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Existentialism is a way of philosophizing that may lead
those who adopt it to a different conviction about the world and man‘s
life in it. Existentialism is mainly a European philosophy that
originated before the turn of the twentieth century, but became popular
after World War II (1939 – 45). The seeds of existentialism may be
traced back to an earlier period of the history of philosophy. During
the 18thcentury reason and nature were given more importance,
objectivity was very much emphasized, leading to industrial and
technological developments and science was given utmost importance.
From the scientific viewpoint, man was also regarded as an object.
Man became a slave to machines in developing industrial society.
Against this situation existentialism emerged as a protest against the
society and asserted the supremacy of individuality of man.
The existentialist philosophy is not a creation of any single
philosopher. The existentialist writings scattered in the works of many
philosophers, the important ones of which are: Friedrich Nietzsche,
Soren Kierkegaard, Gabriel Marcel, Martin Heidegger, Jean Paul
Sartre, Karl Jaspers and Albert Camus etc.
This philosophy begins from man, but from man as existent rather
than man as a thinking subject, having a definite nature or essence. A
man first exists, encounters himself, and defines himself afterwards.
Existence comes before man is set with value or essence. They paid
more attention to human freedom as well they criticized idealism,
naturalism and scientific culture. This paper will discuss how
existentialists describe the scientific life today and how that led to life
towards tension, worries, frustrations, fear and sense of guilty. And
this will investigate their educational views to understand meaning in
existence and how to seeks value for the existing individual.
