ABSTRACT
Besides John Dewey's pragmatic naturalism and the analytic philosophy so well developed by British philosophers, American philosophers of education have been influenced by movements in Continental philosophy: existentialism, phenomenology, critical theory, hermeneutics, and postmodernism. The basic themes of existentialism are "the individual and systems; intentionality; being and absurdity; the nature and significance of choice; the role of extreme experiences; and the nature of communication". In this chapter the author discusses religious existentialism because students unacquainted with existentialism often identify it with atheism and pessimism. Existentialism, with its great emphasis on human subjectivity, has roots in Cartesian rationalism, the philosophy of Rene Descartes. In the section on existentialism, the author mentioned that phenomenologists use the term intentionality in a technical way. Many philosophers, including philosophers of education, use modified phenomenological methods, but few identify themselves as phenomenologists. In part this is because phenomenology is highly technical and difficult to learn.
