existentialism

existentialism, the name commonly given to a group of somewhat loosely associated philosophical doctrines and ideas which found expression in the work of such men as Sartre, Heidegger, Marcel, Camus, and Jaspers. Though the theories advanced by different existentialist writers diverge widely in many important respects, so that it would be misleading to speak of a philosophical ‘school’ or ‘movement’, certain underlying themes can be singled out as characteristic. Existentialists tend, for example, to emphasize the unique and particular in human experience; they place the individual person at the centre of their pictures of the world, and are suspicious of philosophical or psychological doctrines that obscure this essential individuality by speaking as if there were some abstract ‘human nature’, some set of general laws or principles, to which human beings are determined or required, by their common humanity, to conform. Each person is what he or she chooses to be or become, and cannot escape responsibility for character or deeds by claiming that they are the predetermined consequence of factors beyond one's power to control or resist: nor can we justify what we do in terms of external or ‘objective’ standards imposed upon us from without.