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EXISTENTIALISM
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
(philosophy) a 20th-century philosophical movement chiefly in Europe; assumes that people are entirely free and thus responsible for what they make of themselves
Synonyms:
existential philosophy; existentialism; existentialist philosophy
Classified under:
Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents
Hypernyms ("existentialism" is a kind of...):
philosophical doctrine; philosophical theory (a doctrine accepted by adherents to a philosophy)
Domain category:
philosophy (the rational investigation of questions about existence and knowledge and ethics)
Domain member category:
depersonalisation; depersonalization ((existentialism) a loss of personal identity; a feeling of being an anonymous cog in an impersonal social machine)
Derivation:
existentialist (a philosopher who emphasizes freedom of choice and personal responsibility but who regards human existence in a hostile universe as unexplainable)
