Existentialism

Existentialism is a philosophical movement, emerging principally in 19th and 20th century Europe, that places individual existence, freedom, choice, and authenticity at the center of philosophical inquiry. Its core claim: existence precedes essence — humans are not born with a fixed nature or purpose; they must create their own meaning.

Core Themes

Existence Precedes Essence

The defining formula of Jean-Paul Sartre: unlike a hammer (whose essence — what it is for — precedes its manufacture), humans have no pre-given purpose or essence. We exist first and define ourselves through choice and action.

This is the radical implication of Nietzsche's "death of God": if there is no God and no natural order, there is no given human nature or purpose. Freedom is absolute — and terrifying.

Radical Freedom and Responsibility

Every person is radically free — condemned, as Sartre put it, to be free. Even choosing not to choose is a choice. With this freedom comes absolute responsibility: you cannot blame God, society, or human nature for who you are. You are your choices.

This connects to Free Will — existentialists generally affirm a robust sense of human freedom against determinism.

Authenticity

To live authentically is to own one's freedom, acknowledge one's facticity (the situation you are thrown into), and make genuine choices.

Bad faith (mauvaise foi) is the self-deception of pretending you have no freedom — playing a role, following conventions, hiding behind "everyone does this." The waiter who is a waiter through and through, rather than playing the role, is Sartre's famous example.

Anxiety (Angst)

Genuine awareness of freedom produces existential anxiety — the vertigo of having no fixed point, no given essence. Heidegger called Angst the mood that reveals the fundamental structure of existence (Dasein).

Thrownness and Facticity

We do not choose where, when, or to whom we are born — our thrownness is the brute contingency of our situation. Existence is the project of what we make of what we have been thrown into.

Death

Heidegger argued that being-toward-death is central to authentic existence. Only by confronting our mortality honestly can we own our lives fully. Avoiding the thought of death leads to inauthenticity.

Key Figures

Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855)

The proto-existentialist. Against Hegel's system (which dissolves the individual in the Absolute), Kierkegaard insisted on subjective truth — "truth is subjectivity." The three stages of existence: aesthetic, ethical, religious. The leap of faith as the resolution of despair.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)

See Nietzsche. The death of God, the Overman, authenticity as self-creation, will to power — all central existentialist themes.

Martin Heidegger (1889–1976)

Being and Time (1927) is the most systematic existentialist work. Key concepts:

Dasein ("being there") — the distinctive mode of human being
Being-in-the-world — we are always already embedded in a world of concerns; the Cartesian isolated subject is an abstraction
Thrownness — always already in a situation not of our choosing
Authenticity vs. fallenness into das Man ("the they" — the anonymous social norm)
Being-toward-death — confronting mortality as the path to authentic existence

Heidegger drew on Phenomenology (Husserl's method) and was influenced by Hegel's account of historical situatedness. His membership of the Nazi party from 1933 remains profoundly controversial.

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980)

France's most famous existentialist. Being and Nothingness (1943) develops a radical philosophy of consciousness and freedom. His lecture "Existentialism is a Humanism" (1945) popularized the movement. Later work (Critique of Dialectical Reason) attempted to synthesize existentialism with Marx's social theory.

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986)

Extended existentialism to feminism in The Second Sex (1949): woman has been defined as "Other" — a case of imposed inauthenticity. Women must claim their own freedom. De Beauvoir developed existentialist Ethics more systematically than Sartre.

Albert Camus (1913–1960)

Associated with existentialism but preferred "absurdism": life has no meaning, but we must not conclude suicide or irrational belief. We must rebel against the absurdity, affirm life anyway — "One must imagine Sisyphus happy."

Existentialism and Other Philosophies

Phenomenology — existentialism uses the phenomenological method (Heidegger, Sartre) but turns it toward concrete human existence
Nietzsche — the deepest philosophical forerunner
Hegel — existentialists reacted against Hegelian system-building and the absorption of the individual in the Absolute
Marx — Sartre's later work tried to reconcile existentialism with Marxist social analysis
Ethics — existentialist ethics: authenticity, responsibility, the ethics of the Other
Free Will — existentialism is one of the most robust defences of radical human freedom
Consciousness — existentialism is deeply concerned with the structure of conscious experience

Phenomenology — the philosophical method existentialism largely employs
Nietzsche — the founding figure of existentialist themes
Hegel — whose system existentialism reacts against
Marx — with whom Sartre later engaged
Free Will — radical freedom as existentialism's starting point
Ethics — authenticity and responsibility
Consciousness — the structure of subjective existence
Aesthetics — the relationship between art, absurdity, and human meaning