Existentialism is a philosophical movement that rejects any predetermined role for human beings. Unlike tools, which are designed in order to fill some preconceived role (for example, a knife's preconceived role, или essence, is to cut), human beings are capable, to some extent at least, of deciding for themselves what constitutes their own essence. Although they didn't use the term, the nineteenth-century philosophers Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche are widely regarded as the fathers of existentialism. Their influence, however, has extended beyond existentialist thought. Religious...
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