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Philosophical Movement: Existentialism

Introduction

The appearance or the enhancement of the specific school of Philosophy is covered by the theme of philosophical movement. These schools of thoughts bring about a specific metaphysical thought by taking into account a particular subject. The philosophical movements basically help us in understanding the views of great philosophers, historians and scholars who exist in that specific time period. One important aspect that relates to the philosophical movements is the attachment of the “ism” suffixes. The movement differentiates from a theory on the ground that intellectual work in the case of movements has been produced that bring into light great number of ideas. This essay is written with an objective to discuss one of the modern philosophical movements that is famous in the field of philosophy with the name of Existentialism. The essay will take into account the ideas that are important to the movement and also discusses the influence that has been associated with the movement.

Discussion

Philosophy is a wide field and thus it has given birth to a number of movements and ideas that has provided basis for the future working in the field. Existentialism is one of those great philosophical movements that have brought about a range of new ideas and evolutions in the field of philosophy.

Existentialism Movement

E Existentialsim is considered to be a philosophical movement that has taken birth on the basis of Sartre philosophy and has gor extension from the work of Kierkegaard and Heidegger (Solomon, pp. 761-765). The Movement has been initiated on the idea that the experiences that individuals have must form the basis for the initiation of the philosophical thinking. Human existence cannot only be availed with the elements of moral and scientific thinking, so in order to better understand the human existence a further set of categories must be introduced that will be provide a governance under the element of “authenticity” (Mullarkey and Lord, pp. 309; Stewart, pp. ix). In terms of existentialism, authenticity can be defined as being true to one's own character and personality.

The initiation of the Existentialism movement was marked in the mid-19th century as a reaction to oppose the philosophies founded by Hegel and Kant. The first Existentialism philosopher is Soren Kierkegaard, according to whom the meaning to life is given solely by an individual. Furthermore, these are the individuals who comprehend the way of living a passionate and sincere life (Lowrie, pp. pp. 37-40). After the World War II, the concept of Existentialism has gained popularity and has exerted its impact on a number of disciplines including art, psychology, literature and drama etc.

The Existentialism approach has taken into account traditional systematic philosophies that seem to be too abstract as compared to the existing human experience. According to the philosophers, the views of Existentialist theorists greatly vary from each other as compared to other philosophical movements. The criticisms that have been posed to the existentialist philosophers highlights that these academics made a confusing use of terminologies and thus have contradicted ...