Understanding Existentialism

Western Philosophy

Since the 1950s, Western philosophy has been divided
into analytic schools (focused on science, language, and communication)
and the Continental schools (metaphysical, experiential approaches to meaning). Although
this is an artificial division, often based on the organization of university
philosophy departments more than philosophical theories, the division affects how
we discuss philosophy. Granted, the reason we can discuss philosophy is
that we are comfortable enough to sit in classes and cafés thinking grand
thoughts and pondering existence.

The paradox… is that the scientific conception of the world does not
close the gap between knowledge and wisdom, but makes us feel it all
the more acutely… It is in advanced Western societies that the gap between
knowledge and wisdom seems to widen into an abyss. In this sense, the
speculative question of the meaning of life is a consequence of luxury
and affluence. Perhaps it was ever thus — philosophy only arises once
the basic exigencies of life have been provided.
— Continental Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction; Simon Critchley, p. 6

In the analytic tradition, philosophers attempt (often
in vain) to understand the inherent reason and logic underlying existence.
The Continental schools are considered more experiential; existence is
random and even absurd. As a more detailed review of Western philosophy before
existentialism demonstrates, the analytical and Continental can be traced through Immanuel Kant (1724–1804). The conclusions philosophers reach often reflect how they respond to Kant.

Cultural Differences

While the history of Western philosophy runs through Kant, the differences between analytical and Continental philosophy are also cultural. The “Anglo-American” vs. “European” false dichotomy implied by labels like “Continental” do an injustice to the significant cultural differences within philosophy. These difference cannot be simplistically reduced to geopolitical maps. Instead, the differences might be considered as utilitarian-pragmatic philosophers arguing against idealistic-romantic philosophers.

In one camp, we have scientism. In the other, we have
philosopher-artists. It is a classic case of the scientist-artist divide
more than one of end goals or politics. The scientists want to reduce thought
to equations (logical calculus) to prove their views, while the artists
want to seek to persuade audiences with parables and poetry.

… [T]he best way of understanding the misunderstanding between opposed
philosophical traditions [is] in terms of the model of ‘the two cultures’.
According to this model, analytic and Continental philosophy can be seen
as expressions of opposed, indeed antagonistic, habits of thought – Benthamite
empiricist-utilitarian and Coleridgean-hermeneutic-romantic — that make
up the philosophical self-understanding of a specific culture.

Essentially, this is a dispute between the scientific conception of
the world, advanced by Carnap and the Vienna Circle, and the existential
or ‘hermeneutic’ experience of the world in Heidegger. This dispute is
highly significant for subsequent developments in philosophy insofar
as Carnap’s views on Heidegger provide the background to Ayer’s attempted
logical positivist elimination of metaphysics in the British context,
and Carnap had a vast influence on the professional development of analytic
philosophy in the United States after the Second World War, not the least
through his most celebrated student, W. V. O. Quine.
— Continental Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction; Critchley, pp. 90-1

Analytical Philosophy

Science has always been important to philosophers, with
the first philosophers being scholars in many fields. The theological and
metaphysical aspects of “truth” were also important to philosophers. Then came the industrial revolution and a shift towards analytical philosophy: searching for truth without considering the transcendent. Some texts suggest the analytic movement began with Ludwig Josef Johan Wittgenstein (1889–1951), an Austrian-born philosopher who lived and taught in Britain. Wittgenstein influenced logical positivism, linguistic analysis, and semiotics.

… [S]cientific pretension requires that it is possible and necessary
for the conquest of real knowledge that the world be stripped of everything
which human beings have ‘projected’ upon it — from colours to meanings,
from smells to values. But this is to suppose that mind and world, subject
and object, can be treated in logical isolation from one another and
separately examined.
— Existentialism: A Reconstruction; David E. Cooper, p. 15

Not all analytical philosophers believe truth and reason
are external to sentient existence. Most twentieth-century philosophical
debates argued not about “truth” but rather how and why we
create understandings of truth. There are numerous complications underlying
these debates. Does language reflect truth? Or, does language create truth?
Can any language or symbolic system accurately translate another language’s
truth? This is a bit tangled, since philosophers must use language to communicate
with each other.

Carnap’s argument against metaphysics is not that its statements are
false, but rather that they are simply meaningless. For logical positivists
like Carnap, meaning is rooted in the principle of verification, namely
that a word or sentence is meaningful only if it is in principle verifiable.
But what are the conditions for verification? They are two-fold: logical
and empirical.
— Continental Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction; Critchley, p. 100

Logical positivism insists there is a truth, which can
be communicated and shared. However, scholars specializing in the philosophy
of science and the rhetoric of science have challenged the positivists
by suggesting that insisting there is a truth is also a leap of faith.
Such arguments are circular and unlikely to be settled within philosophy
departments.

This positivist habit of mind insisted that the ‘objective’ was synonymous
with the measurable and the ‘value free’. Its aim was to extract the
subject from the experiment in order to obtain a purely impersonal ‘view
from nowhere’. This led to a number of significant discoveries, but it
quickly became apparent that such an approach was inconsistent. The limiting
of the knowable to the quantifiable was itself a value that was not quantifiable.
That is, the choice of this procedure was itself a ‘leap’ of sorts, an
act of faith in a certain set of values that were not themselves measurable.
— Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction; Thomas R. Flynn, p. 4

University philosophy programs in the United States,
Great Britain, Australia, and, to a lesser extent, Canada, have a marked
preferences for analytical philosophy. As a result, some call the philosophical
schools within the analytic tradition “Anglo-American philosophy.” However,
the dominance of analytic theories does not extend throughout the humanities
departments, where the Continental traditions often hold sway.

Continental Philosophy

Yes, Continental philosophy has something to do with “the” Continent. What, precisely,
that something is remains open to debate.

… Continental philosophy is an invention, or, more accurately, a projection of the Anglo-American academy onto a Continental Europe that would not recognize the legitimacy of such an appellation — a little like asking for a Continental breakfast in Paris.
— Continental Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction; Critchley, p. 32

Continental philosophy might be viewed as a reaction
to the analytical, scientific approach to philosophy. The more science
explains about the universe, the less important human existence seems.
Knowlege and understanding actually increase our alienation from the universe
and its natural laws. Humanity is reduced to nothing more than yet another
random lifeform, an absurd accident on a spec of a planet. However, rejecting
science and knowledge completely can lead to various faiths and “–isms”
that are utter nonsense.

My contention is that what philosophy should be thinking through at
present is this dilemma which on the one side threatens to turn us into
beasts, and on the other side into lunatics… The appeal of much that
goes under the name of Continental philosophy, in my view, is that it
attempts to unify or at least move closer together questions of knowledge
and wisdom, of philosophical truth and existential meaning.
— Continental Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction; Critchley, p. 9

Existentialism grew out of the Continental traditions,
especially phenomenology. This was not a complete rejection of science
and reason, but a call to examine life as it is experienced — something
considered beyond science.

Existentialism grew, in part, out of Husserl’s phenomenology, which in turn was a critical response to nineteenth-century materialism and positivism.
— Existentialism: A Reconstruction; Cooper, p. 13

The problem with responding to scientism is that philosophy
can risk obscurantism, which deliberately ignores or even prevents the
facts and details of something from becoming known.

… [T]here is a risk of obscurantism in some Continental philosophy,
where social phenomena are explicated with reference to forces, entities,
and categories so vast and vague as to explain everything and nothing
at all.
— Continental Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction; Critchley, p. 119

European philosophers began to focus on cultural concerns
late in the nineteenth century, a trend that continues. They also embraced
reason and logic in their own way, with many of the philosophers coming
from scientific and mathematical fields. However, they understood that
science could not find, or give, meaning to human existence. Science, for
these philosophers, was a tool but not necessarily the best philosophical
tool.

While the Existentialist is not, in any serious sense, an irrationalist,
he is certainly not a ‘rationalist’ in the philosophical sense that contrasts
with ‘empiricist’. He does not hold, that is, that the mind is innately
equipped with, or predisposed towards, knowledge of certain truths about
the world. This is not because he is an ‘empiricist’, holding that all
knowledge is the product of experience. The issue between the two camps
is one of several which, for the Existentialist, rest on the false premise
that mind and world are logically independent of one another, like a
spectator and the show before him. The ‘rationalist’ differs from the
‘empiricist’ only in holding that the spectator arrives with a rich intellectual
apparatus through which the passing scene gets filtered.
— Existentialism: A Reconstruction; Cooper, p. 15

Phenomenology and, later, existentialism, moved from
a focus on larger culture and communities to focus on the individual. This
is not to claim that phenomenology and existentialism are not concerned
with groups and social philosophy, but there is a clear belief that the
individual can define the self. There is also a touch of utopianism, especially
within the works of the thinkers associated with phenomenology. The belief
of these Continental philosophers is that introspection can lead to a metaphysical
transformation. Some even hold this to be true for entire communities.

… [T]he Continental tradition is concerned with giving a philosophical
critique of the social practices of the modern world that aspires towards
a notion of individual or societal emancipation. In other words, much
Continental philosophy asks us to look at the world critically with the
intention of identifying some sort of transformation, whether personal
or collective.
— Continental Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction; Critchley, p. 54

Phenomenology and related movements are sometimes referred
to as experiential because they are concerned with the experiences of the individual. How one person experiences life is unique. Relating to others is possible, but only within the limits of shared experiences. And pondering our experiences can lead to revelations, of a sort.

Continental philosphy itself is divided by debates on
how much experience should trump reason, or if the two are one and the
same.

The question of the status of reason and rationality versus the irrationality
of much of human existence is a conflict that is at the heart of disagreements
in the Continental tradition to this day, for example in the modernism
/ postmodernism debate that defined much of the 1980s and early 1990s.
— Continental Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction; Critchley, p. 20

Continental Movements

Simon Critchley provides a chart of major Continental
movements (p. 13). This not not a complete history, but rather a convenient
way to consider various thinkers.

What the Continental movements seem to share is an impulse
to critique, to rebel against something. At times, it seems rebellion is
its own purpose in Continental schools of thought, as if there cannot be
a moment of contentment. If there isn’t something wrong with the human
condition, what is the point of philosophy? And this doesn’t mean some
minor “room for improvement,” to the Continental thinkers. Life itself
is a crisis.

For much of the Continental tradition, philosophy is a means to criticize the present, to promote a reflective awareness of the present as being in crisis, whether this is expressed as a crisis of faith in a bourgeois philistine world (in Kierkegaard), a crisis of the European sciences (in Husserl), of the human sciences (in Foucault), of nihilism (in Nietzsche), of the forgetfulness of Being (in Heidegger), of bourgeois-capitalist society (in Marx), of the hegemony of instrumental rationality and the domination of nature (in Adorno and Max Horkheimer), or whatever. […] Philosophy in the Continental tradition has an emancipatory intent. For a philosopher, the real crisis would be a situation where crisis was not recognized. In such a world, philosophy would have no purpose, other than as a historical curiosity, an intellectual distraction, or a technical means of sharpening one’s common sense.
— Continental Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction; Critchley, p. 73

Phenomenology

No discussion of existentialism should occur without
an introduction to phenomenology. Edmund Husserl and his assistant Martin Heidegger were not existentialists, though they contributed to the development of phenomenology and, therefore, existentialism. In this respect, all formal existential thought and scholarship descends from the works of Husserl.

If we return to the Existential philosophical lineage, after Nietzsche it is Edmund Husserl’s work on phenomenology which leads, quite directly, into the main Existential thought of the twentieth century. His ideas were seized upon by Jaspers, Heidegger and Sartre, among others. He argued that science could only know the world in a certain way which it had already presupposed, but that this was not the way the world was apprehended by individuals. The fact that an object is present or represented in our consciousness has no bearing on the way that that object is in the world.
—Existentialism: A Guide for the Perplexed; Earnshaw, p. 6

The basic assumption of phenomenology is that we experience
the world as a series of conscious observations and interpretations. We
explore existence at a distance, as observers of our own lives. Even when
we try to understand ourselves, we are then thinking about “I” as something
external to our thoughts. You can try to think about thinking about yourself,
but there is always a strange, difficult to comprehend distance between
thought and object.

Though the phenomenological method developed by Edmund Husserl in the first third of the 20th century was adopted in one form or another by the existentialists of that same period, many, perhaps most, phenomenologists are not existentialists. But all accept the best-known and most significant claim of this approach, namely that all consciousness is consciousness of an other-than-consciousness. In other words, it is the very nature of consciousness to aim towards (to ‘intend’) an other. Even when it is directed towards itself in reflection, consciousness is directed as towards an ‘other’.
— Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction; Thomas R. Flynn, p. 17

Karl Jaspers’ approach to philosophy was closer to Husserl’s phenomenology than Sartre’s existentialism, though Jaspers used the term Existenzphilosophie to describe his approach to philosophical reasoning. The term suggests existentialism, but it requires some mental gymnastics to label Jaspers an existentialist. I could defend such a classification, but many scholars reject this outright and place him among the phenomenological thinkers, along with Maurice Merleau-Ponty. This raises the question: does existential phenomenology differ from existentialism?

For many philosophers, the word ‘existential’ is most at home in the
expression existential phenomenology. There is general agreement that the most significant versions of twentieth-century existentialism are developments, welcome or perverse, from phenomenology, the philosophy elaborated by Edmund Husserl in the early years of the century: Heidegger describes Being
and Time as a work of phenomenology, while Merleau-Ponty and Sartre use the word in the title or subtitle of their main works.
— Existentialism: A Reconstruction; Cooper, p. 5

Husserl’s phenomenology requires that we study experience, the world as it is lived and observed by humans. Science and, to some extent, analytic
philosophers are concerned with why and how things are as they end up being perceived. Phenomenology does not seek to explain phenomena, leaving such explanations to scientists; instead the phenomenologist wants us to focus clearly on the experienced phenomena.

As Husserl once said, the point of phenomenological method is not to explain (by finding causes) but to get us to see (by presenting essences or intelligible contours).
— Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction; Flynn, p. 20

Phenomenology is about meaning, and meaning occurs only
when a living being uses an object or concept. Meaning comes from experience
and application. The phenemologist attempts to separate the observed object
from perceptions of the object. It’s a complex and confusing concept, admittedly.

… [I]maging consciousness is a way of ‘derealizing’ the world of our
perceptions that manifests its distinctive features to careful phenomenological
description. If we imagine an apple that we previously perceived, for
instance, a careful description of the experience will reveal how the
imagining differs from the perceiving of the same apple. For one thing,
unlike the perceived apple, the imagined one has only those features
that we choose to give it. Images as such teach us nothing. And so it
is with our other conscious acts. Each reveals its distinctive features
to phenomenological description.
— Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction; Flynn, p. 20

What is this phenomenological method for describing objects?
It reminds some students of a zen-like meditation on objects, including
the self. In the language of phenomenology, we must “bracket” reality to
consider objects properly. Yes, this does resemble spiritual meditation
more than traditional philosophy.

In a procedure akin to Descartes’ methodological doubt, the phenomenologist
must suspend belief, or ‘put in brackets’, any reality beyond consciousness
and the ‘meanings’ in which consciousness trades. The scientist studies
colour by examining its physical properties, but the philosopher concerned
with the ‘meaning’ of colour must put aside the assumption of real, physical
existence made by the scientist.
— Existentialism: A Reconstruction; Cooper, p. 5

The problem with this nearly spiritual approach to observation,
despite its claims of a rigorous methodology, is that it potentially elevates
the philosopher to seer. When my students read Heidegger, they comment on the mystical nature of his works. They do not mean this as a compliment; philosophy should be more than sensing the “right” insights.

The assumption is that if the description is mounted rigorously, the
inquirer will simply see for himself. The potential weakness, of course,
is that, in response to the claim ‘I don’t see it’, the phenomenologist
can merely reply, ‘well, look more closely’.
— Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction; Flynn, p. 21

The stated goal of phenomenology is to describe lived
experience without obscuring the description through misapplication of
scientific concepts. As you can see (pun intended) from the previous citations
and examples, phenomenology itself can be obscure. Even phenomenolgists
didn’t always agree on the end results of their method. Merleau-Ponty suggested it was best to view phenomenology not as a single method towards truth, but as a set of methods with the shared goal of moving past theories, including those theories of past philosophers. He sought a “pre-theoretical” experience.

Merleau-Ponty, in a nice turn of phrase, describes the task of phenomenology as ‘unveiling the pre-theoretical layer’ of human experience upon which the theoretical attitude of the scientific conception of the world is based.
— Continental Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction; Critchley, p. 113

Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, extending the works of Heidegger, each argued in his own way that an ideal phenomenology was illusory. Humans cannot suspend belief in reality, even though philosophers often write of the absence of reality or universals. Merleau-Ponty wrote that it was absurd to even ask if the world is real. By implication, this would make humanity “unreal” — an even more absurd proposition than the existentialists could accept.

For the Existentialist, the question of whether descriptions of the
world are objective or subjective is a bad one. They are not objective,
if this means being of a kind which a scrupulously detached spectator
would provide, for a spectator completely disengaged from the world could
have no conception of it at all. But nor are they subjective, if this
means that they are glosses smeared over, and therefore occluding, the
world as it is in itself.
— Existentialism: A Reconstruction; Cooper, p. 16

Eventually, the existentialist thinkers came to describe
the ideal phenomenology as an impossible, illogical task. Though phenomenology
continues to influence the social studies, language arts, and general humanities,
the existentialists realized the phenomenological method was destined to
fall short of its aims.

The existentialists offer two reasons for rejecting Husserl’s phenomenological reduction. First, it makes our basic relationship to the world theoretical rather than practical, as if we were born theoreticians and later learned about practice. Husserl’s student, Martin Heidegger, on the contrary, insisted that we were originally ‘in the world’ instrumentally by means of our practical concerns and that philosophy should analyse this ‘pre-theoretical’ awareness in order to gain access to being. […] Even Husserl, later in life, seemed to acknowledge these claims by introducing the concept of the ‘lifeworld’ as the pre-theoretical basis of our theoretical reflection.

But the major existentialist objection is that being itself is not an
‘essence’ subject to reduction and, as Merleau-Ponty famously phrased it, ‘a complete [phenomenological] reduction is impossible’ because you cannot ‘reduce’ the existing ‘reducer’. The existing individual is more than his or her ‘definition’ such as one might hope to capture in a theoretical concept.
— Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction; Flynn, p. 23

Existentialism, the Label

Without question, the dominant figure in existentialism
is Jean-Paul Sartre; according to various sources, he either coined the term (unilkely) or at least promoted it briefly (definitely). It is more likely Karl Jaspers or Gabriel Marcel coined the term, or a variation of it, while Sartre popularized the image of the chain-smoking French existentialist. To understand the current definition of existentialism, one must first recognize that the American view of existentialism was derived primarily from the writings of three French political activists (Sartre, Camus, and de Beauvoir), not intellectual purists. Americans learned the term existential after World War II. It was not until the late 1950s that the term was applied broadly to several divergent schools of thought.

None of the great existentialist tomes contains the word ‘existentialism’.
Reports on its origin differ, but it seems to have been coined towards
the end of World War II by the French philosopher Gabriel Marcel as a label for the currently emerging ideas of Jean-Paul Sartre and his close friend Simone de Beauvoir.
— Existentialism: A Reconstruction; Cooper, p. 1

Sartre would eventually write that existentialism was something of a phase he passed through on the way to Marxism. Sartre came to declare existentialism a minor footnote to Marxism, which illustrates Sartre’s interests were more in politics than pure philosophical theory. It could be argued that living authentically, possibly using Socrates as a model, we should do more than think about philosophy — it must be lived. Albert
Camus was an absurdist, suggesting existentialism was more methodology than philosophy. Camus called existentialism “philosophical suicide” if used to ponder life. Considering Camus’ fascination with death, that’s quite a statement.

I call the existential attitude philosophical suicide. How else to start
from the world’s lack of meaning and end up by finding a meaning and
a depth to it?
— Albert Camus as paraphrased; Introducing Existentialism; Richard Appignanesi, p. 36

Though a twentieth-century creation (or evolution) of
philosophers, the label “existentialist” quickly was attached to any number
of thinkers. Notably, the term was applied to various authors because the semi-official
existentialists were novelists, journalists, and essayists. Not to suggest that
the retroactive label wasn’t applied to philosophers, but it seems that
literary skills helped earn the label (posthumously).

The next stage was to rake through the remoter philosophical past in
search of thinkers deserving of the label, the prime candidates being
the two enfants terribles of the nineteenth century, Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche, both of whom were known to have influenced Heidegger, Jaspers and Sartre. This intellectual archaeology was soon to know no bounds, with Pascal, Montaigne, even St Thomas Aquinas and St Augustine, newly excavated as heralds of existentialism. And this labelling game was not confined to the field of philosophy. Novelists reckoned to have concerned themselves with such typically Sartrean themes as anxiety and conflict with others were soon included — Franz Kafka, for example.
— Existentialism: A Reconstruction; Cooper, p. 2

Existentialism Is…

Existentialism, broadly defined, is a set of philosophical
systems concerned with free will, choice, and personal responsibility. Because we make choices based on our experiences, beliefs, and biases, those choices are unique to us — and made without an objective form of truth. There are no “universal” guidelines for most decisions, existentialists believe. Instead, even trusting science is often a “leap
of faith.” Existentialism is, at its core, individualistic.

Free will requires an individual, and existentialists recognize
that individuality is a complex concept. Philosophy was shaken by the Industrial
Revolution and the rise of “dehumanizing” technologies. Standing apart
is nearly impossible and “for the existentialist, being an individual in
our mass society is an achievement rather than a starting point” (Flynn,
p. 23). While modern psychology suggests we develop our individuality
as we mature,
it seems to accept that we are destined to be “individual” in basic sense.
Existentialists reject the notion that all humans, or even most humans,
will be individuals. No, this is not the “self-actualized individual” of
some New Age belief system, but the individual who can and does confront
the disorienting absurdity and alienation of an aware and engaged existence.
No higher power or “Truth” offers security and reassurance to the existential individual:
he or she is alone, yet surrounded by The Other.

The individualism of existentialism means that any attempt
to craft a system of existential philosophy or existential ethics runs
counter to its core nature. It is not a philosophy of universal truths,
yet at the same time the existentialists considered the human condition
of alienation to be universal.

…[W]hat sets it [existentialism] apart from most other philosophies is that it begins
with the ‘individual’ rather than the ‘universal’ and so does not aim
to arrive at general truths: its insistence on personal insights as the
only means to real understanding entails that it makes no claims to objective
knowledge.
—Existentialism: A Guide for the Perplexed; Earnshaw, p. 1

The major thinkers associated with existentialism appear
to agree on little, except for their emphasis on individualism. This intense
focus on the individual is not expressed uniformly. Some of the thinkers
believed the individual should be pursuing a personal relationship with
a Creator, while others were concerned with the individual’s needs within
Marxist theory. Even “individuality” is individual to the existentialists. When students (or readers of the primer) complain that a paragraph or slide doesn’t represent The Existentialism, the commenter demonstrates that indviduals select the existetnialist(s) and existentialism they want.

Certainly, existentialism is not a school of thought nor reducible to
any set of tenets. The three writers who appear invariably on every list
of existentialists — Jaspers, Heidegger, and Sartre — are not in agreement on essentials. By the time we consider adding Rilke, Kafka, and Camus, it becomes plain that one essential feature shared by all these men is their perfervid individualism.
— Existentialism:
From Dostoevsky to Sartre; Walter Kaufmann, p. 11

As one of the common criticisms suggests, emphasizing individuality is not without risks. It might be admirable in the face of the Industrial Revolution and Information Age to resist dehumanization, but it can also lead to a perverse focus on the singular, isolated one who must still live among others.

It is commonly acknowledged that existentialism is a philosophy about
the concrete individual. This is both its glory and its shame. In an
age of mass communication and mass destruction, it is to its credit that
existentialism defends the intrinsic value of what its main proponent Sartre calls the ‘free organic individual’, that is, the flesh-and-blood agent.
— Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction; Flynn, preface p. ii

Though individualism is stressed by existential writers,
they also address the struggles of balancing the self and “The Other” in
a social existence. The quandry of being both an isolated one and part
of the larger many contributes to the alienation that is prominant in many existential works. Existentialism’s historical
context contributes to this struggle.

This does not mean that Existential thinkers refuse to comment on ‘humanity’
as a whole. On the contrary, it is usual for them to contrast precisely
how the individual is separated from the mass and is obliged to separate
him– or herself from it. Further, it is quite usual for this to be placed
in the context of the ‘age’ within which the writers place themselves.
—Existentialism: A Guide for the Perplexed; Earnshaw, p. 20

We must never forget that existentialism is a Continental
movement specific to the experiences of the men and women responsible for the existential works. The thinkers’ lack of faith in science and technology, their disillusionment with the Industrial Revolution, was accompanied by a loss of faith in the traditions of European philosophy.

Existentialism is as it is because the thinkers involved in it perceive
that there is not only a problem with philosophy itself, but there are
also problems with psychology and with the aims of science. It therefore
attempts to carve out a way of thinking, a way of being even, or thinking
about being/Being, which at the same time corrects these errors and installs
itself as a new kind of philosophy.
—Existentialism: A Guide for the Perplexed; Earnshaw, p. 22

Themes of Existentialism

Despite encompassing a staggering range of philosophical,
religious, and political ideologies, according to most scholars the underlying
concepts of existentialism are:

• Humans define themselves through the act of living (and dying).
  • Living is a series of interactions with other humans and their
    choices.
  • Alienation is a condition of modern life we cannot avoid.
• Humans have free will and with that comes despair.
  • Free will implies responsibility for choices and actions.
  • Free will also means that life itself is a choice, once one is
    self-aware.
• Life is a series of choices, creating anxiety and stress.
  • Decisions seldom are without any negative consequences.
  • One must commit to decisions, or they aren’t authentic decisions.
• Some things are irrational or absurd, without explanation.
  • Life either has no meaning (atheists) or the meaning cannot be
    understood (theists).
  • Events are random and even cruel, as opposed to a belief in Karma
    and universal justice.

Illustrating the challenge of defining existentialism,
scholars highlight different aspects of existentialism when trying to assembly
definitions or lists of defining themes. Though scholars tend to select
overlapping themes and concepts when describing existentialism, the different
views of what the core tenets are can be frustrating.

Five Themes of Existentialism

There are five basic themes that the existentialist appropriates each
in his or her own way. Rather than constituting a strict definition of
‘existentialist’, they depict more of a family resemblance (a crisscrossing
and overlapping of the themes) among these philosophers.

1. Existence precedes essence. What you are (your essence) is the result of your choices (your existence) rather than the reverse. Essence is not destiny. You are what you make yourself to be.
2. Time is of the essence. We are fundamentally time-bound beings. Unlike measurable, ‘clock’ time, lived time is qualitative: the ‘not yet’, the ‘already’, and the ‘present’ differ among themselves in meaning and value.
3. Humanism. Existentialism is a person-centred philosophy. Though not anti-science, its focus is on the human individual’s pursuit of identity and meaning amidst the social and economic pressures of mass society for superficiality and conformism.
4. Freedom/responsibility. Existentialism is a philosophy of freedom. Its basis is the fact that we can stand back from our lives and reflect on what we have been doing. In this sense, we are always ‘more’ than ourselves. But we are as responsible as we are free.
5. Ethical considerations are paramount. Though each existentialist understands the ethical, as with ‘freedom’, in his or her own way, the underlying concern is to invite us to examine the authenticity of our personal lives and of our society.

— Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction; Flynn, p. 8

Essence, Existence, and Language

I advise visitors to read the
lexicon following this introduction. Existentialism, and philosophy in general, is infected with a variety of lexicons, unfortunately. Definitions of words vary by philosopher; no two seem to use a word to mean the same thing. I have done my best to assemble a basic
lexicon. When thinkers differ in meanings, I attempt to explain when, how, and why — if we can ever understand why people change words. (Through the looking glass we venture.)

Most visitors to this site have heard Jean-Paul
Sartre’s famous statement from Being and Nothingness, “Existence precedes and rules essence.” In general, it is accepted that people create an essence while all other things have an essence and are then created or understood by people.

What a person is at any given time, his ‘essence’, is always a function
of what he is on the way to becoming in pursuit of the projects issuing
from a reflective concern for his life.
— Existentialism: A Reconstruction; Cooper, p. 3

If you have a new idea for a tool, the idea exists before the object you intend to create. However, you can understand your idea only via words or symbols already known. This means all comprehension of “essense” is limited by existing language. Questions of philosophy eventually confront matters of language and expression. What we know is complicated when we try to share knowledge or wisdom. Each time we communicate, some loss of meaning occurs.

What does it mean to “exist” for an existential philosopher?
Again, language contributes to the haze.

A more decisive reason, having to do with the etymology of the word
‘exist’, helps to explain Heidegger’s use of it. In some of his writings he spells the word with a hyphen, ‘ex-ist’, thereby drawing attention to its derivation from the Greek and Latin words meaning ‘to stand out from’.
— Existentialism: A Reconstruction; Cooper, p. 4

How we relate to people and each other is limited by
language, even if we accept the idea that first a person exists, then he
or she is free to define a “self” in the world. The concepts of language
and symbols complicate the existence-essence relationship because how we
describe something affects how others perceive that thing or person.

A person has a ‘concreteness’, ‘particularity’ and ‘uniqueness’ which
make it impossible to equate him with an aggregate of instantiated universals.
…Kierkegaard’s constant references to ‘the existing individual’, ‘the existing thinker’ and the like are intended to remind his readers — versed, presumably, in the traditional doctrine or its more recent Hegelian variation — that, with human beings, their existence is peculiarly ‘particular’, and known to themselves ‘immediately’.
— Existentialism: A Reconstruction; Cooper, p. 4

Language and Truth

We communicate via images, sounds, and touch. For most
of us, what we think is converted to a form of “unspoken speech” in our
minds. This means we can only understand and explain things in some form
of spoken word. Philosophers dealing with ideas of deconstruction and postmodern
linguistics have come to appreciate the limits of language and the social
implications of words.

Taken as a whole, the rich texture and density of Existential writing
is not an aesthetic affectation; it is part of each philosopher’s attempt
to render their thinking and experiences in a way which is a proper realization
of those ideas, sensations and events. To speak with a ‘received language’
would be to speak inauthentically. It is natural, then, for each Existential
philosopher to create a way of speaking which can be considered unique.
—Existentialism: A Guide for the Perplexed; Earnshaw, p. 10

The question of “truth” is often linked to language by
philosophers. The pragmatists theorize that truth is the best, and generally
dominant, description of a phenomenon. Some existentialists appear to embrace
this view of truth, though they are not in the same philosophical tradition
as pragmatists.

While he cannot accept a definition of truth as correspondence with
a reality independent of all human conceptions of it, the Existentialist
is perfectly able to accept that beliefs can be objectively true in the
sense of being warranted by criteria on which there is tried and tested
public agreement.
— Existentialism: A Reconstruction; Cooper, p. 17

Existentialism has been questioning “truth” since Kierkegaard and Nietzsche pondered how we come to understand knowledge. Kierkegaard suggested truth was personal, a question of faith even when pondering mundane matters. The idea that truth could be individual was radical, especially since Kierkegaard focused on the “truth” of Christianity. For Nietzsche, the problem of truth was one of interpretation: you and I will interpret accurate data differently.

Nietzsche had insisted that all knowledge was interpretation and that there was no ‘original’ non-interpreted text. In other words, what counted as knowledge was interpretation ‘all the way down’.
— Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction; Flynn, p. 13

The analytical
philosophers have traditionally viewed language and grammars as closer to “truth” than Continental philosophers do. This is a fundamental, defining difference between analytic and Continental schools of thought. This can confuse readers unfamiliar with the conceptual differences, since Continental philosophers often sound certain. Even the existentialists seem to be making universal claims about humanity, but this is a rhetorical device.

The philosophical term for the study of Being is ‘ontology’ and Existentialism,
when viewed as a philosophical endeavour, is essentially an ontological
analysis (as opposed to, say, ‘epistemology’, the study of knowledge).
Being is not open to scientific analysis — at least, not as we currently
understand science. And yet Existentialism, and those writers who have
contributed to Existential thought, treat their pronouncements upon human
being as if they were giving us ‘facts’.
—Existentialism: A Guide for the Perplexed; Earnshaw, p. 21

Language and Identity

If we each define an essence by living and making choices,
we are still limited by words and other forms of text when we want to express
that essence to others. We accept, embrace, reject, and create our labels, trying to define ourselves… to ourselves and to others.

A dog does not worry over its being and does not name itself ‘dog’;
nor does it consciously worry over its future or how it can live its
life to its full potential.
—Existentialism: A Guide for the Perplexed; Earnshaw, pp. 20-1

French, as with most languages, is gender-specific even
when naming objects. Simone de Beauvoir wondered how language affects gender identity. Language shapes us, while we also have some power to shape language. Because language is not static, we can argue for new words, new meanings, and even new grammars. Unfortunately, no language is a perfect representation of ideas, and our ideas are shaped by existing language. We are the words we use — which is why creating new words and modifying existing terminology appeals to some thinkers, as the existential lexicon illustrates.

Life and Free Will

Mankind is the only known animal, according to earth-bound
existentialists, that defines itself through the act of living. In other words, first a man or woman exists, then the individual spends a lifetime changing his or her essence. Without life there can be no meaning; the search for meaning in existentialism is the search for self… which is why there is existential psychotherapy. (Imagine a therapist telling people life has no meaning!) If you must define yourself through living, then you are never able to say, “I am this” because even pondering self-definition changes you.

We can get nowhere, Heidegger argues, unless we consider the most fundamental of all questions — ‘What is the meaning of Being?’ and it is clear, both in Heidegger and in Sartre, that self and existence can have no fixed definition at all: to exist as a human being is precisely to ask the question ‘What is Being?’
—Existentialism: A Guide for the Perplexed; Earnshaw, p. 2

While essence and existence can be confusing concepts,
the basic nature of free will means that a person can only be defined in
terms of his or her choices and the path towards the future charted by
those choices.

… [At] any given point in an acorn’s career, it is possible to give
an exhaustive description of it in terms of the properties — colour,
molecular structure, etc. — which belong to it at that moment. But no
complete account can be given of a human being without reference to what
he is in the process of becoming — without reference, that is, to the
projects and intentions which he is on the way to realizing, and in terms
of which sense is made of his present condition.
— Existentialism: A Reconstruction; Cooper, p. 3

A student is in the process of becoming a graduate. The
new employee might be in the process of becoming a manager. The apprentice
is training to be the master. We are each on several paths, as we are several
things and becoming several more at all times.

Authenticity

Usually associated with Sartre, the notion of “authenticity” appears throughout the works of existential thinkers. The term actually traces back to Kierkegaard, who also explained the challenges of being true to yourself in the face of social pressures. To be authentic is to choose your own path in life, though that might or might not comply with social norms.

Kierkegaard also introduced the idea of ‘authenticity’ and the idea of ‘an authentic self’ for which we alone are responsible. He described how there was a public pressure to conform to society and that this necessarily led to ‘inauthenticity’, and that a certain feeling or mood, ‘anxiety’, indicated or revealed to us that the true nature of our lives is founded on choices which we must make based only on what we as individuals create as values. As such, we are therefore forced to make choices based on ‘nothing’ that is certain: our existence has no grounding, or, to put it in a more dramatically Existential way, we are suspended over an abyss.
—Existentialism: A Guide for the Perplexed; Earnshaw, pp. 3-4

The demand for authenticity contributes to one of the criticisms
of existentialism: since no one can be entirely authentic, can anyone be existential? Or is the pursuit of authentic existence sufficient, something like the pursuit of good in some religions? To this, existentialism adds another quandary, by insisting that questioning “being” is a human pursuit. What if some humans do not question what it is to be, much less to be authentically?

If to be human is to question being, are those people who do not question
being somehow not human? In Existential terms they would certainly be
considered ‘inauthentic’. Does that mean that to be authentic it is necessary
to be (or aspire to be) a philosopher and to at least have read Being
and Time and Being and Nothingness?
—Existentialism: A Guide for the Perplexed; Earnshaw, p. 24

Choosing Life, Pondering Death

Existentialism is not (necessarily) depressing. Existentialism
is about life: existentialists believe in living — and in fighting for
life. We define ourselves by living; suicide would indicate you have chosen
to have no meaning.

‘Death’ alone does not create meaningfulness, nor exactly does the self’s
confrontation with its own end. This is because death in the thinking
of Heidegger and Sartre is not a future event isolated in time which is yet to happen; it is bound up with the now and how I project myself. Sartre takes issue with Heidegger’s notion that we are waiting upon death since, he argues, we can never know the moment of our death. This leads to a greater sense of urgency in Sartre for our lives are the projects we achieve, not the ones we intend to achieve. Camus understands death in a different way. It is the absurdity of life that we exist and that simultaneously death renders everything futile. Why not commit suicide, then? Because that would show that we were certain that life was not worth living, and to be certain we would have to know what the meaning of life is.
—Existentialism: A Guide for the Perplexed; Earnshaw, p. 19

What happens when we realize that even life itself is
a choice? The initial response is existential “angst” and “despair” because
this means getting out of bed every day is a choice. For an existentialist,
the saying “Everything is political” becomes “Everything is philosophical”
— including living. You are confronted by life, by the fact every action
throughout the day is a choice that sets more events in motion and necessitates
yet more choices.

The existentialists conclude that human choice is subjective, because
individuals finally must make their own choices without help from such
external standards as laws, ethical rules, or traditions. Because individuals
make their own choices, they are free; but because they freely choose,
they are completely responsible for their choices. The existentialists
emphasize that freedom is necessarily accompanied by responsibility.
Furthermore, since individuals are forced to choose for themselves, they
have their freedom — and therefore their responsibility — thrust upon
them. They are “condemned to be free.”

For existentialism, responsibility is the dark side of freedom. When
individuals realize that they are completely responsible for their decisions,
actions, and beliefs, they are overcome by anxiety. They try to escape
from this anxiety by ignoring or denying their freedom and their responsibility.
But because this amounts to ignoring or denying their actual situation,
they succeed only in deceiving themselves. The existentialists criticize
this flight from freedom and responsibility into self-deception. They
insist that individuals must accept full responsibility for their behavior,
no matter how difficult. If an individual is to live meaningfully and
authentically, he or she must become fully aware of the true character
of the human situation and bravely accept it.
— World Book Multimedia Encyclopedia © 2001 by World Book, Inc.
Ivan Soll, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy, University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Alienation and The Other

Existentialism is rooted decidedly in post-Industrial
Revolution Western culture. The migration of people from small farming
communities to crowded cities revealed that even among thousands, or millions,
of people it is possible to be alienated as an individual. Philosophers
began to ask if it was possible for humans to be anything other than alienated
from each other.

Both Kierkegaard and Nietzsche can be seen as outsiders, in their writings
and in their lives, and it is a feature of Existentialism that its precepts
and many of its examples present us with alienated figures. The refusal
to conform to society’s received values is common to both these writers
and is a strong thread that runs throughout Existentialism.
—Existentialism: A Guide for the Perplexed; Earnshaw, p. 5

Today, alienation is an important concern of not only
philosophers, but also of psychologists and social theorists. Alienation,
as a state of being, has implications both personal and social.

This is the sense that the most serious question with which philosophy
has to deal is that of alienation in its various forms — alienation from
the world, from one’s fellows, from oneself. It is to the alienation
threatened by a dualism of mind and body and by the scientific image
of an objective reality untainted by human concerns, and not to the spectre
of scepticism, which philosophy must, before all else, respond. Existentialism
itself is just such a response.
— Existentialism: A Reconstruction; Cooper, p. 8

For Continental philosophers, including those associated
with existentialism, the emergence of analytical
philosophy contributed to alienation. The Industrial Revolution was followed by a technology revolution and the emergence of the “knowledge economy” that emphasizes science and technical solutions to problems, including social problems.

From a Continental perspective, the adoption of scientism in philosophy
fails to grasp the critical and emancipatory function of philosophy:
that is, it fails to see the possible complicity between a scientific
conception of the world and what Nietzsche saw as nihilism. It fails
fundamentally to see the role that science and technology play in the
alienation of human beings from the world. This alienation can happen
in a number of ways, whether through turning the world into a causally
determined realm of objects that stand against an isolated human subject,
or through turning those objects into empty commodities that can be surveyed
or traded with indifference.
— Continental Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction; Critchley, p. 111

According to existentialists, the scientific method separates
people from their actual, lived experiences. Existentialists believe their
methods are the only way to recognize the nature of and confront alienation.

Philosophy as Art

Existentialism is associated with literature, theatre,
music, and film. Though not all “existential works” are by “existentialists,”
most people learn of existentialism through literary works. From Dostoevsky’s novels to Kafka’s short stories, novels have confronted existentialism and absurdism. The forefathers of existentialism, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche both wrote parables. Students throughout the Western world read Sartre’s plays and Camus’ novels.

…[T]here is a certain ‘literariness’ to Existentialism, so that the
prevalence of novels and other literary texts in the canon of Existential
literature would seem to remove it further from the possibility of being
a philosophy. Many of the ‘straight’ philosophical essays and books by
thinkers such as Kierkegaard and Nietzsche are themselves cast in a literary
vein, rather than in the disciplined rhetoric of a rigorous philosophical
discourse.
—Existentialism: A Guide for the Perplexed; Earnshaw, p. 1

As a writer, I know the power of creative writing, especially
when you want to explore how an individual reacts to situations. Academic
writing tends to be not only dry but, bluntly, much of it is horrible.
By mastering other literary forms, the existentialists became more effective
writers in general. Few other philosophical schools of thought have had
the reach of existentialism outside academia, in no small part because
these thinkers were interesting authors.

Because of its dramatic conception of existence, its widespread use
of powerful images in its arguments, and its appeal to personal response
in its communications, existentialism has always been closely associated
with the fine arts. […] So strong is the influence ofexistentialist
ideas in the fine arts that, as we have seen, some would prefer to describe
existentialism as a literary movement. Certainly, authors like Dostoevsky
and Kafka, playwrights like Beckett and Ionesco, and artists like Giacometti
and Picasso exemplify many of the defining characteristics of existentialist
thought.
— Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction; Flynn, p. 16

Most stories, excluding generational or situational epics,
deal with one character’s journey. Stories are how we, as a culture, explore
what it means to make choices about self-definition. The literature most
closely associated with existential themes tends toward psychological thriller.
It might be Sartre’s No
Exit or any work by Kafka — the literature features an element of mystery.

The novel form has been of particular use to the Existentialists, and
quite often in the guise of a thriller, literally in works such as Crime
and Punishment, and metaphysically in a novel like The
Trial. The reason for this is not hard to fathom. Novels usually depend upon a central character, and throughout the history of the form the focus of the novel has more often than not been the psychological, the inner workings of the mind and consciousness. As such, therefore, it is tailor-made for working through an individual’s awakening to the exigencies of existence.
—Existentialism: A Guide for the Perplexed; Earnshaw, pp. 10-1

Sartre went so far as to suggest that art without an underlying, activist philosophy was worthless. An authentic writer would always be advocating for a set of beliefs, ideals, or actions. Sartre called this a commitment, not only to the art form but to humanity.

In a famous set of essays, What is Literature? published in 1948, Sartre develops the concept of ‘committed literature’. His basic premise is that writing is a form of action for which responsibility must be taken, but that this responsibility carries over into the content and not just the form of what is communicated.
— Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction; Flynn, p. 13

By communicating through art, existential thinkers of
the past and present aim to reach the mass audience — moving existentialism
from university philosophy departments to the general public. Using art
to reach the public illustrates trust in the public, an egalitarian view
of philosophy.

Art therefore has not simply been a pleasant and less demanding tool
with which to disseminate and explore ideas; it has been part of the
Existential ‘concern’.
—Existentialism: A Guide for the Perplexed; Earnshaw, p. 10

Politics of Freedom

Philosophy is political, and most political theories
have been shaped by philosophy. Existentialism’s lack of a unified set
of principles and its emphasis on individualism might imply that it is
somewhat removed from public political action.

Existentialism might seem a refuge from politics. The focus on the subjective
individual would appear to make any consideration of politics and political
activity irrelevant.
—Existentialism: A Guide for the Perplexed; Earnshaw, p. 12

Existentialism, however, is often associated with politics.
The political existentialists tended to be “leftist” during the twentieth century. These men and women felt compelled to be political, to act based on their ideals.

Camus, Sartre, and even Nietzsche were involved in various wars because they believed passionately in fighting for the survival of their nations and peoples. The politics of the existentialists and their colleagues varies, but each seeks the most individual freedom for people within a society.

Libertarianism and Existentialism

Libertarianism is as often misunderstood as existentialism. There are libertarian socialists and libertarian anarchists. However, libertarianism in the United States and other Anglo-American cultures is most often associated with variations of Austrian economics.

Because of this emphasis on radical individualism, existentialism
is sometimes compared to Ayn
Rand’s objectivism (a mistake, generally) or political libertarianism. Like existentialists, Rand and her followers used the arts to further a philosophy. However, objectivism claims there are basic, universal truths of human nature and experience. Rand’s works and objectivism embody a neo-liberal philosophy of personal self-interest and, by some, of greed. Most of the existential thinkers of the twentieth century are associated with left-leaning democratic socialism and even communism. Yes, this is also contradictory on its face, reflecting the complexity of any attempt to unravel existentialism.

William Irwin has argued that existentialism and libertarianism
complement each other, particularly in his book The Free Market Existentialist: Capitalism without Consumerism. As Irwin notes, because many contemporary philosophers and scholars view existentialism in terms of the French political philosophers Sartre, Camus, and de Beauvoir, it is difficult to consider neo-liberalism and classical liberalism as complementary to existentialism.

It’s Time To Embrace Free-Market Existentialism!

Capitalism provides the most choices and opportunities for philosophical self-definition.

William Irwin | December 30, 2015

A friend of mine was “horrified,” as he put it, when I told him about what I had planned in connecting existentialism and capitalism. He warned me that any other self-identifying existentialist would be horrified as well. What he could not tell me was why.

I define existentialism as a philosophy that reacts to an apparently absurd or meaningless world by urging the individual to overcome alienation, oppression, and despair through freedom and self-creation in order to become a genuine person. Existentialism is a philosophy of action, not of wallowing in despair. It is stoicism without quietism.
— It’s Time To Embrace Free-Market Existentialism; Irwin, Reason.com

Though Irwin’s quip relating existentialism to stoicism is intentionally provocative, his overall argument is that individualism defines existentialism and, within current political realities, libertarianism has a similarly deep commitment to the individual. Both existentialism and libertarianism also assume some limits on that individual freedom for the sake of society. As philosophers differ on what constitutes individual freedom, so do “liberals” from the breadth of neo-liberalism. Most libertarians turn to John Stuart Mill, but can Mill be reconciled with existentialism? Is this any more extreme than how the words of Hegel and Kant have been extended? Irwin attempts to reconcile existentialism and libertarianism through the radical individualism of each.

The main link between existentialism and libertarianism is individualism. In both systems of thought, the individual is primary and the individual is responsible.

Libertarians have long recognized the importance of strong property rights in securing autonomy, and existentialists have long recognized the importance of choosing meaning and subjective values for oneself in developing authenticity. One sense does not necessarily imply the other, but they do fit together well. Existentialists emphasize the importance of subjectively choosing one’s values and making one’s meaning, and libertarians champion the individual’s prerogative to live in any way that does not cause harm to others.

Existentialism and libertarianism both value freedom and responsibility. As with individualism, the sense of freedom characteristic of existentialism is not exactly the same as the sense of freedom characteristic of libertarianism, but they are not foreign to each other.
— It’s Time To Embrace Free-Market Existentialism; Irwin, Reason.com

The political existentialists of the twentieth century embraced socialism and communism because they viewed capitalism as dehumanizing, pitting one social class against another even with meritocracy sorting groups. Granted, as in the case of Sartre, this required ignoring the brutal nature of Soviet communism and other Marx-inspired nations. The “evils” of capitalism were more obvious to philosophers than the likely (and real) outcomes of systems that require one group of administrators to determine what is best for all citizens. The left-leaning philosophers did not anticipate the lack of personal freedom that followed centralized planning. That planning, however “scientific” or “methodical” failed, but the loss of freedoms endured.

Irwin address the perceptions of capitalism throughout his text on “free-market existentialism” and argues that capitalism is disliked because philosophers assume the masses are easily manipulated and controlled. To dislike capitalism, you have to assume the consumers and workers are either less intelligent than the educated who critique the system or controlled in some other way. Irwin argues that you cannot assume capitalism has power to control people while other systems do not. He does not suggest capitalism is perfect, but that it allows for bad personal decisions to allow equally good personal decisions.

One of the great concerns of the political left is that capitalism makes us into mindless drones who simply buy and consume. Of course capitalism provides circumstances that make it easier for a person to live that way, but capitalism can’t make you do anything. It is possible to have capitalism without consumerism. Existentialism is actually the ideal balancing agent, the perfect accompaniment to capitalism, allowing us to reap the benefits of a free market while encouraging us to resist crass consumerism.

Fear of capitalism and free markets is just fear that people can’t be trusted to think and act for themselves.
— It’s Time To Embrace Free-Market Existentialism; Irwin, Reason.com

This debate is unlikely to be resolved, though Irwin’s suggestion that the academic elites (at least in the humanities) are predisposed to dislike capitalism is supported by statistical profiles of academic disciplines. Marx lives on in academic departments Irwin notes, though rarely in economics programs.

Beliefs of Existentialists

There were and are scholars
of theology associated with existentialism. The most famous might be Kierkegaard; other theologically inclined thinkers include Karl Barth, Martin
Buber, Gabriel Marcel, Reinhold
Niebuhr, and Paul Tillich. Too often people link a lack of faith or secular beliefs with existential ideals.

Existentialism is about being a saint without God; being your own hero,
without all the sanction and support of religion or society.
— Anita Brookner (b. 1938), British novelist, art historian.
Interview in Writers
at Work, Eighth Series, ed. George Plimpton (1988).

Existential thinkers as diverse as Kierkegaard and Sartre were not concerned with which beliefs (or unbelief) someone held, but instead the existential thinkers worried that too many people accept the values of community leaders uncritically. Nietzsche worried about following the “herd” instead of establishing personal beliefs and values.

The “angst” of existential freedom arises, at least partially,
from the impulse to develop beliefs and values independently of a community.
Not everyone feels the need intellectually or emotionally to develop his
or her own beliefs; Nietzsche suggests only a handful of individuals are capable of such independence. And, for the theistic existentialists, one can still decide religious values are authentic for his or her existence.

The accompanying table illustrates the range of ideals
expressed by the major existentialists. Not every existentialist follows
a perfect row in the grid. In particular, their political theories are
more varied than the three categories listed.

 

Religious	Predetermination	Elitist	Moralistic	Intentions
Agnostic	Chance	Communist	Relativistic	Actions
Atheistic	Free Will	Anarchist	Amoralistic	Results

 

The first row might represent the writings of Blaise Pascal or Fyodor
Dostoevsky, both of whom defended fundamentalist religious beliefs, including their inherent contradictions. The last row is representative of Jean-Paul Sartre’s writings, if not his own beliefs. As previously stated, uniting the men and women behind this matrix of concepts is futile. Their thoughts are linked by a belief that this life is a near-futile struggle against forces aligned in opposition to the individual.

The Existentialists

The individuals listed represent major contributors to
existentialism and related philosophies. This chart is in philosophical
order, not in the order of publication or life. Following the chart is
further information on other existentialists or contributors to the philosophy.
I would like to thank site visitor Eduardo Tenenbaum for his suggestions for this chart. This chart has been revised several times, based on further readings and suggestions from site visitors.

 

Name Philosophy / Faith	Contribution
Fyodor Dostoevsky Eastern Orthodox	Russian novelist. Studied individual will, freedom, and anguish. Several of the characters created by Dostoevsky explore existential issues of freedom and self-determination. Many of these characters are criminals.
Søren Kierkegaard Existentialist; Protestant Theist	Danish theologian and philosopher. Sometimes considered the first existentialist, Kierkegaard’s works were popularized by Heidegger. Formulated the aesthetic, ethical and religious as modes of existence. Perhaps best known for describing the “leap of faith” required of Christians in modern circumstances.
Friedrich Nietzsche Individualist; Anti-Christian	German philosopher and philologist (classicist). Ideas influenced Heidegger and Sartre. Developed concepts of Will-to-Power, Eternal Recurrence and Overman.
Georg W. F. Hegel German Idealism; Protestant	German idealist philosopher and social theorist. Influenced Marx, Husserl, Sartre, and many others. Hegel’s followers broke into “left” and “right” wings. First to promote the concept of phenomenology.
Edmund Husserl Phenomenologist	Austrian-born German philosopher and mathematician. Explored the subjective and objective nature of human experience. His mathematical training influenced his philosophical writings. Developed concept of essences and being. Also, the concept of the Lifeworld
Martin Heidegger Phenomenologist, Existentialist; Theist	German philosopher and curiously metaphysical thinker who disavowed metaphysics. Assistant to Husserl, wrote about Kierkegaard’s works. Argued that confronting the question of the meaning of being, encompassing one’s own death, was central for an authentic human existence. Proclaimed the end of metaphysics.
Franz Kafka Absurdist; Jewish	Austrian short story author, known for his depictions of absurd situations and illogical justice. Like Camus, Kafka admired those who rebelled against the natural absurdity of existence.
Jean-Paul Sartre Existentialist; Atheist	French philosopher, playwright, and novelist. Student of Heidegger, colleague and lover of de Beauvoir. Likely the most influential figure in existentialism.
Gabriel Marcel Humanist; Roman-Catholic	French contemporary of Sartre, attempted to craft a definition of existentialism that allowed for faith.
Simone de Beauvoir Existentialist; Atheist	French writer, existentialist, and feminist. Best known as a “feminist” writer, she was the editor of many of Sartre’s works. Lover of Sartre, friend to Camus and Merleau-Ponty.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty Phenomenologist, Existentialist; Theist	French philosopher and educational theorist. One-time friend of Sartre, Camus. Supporter of Husserlian Phenomenology. Affirmed a reality beyond what humans could comprehend.
Albert Camus Existentialist, Absurdist; Atheist	French-Algerian author and journalist. Resistance member during WWII with Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, de Beauvoir. Brought “humanism” to his existentialism.
Karl Jaspers Existentialist; Agnostic, Theist	German psychiatrist, philosopher, and theologian. Contemporary of Sartre, Camus, et al. Jaspers sought to make philosophy more open for the general public… more relevant.

 

Other Thinkers of Note

Other figures important to understanding existentialism
include:

• Jean Wahl (1888–1974), French scholar
• Nicolas Alexandrovich Berdyaev (1874–1948), Russian Neo-Romanticist
• José Ortega y Gasset (1883–1955), Spanish writer
• Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936), Spanish philosopher
• Leo Isakovich Shestov Schwarzman (1866–1938), Russian Irrationalist

Questions to Ponder

Philosophy and religion exist to answer “why?” when we
want an excuse for human nature. Maybe science will explain away sociopaths
and even mere anger someday. We can treat depression, anxiety, mania, and
numerous other “disorders” with pills. Alienation, despair, and anguish
may vanish. If they do, what of existentialism? Do humans need their pain?
Is suffering what makes us stronger, as Nietzsche suspected?

Some questions posed by the thinkers profiled on this
site:

• If something worth living for is worth dying for, what about something
  not worth dying for? (Camus)
• Did man create God to have a reason to live? (Dostoevsky)
• Does society make women and men different or do we choose our roles?
  (Beauvoir)
• Would living forever add meaning to life? (Heidegger)
• How do you really act in private? (Sartre)
• Without love, without people, what is a person? (Kafka)

As this short review of concepts demonstrates, the label existentialist is applied broadly. Even these concepts are not universal within existentialist works, or at least the writings of people groups as the existentialists. There is no one or two sentence statement summarizing what more than a dozen famous and infamous people pondered. The only common factor seems to be “despair.”

Major Criticisms

Understand, I don’t claim to be an “existentialist” but
rather a rhetorician with an interest in existentialism’s influence on
the arts. While I agree with some of the criticisms of existentialism and
its leading proponents, my primary interest is in broader existential questions,
which are often at the core of great literature. Seldom is a good story
about a community — great stories tend to be about one individual trying
to define his or her purpose in life. But, the criticisms should be discussed
so readers are aware of complaints against existentialism.

There Is No Existentialism

The charge there is no clear “existentialism” is a fair
complaint, since only a few people ever embraced the term officially during
the first half of the twentieth century. There is no one formal existential
program, unless you start and stop with Jean-Paul
Sartre. Even then, Sartre was constantly revising his own thoughts on the matter. Existentialism often finds itself excluded from “serious” discussions of philosophy because it seems fleeting — and even anti-philosophical.

… Sartre, while delivering a public lecture on Existentialism, at the
same time wanted to claim it for technicians and philosophers alone.
On the other hand, philosophy as a discipline has often had scant regard
for Existentialism, and Bertrand Russell famously omitted Heidegger (and
Husserl) from his History of Western Philosophy. Hence Existentialism would appear to fall between two stools, appropriated by many who otherwise have nothing to do with philosophy, while itself wishing to shun these in preference for an embrace from Philosophy proper.
—Existentialism: A Guide for the Perplexed; Earnshaw, p. 22

Alienated from Others

Among the criticisms of existentialism is that many of
the celebrated figures were alienated from their own families, friends,
and communities. This personal alienation resulted in a psychological need
to rationalize their personal isolation, according to some critics. Kierkegaard, Kafka, and Nietzsche had unusual relationships with the people closest to them, certainly. No one describes Sartre and de
Beauvoir as a model couple. Camus also struggled with various relationships.

Did a set of alienated thinkers develop a philosophy
that celebrates awareness of alienation as a sign of intelligence? If so,
the implication is that these thinkers wanted to validate themselves and
their own failed social connections.

Limits of Free Will

Belief in pure free will would require rejecting all
science or embracing the narcissistic view that some individuals are inherently
superior. If free will is constrained by a number of factors, then existentialism
rests on a faulty foundation according to some critics. Most psychiatrists
long ago rejected notions of unconstrained free will.

Advancements in science have revealed the limits of “free
will” and the human brain. Neurology, psychiatry, and other disciplines
suggest a range of human conditions such as bipolar disorder, obsessive
compulsion, depression, attention deficit, and others are physical in origin.
The physical cause might be neurological damage or genetic mutation, but
the cause is still beyond “free will.” Evolutionary psychologists, sociologists,
behavioral economists, and other researchers suggest some behaviors are
adaptations that help the human species survive.

Anarchy, Nihilism, and Fatalism

Especially among various radical groups and students,
existentialism is associated with anarchism, nihilism, and fatalism. The
criticism that existentialism can lead someone to these radical political
movements is correct only insofar as people have found ways to co-opt Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, and other existential thinkers. It is correct that misguided individuals use works associated with existentialism to justify political violence.

However, the philosophers and writers associated with
existentialism present extremely complex analyses of rebellion and resistance
— certainly not fatalistic views of social order. Having lived through
World War II, the French existential figures Camus, de
Beauvoir, and Sartre offered nuanced writings and speeches on revolutionary movements.

When existentialism is associated with anarchy, this
is not the anarchy of theory, in which people evolve into a cooperative
society without the need for governmental, organizational controls. Instead,
this is the political movement that gained prominence in Europe during
the early twentieth century, particularly in Mediterranean nations. The
most famous anarchists’ movement is in Spain, tracing its history to the
Spanish Civil War, but anarchists are influential in Greece, Italy, and
southern France. The anarchists seek the violent overthrow of governments
they believe to be obstacles to equality and freedom.

The violent protests of anarchists, a common event at
international economic conferences, pale in comparison to the goals of
political nihilists. Associated with pre-Revolutionary Russia, nihilism
takes the belief that life is meaningless to an extreme. Originally the
nihilists sought an embrace of science and logic, rejecting Romanticism.
They also rejected German Idealism. Eventually the movement was overtaken
be people who believed only the complete and total destruction of current
order could free mankind. When people discuss nihilism and existentialism,
they are suggesting the extreme belief that society as it is must be destroyed
to free people from traditions and beliefs that serve no purpose.

Fatalism is the most extreme political movement associated,
correctly or not, with existentialism. Fatalism doesn’t assume a reconstituted
society will be better, as anarchism or nihilism do. Fatalism calls for
the permanent, total destruction of humanity because life and existence
is meaningless. The radical fatalist kills because killing quickens the
end of humanity. Some fatalists seek to start larger conflicts, convinced
wars and terrorism prove that mankind is unworthy of even an absurd existence.

Lacking one answer to what is “existential,” I am going
to present what is not in an attempt to clarify things through the fog (a reference to Camus). By understanding what existentialism excludes, discussions of what might be included become somewhat clearer. Generally, what we consider existentialism does not support any of the following:

• The “good life” in classical terms, such as a philosophical key to
  wealth, pleasure, or honor.
• A traditional embrace of social approval and social structure, trumping
  the individual.
• A Tao-like acceptance what is, and accepting “being” as enough in life.
• A belief, or even faith, that science can and will make everything
  better.
• The utopian ideal that people are good by nature, ruined by society
  or external forces.

There are, according to existentialism and its predecessor,
phenomenology, some problems with Western philosophical traditions. The
basic problem is that humans are not good, sharing, generous creatures.
Children are what we remain our entire lives… greedy, manipulative, brats.
Some people disguise it better than others. The people in charge of America
would be the people in charge of most countries: the best “political” people.
Or, as one 60s radical said, “There were eventually leaders in every commune.”

Watch a preschool class. I owned a children’s bookstore,
and before that I was a teacher. Children are not nurtured to behave poorly
— the challenge is to socialize a child. We struggle to be social creatures.
Society is unnatural. Rules are difficult.

“Mine” is naturally a child’s way of thinking. It is
soon followed by “I didn’t do it!”

Existentialism requires the active acceptance of our
nature. Robert G. Olson noted that we spend our lives wanting more and
more. Once we realize the futility of wordly desire, we try to accept what
we have. We turn to philosophy or religion to accept less. We want to detach
from our worldly needs — but we cannot do so. It is the human condition
to desire. To want. To seek more, even when that “more” is “more of less.”
It is a desire to prove something to ourselves, as well as others.

The existentialists … mock the notion of a complete and fully satisfying
life. The life of every man, whether he explicitly recognizes it or not,
is marked by irreparable losses. Man cannot help aspiring toward the
goods of this world, nor can he help aspiring toward the serene detachment
from the things of this world which the traditional philosopher sought;
but it is not within his power to achieve either of these ambitions,
or having achieved them to find therein the satisfaction he had anticipated.
— An Introduction
to Existentialism; Robert G. Olson, p. 14

Existentialism assumes we are best when we struggle against
our nature. Mankind is best challenging itself to improve, yet knowing
perfection is not possible. Religions present rules, yet the believers
know they cannot live by all of those rules. The “sin-free” life is beyond
human nature. Is that any less reason to try to be good, generous, caring,
and compassionate? Perfectionism is considered unhealthy by psychiatrists
for a reason.

The Struggle

The word “existential” is used to describe so many people,
fictional characters, choices, and situations that it has been reduced
to meaning any dilemma revealing the true nature of a person. The notion
of dilemma reduces “existential” to an adjective describing too many common
choices. Existentialism properly defines a broader philosophy, in which
life itself is a choice.

Why is Buddhism Not Existential?

Siddharta Gautama was appalled by suffering and chaos
in the world. So much so, he left his wife and son to meditate on the meaning
of everything. Unfortunately, he didn’t find answers among the gurus. There
were no easy answers. In some ways, yes, Siddharta experienced an “existential”
discovery: life is suffering.

But, Siddharta did not follow the existential notion
of openly and physically rebelling or fighting to establish a meaning.
He did not openly challenge people and political leaders. Instead, he took
a different approach:

When he met his first disciples at Benares after his enlightenment,
the Buddha outlines his system, which was based on one essential fact:
all existence was dukkha. It consisted entirely of suffering; life was
wholly awry. Things come and go in meaningless flux. Nothing has permanent
significance. Religion starts with the perception that something is wrong.
[…] The Buddha taught that is was possible to gain release from dukkha
by living a life of compassion for all living beings, speaking and behaving
gently, kindly and accurately, and refraining from anything like drugs
or intoxicants that cloud the mind.
— A History of God; Karen Armstrong, p. 32

Unlike the existentialists, Siddharta is a stoic in nature:
accept things as they are, don’t try to change them or control them. Curiously, the
Buddha is rebellious in that his response rejects social norms. Siddharta was rejecting the Hindu teachings of his time, much as Kierkegaard challenged the ritualized nature of Christianity. But, Siddharta was not an “active” rebel (though all choices are active choices). He was, in many ways, teaching a passive resistance that the existentialists would reject.

Sources

Appignanesi, Richard, and Oscar Zarate. Introducing
Existentialism. Lanham, Md.: Totem Books, 2002. [1840462663]

Armstrong, Karen. A
History of God: The 4000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and
Islam. New York: A. A. Knopf: Distributed by Random House, 1993. [0679426000]

Cooper, David E. Existentialism:
A Reconstruction. 2nd ed. Oxford, UK; Malden, Mass: Blackwell Publishers, 1999. [0631213228, 0631213236]

Critchley, Simon. Continental
Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction. Very Short Introductions, Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. [0192853597]

Earnshaw, Steven. Existentialism: A Guide for the Perplexed. London; New York: Continuum International Pub. Group, 2006. [0826485294, 9780826485298, 0826485308, 9780826485304]

Flynn, Thomas R. Existentialism:
A Very Short Introduction. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. [0192804286]

Kaufmann, Walter Arnold. Existentialism:
From Dostoevsky to Sartre. New York: New American Library, 1975. [0452009308]

Olson, Robert G. An
Introduction to Existentialism. New York: Dover Publications, 1962.

Complete Bibliography