Philosophy in Credo: Existentialism

Danish philosopher and religious thinker. Kierkegaard's outwardly uneventful life in Copenhagen contrasted with his intensive inner examination of self and society, which resulted in various profound writings.

Post-Kantian German philosopher; put forward the concepts of the superman and the death of God in Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883-85); one of the precursors of existentialism.

Russian novelist. Remarkable for their profound psychological insight, Dostoevsky's novels have greatly influenced Russian writers, and since the beginning of the 20th century have been increasingly influential abroad.

Czech novelist writing in German. In his two main novels The Trial (1925) and The Castle (1926), published posthumously against his wishes, he portrays man's fear, isolation, and bewilderment in a nightmarish dehumanized world.

French novelist, dramatist, and essayist, noted for his pessimistic portrayal of man's condition of isolation in an absurd world. Active in the French Resistance he became Coeditor (with Sartre) of Combat; breaking with Sartre after the war, Camus devoted himself to writing. Nobel Prize for Literature, 1957.

French novelist. His work is largely autobiographical and concerned with the conflict between desire and conventional morality. Noted for his diaries and novels, such as The Immoralist (1902) and Lafcadio's Adventures (1914), which examine alienation and the drive for individuality in an often disapproving society.

French philosopher and playwright, a major representative of French existential thought. Marcel’s philosophy is discursive and unsystematic: the expression of a reflective exploration rather than a record of conclusions reached.

German psychiatrist, philosopher, and theologian. A founder of modern existentialism, he was concerned with human reactions to extreme situations.

Spanish philosopher and writer. His novels, poetry, and philosophical studies, such as The Tragic Sense of Life (1913) often address the conflict between reason and faith and the solitary nature of human existence.

From Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy
Russian religious thinker. He began as a “Kantian Marxist” in epistemology, ethical theory, and philosophy of history, but soon turned away from Marxism (although he continued to accept Marx’s critique of capitalism) toward a theistic philosophy of existence.

Irish dramatist, novelist, and poet, who wrote in both French and English. Achieved worldwide fame in 1953 with his play Waiting for Godot (En attendant Godot). He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969 and was a hugely influential figure in twentieth-century drama.

From The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy
German term for a special form of anxiety, an emotion seen by existentialists as both constituting and revealing the human condition.

Anticipatory tension or vague dread persisting in the absence of a specific threat. In contrast to fear, which is a realistic reaction to actual danger, anxiety is generally related to an unconscious threat. Anxiety is an unpleasant affect accompanied by a myriad of physiologic manifestations (quickened heart beat, gastrointestinal distress, ‘butterflies’ and diarrhoea, a tightening in the chest, tremulousness, sweating, muscle tension) as well as psychological manifestations (a sense of dread and impending danger, of helplessness, of insecurity and uncertainty).

From The Encyclopedia of Ethics
The term, introduced into existentialist philosophy by Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), was popularized by Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980).

From A Dictionary of Philosophy
Usually equivalent in the verbal sense to 'existence' (see is). As the most general property of all reality this is often considered to be the defining subject of metaphysical enquiry.

The state of being aware of oneself and one's surroundings, without hindrance from sleep, illness, drugs, or hypnotism. This awareness is not purely of external events or phenomena, but also of one's own feelings, beliefs, and mental events.

From The Edinburgh International Encyclopaedia of Psychoanalysis
A term utilized by Heidegger to characterize the matter-of-fact, concretely individual aspect of human life as it is experientially lived.

From Dictionary of Visual Discourse: A Dialectical Lexicon of Terms
The prescientific life-world, or the concrete world of everyday life prior to all theorizing, science and philosophy.

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
Nonbeing. The concept is much used in existentialism. Some philosophers think that the problem of why something, rather than nothing, exists is the deepest metaphysical conundrum, whereas others consider it irrelevant. In Buddhism, nothingness is the essence of enlightenment.

From A Dictionary of Philosophy, Macmillan
That which has no meaning, reason, or purpose despite a human need or prima facie appearance to the contrary.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Philosophical and literary movement in which man and his capabilities are the central concern. The term was originally restricted to a point of view prevalent among thinkers in the Renaissance.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Derived from the Latin nihil, “nothing,” nihilism in ethical discourse is generally defined as the absolute denial or negation of values.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Modern school of philosophy founded by Edmund Husserl. Its influence extended throughout Europe and was particularly important to the early development of existentialism.

Term used to designate a multitude of trends—in the arts, philosophy, religion, technology, and many other areas—that come after and deviate from the many 20th-cent. movements that constituted modernism. In general, the postmodern view is cool, ironic, and accepting of the fragmentation of contemporary existence. It tends to concentrate on surfaces rather than depths, to blur the distinctions between high and low culture, and as a whole to challenge a wide variety of traditional cultural values.