Existentialism

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

Existentialism is an intellectual movement that spans philosophy, theology, literature, and film. As a philosophical movement, it is best understood as defined by a set of concerns, rather than doctrines. Existentialists worried about a crisis in meaning caused by disenchantment with and alienation from the community, other individuals, and oneself. They worried about threats to individuality posed by modern mass society and modern scientific rationalism. They worried about threats to the individual’s freedom of choice. Different existentialist authors offered different sorts of responses to these threats, ranging from the assertion of the individual’s radical capacity to choose the meaning of their own life to the need to find the meaning of one’s life in a divine source. Different instructors and sections of this course will emphasize different themes and authors drawn from the existentialist movement. Consult each section’s syllabus for more detail.