The word was officially coined by the French philosopher Gabriel Marcel in 1943 and then it was quickly adopted by others. It refers to a philosophical movement that emphasizes the existence of the individual as a free and responsible agent. It emerged towards the end of the 19th century, but it is really the expression of a sensitivity for the concerns and the fate of the individual person that runs throughout the history of European thinking, from Augustine to Pascal and Dostoevsky. It formed into a more coherent movement when the process of industrialization and the emergence of capitalism created a mass culture that began to destroy the old order of Europe. The focus on the concrete existence and the lives of real people can be interpreted as an attempt to defend them against theories, social structures, and political movements (like Marxism or Fascism) that try to determine who and what a person is.
Existentialism is not a homogeneous movement. The roots of the existentialist movement can be traced back to Søren Kierkegaard, who lived in 19th Century Denmark. Existentialism peaked in the 1940’s with the publication of many philosophical essays, plays, novels, and short stories. It can also be seen as a literary movement, and it influenced the emerging field of psychotherapy.
In the field of philosophy, existentialism mostly draws from the works of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Sartre. In literature, it includes the works of Camus, Dostoevsky, Kafka, Rilke, and others. The ideas and positions of these philosophers and writers vary widely. There are existentialists who claim that we are radically free and morally responsible for our actions. Others, like Nietzsche, contend that the idea of free will is a fiction. Kierkegaard, Beauvoir, or Sartre would argue that existentialism is a form of subjectivism. Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty would reject this position and emphasize the centrality of intersubjectivity or being-in-the-world. Kierkegaard or Nietzsche did not even know that they were existentialists. Kierkegaard considered himself to be a Christian, and Nietzsche, on the other hand, proclaimed that “God is dead, and we have killed him.” Kierkegaard and Nietzsche were not political in a narrow sense, but they developed fundamental critiques of 19th Century Europe and its Christian culture. Sartre was a Marxist, and Heidegger was a supporter of Hitler, and sympathetic to the fascist ideology.
Because the major figures vary so widely in their views, existentialism cannot be reduced to a unified school of thought. Nevertheless, there are some common threads and themes that tie them together. There is an emphasis on the human situation as it is experienced – it has to be lived through. The starting point for existentialist thinking is the existence of the human being in its naked exposure to the world. One of the forerunners of modern existentialism, Blaise Pascal, writes in the Pensées:
Let man, returning to himself, consider what he is in comparison with what exists; let him regard himself as lost, and from this little dungeon, in which he finds himself lodged, I mean the universe, let him learn to take the earth, its realms, its cities, its houses and himself at their proper value. … Anyone who considers himself in this way will be terrified at himself.
The task of facing one’s life cannot be met by reasoning alone; it cannot be captured in an abstract system. It requires concrete choices and actions of existing individuals in order to make it meaningful. Existentialism is a philosophical approach aimed at understanding human existence from the point of view of the experiencing subject, not from an academic distance. It is based on the assumption that individuals are free and responsible for their own choices and actions. In Sartre’s view, freedom is synonymous with consciousness itself, and consciousness is outside of the causal relations of this world. Therefore, human beings are not victims of circumstances, they always have a choice because they are self-aware, even if they realize that their lives are meaningless.
The major philosophical contributors to the existentialist movement are not systematic and have widely divergent views. Only Sartre and Beauvoir explicitly self-identified as “existentialists.” One finds secular and religious existentialists, philosophers who embrace a conception of radical freedom and others who reject it. One can detect existentialist motives in the works of Marx and Freud, who regard our relations with others as largely mired in conflict and self-deception. One can find it in Russian writers like Tolstoy and and Dostoyevsky, or in Jewish philosophers of the human encounter, like Buber and Levinas: These writers recognize a deep capacity for selfless love and interdependence. Given these disparate threads and the fact that there is no unifying doctrine, how do we distill a set of overlapping ideas that bind the movement together? The Stanford Encyclopedia has done it for us, and came up with six key ideas that characterize the movement. Here is the quote:
Nihilism: The emergence of existentialism as an intellectual movement was influenced by the rise of nihilism in late nineteenth century Europe as the pre-modern religious worldview was replaced with one that was increasingly secular and scientific. This historical transition resulted in the loss of a transcendent moral framework and contributed to the rise of modernity’s signature experiences: anxiety, alienation, boredom, and meaninglessness.
Engagement vs. Detachment: Against a philosophical tradition that privileges the standpoint of theoretical detachment and objectivity, existentialism generally begins in medias res, amidst our own situated, first-person experience. The human condition is revealed through an examination of the ways we concretely engage with the world in our everyday lives and struggle to make sense of and give meaning to our existence.
Existence Precedes Essence: Existentialists forward a novel conception of the self not as a substance or thing with some pre-given nature (or “essence”) but as a situated activity or way of being whereby we are always in the process of making or creating who we are as our life unfolds. This means our essence is not given in advance; we are contingently thrown into existence and are burdened with the task of creating ourselves through our choices and actions.
Freedom: Existentialists agree that what distinguishes our existence from that of other beings is that we are self-conscious and exist for ourselves, which means we are free and responsible for who we are and what we do. This does not mean we are wholly undetermined but, rather, that we are always beyond or more than ourselves because of our capacity to interpret and give meaning to whatever limits or determines us.
Authenticity: Existentialists are critical of our ingrained tendency to conform to the norms and expectations of the public world because it prevents us from being authentic or true to ourselves. An authentic life is one that is willing to break with tradition and social convention and courageously affirm the freedom and contingency of our condition. It is generally understood to refer to a life lived with a sense of urgency and commitment based on the meaning-giving projects that matter to each of us as individuals.
Ethics: Although they reject the idea of moral absolutes and universalizing judgments about right conduct, existentialism should not be dismissed for promoting moral nihilism. For the existentialist, a moral or praiseworthy life is possible. It is one where we acknowledge and own up to our freedom, take full responsibility for our choices, and act in such a way as to help others realize their freedom.
In what ways is it a counter-movement to the mass culture of the early 20th century?
What is the relationship between existentialism and ethics?
Structuralism and Existentialism - How different are these ways of thinking?
How does existentialism relate to Marxism, and to psychoanalysis?
Existentialism inspires a field of psychotherapy, how does it critique cognitive-behavioral theories?
Why did Existentialism eventually fade away? In what ways is it still alive?