Everyone creates an existence that they content themselves with.

Some believe in absolute truth

and seek out religion. Some believe in essence and seek perfection. Some believe in no truth and seek
annihilation, and there are those who abolish this so they find affirmation. Existentialists saw the
problem with nihilism and they addressed it. Each writer contributed their own arguments that took the
premises of nihilism and turned them slightly on their head, giving nihilism a not so pessimistic
outlook. The problem with nihilism is its reductionist nature, that everything you do ultimately has no
value. Friedrich Nietche who wrote on the philosophy deduces nihilism when he makes the argument
that !"od is dead#.
$
%ith no over arching power to make value out of our deeds we are autonomous
and can make decisions for ourselves without any metaphysical conse&uence. The other side of the coin
however is that these decisions and actions we make then do not have much purpose or point to them.
The philosophy is coined as pessimistic because it can devoid life of purpose itself. This is where the
existentialists came in and sought to re'examine this !valueless# life and give in value. They did not
replace the value with any absolute like a god, but rather put value back into the decisions that nihilism
stripped away. The idea behind existential thought is to take a being who has realied that life is
meaningless and give them the tools to then create a life in spite of this.
Nihilism on its own stands fairly grounded. There does not seem to be much reason for solving
any problem within it. (ften times tasks do seem fairly meaningless, the factory worker feels his work
is meaningless when he never sees the fruit of his labour, or the prisoner who also feels meaningless
because his life will never see beyond the prison)s barricades. * lot of things feel very pointless so there
is not much need for giving value to them. The existentialist movement however did come about so
obviously there was more point to it than what can be easily examined with words. * lot has shaped
thought within the past one hundred years and a lot of good writers have come about from this shift in
common thought. The existential movement gained popularity during the $+,-)s with big figures like
.ean /aul Sartre at the forefront. The past century has seen a lot of controversy involving the two world
wars along with the 0ietnam war and the 1old war. %ars create very unsettling times, never knowing
which moment may be your last can create mindsets that cannot be facilitated otherwise. %ar can
create a feeling of loneliness, without a "od and without a purpose. There would be a natural response
by re'defining purpose amidst all of this along with defining conse&uence. Existentialism gave meaning
by saying that if nothing we do matters, then everything matters. 2ife is finite so we must take up what
we have and make sense of it all for ourselves. *s in the idea by Sartre, we are pro3ects and not things
in'themselves.
4
There is something that can become of ourselves, something that nihilism does not
properly address.
There is an interesting phenomenon that occurs in many existential writers on anxiety, angst and
absurdity. The premise that follows as such, the general and overall feeling that ones feels from
realiing that the world is devoid of meaning. 5t is interesting that not one but many authors wrote on
the sub3ect. 5t plays into the words of the nihilist who also finds a meaningless world however the
existentialist does not simply accept this because they would be at the point of suicide as *lbert 1amus
analyes.
6
Existentialism takes the idea of emptiness, of nothingness as Sartre coins it7 we must
recognie it and create from it. Not only did existential writers feel the meaninglessness that nihilism
wrote upon, but they wanted to create something from this nothing. They recognied it and built upon
it. 2ife could be something without "od, and in conflicting times where things became more and more
uncertain there was certainty to be found within existential thought.
$ ,8
4 Sartre
6 1amus