Publisher's Synopsis
Introduction to Existentialism Among the many pursuits of philosophy, the search for a good life forms an essential part. There have been various conceptions of what a good life really is. Also comes along with the definitions of a good life, the means for living it. A good life is perhaps one in which a person can live fully and freely. Here a person is without restraints and yet does not seek to exploit the freedom of others. A good life is one where a person realizes one's abilities and capacities to the fullest. It is the actualization of one's entire potential. Human life has many aspects or dimensions. One lives a plethora of roles in one's life. Firstly, one has a life of one's own as an individual where one lives for oneself. A person may then live for her family, friends, relatives, and colleagues, members of her community or for her fellow citizens. Here, different roles are being played. A good life is where all of these roles are actualized. A person has to accept the fact that one lives in a society. A society in turn is made up of many individuals having their own lives and playing their own individual roles. What is existentialism? Existentialism as a movement is associated with much of Jean Paul Sartre's work. It was his works in the form of novels and dramas that publicized existentialism to the masses. The post world war period in Europe gave the necessary conditions for the initiation of a new philosophy. This laid out the perfect settings for the authors to rebel against established traditions and take an unconventional route of thinking, since according to them conventional thinking had brought about mayhem and death in the two world wars. Many thinkers have tried and come to the conclusion that 'Existentialism' as a school of philosophical thought does not have a single common definition. It is also a fact that many of these so-called 'existentialist thinkers' rejected the tag of being an existentialist.
