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Concept Of Human Existence
CHAPTER ONE -- [Total Page(s) 5]
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1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
The question of human existence has
attracted so many considerations. There are some who approached it from
the point of view of its absurdity and meaninglessness. Most of such
people are atheists like Martin Heidegger, with Albert Camus and Jean
Paul Sartre who played down very much, the essence of human existence as
Hegel also did. However, there is the other group of existentialists
who discussed human existence as a worthwhile venture. Such include the
chief founder of contemporary existentialism in the person of Soren
Kierkegaard. These philosophers expounded certain existential tenets
which according to Lescoe (9) are geared towards “analyzing the basic
structures of human existence and to call individuals to an awareness of
their existence in its essential freedomâ€.
The problem of human
existence is related wholly to this concept of freedom. Its use and
abuse makes and mars man respectively. This is because freedom remains
the pivot upon which man asserts himself. It is his relationship to this
that categorizes him either as authentic or inauthentic individual.
Thus, the measure of the meaningfulness or meaninglessness of life is
highly subjective but whichever way it is determined by the degree of
commitment which one puts in as he tries to assert himself by the
exercise of freedom.
Another question to be examined here remains
whether one can live authentically when one has no authentic relation to
the community which Kierkegaard regard as the crowd? And man
existential approaches to the natural phenomenon such as death, dread,
or anxiety, despair, and suffering. It also takes into consideration the
question of freedom and choice, man’s quest for existential meaning and
Kierkegaard’s analysis of man’s stages on life way.
It is therefore
in a bid to clarify some of these mind-bogging issues that the
researcher is out to expose what Kierkegaard considers to be the gauge
or the standard of meaningful human existence. With this in view, the
work is a confrontation of man with the naked facts of his freedom and
duty through which he makes the best out of his life as an individual.
1.3 AIM OF THE STUDY
It
is a major tragedy of human existence that many people goes through
life failing to express their individual potentialities to an
appreciable extent. On the other hand, Fred Baver observes that there
are those who concentrate so hard on making a living that they tend to
forget to live.
CHAPTER ONE -- [Total Page(s) 5]
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