Existentialism

Individuals in Process

Existentialism is focused upon the individual, and is commonly seen as being a humanist pursuit. Furthermore, the philosophy is interested in how individuals exist, not what their existence is comprised of. The existentialist argues that, through our nature as beings of choice, existence precedes essence. In other words, we create ourselves through our choices. This might lead one to sur-mise that existentialism is primarily philosophical; far from it. Existentialism is seen as being practical; indeed, a way of living. Through arguing that we are the result of our choices, existentialism does not deny that we are shaped through our situation but rather argues that we can make something out of any given situation through our choices.

Time, Death, and Absurdity

Our experience of time is fleeting and of the essence, and for the existentialist this is important. Unlike the positivist notion of a universal time, existentialists argue that we experience time in different ways and depending upon what we are doing, thus adding a qualitative aspect to lived time. We are shaped by our past and yet at the same time we are more than just products of some sort of inevitability. We create our imagined future through our choices and so even our perception of the present is shaped through our free will. Because the decision to choose is in fact a choice, existentialism argues that these choices arise largely from nothingness and negation, now center-points at the heart of how we exist. Thus our own death is a lack of existence that is ironically similar to our existence of choices, which also arises out of nothingness. This renders our own death an absurd concept.

...