Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A philosophy that emphasizes the uniqueness and isolation of the individual experience in a hostile or indifferent universe, regards human existence as unexplainable, and stresses freedom of choice and responsibility for the consequences of one's acts.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Philosophy) a philosophical theory or attitude having various interpretations, generally emphasising the existence of the individual as a unique agent with free will and responsibility for his or her own acts, though living in a universe devoid of any certain knowledge of right and wrong; from one's plight as a free agent with uncertain guidelines may arise feelings of anguish. Existentialism is concerned more with concrete existence rather than abstract theories of essences; is contrasted with
rationalism andempiricism ; and is associated with Kierkegaard, Heidegger and Sartre, as well as others.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun philosophy, not countable A twentieth-century
philosophical movement emphasizing theuniqueness of each humanexistence infreely making its self-definingchoices . - noun philosophy, countable The philosophical views of a
particular thinker associated with the existentialist movement.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun (philosophy) a 20th-century philosophical movement chiefly in Europe; assumes that people are entirely free and thus responsible for what they make of themselves
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word existentialism.
Examples
-
Dostoevsky once wrote: “If God did not exist, everything would be permitted”; and that, for existentialism, is the starting point.
Something else I had forgotten about running-- matociquala 2008
-
My existentialism is about always, always seeing it as one's own choice at the end of the day.
THE HALLS OF PENTHEUS -- PART FIVE Hal Duncan 2007
-
My existentialism is about always, always seeing it as one's own choice at the end of the day.
Archive 2007-04-01 Hal Duncan 2007
-
and that my friends is your latest lesson in Polish existentialism
-
Now I do understand the idea of existentialism whereby the viewer makes up their own mind but LOST takes the piss.
-
But literature, I warn them (contrast Sartre and Camus here), is about people, not ideas, and the novel at hand is just that, a novel, an attempt to let us inside one man's head, and by no means a primer in existentialism.
-
But literature, I warn them (contrast Sartre and Camus here), is about people, not ideas, and the novel at hand is just that, a novel, an attempt to let us inside one man's head, and by no means a primer in existentialism.
February 2005 2005
-
Parshley knew French only from his years as a student at Boston Latin School and Harvard, and had no training in philosophy — certainly not in the new movement known as existentialism, of which Beauvoir was an adherent.
-
Auerbach tries later to combine two contradictory conceptions of realism; first something which might be called existentialism: the agonizing revelations of reality in moments of supreme decisions, in “limiting situations”: Abraham about to sacrifice Isaac, Madame du Chastel deciding not to rescue her son from execution, the Duke of
REALISM IN LITERATURE REN 1968
-
This is nearly the opposite of the philosophical connotation of "existentialism" of being as happy with nothing as you would be with whatever wealth you might accumulate
Comments
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.