Romanticism & Existentialism – Key Vocabulary

Vocabulary cards cover central people, concepts, stages, and key terms from the lecture on Romanticism and Existentialism.

Romanticism

19th-century movement stressing emotion, intuition, individuality & the innate goodness of humans over reason and science.

Existentialism

Philosophy that emphasizes personal meaning, freedom of choice, responsibility, and subjective experience.

Enlightenment

18th-century ‘Age of Reason’ valuing rationality, science, and progress; target of Romantic and Existential critique.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

‘Father of Romanticism’; argued humans are born good, corrupted by society, and should follow natural feelings.

Noble Savage

Rousseau’s ideal of a human uncorrupted by civilization, living harmoniously by natural instincts.

General Will

Rousseau’s concept of the collective will that expresses what is best for a community, distinct from individual wills.

Social Contract (Rousseau)

Agreement in which individuals submit private will to the general will to achieve collective freedom.

Emile

Rousseau’s educational novel advocating child-centered learning guided by natural curiosity.

Sturm und Drang

‘Storm and Stress’; literary period initiated by Goethe emphasizing emotion and individual revolt.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

German poet-scientist who saw life as a struggle of opposites and promoted passionate self-development.

Phenomenology (Goethean)

Study of intact, meaningful experience via systematic introspection; precursor to later phenomenological psychology.

Goethe’s Shadows

Color-contrast effect where a colored light produces a complementary colored shadow; example of holistic perception.

Arthur Schopenhauer

Pessimistic philosopher who posited the ‘will to survive’ as the blind, irrational core of existence.

Will to Survive

Schopenhauer’s term for the relentless life-preserving drive underlying human motives and suffering.

Sublimation (Schopenhauer)

Redirecting basic drives into non-need activities (art, music) to lessen suffering.

Asceticism

Self-denial practiced to weaken the will and reduce suffering, endorsed by Schopenhauer.

Repression (Schopenhauer)

Forcing unacceptable thoughts into the unconscious; concept later central to Freud.

Sunday Neurosis

Schopenhauerian term (via Frankl) for boredom felt when needs are temporarily sated—illustrating endless striving.

Existential Dread (Angst)

Kierkegaard’s feeling of anxiety arising from awareness of freedom and responsibility.

Søren Kierkegaard

Danish theologian; first existentialist; stressed subjective faith and personal relationship with God.

Truth is Subjectivity

Kierkegaard’s claim that real truth is the individual’s passionate, lived belief, not objective proof.

Leap of Faith

Kierkegaard’s act of freely embracing belief in God despite objective uncertainty.

Aesthetic Stage

Kierkegaard’s first life stage: pursuit of pleasure without responsible choice.

Ethical Stage

Second Kierkegaardian stage: choices guided by external moral codes and duty.

Religious Stage

Highest Kierkegaardian stage: individual freely commits to a personal, non-conventional relationship with God.

Friedrich Nietzsche

German philosopher who proclaimed ‘God is dead,’ promoted the will to power, and envisioned the ‘superman.’

Death of God

Nietzsche’s metaphor for collapse of traditional religious and metaphysical foundations of meaning.

Will to Power

Nietzsche’s foundational drive to expand strength, creativity, and mastery over oneself and circumstances.

Apollonian

Nietzsche’s label for the rational, orderly aspect of human nature seeking clarity and form.

Dionysian

Nietzsche’s term for the chaotic, passionate, instinctual side of humanity seeking ecstatic experience.

Superman (Übermensch)

Individual who transcends herd morality, creatively self-overcomes, and lives by self-made values.

Perspectivism

Nietzsche’s idea that there are no universal truths—only individual viewpoints shaped by personal conditions.

Convictions

Nietzsche: fixed beliefs held as absolute truths—dangerous because they breed fanaticism.

Opinions

Nietzsche: tentative, revisable beliefs open to evidence; opposed to rigid convictions.

Eternal Recurrence

Nietzschean thought experiment: living one’s life as if it would repeat eternally, affirming existence.

Id (das Es)

Freud’s term prefigured by Nietzsche’s ‘barbarian’ urges; reservoir of primal instincts.

Sublimation (Nietzsche/Freud)

Transforming instinctual energy into culturally valued activity—art, science, etc.—via Apollonian control.

Herd Morality

Nietzsche’s derogatory term for conventional, socially imposed moral codes that suppress individuality.

Romantic-Existential Commonality

Shared emphasis on emotion, subjective experience, individuality, freedom, and distrust of mechanistic reason.

Phenomenal vs. Noumenal

Kantian distinction adopted by Schopenhauer: experienced reality (phenomenal) vs. unknowable ‘thing-in-itself’ (noumenal/will).

Behavior Therapy (Goethe)

Early self-help method Goethe used to modify behavior, foreshadowing modern behavioral techniques.

Cynicism (Ancient & Nietzsche)

Philosophy rejecting convention; praised by Nietzsche for its critique of societal morals.

St.-Simonian Positivism Critique

Romantic/existential rejection of Comtean idea that science alone ensures moral progress.

Third Force Psychology

Humanistic movement (Rogers, Maslow, etc.) integrating romantic-existential ideas into modern psychology.