Existentialism

Existentialism, as a philosophical theory, practice, literary genre, and human tendency, makes individual experience and self-reflection the bases for truth, knowledge, and value. Human reasoning alone does not suffice in supplying individuals their own reasons for action and morals; human emotions and passions also have moral authority. As in daily life, so too in work and business, individuals must construct reasons, meaning, and morality, assessing worth and value for their existence. Jean-Paul Sartre defined existentialism as a new form of humanism for the 20th century. In its radical turn inward, esteeming subjectivity, existentialism breaks from past philosophical tradition and legacy. Philosophers from Plato to Hegel held up objective, universal, impersonal standards of truth and morality. Soren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) made a personal perspective on truth the ...

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