existentialism
a philosophical movement that stresses the individual's unique position as a self-determining agent responsible for making meaningful, authentic choices in a universe seen as purposeless or irrational: existentialism is associated especially with Heidegger, Jaspers, Marcel, and Sartre, and is opposed to philosophical rationalism and empiricism.
Origin of existentialism
1Other words from existentialism
- ex·is·ten·tial·ist, adjective, noun
- ex·is·ten·tial·is·tic, adjective
- ex·is·ten·tial·is·ti·cal·ly, adverb
- non·ex·is·ten·tial·ism, noun
Words Nearby existentialism
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use existentialism in a sentence
At a gas station I read a Twitter thread by the novelist Michael Chabon, a Californian, about nihilism versus existentialism.
California’s Forever Fire | by Elizabeth Weil, ProPublica, photography by Meridith Kohut for The New York Times Magazine | January 3, 2022 | ProPublicaAt the center of this existentialism is the question of what we become when society and civilization fail us.
You Deserve Nothing by Alexander Maksik A thought-provoking debut that mixes existentialism with cool Parisian intrigue.
“It all goes back to existentialism,” she says of her career.
She talks to Glenn Kenny about dirty films, sexual existentialism—and turning 21.
British Dictionary definitions for existentialism
/ (ˌɛɡzɪˈstɛnʃəˌlɪzəm) /
a modern philosophical movement stressing the importance of personal experience and responsibility and the demands that they make on the individual, who is seen as a free agent in a deterministic and seemingly meaningless universe
Derived forms of existentialism
- existentialist, adjective, noun
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Cultural definitions for existentialism
A movement in twentieth-century literature and philosophy, with some forerunners in earlier centuries. Existentialism stresses that people are entirely free and therefore responsible for what they make of themselves. With this responsibility comes a profound anguish or dread. Søren Kierkegaard and Feodor Dostoyevsky in the nineteenth century, and Jean-Paul Sartre, Martin Heidegger, and Albert Camus in the twentieth century, were existentialist writers.
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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