existentialism
/ˌɛɡzəˈstɛn(t)ʃəˌlɪzəm/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 2.59 in modern English
23
Scrabble Score
14
Letters
7
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
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.
Uncountable
noun
The philosophical views of a particular thinker associated with the existentialist movement.
Countable
noun
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”).
Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "The heyday of existentialism occurred in the mid-twentieth century."
- "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."
- "[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."
- "This is a matter of coincidence rather than historical continuity; there is, however, a link between Stirner and modern existentialism through Nietzsche, who had read Stirner's work though he nowhere expressly refers to it."
- "Sartre’s existentialism is atheistic, but the existentialism of Marcel is distinctly Christian."
- "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."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₁éǵʰ Proto-Indo-European *-s Proto-Indo-European *h₁éǵʰs Proto-Italic *eks Latin ex Latin ex- Proto-Indo-European *steh₂- Proto-Indo-European *stísteh₂ti Proto-Italic *sistō Latin sistō Latin exsistō Latin exsistēns Proto-Indo-European *-(i)yós Proto-Italic *-ijos Proto-Italic *-ios Old Latin -ios Latin -ius Latin -ia Latin exsistentia Proto-Indo-European *h₂el- Proto-Indo-European *-is Proto-Indo-European *h₂élisder.? Proto-Italic *-ālis Latin -ālis Late Latin exsistentiālislbor. English existential Proto-Indo-European *-id- Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-idyéti Proto-Hellenic *-íd͏̌d͏̌ō Ancient Greek -ῐ́ζω (-ĭ́zō) Proto-Indo-European *-mos Proto-Indo-European *-mós Ancient Greek -μός (-mós) Ancient Greek -ισμός (-ismós)der. English -ism 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).
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˌɛɡzəˈstɛn(t)ʃəˌlɪzəm/
- British English: /ˌɛɡzɪˈstɛnʃəlɪz(ə)m/
Usage
Inflected Forms
Derived Forms
Frequently Paired Words
Synonyms
Antonyms
noumenalism