Søren Kierkegaard Summary

Søren Kierkegaard was a Danish philosopher, theologian, and cultural critic who was a major influence on existentialism and Protestant theology in the 20th century. He attacked the literary, philosophical, and ecclesiastical establishments of his day for misrepresenting the highest task of human