Of all the changes that I would feel if I were to embrace an existential philosophy, the most profound change would be that I would lose my empathy. Right now, I firmly believe in individual choice. However, I also believe that people's choices are shaped and changed by their histories. Therefore, I believe that people should be judged by their actions, but that those actions have to be taken in context of the entire life of the individual. Making all actions an effect of personal choice would prevent me from feeling empathy for those that I find to be unethical.

Having looked at the changes that embracing existentialism would have on my life, I am able to determine that existentialism is not the philosophy for me. I am far too social and empathetic of a person to believe that people are essentially alone in this world. Furthermore, I believe in less….

Existentialism is one of the most talked about -- and least understood -- theories today. Broadly, existentialism is the philosophy of existence or experience. More specifically, existentialism is the philosophical cult of nihilism. In other words, existentialism represents the theory that is that each man exists as an individual in a purposeless universe, and that he must oppose this hostile environment through the exercise of his free will.
Camus stresses the idea of being present in the moment to make choices in his novel The Stranger, when Meursault screams, "we are all privileged." The Stranger was inspired by the works of Soren Kierkegaard and the German philosophers Friedrich Nietzsche, Edmund Husserl, and Martin Heidegger, and was particularly widely read around the mid-20th century alongside the works of the French writer and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre and fellow writer and philosopher Simone de Beauvoir. The main tenets of the movement are set out….

Realistically Heidegger was at least vaguely a theist, which is rather contrary to the existentialist mind set of humanism, but his point was still existential and in his early work, at least he attempted to clearly deduce a way of stressing the need for the individual to seek answers through thought and identity, it was only in his later work that he stressed the transcendence of practical thought. To some degree as Flynn puts it Heidegger challenged the existentialists to stop losing the forest for the trees, by over emphasizing the concrete and practical examination over the whole of the greater "being." Yet, he also stresses that we are simply because we exist in the world with practical concerns of the every day and that to some degree this makes us universal to one another and therefore responsible for understanding self and society. (Flynn 51-54)
According to Heidegger the ontological….

Existentialism
'I should seek not the way, but my way." Rather than follow a strict set of rules about what school should or should not be like, the existentialist chooses his or her own vision of education. There is truly no one right way for students to learn or one method of teaching that is universally applicable. Existentialism classrooms therefore offer freedom for both educator and student. The existentialist model also encourages growth and creativity through limitless freedom.

As Blaise Pascal said, "Live today as if you were to die tomorrow." According to this philosophy, the students and teachers would do whatever they felt inspired to do at that moment, and curriculum would be loose. The existentialist teacher eschews structure. The existentialist does not attempt to become a specialist because to do so is too restricting. I agree with the quote, "Specialization diminishes a man-He is a creature of knowledge, not the….

1998). This is the context that favors ultimate questions by the very nature of our lives. Meaning can be constructed by making a choice in such absurd situation. Meursault's act of murder can be interpreted as an act of courage, a provocation he addressed to death and to uncertainty. Furthermore, extreme situations make hiding impossible and are considered a way of clarifying motives and drives. The existentialist theme of anxiety regarding life, death, contingencies, and extreme situations is obvious in this context and is related to the theme of absurd. For instance, Meursault, while imprisoned, in his cell he realized that he does not an appropriate way of escaping, also because he was never interested in ways of escaping before. However, it should be noticed that Camus' particular form of existentialism is also characterized by observation, detachment and a certain irony towards existence. Moreover, he does not seem to….

Existentialism and Ed Dante
Jean Paul Sartre's philosophy of existentialism was radically different from previous systems of morality that attempted to determine which actions were inherently morally right and wrong. Sartre instead suggested that human beings are free, within the framework of the cosmic order, to do as they wished. This did not mean, however, that people could simply do what they wanted without consequences. Rather, it meant that their actions created those consequences -- their character and their fate. "The Traditional View (which Sartre argues against)" of morality is that "essence precedes action" (Banach 2006). A bad character, in other words, means that a human being will do bad things. In this traditional view 'Ed Dante' is a bad and immoral person, or at very least a weak and corruptible person, and because of his character he does unethical things.

But Sartre believed there was no inherent essence, good or bad….

One can try to react against social norms by, for example, refusing to conform to sexual norms of morality, but this reaction is in and of itself an acknowledgement of the pervasiveness of the social ideal that Heidegger called inauthentic. Perhaps the classic example of this is the teenager that reacts against his or her parents by doing everything the opposite of what they advise, and thus only shows how deeply the parent's rules have become internalized in his or her consciousness. For the postmodernist, one cannot help but be engaged with the world. Unlike existentialists like Heidegger that saw people as chronically disengaged with reality, postmodernist thought sees engagement as a given. One cannot live outside of culture and language.
For the postmodernist, by rejecting the authentic self, a greater measure of freedom is actually achieved because the individual can both eschew either total obedience to a constructed social….

Existentialism: A History
Existentialism is a philosophical school of thought that addresses the "problem of being" (Stanford Encyclopedia, 2010). Existentialist questions involve the nature of man in relation to the universe, the subjective nature of "I" versus the objective "we," the creation and measure of meaning in a world with no intrinsic meaning, standards of morality in the absence of Divine Law (God), and the creation and measure of success in a world with no intrinsic standard of success. While the term "Existentialism" is often related with the European cultural movement of the 1940s and 50s, in which thinkers the likes of John Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvior rejected traditional institutions of self-description and traditional concepts of being in the world, it was the 19th century philosophers Kierkegaard and Nietzsche who inspired the reluctant "father" of Existentialism, Martin Heidegger, to first raise the question of the meaning of being (Stanford….

Religion is "a tremendous gruesome shadow," (Nietzsche 167). Christianity, and all institutionalized religions like it, has no real truth to it. Therefore, the masses dilute the meaningless of their lives with lies. The thinkers of the world are responsible for the death of God in the idea that they no longer believe in Him. Yet, there is a multitude of others who still blindly follow in His shadow. It is therefore, the job of the thinkers in society to rid the world of a useless concept which no longer imparts any real sense of meaning into the world; " -- And we -- we shall have to vanquish his shadow," (Nietzsche 167). It is a form of nihilism, which Nietzsche wanted to avoid by looking deeper than its teachings. hen the masses found out the truth about the truth, he feared nihilism would take over and continue to spread….

Existentialism
Filled with computers, books, and hands-on materials, the existentialist classroom is devoted to individual student development and creative expression. Existentialism adds metaphysical meaning to the classroom. Students learn material that is meaningful to them personally; they do not feel, as they do in other classrooms, that what they learn will have no bearing on the real world. Moreover, existentialist learning touches the very core of their existence, and helps them discover the meaning of life from their own perspective. Teachers offer reading materials they feel might be valuable in stimulating the students' level of inquiry. Books are not selected from an established canon of classics, but can also include modern sources that the teacher finds helpful. The humanities are emphasized in the existential classroom, but not necessarily at the expense of the sciences. However, when science or math is taught the teacher makes ample reference to metaphysical ideas to underscore….

Existentialism is a philosophical movement that views human existence as having characteristics, such as anxiety, dread, freedom, awareness of death, and consciousness of existing, that are primary and that cannot be reduced to or explained by a natural-scientific approach or any approach that attempts to detach itself." For existentialism, human beings can be understood only from the inside and it emphasizes action, freedom, and decision as fundamental to human existence and is fundamentally opposed to the rationalist tradition and to positivism (Wikipedia). The Stranger reflects existentialism that our world is a universe that has no place for us, in which our life makes no sense. In the novel, Meursault is portrayed as aloof, detached and unemotional. He does not think about events and the possible consequences. He also fails to express any emotion in his relationship with his friends. Meursault's complete indifference to society and human relationships causes him….

Martin Heidegger and Jean-Paul Sartre on Existentialism and Humanism
The Essentials of Essentialism

Martin Heidegger's philosophical opus is both deep and complex and a comprehensive examination of it here would be impossible. However it is possible to provide an overview of his essential teachings - of the essential aspects of his essentialism. Doing so will allow us, in later sections, to explore his criticisms of Jean-Paul Sartre's far more famous version of existentialism as well as to examine the ways in which - despite Heidegger's criticism of Sartre - the two are in many ways the same.

Heidegger, like all modern philosophers (and possibly the ancient ones as well), incorporated the work of a number of earlier thinkers into his own formulation of existentialism and his understanding of the nature of reality of the place of humans in the world. As an existentialist, Heidegger believed in a philosophy that was relatively concrete, that….

TESOL Philosophies
How I might implement the traditional philosophies in my teaching would be in this manner: idealism would be used to teach students that they should strive for something higher, some goal that is an ideal, a virtue, a good -- something like perfection, for example. It may not be possible, but by striving for it, we tend to achieve more than would otherwise be possible. Realism would be used in conjunction with ensuring that students nonetheless remain grounded in reality; for example, a student may want to be able to write a novel by the end of the year. This kind of thinking can be promoted along with idealism, but realism would be employed so as to not cause the student to be disappointed when the end of the year comes and the student cannot write a novel -- in this sense, I would say, "Yes, write a novel….

Existentialism Contextualized by Schizophrenia
The article analyzed in this assignment is Stadlen's "The simple words the people speak." This article deals with the phenomenon and question of existentialism. However, it does so from a viewpoint that considers this topic from the point-of-view of schizophrenia. In this article, the author is attempting to denote whether schizophrenia actually exists and what causes it (Stadlen, 2015). The article begins with the author quoting from a notable book about schizophrenia and existentialism, Sanity, adness and the Family, that serves as an overview of the work as a whole. The basis of the article is a review of an evening in which certain case studies were read aloud from this book, in addition to selected excerpts from Hamlet in which the prince's mother is questioning his sanity. Sanity, adness and the Family was comprised of the first-person narratives from young women who were diagnosed as schizophrenics….

By eliminating supposed purpose and meaning that derives from delusional cultural beliefs in Creators and supposed "Gods," existentialism actually allows individuals to create genuine meaning by defining its purpose realistically rather than supernaturally.
Personal Constructs:

Personal constructs comprise individual beliefs, responses, and expectations of the behavior of others based on the individual's cumulative personal interpretation of interpersonal relationships and experiences with other people. Personal constructs may differ substantially from person to person even though exposed to many similar experiences because of the influence of hereditary factors, family dynamics, and subtle natural idiosyncratic intellectual and psychological differences.

Constructive Alternativism:

Constructive alternativism is a psychological approach that, in general, rejects traditional models of psychological therapy in which therapists assume a leadership position in favor of a model in which therapists simply assist patients discover the truth by examining the patient's perspective. More specifically, constructive alternativism relies on data in the form of descriptions, observations and….