Reflection Paper

An Encounter with Existentialism Existentialism is a philosophical movement that began in the 1830’s with Soren Kierkegaard. The movement also developed during the period of time between the first and second world wars (1914 – 1950). However, the philosophy of existentialism attained great popularity after the close of World War II, thanks in part to the literary endeavors of Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre. The movement began, however, a century earlier in Denmark when Soren Kierkegaard first presented existentialist principles through his writing. Kierkegaard (1813 – 1855) is “generally considered to be the ‘father’ of the movement."[1] However, it was Jean-Paul Sartre (1905 – 1980) who, in modern and post-modern times, contributed largely to the prominence of the movement through his plays and novels which helped to spread existentialist thinking. In addition to Sartre, the following figures are well-known writers also associated with the movement: Albert Camus and Samuel Beckett. These figures have established their ideas broadly and they can be found in their writings, which will be discussed later in this paper. Existentialism deals with interpreting, explaining and espousing beliefs about one’s own existence for one’s self. In less abstract terms, it can be interpreted to mean that it is my decision to give whatever meaning to my life that I wish. Existentialism does not attempt to calculate or quantify human existence, nor does it rely upon the sciences--ironically, it is only after God is declared dead by Nietzsche, and after the nature of empirical inquiry is widely accepted in academia and, to some extent at least, public consciousness, that a philosophy such as this can thrive, so it can be said that existentialism owes something to science. In Kierkegaard, the challenge of existence “is to find a truth that is truth for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die.”[2] It can be said that this simple statement, intrinsically

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