Existentialism
Existentialism is a philosophical tradition centred on individual existence, freedom, and the challenge of creating meaning in a universe that provides none ready-made.
The core insight is deceptively simple: existence precedes essence. Unlike a hammer, which is designed for a purpose before it exists, human beings exist first and only then define themselves through their choices. There is no pre-given human nature, no cosmic script, no essence waiting to be discovered. We are, as Jean-Paul Sartre put it, “condemned to be free.”
Origins and Key Thinkers
Existentialism emerged from 19th-century philosophy, particularly the work of Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche. Kierkegaard emphasized subjective experience, the “leap of faith,” and the anxiety that accompanies genuine choice. Nietzsche proclaimed the death of God and challenged humanity to create new values in the absence of divine authority.
The tradition flowered in 20th-century France with Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Albert Camus. German philosophers Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers developed related ideas, though Heidegger resisted the “existentialist” label.
Key works include:
- Kierkegaard’s Either/Or and Fear and Trembling
- Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra and Beyond Good and Evil
- Heidegger’s Being and Time
- Sartre’s Being and Nothingness and Existentialism Is a Humanism
- Camus’ The Myth of Sisyphus and The Stranger
- de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex and The Ethics of Ambiguity
Core Themes
Existence Precedes Essence
For existentialists, humans are not born with a fixed nature or purpose. We exist first—thrown into the world without our consent—and only subsequently create ourselves through our choices and actions. This reverses the traditional view that essence (what something is) precedes existence (that it is).
A paper cutter is designed for cutting paper; its essence precedes its existence. But what is a human being for? Existentialism answers: nothing in particular. We must decide for ourselves.
Radical Freedom
If there is no essence determining what we must be, then we are radically free. Every moment presents a choice. Even refusing to choose is itself a choice. This freedom is not liberating in any comfortable sense—it is the source of profound anxiety.
Sartre called this anxiety angoisse. We experience it when we recognize that nothing constrains our choices except ourselves. There are no guardrails, no excuses, no appeals to human nature or divine will. The weight of responsibility falls entirely on us.
Authenticity
Given radical freedom, the question becomes how to live. Existentialists distinguish between authentic and inauthentic existence.
Inauthentic living means fleeing from freedom—following social conventions unreflectively, defining oneself by external roles, pretending that choices are determined by circumstances. Heidegger called this falling into “das Man” (the They)—living as “one” does rather than as I choose.
Authentic existence means owning one’s freedom, making choices with full awareness that they are one’s own, and accepting responsibility for what one becomes. It means facing anxiety rather than fleeing it.
Absurdity
Camus emphasized the absurd—the confrontation between the human desire for meaning and the universe’s indifferent silence. We want reasons, purposes, a cosmic story in which we matter. The universe offers none.
The absurd is not a property of the world or of human beings alone, but of the relation between them—our demand for meaning meeting the world’s refusal to supply it.
Camus asked: given the absurd, why not suicide? His answer: we must imagine Sisyphus happy. The appropriate response to absurdity is not despair but revolt—continuing to live and create meaning despite the universe’s silence.
Bad Faith
Sartre’s concept of mauvaise foi (bad faith) describes the ways we deceive ourselves about our freedom. We pretend our choices are determined—by our past, our circumstances, our nature, our social role. We flee responsibility by treating ourselves as things rather than as free beings.
A waiter who plays at being a waiter too perfectly, as if his role determined his every gesture, is in bad faith. He pretends to be a waiter in the way an inkwell is an inkwell—as if he had no choice in the matter.
Bad faith is not simple lying (which requires knowing the truth). It is a peculiar self-deception in which we are both deceiver and deceived, simultaneously knowing and not knowing our freedom.
Existentialism and Meaning
Existentialism is often misread as nihilistic—as claiming that nothing matters and life is pointless. This misses the point.
Existentialists agree that the universe provides no ready-made meaning. But they do not conclude that meaning is impossible. Instead, they insist that meaning must be created rather than discovered. The absence of cosmic purpose is not the end of meaning but the beginning of human meaning-making.
Sartre: “Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself.”
Camus: “The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart.”
The challenge is to create meaning without pretending it was there all along—to own one’s values as choices rather than discoveries.
Relation to This Site’s Perspective
Existentialism’s emphasis on meaning-creation might seem to conflict with this site’s commitment to dualism and objective reality. If consciousness is real and irreducible, as the Dualism tenet holds, doesn’t that suggest meaning might be more than mere human projection?
The relationship is complex. Several points of contact:
Consciousness as irreducible: Existentialism, particularly in Sartre, takes consciousness seriously as fundamentally different from things. The pour-soi (being-for-itself, consciousness) is radically distinct from the en-soi (being-in-itself, things). This resonates with dualist commitments to the irreducibility of mind.
Freedom and causation: If consciousness causally influences the physical world, as the Bidirectional Interaction tenet proposes, then existentialist claims about human freedom gain metaphysical grounding. We are not merely determined by physical processes—consciousness has genuine causal efficacy.
Against scientism: Existentialists resist reducing human existence to scientific description. This aligns with the Occam’s Razor Has Limits tenet—the view that simple physicalist explanations may miss what matters most about consciousness and meaning.
However, tensions remain. Existentialism historically emerged from atheist and agnostic commitments. Its emphasis on meaning-creation may sit uneasily with views that hold certain things objectively matter. The site’s tenets take positions (dualism, bidirectional interaction) that existentialists might see as attempts to ground meaning externally.
Perhaps the synthesis is this: even if consciousness is real and irreducible, and even if it genuinely matters in the universe, we still face choices about what to do with our existence. The facts of consciousness don’t determine our values. Existentialism’s insights about freedom, authenticity, and responsibility remain relevant even within a dualist framework.
Further Reading
References
- Sartre, J.-P. (1946). Existentialism Is a Humanism.
- Sartre, J.-P. (1943). Being and Nothingness.
- Camus, A. (1942). The Myth of Sisyphus.
- Heidegger, M. (1927). Being and Time.
- de Beauvoir, S. (1947). The Ethics of Ambiguity.
- Kierkegaard, S. (1843). Either/Or.