Choice is man’s expression of freedom.
It is part of man’s rationality. Existentialism is known as an individualistic philosophy, who claims that “individual human beings create the meaning and essence of their own lives.” It stresses that man is free and therefore “responsible for what they make of themselves”. Man strives for a quest of truth just to give life a meaningful existence. He seeks a kind of living that can bring him to authentic life. Man has a liberty to shape his identity and ideals through free choice. He is responsible of his own character just as an artist is responsible of his own creation.
Søren Kierkegaard a “Father of Existentialism”
writes about the significance of authenticity in man’s life.
He says that to think about existence man has to recognize that he has to take personal choices. It is a kind of choice that will define and create one’s own values through personal choices.
To attained authentic existence it should be a personal strive for every individual. This means that to invent one’s own way and pattern of life requires an unceasing movement of becoming, self-transcendence and self-creation, with passionate and sincere desires of becoming a genuine authentic individual. Thus, to have an authentic existence one must not be a mere spectator or passenger in life, but seize control of one’s destiny.
Søren Kierkegaard, known to be the Father of Existentialism,
was born in Copenhagen, Denmark on May 5, 1813. He was the youngest of seven children born to Jutlandish parents, the reason why sometimes he called himself a child of old age because his mother was 45 and his father 56 when he was born. Kierkegaard was influenced early in life by the devoutly religious teaching of his father which concentrated on Christ’s suffering. At the age of eight, Kierkegaard studied at the School for Civics Virtue wherein he excelled in grammar and in Latin. Years later, he enrolled at the University of Copenhagen. He took up theology heeding to his father’s advice. Perhaps, his father wanted him to be a priest, as an atonement offering to God. It was also during his college years that he first experienced melancholy. Because some members of his family and many of his relatives died, he leaves only his father and brother Peter Christian.
Furthermore, Kierkegaard was 21 when he had a relationship with a 17-year old girl named Regine Olsen. They were engaged on September 10, 1834. Later, Kierkegaard suddenly broke off the engagement for he thought that he was too old to be a husband of a lively young girl. This was the second time that he had a melancholic experience. Years past, but he still loved Regine though she was already betrothed to another man. Then, he entered in the seminary and graduated in his postmaster’s degree after he successfully defended his dissertation, Concept of Irony in Constant Reference to Socrates. Kierkegaard enjoyed the wealth he inherited from his father by producing numerous books and devoted his life in writing. Most of his works were written in pseudonyms. These include Either/Or (1843), Fear of Trembling (1843), Repitation (1843), The Philosophical Fragment (1844),Concept of the Dread (1844), The Stages of Life’s Way (1845, Thoughts on Crucial Situation (1844), The Stages of life’s Way (1845), The Concluding Unscientific Postscript (1846), The Present Age (1946), Edifying Discourse in Various Spirit (1846-48, The Sickness Unto Death (1852) Training in Christianity for Self- Examination (1852), etc.
Søren Kierkegaard died on November 4, 1856, in his hometown at the age of 42. His works of dialectic clarity made him evident to be a prolific writer, religious genius and, the most profound nineteenth century thinker.
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche a German philosopher of the ninetieth century came up with an idea of will to power.
Nietzsche perceives that the will to power is an inner power of man that will control the environment. It is the key to become authentic individual, the will to become a free author of one’s self. Being an individual is a kind of artist who freely shapes his self as a work of art. It is unceasing will to overcome one’s self in order to attain authenticity . He also proposes the concept of Übermensch or superman. For him Übermensch is the creator of his own values. Hence, man is in state of spontaneous self-becoming, an authentic individual.
Friedrich Nietzsche, a 19th century German philosopher and poet was one of the influential modern thinkers.
He was born on October 15, 1844 at Rocken in Prussian Saxany and named after the reigning King of Prussia. His parents Karl Nietzsche and Franziska Oehler were both children of a Lutheran minister. The father of Nietzsche died when he was four years old. He grew up at Hamburg under the protection and guidance of his mother and sister and brother named Elizabeth and Joseph. He studied to local school gymnasium as his first school in the year 1854-1858 and to a boarding school at Phorta when he was fourteen years old in the year 1858-1864. At Phorta Nietzsche passed a rigid education especially on classics, religion, literature and philosophy. In 1868, he went to the University of Leipzig to finish his studies on Philology. At Leipzig he was identified as an extensive minded student, became a classical scholar where with he wrote a Doctoral thesis on Kant and later promoted as the chair of classics at Basil in May 1869.
The works of Friedrich Nietzsche include, the Birth of Tragedy which appeared in 1872, followed by Untimely Meditations (1873-1876) and Human, All too Human, part one and two (1878-1879), By the year (1878), his interest in philology as a primary topic had wanted, although his linguistics study became incorporeal into his philosophic technique. He was beset by illness, and he finally left his teaching post. His recovery was marked by the publication in 1880 of part three of Human, All Too Human, and The Dawn in the year 1881. In the year 1883, Nietzsche wrote his well-known Thus Spoke Zarathustra as well as The Gay Science. His book Beyond Good and Evil was published in the year 1886 and The Genealogy of Morals in the year 1887. His Ecce Homo, an elaborate self-appraisal and The Anti-Christ, a criticism of Christianity was published after 1890. His last work, The Will to Power, was never completed but a collection of his notes was published in the year 1904.
In January 1889 at the age of 45 and until August 25, 1900 when he finally died, he left numerous writing both published and unpublished. His mother took care of him until her in 1897 while his mother sister Elizabeth took charge of the achieves where his works are kept.
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