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Philosophy vocabulary · Schools and Movements

Existentialism

Meaning in philosophy, with examples

/ˌeɡzɪˈstenʃəlɪzəm/nounCore term

In philosophy, existentialism means: A philosophical movement centered on individual existence, freedom and choice, holding that people create meaning through how they live rather than finding it ready-made.

In Turkish: varoluşçuluk, egzistansiyalizm

How it is used

Kierkegaard is seen as a forerunner; in the twentieth century the movement is linked with Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and, more loosely, Camus and Heidegger. Key ideas: existence precedes essence, anxiety, authenticity, bad faith and the absurd.

Example sentences

  1. Sartre's lecture 'Existentialism Is a Humanism' is a short and readable introduction.

  2. Camus rejected the label, but his work is usually taught alongside existentialism.

Common collocations

  • atheist existentialism
  • Christian existentialism
  • existentialist ethics
  • existential anxiety
  • existenceThe fact or state of being real or being there at all, as opposed to not being; in existentialism, also the concrete life of a human being.
  • essenceThe set of properties that make a thing what it is, without which it would not be that kind of thing at all.
  • phenomenologyA philosophical method and movement that studies the structures of experience as they appear to consciousness, from the first-person point of view.
  • nihilismThe view that life has no meaning, value or purpose, or more narrowly that there are no moral truths or no knowledge at all.

More terms: Schools and Movements

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