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existentialism
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existentialism

Branch of philosophy based on the situation of the individual in an absurd or meaningless universe where humans have free will. Existentialists argue that people are responsible for and the sole judge of their actions as they affect others. The origin of existentialism is usually traced back to the Danish philosopher Kierkegaard; among its proponents were Martin Heidegger in Germany and Jean-Paul Sartre in France.

All self-aware individuals can grasp or intuit their own existence and freedom, and individuals must not allow their choices to be constrained by anything – not even reason or morality. This freedom to choose leads to the notion of nonbeing, or nothingness, which can provoke angst or dread.

Existentialism has many variants. Kierkegaard emphasized the importance of pure choice in ethics and Christian belief; Sartre tried to combine existentialism with Marxism.



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The Parker novels feature a cold-blooded professional thief and killer named Parker who is the epitome of an existentialist nihilist surviving in a bleak and unforgivable world of other killers and cutthroats.
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A balanced and penetrating "reconsideration" of the Russian thinker's achievement that no student of Berdyaev can ignore, Banerjee's essay places and assesses Berdyaev's overall contribution and significance as an existentialist philosopher and an original interpreter of Russian philosophical and religious thought.
Revisiting Nikolai Berdyaev by Panichas, George A. / Modern Age
We Won't Budge places Diawara in the company of such giants as Cheikh Hamidou Kane, who wrote the existentialist masterpiece Ambiguous Adventure (1961); J.
Manthia Diawara. We Won't Budge: An African Exile in the World by Washington, Teresa N. / African American Review
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