Existentialism

Existentialism is a form of philosophical inquiry that explores the problem of human existence and centers on the lived experience of the thinking, feeling, acting individual. In the view of the existentialist, the individual's starting point has been called "the existential angst" (or, variably, existential attitude, dread, etc.), or a sense of disorientation, confusion, or anxiety in the face of an apparently meaningless or absurd world.

Existentialism is associated with several 19th- and 20th-century European philosophers who shared an emphasis on the human subject, despite profound doctrinal differences. Many existentialists regarded traditional systematic or academic philosophies, in style and content, as too abstract and remote from concrete human experience.

A primary virtue in existentialist thought is authenticity. Søren Kierkegaard is generally considered to have been the first existentialist philosopher, though he did not use the term existentialism. He proposed that each individual—not society or religion—is solely responsible for giving meaning to life and living it passionately and sincerely, or "authentically".

List of Notable Existentialists:

• Albert Camus

• Fyodor Dostoyevsky

• Martin Heidegger

• Franz Kafka

• Søren Kierkegaard

• Friedrich Nietzsche

• Jean-Paul Sartre