The Uniqueness of Individuals

The Uniqueness of Individuals

  • Submitted By: hani
  • Date Submitted: 11/20/2008 3:51 AM
  • Category: Philosophy
  • Words: 465
  • Page: 2
  • Views: 954

Existentialism is philosophical movement or tendency, emphasizing individual existence, freedom, and choice. It emphasizes the uniqueness and isolation of the individual experience in a hostile or indifferent universe, regards human existence as unexplainable, and stresses responsibility for the consequences of one's acts. Existentialism argues that man has no predefined purpose or meaning; rather, humans define themselves in terms of who they become as their individual lives are played out in response to the challenges posed by existence in the world. The highest good for the individual is to find his or her own unique vocation. I must find a truth that is true for me. All existentialists have followed in stressing the importance of passionate individual action in deciding questions of both morality and truth. They have insisted, accordingly, that personal experience and acting on one's own convictions are essential in arriving at the truth. The individual consciousness is responsible for all the choices it makes, regardless of the consequences. Condemned to be free because man's actions and choices are his and his alone, he is condemned to be responsible for his free choices. Since actions are no longer good or evil, actions must seem more serious. With the Eternal Recurrence, actions become weightier because one must be prepared to do them over and over again for eternity. This still doesn't, after all, mean that they are right or wrong; it simply means that before you do something, you must determine that you really want to do it. A world without purpose, value, or meaning is literally senseless, worthless, meaningless, and empty. Efforts of humanity to find meaning in the universe will ultimately fail and, hence, are absurd because no such meaning exists. The human condition is absurd, as the confrontation between man's desire for significance, meaning, clarity and the silent, cold universe. Such a realization or encounter with the absurd leaves the...

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