existentialism
English
[edit]
Etymology
[edit]Etymology tree
English existential
English existentialism
From existential + -ism (suffix forming the names of schools of thought, systems, or theories), modelled after German Existentialismus. The word was popularized by the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980) in his work L’existentialisme est un humanisme (Existentialism is a Humanism, 1946).[1]
Pronunciation
[edit]- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˌɛɡzɪˈstɛnʃəlɪz(ə)m/, /ˌɛɡzɪˈstɛnʃlɪz(ə)m/
- (General American) IPA(key): /ˌɛɡzəˈstɛn(t)ʃəˌlɪzəm/, /ˌɛk-/
Audio (General American); /ˌɛkzəˈstɛnʃəˌlɪzəm/: (file) - Rhymes: -ɛnʃəlɪzəm
- Hyphenation: ex‧ist‧ent‧i‧al‧i‧sm
Noun
[edit]existentialism (countable and uncountable, plural existentialisms) (philosophy)
- (uncountable) A 20th-century philosophical movement emphasizing the uniqueness of each human existence in freely making its self-defining choices; also (generally), a philosophy which emphasizes existence over essence.
- Antonym: noumenalism
- The heyday of existentialism occurred in the mid-twentieth century.
- 1933 January, Arthur Liebert, translated by George H[olland] Sabine, “Contemporary German Philosophy”, in Frank Thilly, G. Watts Cunningham, George H. Sabine, editors, The Philosophical Review, volume XLII, number 1 (number 247 overall), Lancaster, Pa.; New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green, and Company, →ISSN, →JSTOR, →OCLC, page 32:
- This [dialectal] theology takes sides against idealism and for ‘existentialism’, in other words, for a philosophy which makes being its starting-point. But in the idealists there are already highly significant elements of existentialism, as [Eduard] Spranger convincingly urges.
- 1956 September, Jean-Paul Sartre, “Sartre: Existentialism [4. Existentialism is a Humanism]”, in Walter Kaufmann, transl., Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre […], Cleveland, Oh.: Meridian Books, World Publishing Company, published November 1969, →OCLC, pages 288 and 290:
- [page 288] [W]e can begin by saying that existentialism, in our sense of the word, is a doctrine that does render human life possible; a doctrine, also, which affirms that every truth and every action imply both an environment and a human subjectivity. […] [page 290] Atheistic existentialism, of which I am a representative, declares with greater consistency that if God does not exist there is at least one whose existence comes before its essence, a being which exists before it can be defined by any conception of it. That being is man or, as [Martin] Heidegger has it, the human reality. What doe we mean by saying that existence precedes essence? We mean that man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world—and defines himself afterwards.
- (countable) The philosophical views of a particular thinker associated with the existentialist movement.
- Sartre’s existentialism is atheistic, but the existentialism of Marcel is distinctly Christian.
- 1952, Kurt F[rank] Reinhardt, “Introduction: The Crisis of Human Existence”, in The Existentialist Revolt: The Main Themes and Phases of Existentialism […], Milwaukee, Wis.: The Bruce Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 5:
- In the "existentialisms" of [Martin] Heidegger, [Karl] Jaspers, [Jean-Paul] Sartre, [Gabriel] Marcel, etc., no less than in the "dialectal" or "crisis" theology of Karl Barth and his associates, [Søren] Kirkegaard's thought lives on as a challenge to the twentieth century.
- 1965 September, Mikel Dufrenne, “Existentialism and Existentialisms”, in Marvin Farber, editor, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, volume XXVI, number 1, Buffalo, N.Y.: [F]or the International Phenomenological Society by the University of Buffalo Foundation, →ISSN, →JSTOR, →OCLC, page 51:
- Instead of Existentialism, we should speak of Existentialisms. […] [M]y contention is that to speak of Existentialism means something, but that every one of the so-called Existentialists treads now his own path in his own direction.
- (uncountable, historical) Synonym of structuralism (“a school of thought that focuses on exploring the individual elements of consciousness, how they are organized into more complex experiences, and how these mental phenomena correlate with physical events”).
- 1922 January, E[dward] B[radford] Titchener, “Functional Psychology and the Psychology of Act: II”, in Edward Bradford Titchener, editor, The American Journal of Psychology, volume XXXIII, number 1, Ithaca, N.Y.: Morrill Hall, Cornell University, →ISSN, →JSTOR, →OCLC, footnote 160, page 81:
- I sought to 'psychologise' [Franz] Brentano's act as being, existentially, the temporal factor intrinsic to psychological subject-matter. […] My attempt sprang, indeed, from a rather desperate desire somehow to bring intentionalism and existentialism together at close quarters, and to transcend the mere calling of names.
- 1943, Coleman R[oberts] Griffith, “The Principles of Experimental Method”, in Principles of Systematic Psychology, Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, →OCLC, ¶ 339, page 438:
- [T]here was the argument of existentialism that the qualities of experience, or of the contents of gnomic mind, rather than acts constitute the subject matter of psychology.
Derived terms
[edit]Related terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]philosophical movement emphasizing the uniqueness of each human existence in freely making its self-defining choices; philosophy which distinguishes and emphasizes existence from essence; philosophical views of a particular thinker associated with the existentialist movement
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synonym of structuralism — see structuralism
References
[edit]- ^ “existentialism, n.”, in OED Online
, Oxford: Oxford University Press, July 2023; “existentialism, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
Further reading
[edit]
existentialism on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
Swedish
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Borrowed from French existentialisme.
Noun
[edit]existentialism c
- (philosophy) existentialism
- Synonym: existentialfilosofi
Declension
[edit]| nominative | genitive | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| singular | indefinite | existentialism | existentialisms |
| definite | existentialismen | existentialismens | |
| plural | indefinite | — | — |
| definite | — | — |
Related terms
[edit]Categories:
- English terms suffixed with -ism
- English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *h₂el- (grow)
- English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *steh₂-
- English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European word *h₁éǵʰs
- English 6-syllable words
- English 5-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio pronunciation
- Rhymes:English/ɛnʃəlɪzəm
- Rhymes:English/ɛnʃəlɪzəm/6 syllables
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English uncountable nouns
- English countable nouns
- en:Philosophy
- English terms with usage examples
- English terms with quotations
- English terms with historical senses
- Swedish terms borrowed from French
- Swedish terms derived from French
- Swedish lemmas
- Swedish nouns
- Swedish common-gender nouns
- sv:Philosophy
- Swedish nouns ending in "-ism"
