Gregory Gale

No doubt you've heard someone speaking of an "existential crisis." What does that really mean, anyway? Existentialists believe that we're born without purpose into a world that makes no sense — but each person has the ability to create his or her own sense of meaning and peace. Discover who invented this relatively new school of philosophy as well as what concepts define existentialism.

Existentialism is a term applied to some late 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who may not have agreed about much, but who all believed that each person must define themselves in an absurd, illogical world. The following are the core figures of existentialist philosophy. Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855): The Danish son of a wealthy merchant, Kierkegaard never held an academic post, but he wrote voluminously.

The meaninglessness of life, the absence of God, the loneliness of being a thinking individual — it sounds like the existentialists weren't the happiest group of folks, right? Not necessarily true. Read on to get an idea of what existentialism is all about. Absurdity: What human beings encounter when they come into contact with the world.