Tuesday, October 11, 2011

What is Existentialism.



Remember when you were young and you kept on asking "Why?" whenever your parents gave you an answer. A philosopher will act the same way. People say that it's important to get good grades in school but a philosopher will ask "Why?". Then we say it's because it helps you get a good job in the future but the philosopher will still ask "Why?". Your philosophy depends on what you think the last answer is, the last answer is an answer that is not possible to ask "Why?" any more.

If you keep asking "Why?", there is never going to be a final answer. There is nothing that says getting good grades is important so you don't believe it's true. This is Nihilism.

If the last answer is because "God says so", then you're a "Divine Command" theorist. These people think that god decided getting good grades is important.

Existentialist believe that you choose your destiny and you get to choose what is right and wrong. The answer to "Why?" is "because you said so", not god or anybody else. In nihilism, there is no final answer but in existentialism, there is a final answer. The final answer is up to you.

In Existentialism, different things can be important to different people. Getting good grades can be important to one person, but can also be unimportant to another. They might disagree with each other but both are correct because they say so.

Existentialism means that it is up to you to decide what is important. Not god or anybody else.

1 comment:

  1. For a Christian existentialist, even if there were a God, one must still have the responsibility to choose one's own destiny before God.

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