existentialism

n. A philosophical and literary point of view which takes the phenomena of existence as its subject without any reference to ideas, principles, or mechanisms outside experience. It was primarily a 20th-century movement exemplified by the works of Martin Heidegger and Jean Paul Sartre. The central concept of existentialism is Dasein, or a sense of being there in one's experience, including the lack of choice over many aspects of the situation and the necessity to choose one's course of action.