existentialism

noun3

1. •
   A 20th-century philosophical movement emphasizing the uniqueness of each human existence in freely making its self-defining choices; also (generally), a philosophy which emphasizes existence over essence.

   • The heyday of existentialism occurred in the mid-twentieth century.
2. •
   The philosophical views of a particular thinker associated with the existentialist movement.

   • Sartre’s existentialism is atheistic, but the existentialism of Marcel is distinctly Christian.
3. •
   (historical) Synonym of structuralism (“a school of thought that focuses on exploring the individual elements of consciousness, how they are organized into more complex experiences, and how these mental phenomena correlate with physical events”).

   • [T]here was the argument of existentialism that the qualities of experience, or of the contents of gnomic mind, rather than acts constitute the subject matter of psychology. — 1943