Existentialism

Similar to the suggested meaning by the world itself, Existentialism is about the well being of individual person’s condition of existence with rights to carry out his or her thoughts, actions, responsibilities and emotions. The term is applied to the work of many philosophers belonging to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries who claimed that the prime focus of any philosophical thought should be towards such conditions of existence rather than ideologies that didn’t relate accordingly to the human conditions. Soren Kierkegaard is considered to be the father of the subject who proposed a universal truth which is widely accepted by people across the world even in contemporary times.

Defining Existentialism, he concluded an individual person him or her holds the sole responsibility of creating a valuable meaning for their own life besides nurturing reasons or beliefs to live the life passionately and sincerely despite various hurdles and distractions which occur in the path such as alienation, absurdity, boredom, angst or despair. For the laymen, it was easily said as one should learn to live happy and contempt while moving forward despite the obstructing existent obstacles which are fair part of trying to be in existence. Existentialist philosophers following the path of its founder delved deep into how it varies according to degrees, the obstacles that should be crossed, the potential problems of being in existence and what all factors constitute a fulfilling life.

The idea behind existence was in the talks and suggested by philosophers throughout history but it was only nineteenth century philosophers Soren Kierkgaard and Friedrich Nietzsche who promoted it aggressively with their skills that did obstruct the earlier teachings to a certain extent. In later times, it was their philosophies that stayed on up till the twentieth century which gave birth to a slew of new critical thinkers. Some of the influential persons of the time were Jean Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus and Franz Kafka who expressed vividly on the concept of existentialist theories.

In history, French philosopher Gabriel Marcel sown the first seed for thinking about existence and its theory was adopted by Jean Paul Sartre. The two prominent forefathers created the fundamentals for existentialist movement yet it was left unclear what would have happened in the twentieth century when the same topic was revived for debate. Philosophers like Pascal found zeal in knowing people’s silent struggle against obstacles in the meaningless life but it was only after the Second World War Existentialism became widely known philosophical, cultural movement.   

Questions:

• What was the take on existentialism during the 19^th century?
• How did philosopher see the ideology behind existence?