Forgive me if I am missing something. I am reading a book about the existentialist philosophers.
Near as I can tell:
- Existentialism = (from Wiki = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existentialism) Existentialism is a term applied to the work of certain late 19th- and 20th-century European philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual. While the supreme value of existentialist thought is commonly acknowledged to be freedom, its primary virtue is authenticity.
(bolding mine)
- Determinism - (from Wiki = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determinism) Determinism is the philosophical position that for every event, including human interactions, there exist conditions that could cause no other event.
So: There is nothing but Free Will (and boy is that scary!) vs. there is no such thing as Free Will.
In philosophical terms (not including the whole religious aspect of this - i.e., does God allow free will), it feels like these are opposites, and yet I don’t recall hearing people discuss them as an obvious set of opposing beliefs.
Am I thinking about this correctly? Are the terms defined correctly and represent opposite schools of thought?