Existentialism
In a world without given meaning, how do we create ourselves and take responsibility for who we become?
Existentialism is a tradition that takes human existence — particularly freedom, choice, and responsibility — as its central subject. Its root claim is that 'existence precedes essence': unlike a chair designed for a purpose before it is made, human beings exist first and then define themselves through their choices. There is no human nature, divine blueprint, or natural law that tells you what you should be. You are radically free, and this freedom is both the condition of authentic life and the source of a distinctive anxiety.
Kierkegaard, often called the first existentialist, explored the stages of existence — aesthetic, ethical, and religious — and the 'leap of faith' required to move between them. Nietzsche, though not strictly an existentialist, shaped the tradition with his diagnosis of nihilism and his call to create new values after the 'death of God.' Sartre's Being and Nothingness provided the fullest philosophical account of freedom as the defining feature of consciousness. Simone de Beauvoir extended this analysis to gender and oppression, arguing that social structures constrain freedom in ways that must be named and resisted.
Albert Camus, while rejecting the 'existentialist' label, contributed the concept of the absurd — the collision between the human demand for meaning and the universe's silence — and the question of how to live joyfully and ethically in the face of it. The existentialist tradition as a whole resists easy answers and demands that individuals take full ownership of their choices.
Historical Context
Existentialism emerged from the wreckage of World War I and reached its height in the aftermath of World War II — a moment when European civilization's confidence in reason, progress, and moral order had been catastrophically shattered. In Paris, under Nazi occupation and in its aftermath, Sartre and de Beauvoir developed a philosophy that refused comfortable foundations and demanded that individuals confront their freedom. The Cold War context, decolonization movements, and the experience of mass atrocity all shaped the tradition's urgency.
Key Ideas
- Existence precedes essence — we have no fixed nature; we create ourselves through choice
- Radical freedom — we are 'condemned to be free'; even refusal to choose is a choice
- Authenticity — living in accordance with your actual freedom rather than fleeing into 'bad faith'
- The absurd — the gap between the human need for meaning and the universe's silence
- Responsibility — because we create ourselves, we are fully responsible for who we become
- Situated freedom — freedom is real but always exercised within a social and material context (de Beauvoir)
Core Concepts
Sartre's concept: the self-deception of pretending you have no choice, or that your identity is fixed. The waiter who 'is a waiter' rather than a person choosing to act as one.
Living in honest acknowledgment of your freedom and responsibility, rather than hiding behind social roles, external authority, or deterministic excuses.
Camus's term for the collision between human beings' demand for clarity and meaning and the world's refusal to provide it. The correct response is revolt, not suicide or philosophical escape.
The fact that we find ourselves already in a situation we did not choose — a body, a culture, a historical moment — and must exercise our freedom from within it.
Sartre's analysis of how being seen by another consciousness threatens our freedom, creating the dynamic of recognition, conflict, and love that characterizes human relationships.
Key Texts
- Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or (1843)
- Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness (1943)
- Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism (1946)
- Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947)
- Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)
- Martin Heidegger, Being and Time (1927)
Where This Shows Up in Frameworks
Why This Shows Up in Frameworks
When a framework emphasizes personal responsibility, refuses to excuse choices by appeal to circumstances, centers authenticity, or asks 'who do I want to be?' as the primary moral question, existentialism is present. It is the tradition that makes self-deception a moral failure.