EXISTENTIALISM
"Existence before essence."

(The lived life is prior to--and more important than--any idea or explanation.)

Existentialist themes:

1. anti-rationalism and authenticity

Rational systems diminish the nobility and the integrity of the individual. To accept an idea of oneself is to live as a stereotype.

2. individuality and radical contingency

3. making meaning for oneself

4. (criterionless) choice and responsibility

5. the absurdity of the human condition (science is incompatible with human purposefulness)

J. P. Sartre in Being and Nothingness says:

"Consciousness is a hole in being."

Radical dualism: self and world.

Criticism of Freud, in particular, and science, in general, in attempting to explain individual consciousness and action.

A. Camus on authenticity in The Myth of Sisyphus (the authenticity of Sisyphus pushing up the rock though he knows his effort is futile):

" . . . convinced of the wholly human origin of all that is human, a blind man eager to see who knows that the night has no end, he is still on the go.  The rock is still rolling.

Question for reflection:

Why does Camus say at the end, "One must imagine Sisyphus happy."