THE PHILOSOPHICAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE EXISTENTIALIST MOVEMENT IN THE DISCOVERY OF THE SELF
Abstract
After the medieval era of philosophy up to the Enlightenment era culminating with the French revolution of 1789-1799, there was tremendous broadening of philosophy from the narrow and conventional thoughts of Greek philosophers. Serious attention shifted from Church and Christian philosophers too, such as Augustinian, Thomistic and the whole of Scholastic thoughts. What this means is that more countries and people got interested in philosophy which became a platform to expressing how they viewed the world and the human condition.The most dramatic philosophical movement of the 19th and 20th centuries was the Existentialist intellectual movement. The existentialists set out to tackle the human condition of their time by focusing more on human person other than the abstract realities. These existentialist thinkers believed that philosophy should be more of Humanism, and as such, insisted that truth is subjective and not objective. By this, an individual can readily discover his essence and purpose in life since he or she has freedom of choice to choose what is best. Hence, subjectivity, individuality and freedom formed the bases of existential thought. The researcher discovered that philosophy was freed from dogmatism by the existentialist movement.Thus, existentialism made philosophy more concrete to the individual.