Existentialists see human life as being basically a series of decisions that must be made with no way of knowing conclusively what the correct choices are. The individual must continually decide what is true and what is false; what is right and what is wrong; which beliefs to accept and which to reject; what to do and what not to do.
To existentialists, human choice is subjective, because individuals finally must make their own decisions without help from such external standards as laws, ethical rules, or traditions. Because individuals make their own choices, they are free;but because they freely choose, they are completely responsible for their choices.
Responsibility is the dark side of freedom. When individuals realize that they are completely responsible for their decisions, actions and beliefs, they are overcome by anxiety. They try to escape from this anxiety by ignoring or denying their freedom and their responsibility. But because this amounts to ignoring or denying their actual situation, they succeed only in deceiving themselves.
Existentialists believe people learn about themselves best by examining the most extreme forms of human experience.
Existentialists write about such topics as death and the shadow it casts on life; the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of maintaining satisfactory relationships with other people; the ultimate futility and absurdity of life; the terrifying possibility of suicide; the alienation of the individual from society, nature, and other individuals; and the inescapable presence of anxiety and dread.
This contradicts the common philosophies, which were focusing on the nature of language more than the experience.
Occurring in the time after WWII.
So broadly used that an exact definition is not possible.
-from the handout from class with Ms. Relyea
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