PROMINENT THEMES IN EXISTENTIAL LITERATURE

• Life is suffering.
• Life is not fair.
• Individuals are alienated from themselves by the highly complex, sophisticated, technological, bureaucratic world in which they live.
• Individual alienation, the loss of a sense of identity, is perpetuated by the labels and categories we use to describe people.
• Individuals are free to choose how they will respond to the painful existence in which they find themselves.
• Because they are free, individuals are also responsible for their own actions.
• Reality is not objectively knowable. All knowledge is subjective.
• Knowledge that is presumed to be objective and factual is actually of minimal value because it is superficial. (Science is not all it's cracked up to be.)
• Knowledge that is recognized as subjective is the most valuable, because it consists of internalized, integrated, self-initiated meanings. It is not merely cognitive, but is also affective.
• The knowledge we attain subjectively may not lend itself to logical, propositional statement. It may be best expressed through metaphors.
• Existentialists are more interested in living than in knowing (in a narrow cognitive sense).

• Existentialism and phenomenology both recognize the subjective nature of experience.
• Existentialism is mainly interested in the individual; phenomenology is mainly interested in how the individual's perspective is influenced by the world in which he/she lives.
• Existentialism denigrates reason and science; phenomenology accepts the limitations of science and reason identified by existentialism, but holds that these are still valuable tools for philosophy.
• The existentialist is not particularly interested in subjectivity or existentialism as concepts, he/she is more interested in individual, everyday life; the phenomenologist is interested in using logical and scientific techniques to explore the implications of the subjective nature of existence.