Existentialists
Existentialism is a family of philosophy, philosophical views and inquiry that explore the human individual's struggle to lead an Authenticity (philosophy), authentic life despite the apparent Absurdity#The Absurd, absurdity or incomprehensibility of existence. In examining meaning of life, meaning, purpose, and value (ethics), value, existentialist thought often includes concepts such as existential crisis, existential crises, Angst#Existentialist angst, angst, courage, and freedom. Existentialism is associated with several 19th- and 20th-century European philosophers who shared an emphasis on the human subject, despite often profound differences in thought. Among the 19th-century figures now associated with existentialism are philosophers Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche, as well as novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky, all of whom critiqued rationalism and concerned themselves with the problem of meaning (philosophy), meaning. The word ''existentialism'', however, was not coin ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (, ; ; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary criticism, literary critic, considered a leading figure in 20th-century French philosophy and Marxism. Sartre was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism (and Phenomenology (philosophy), phenomenology). His work has influenced sociology, critical theory, post-colonial theory, and literary studies. He was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature despite attempting to refuse it, saying that he always declined official honors and that "a writer should not allow himself to be turned into an institution." Sartre held an open relationship with prominent feminist and fellow existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir. Together, Sartre and de Beauvoir challenged the culture, cultural and society, social assumptions and expectations of their upbringings, which they considered bourgeois, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Maurice Jean Jacques Merleau-Ponty. ( ; ; 14 March 1908 – 3 May 1961) was a French phenomenological philosopher, strongly influenced by Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. The constitution of meaning in human experience was his main interest and he wrote on perception, art, politics, religion, biology, psychology, psychoanalysis, language, nature, and history. He was the lead editor of '' Les Temps modernes'', the leftist magazine he established with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir in 1945. At the core of Merleau-Ponty's philosophy is a sustained argument for the foundational role that perception plays in the human experience of the world. Merleau-Ponty understands perception to be an ongoing dialogue between one's lived body and the world which it perceives, in which perceivers passively and actively strive to express the perceived world in concert with others. He was the only major phenomenologist of the first half of the twentieth century to engage extensivel ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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L'existentialisme Est Un Humanisme
''Existentialism Is a Humanism'' () is a 1946 work by the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, based on a lecture by the same name he gave at Club Maintenant in Paris, on 29 October 1945. In early translations, ''Existentialism and Humanism'' was the title used in the United Kingdom; the work was originally published in the United States as ''Existentialism'', and a later translation employs the original title. Summary Sartre asserts that the key defining concept of existentialism is that the existence of a person is prior to their essence or " existence precedes essence". Thus, Sartre rejects what he calls "deterministic excuses" and claims that people must take responsibility for their behavior. Sartre defines anguish as the emotion that people feel once they realize that they are responsible not just for themselves, but for all humanity. Anguish leads people to realize that their actions guide humanity and allows them to make judgments about others based on their attitude towards ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher. He began his career as a classical philology, classical philologist, turning to philosophy early in his academic career. In 1869, aged 24, Nietzsche became the youngest professor to hold the Chair of Classical Philology at the University of Basel. Plagued by health problems for most of his life, he resigned from the university in 1879, and in the following decade he completed much of his core writing. In 1889, aged 44, he suffered a collapse and thereafter a complete loss of his mental faculties, with paralysis and vascular dementia. He lived his remaining years under the care of his family until his death. Friedrich Nietzsche bibliography, His works and Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, his philosophy have fostered not only extensive scholarship but also much popular interest. Nietzsche's work encompasses philosophical polemics, poetry, cultural criticism and fiction, while displaying ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Karl Jaspers
Karl Theodor Jaspers (; ; 23 February 1883 – 26 February 1969) was a German-Swiss psychiatrist and philosopher who had a strong influence on modern theology, psychiatry, and philosophy. His 1913 work ''General Psychopathology'' influenced many later diagnostic criteria, and argued for a distinction between "primary" and "secondary" delusions. After being trained in and practising psychiatry, Jaspers turned to philosophical inquiry and attempted to develop an innovative philosophical system. He was often viewed as a major exponent of existentialism in Germany, though he did not accept the label. Life Jaspers was born in Oldenburg (city), Oldenburg in 1883 to a mother from a local farming community, and a jurist father. He showed an early interest in philosophy, but his father's experience with the legal system influenced his decision to study law at Heidelberg University. Jaspers first studied law in Heidelberg and later in University of Munich, Munich for three semesters. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Existence
Existence is the state of having being or reality in contrast to nonexistence and nonbeing. Existence is often contrasted with essence: the essence of an entity is its essential features or qualities, which can be understood even if one does not know whether the entity exists. Ontology is the philosophical discipline studying the nature and types of existence. Singular existence is the existence of individual entities while general existence refers to the existence of concepts or universals. Entities present in space and time have Abstract and concrete, concrete existence in contrast to abstract entities, like numbers and sets. Other distinctions are between Subjunctive possibility, possible, Contingency (philosophy), contingent, and Metaphysical necessity, necessary existence and between Matter, physical and Mind, mental existence. The common view is that an entity either exists or not with nothing in between, but some philosophers say that there are degrees of existence, me ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Albert Camus
Albert Camus ( ; ; 7 November 1913 – 4 January 1960) was a French philosopher, author, dramatist, journalist, world federalist, and political activist. He was the recipient of the 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature at the age of 44, the second-youngest recipient in history. His works include ''The Stranger (Camus novel), The Stranger'', ''The Plague (novel), The Plague'', ''The Myth of Sisyphus'', ''The Fall (Camus novel), The Fall'' and ''The Rebel (book), The Rebel''. Camus was born in French Algeria to ''pied-noir'' parents. He spent his childhood in a poor neighbourhood and later studied philosophy at the University of Algiers. He was in Paris when the Battle of France, Germans invaded France during World War II in 1940. Camus tried to flee but finally joined the French Resistance where he served as editor-in-chief at ''Combat (newspaper), Combat'', an outlawed newspaper. After the war, he was a celebrity figure and gave many lectures around the world. He married twice ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Simone De Beauvoir
Simone Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir (, ; ; 9 January 1908 – 14 April 1986) was a French existentialist philosopher, writer, social theorist, and feminist activist. Though she did not consider herself a philosopher, nor was she considered one at the time of her death, she had a significant influence on both feminist existentialism and feminist theory. Beauvoir wrote novels, essays, short stories, biographies, autobiographies, and monographs on philosophy, politics, and social issues. She was best known for her "trailblazing work in feminist philosophy", '' The Second Sex'' (1949), a detailed analysis of women's oppression and a foundational tract of contemporary feminism. She was also known for her novels, the most famous of which were '' She Came to Stay'' (1943) and '' The Mandarins'' (1954). Her most enduring contribution to literature are her memoirs, notably the first volume, ''Mémoires d'une jeune fille rangée'' (1958). She received the 1954 Prix Gonc ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger (; 26 September 1889 – 26 May 1976) was a German philosopher known for contributions to Phenomenology (philosophy), phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. His work covers a range of topics including metaphysics, art, and language. In April 1933, Heidegger was elected as Rector (academia), rector at the University of Freiburg and has been widely criticized for his membership and support for the Nazi Party during his tenure. After World War II he was dismissed from Freiburg and banned from teaching after denazification hearings at Freiburg. There has been controversy about the relationship between Martin Heidegger and Nazism, his philosophy and Nazism. In Heidegger's first major text, ''Being and Time'' (1927), ''Dasein'' is introduced as a term for the type of being that humans possess. Heidegger believed that Dasein already has a "pre-ontological" and concrete understanding that shapes how it lives, which he analyzed in terms of the unitary structur ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Roman Catholicism In France
The Catholic Church in France, Gallican Church, or French Catholic Church, is part of the worldwide Catholic Church in full communion, communion with the Pope in Holy See, Rome. Established in the 2nd century in unbroken communion with the bishop of Rome, it was sometimes called the "eldest daughter of the church" (). The first written records of Christians in France date from the 2nd century when Irenaeus detailed the deaths of ninety-year-old bishop Saint Pothinus of Lugdunum (Lyon) and other martyrs of the 177 AD persecution in Lyon. In 496 Saint Remigius, Remigius baptized King Clovis I, who therefore converted from paganism to Catholicism. In 800, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne Emperor of the Carolingian Empire, Roman Empire, forming the political and religious foundations of Christendom in Europe and establishing in earnest the French government's long historical association with the Catholic Church. See drop-down essay on "Religion and Politics until the French Revolution ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Meaning (philosophy)
In philosophymore specifically, in its sub-fields semantics, semiotics, philosophy of language, metaphysics, and metasemanticsmeaning "is a relationship between two sorts of things: signs and the kinds of things they intend, express, or signify". The types of meanings vary according to the types of the thing that is being represented. There are: *the things, which might have meaning; *things that are also signs of other things, and therefore are always meaningful (i.e., natural signs of the physical world and ideas within the mind); *things that are necessarily meaningful, such as words and nonverbal symbols. The major contemporary positions of meaning come under the following partial definitions of meaning: *psychological theories, involving notions of thought, intention, or understanding; *logical theories, involving notions such as intension, cognitive content, or sense, along with extension, reference, or denotation; *message, content, information, or communication; * trut ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |