I need help with the philosophical topic of Existentialism.?

Question:I know that it has to deal with the universe being meaningless, therefore each individual human must seek out a meaning of existence for himself or herself.

I know that it states that humans should be held responsible for their own moral action and deeds.

I know that it deals with free will and how we create ourselves.(Therefore some existentialist reject the principle of God or a higher power/creator.)

I know that every individual's action affects humanity because the way you present yourself to society is the way you have fashioned or potrayed man to be. Therefore when you're accepting your own traits you are actually showing off human essence and nature.

I need to do a presentation on this in two days and I'm afraid of spilling out wrong information. No two people think alike and I'm afraid I might have over analyzed or misinterpretted something. Don't just tell me that I'm right and/or wrong. Please teach me. Thank you.

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: I know that it has to deal with the universe being meaningless, therefore each individual human must seek out a meaning of existence for himself or herself.

I know that it states that humans should be held responsible for their own moral action and deeds.

I know that it deals with free will and how we create ourselves.(Therefore some existentialist reject the principle of God or a higher power/creator.)

I know that every individual's action affects humanity because the way you present yourself to society is the way you have fashioned or potrayed man to be. Therefore when you're accepting your own traits you are actually showing off human essence and nature.

I need to do a presentation on this in two days and I'm afraid of spilling out wrong information. No two people think alike and I'm afraid I might have over analyzed or misinterpretted something. Don't just tell me that I'm right and/or wrong. Please teach me. Thank you.

Honestly, I think you know enough about the topic. Seems like you just panicking a little bit.
Deep breath and you are going to be just fine .

Asthitva - Appear to be existing - Maya - In reality we feel asthitva. Then how to deal with this realism & unrealism?

Gita - Karthavya - Do your duty - What is duty? Self-family-Society - Budha's Sangham saranam gachami - Corporate governance and social responsibility.

Eg. You are making a presentation. Do you exist? silly question. Yes. Who are you? Body, soul? name? a Myth.
Are you not seeing me? Not hearing me? Do you exist? Who are you? Bodies? Souls (?) Atmans? Wherefrom you came? Myth. The world is a myth, a mirage, the colors we see, the sounds we hear,the shapes etc are not the same in reality, the science agrees rather acknowledges the leela of the Parabrahman covered in Maya.

Expand using the Parkinson's law ie fill the time. are you confused? Transfer it to the audience cleverly by articulation pretending a deep concern to break the mystery! Best prize!

you should eat some cheese. it'll help you think bettererererer.

http://www.friesian.com/existent.htm
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/existe...
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archiv...
http://www.tameri.com/csw/exist/

Of course, "existentialism" is an academic category, rejected by most of "the (so-called) existentialists" themselves.

What is able to be said regarding your recitation is that you have described Sartrean atheistic "existentialism."

While it is obvious that the selection of thinkers will determine the qualities of the set "existentialism," if one includes Soren Kierkegaard, the "topic of existentialism" becomes significantly enlarged. If one's professor favors atheistic existentialism, including Soren Kierkegaard may elicit psychologistic condemnation.

Herewith, a quick note re Kierkegaard. One of his more simple and elegant insights and categorizations was that of the three potential spheres of man's awareness and understanding.

The first, common to all, is the "Aesthetic," in which the existential now is experienced. Moving from this, gathering reflective momentum, is the "Ethical," wherein reflectivity brings discernment, selection, wisdom (wise dominion). This is the realm of Confucius' teaching, it is later Sartre's valorization of marxism, and it is Beauvoir's so-called "transcendence" (a usage borrowed from Sartre), or movement from the Nietzschean "herd animalism" or "spirit of gravity" into the "free spirit" French post-WWII "existentialism" which is autopoietic. However--and this is the stasis re the dogmatic atheist, who has illogically (e.g., Sartre and Marx) concluded that she has proven a universal negative--to wit, that "there is no God," when logically the requirements for investigation of that truth-claim include Omnipresence and Omniscience--Kierkegaard finds a third Sphere: that of "Spirit" or "Religion," akin to Jacob's realization that "God is in this (spheres of 'nowness' and 'valorization') place." This latter Noumena infuses the Kantian 5-sense data stream physis with ancient Greek Psyche as Nous, Mindfulness, Plotinus' One Mind Soul-realization. Here science notes high gamma wave mentation, noted in insight and creativity, and in e.g. Tibetan insight (Vipassana) meditation, as a category distinct from lower beta wave mentation. Hence, a category error for a dogmatic materialist to state more than her ability to perceive God, Dakini helper beings, intuition and insight re Oneness, is limited to her lower beta wave mentation and feedforward re 5-sense data stream processing.

This One Mind Soul-individuation awareness is said by Wang Pi to have been characteristic of Lord Confucius, who "knew Heaven" (One Mind Soul, Atman), but preferred to focus on establishment of genuine ritual ("right-you-all") for those in the Aesthetic and Ethical Spheres.

Here Yue Tao-sui's "Treatise on the Double Truth of Causal Combinations" is useful, in that existential "being" is caused by "the combining of causes" and the "highest truth" of this universe is said to be in their "disconnecting" or, in French existentialist terms, the "deconstruction" of what Beauvoir termed (in "The Ethics of Ambiguity") "the spirit of seriousness."

Wang condemned the Confucianists of his day for the same fault, but did so from a realization of Confucius' Realization, rather than from a Kierkegaardian "Ethical nihilism," in which latter all values are relativized, aka "radical human freedom," that flavor of "existentialism" which you well describe.

It is worth noting that modern Buddhist philosophers, particularly those in the Theravadic scriptural tradition, have examined French atheistic existentialism, and found it fairly primitive and superficial, although politely declining to give such obvious remarks. ("Sartre's Existentialism and Early Buddhism: A Comparative Study of Selflessness Theories," Phra Medhidhammaporn)

In Theravada, Lord Buddha explicitly states he is anchored in Atman, and teaches "neti, neti" ("not this mortal-minded psyche, not this materialistic physis"). This One Mind Soul-individuation, Atman, is what is ineffable re Taoist immortal body attainment (and what Wang Pi noted as Lord Confucius' attainment).

In concluding re the origins of existentialism, Edmund Husserl's ability to teach God-realization (Atman) to e.g. Edith Stein partially took hold in later Heidegger ("On Time and Being"), and apparently not at all in Sartre. Husserl's "Pure Ego" and "Rays of Light" relate to One Mind Soul and original Buddha Light, Patanjali's "Light of the Soul." Tanabe, of the Kyoto School, does a reasonable philosophic treatise ("Philosophy as Metanoetics") re the Void of e.g. Zen, like later Heidegger, but perhaps moving beyond, models a kind of "Thusness." (Tanabe of course having studied with Husserl and (preferring) Heidegger, during the 1930s).

So, in fine, your original "existential description" works well if one is defining "existentialism" as Sartrean and Beauvoirean, however, from Confucius and Plotinus, and Kierkegaard and Husserl, the "Aesthetic" aspect as contemplated by the "Ethical" aspect is yet more profoundly informed by Buddhic and other "Spiritual" or (genuine) "Religious" Nous/awareness.

Some heuristic reading:
"The Path of the Higher Self," Mark Prophet;
"A Philosophy of Universality," O. M. Aivanhov;
"Nihilism," Father Seraphim Rose;
"Little Gidding" (fourth of "Four Quartets"), T. S. Eliot.