PHIL 26400 - Existentialism

Course Credit: 1
EXISTENTIALISM: This course traces the emergence of existentialist themes in 19th and 20th century philosophy and literature. What is existence? Does life have any meaning? Is there a human nature? Is anything valuable in itself? What is the source of morality? Existentialist thinkers such as Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Sartre, de Beauvoir, and Camus respond to these fundamental questions by examining the human condition. Surveying both the atheistic and theistic strands of this movement, the course engages with some of the central existentialist themes that continue to be relevant: subjectivity, meaning, freedom, anxiety, alienation, and responsibility. [AH]