What is the Meaning of: Existentialism | Concept and Definition of: Existentialism
What is certain, is that this movement of philosophy place individual human as the creator of the meaning of his life. It is the temporality of the subject and its existence concrete in the world that made him what he is and not a supposed more abstract essence.
The existentialists believe that every individual is a free integrity by itself rather than a part of a whole. The own existence of a person (the human experience) is what defines its essence and not a general human condition.
In other words, human beings exist from the moment it is able to generate any type of thought. Thinking allows the person to be free: without freedom, there's no existence either.
This same freedom converts the individual in a being responsible for his actions. It is therefore an ethic of individual responsibility. It belongs only to the person held responsible for the acts which it carries out in the exercise of his freedom.
The french Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) and Albert Camus (1913-1960) are two of the foremost exponents of Existentialism. This current can be divided into three schools, namely theistic Existentialism (which questioned the existence of God and the spirit), atheist Existentialism (which denies the divine) and agnostic Existentialism (which considers that the existence of God has no importance to human existence).