Meaning of life in the context of Existentialists

The human condition can be defined as the characteristics and key events of human life, including birth, learning, emotion, aspiration, reason, morality, conflict, and death. This is a very broad topic that has been and continues to be pondered and analyzed from many perspectives, including those of art, biology, literature, philosophy, psychology, and religion.

As a literary term, "human condition" is typically used in the context of ambiguous subjects, such as the meaning of life or moral concerns.

The meaning of spirituality has developed and expanded over time, and various meanings can be found alongside each other. Traditionally, spirituality referred to a religious process of re-formation which "aims to recover the original shape of man", oriented at "the image of God" as exemplified by the founders and sacred texts of the religions of the world. The term was used within early Christianity to refer to a life oriented toward the Holy Spirit and broadened during the Late Middle Ages to include mental aspects of life.

In modern times, the term has spread to other religious traditions. It broadened to refer to a wider range of experiences, including a range of esoteric and religious traditions. Modern usages tend to refer to a subjective experience of a sacred dimension, and the "deepest values and meanings by which people live", often in a context separate from organized religious institutions. This may involve belief in a supernatural realm beyond the ordinarily observable world, personal growth, a quest for an ultimate or sacred meaning, religious experience, or an encounter with one's own "inner dimension" or spirit.

Importance is a property of entities that matter or make a difference. For example, World War II was an important event and Albert Einstein was an important person because of how they affected the world. There are disagreements in the academic literature about what type of difference is required. According to the causal impact view, something is important if it has a big causal impact on the world. This view is rejected by various theorists, who insist that an additional aspect is required: that the impact in question makes a value difference. This is often understood in terms of how the important thing affects the well-being of people. So in this view, World War II was important, not just because it brought about many wide-ranging changes but because these changes had severe negative impacts on the well-being of the people involved. The difference in question is usually understood counterfactually as the contrast between how the world is and how the world would have been without the existence of the important entity. It is often argued that importance claims are context- or domain-dependent. This means that they either explicitly or implicitly assume a certain domain in relation to which something matters. For example, studying for an exam is important in the context of academic success but not in the context of world history. Importance comes in degrees: to be important usually means to matter more within the domain in question than most of the other entities within this domain.

The term "importance" is often used in overlapping ways with various related terms, such as "meaningfulness", "value", and "caring". Theorists frequently try to elucidate these terms by comparing them to show what they have in common and how they differ. A meaningful life is usually also important in some sense. But meaningfulness has additional requirements: life should be guided by the agent's intention and directed at realizing some form of higher purpose. In some contexts, to say that something is important means the same as saying that it is valuable. More generally, however, importance refers not to value itself but to a value difference. This difference may also be negative: some events are important because they have very bad consequences. Importance is often treated as an objective feature in contrast to the subjective attitude of caring about something or ascribing importance to it. Ideally, the two overlap: people subjectively care about objectively important things. Nonetheless, the two may come apart when people care about unimportant things or fail to care about important things. Some theorists distinguish between instrumental importance relative to a specific goal in contrast to a form of importance based on intrinsic or final value. A closely related distinction is between importance relative to someone and absolute or unrestricted importance.

While the word religion is difficult to define and understand, one standard model of religion that is used in religious studies courses defines it as

Many religions have their own narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to explain the origin of life or the universe. They tend to derive morality, ethics, religious laws, or a preferred lifestyle from their ideas about the cosmos and human nature. According to some estimates, there are roughly 4,200 religions, churches, denominations, religious bodies, faith groups, tribes, cultures, movements, or ultimate concerns.

Nihilism is a family of philosophical views arguing that life is meaningless, that moral values are baseless, or that knowledge is impossible. Thus, such views reject the basis of certain ideas. Nihilistic views span several branches of philosophy, including ethics, value theory, epistemology, and metaphysics. Nihilism is also described as a broad cultural phenomenon or historical movement that pervades modernity in the Western world.

Existential nihilism asserts that life is inherently meaningless and lacks a higher purpose. By suggesting that all individual and societal achievements are ultimately pointless, it can lead to indifference, lack of motivation, and existential crises. In response, some philosophers propose detachment from worldly concerns, while others seek to discover or create values. Moral nihilism, a related view, denies the objective existence of morality, arguing that moral evaluations and practices rest on misguided assumptions without any foundation in external reality.

Existentialism is a family of philosophical views and inquiry that explore the human individual's struggle to lead an authentic life despite the apparent absurdity or incomprehensibility of existence. In examining meaning, purpose, and value, existentialist thought often includes concepts such as existential crises, angst, courage, and freedom.

Existentialism is associated with several 19th- and 20th-century European philosophers who shared an emphasis on the human subject, despite often profound differences in thought. Among the 19th-century figures now associated with existentialism are philosophers Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche, as well as novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky, all of whom critiqued rationalism and concerned themselves with the problem of meaning. The word existentialism, however, was not coined until the mid 20th century, during which it became most associated with contemporaneous philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre, Martin Heidegger, Simone de Beauvoir, Karl Jaspers, Gabriel Marcel, Paul Tillich, and more controversially Albert Camus.

Lebensphilosophie (German: [ˈleːbm̩s.filozoˌfiː]; meaning "philosophy of life") was a dominant philosophical movement of German-speaking countries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which had developed out of German Romanticism. Lebensphilosophie emphasised the meaning, value and purpose of life as the foremost focus of philosophy.

Its central theme was that an understanding of life can only be apprehended by life itself, and from within itself. Drawing on the critiques of epistemology offered by Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, notable ideas of the movement have been seen as precursors to both Husserlian phenomenology and Heideggerian existential phenomenology.

A mindset (also known as mentality especially when considered as biased and closed-minded) refers to an established set of attitudes of a person or group concerning culture, values, philosophy, frame of reference, outlook, or disposition. Person A is said to have a theory of mind (ToM) about person B, relating mindset research to ToM. This may also develop from a person's worldview or beliefs about the meaning of life.

A mindset could create an incentive to adopt (or accept) previous behaviors, choices, or tools, sometimes known as cognitive inertia or groupthink. When a prevailing mindset is limiting or inappropriate, it may be difficult to counteract its grip on analysis and decision-making.

Existential crises are inner conflicts characterized by the impression that life lacks meaning and by confusion about one's personal identity. They are accompanied by anxiety and stress, often to such a degree that they disturb one's normal functioning in everyday life and lead to depression. Their negative attitude towards meaning reflects characteristics of the philosophical movement of existentialism. The components of existential crises can be divided into emotional, cognitive, and behavioral aspects. Emotional components refer to the feelings, such as emotional pain, despair, helplessness, guilt, anxiety, or loneliness. Cognitive components encompass the problem of meaninglessness, the loss of personal values or spiritual faith, and thinking about death. Behavioral components include addictions, and anti-social and compulsive behavior.

Existential crises may occur at different stages in life: the teenage crisis, the quarter-life crisis, the mid-life crisis, and the later-life crisis. Earlier crises tend to be forward-looking: the individual is anxious and confused about which path in life to follow regarding education, career, personal identity, and social relationships. Later crises tend to be backward-looking. Often triggered by the impression that one is past one's peak in life, they are usually characterized by guilt, regret, and a fear of death. If an earlier existential crisis was properly resolved, it is easier for the individual to resolve or avoid later crises. Not everyone experiences existential crises in their life.

Pandeism, or pan-deism, is a theological doctrine that combines aspects of pantheism with aspects of deism. Unlike classical deism, which holds that the creator deity does not interfere with the universe after its creation, pandeism holds that such an entity became the universe and ceased to exist as a separate entity. Pandeism (as it relates to deism) purports to explain why God would create a universe and then appear to abandon it, and pandeism (as it relates to pantheism) seeks to explain the origin and purpose of the universe.

Various theories suggest the coining of pandeism as early as the 1780s. One of the earliest unequivocal uses of the word with its present meaning was in 1859 with Moritz Lazarus and Heymann Steinthal.

Philosophical fiction is any fiction that devotes a significant portion of its content to the sort of questions addressed by philosophy. It might explore any facet of the human condition, including the function and role of society, the nature and motivation of human acts, the purpose of life, ethics or morals, the role of art in human lives, the role of experience or reason in the development of knowledge, whether there exists free will, or any other topic of philosophical interest. Philosophical fiction includes the novel of ideas, which can also fall under the genre of science fiction, utopian and dystopian fiction, and bildungsroman.

There is no universally accepted definition of philosophical fiction, but a sampling of notable works can help to outline its history. For example, a Platonic dialogue could be considered philosophical fiction. Some modern philosophers have written novels, plays, or short fiction in order to demonstrate or introduce their ideas. Common examples include Voltaire, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Thomas Mann, Hermann Hesse, Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and Ayn Rand. Authors who admire certain philosophers may incorporate their ideas into the principal themes or central narratives of novels. Some examples include The Moviegoer (Walker Percy), Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Nietzsche), Wittgenstein's Mistress (David Markson), and Speedboat (post-structuralism).

World riddle (Welträtsel in German) is a philosophical term concerning fundamental questions about the nature of the universe and the meaning of life. The term gained prominence in the late 19th century and is most closely associated with two key figures: the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and the biologist Ernst Haeckel.

Nietzsche mentioned Welträthsel in several of his writings, exploring profound existential questions. However, it was Haeckel who popularized the term with his influential book, Die Welträthsel (1895–1899), later published in English as The Riddle of the Universe (1901). In this work, Haeckel attempted to resolve these riddles using a scientific and monistic worldview.

Meaning in existentialism is descriptive regarding "the meaning of life"; therefore it is unlike typical, prescriptive conceptions. Due to the methods of existentialism, prescriptive or declarative statements about meaning are unjustified. The root of the word "meaning" is "mean", which is the way someone or something is conveyed, interpreted, or represented.

Each individual has their own form of unique perspective; meaning is, therefore, purely subjective. Meaning is the way something is understood by an individual; in turn, this subjective meaning is also how the individual may identify it. Meaning is the personal significance of something physical or abstract. This would include the assigning of value(s) to such significance.

The Dream of Scipio is a novel by Iain Pears. It is set in Provence at three different critical moments of Western civilization—the collapse of the Roman Empire in the fifth century, the Black Death in the fourteenth, the Second World War in the twentieth—through which the fortunes of three men are followed:

• Manlius Hippomanes, a Roman Gallic aristocrat obsessed with the preservation of Roman civilization
• Olivier de Noyen, a poet and scholar, active in the Papal Court at Avignon
• Julien Barneuve, an intellectual who cooperates with the Vichy government

The story of each man is woven through the narrative, all linked by the Dream of Scipio, written by Manlius (not Cicero's eponymous classical text) and rediscovered by Olivier and Julien. Inspired by the teachings of Sophia, a Neoplatonist philosopher and the daughter of a student of Hypatia, Manlius composes the text to justify the decisions he takes when facing attack by the Visigoths and Burgundians, with little support from Rome. Religious issues, and how politics have influenced religious tolerance, shape all three stories: the roots of twentieth-century antisemitism are traced and linked to other political decisions to use Jews as scapegoats. The three stories are united by an extended deliberation how one resolves ethical conflicts, emotional commitments, and the quest for the true meaning of human life.