existentialism essay topics

87 Existentialism Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best existentialism topic ideas & essay examples, 📌 simple & easy existentialism essay titles, 👍 good essay topics on existentialism, ❓ existentialism questions.

• Gardner’s “Grendel” as a Nihilist and Existentialist Grendel’s response is to show the hero his contempt for nobility and meaning in life. Finally, Grendel’s life is so devoid of meaning that he decides to try and kill the queen.
• Philosophy of Existentialism The philosophy of existentialism though difficult and abstract gives explanation to most of the questions that we ask ourselves as we go through life.
• A Reflection on Bigelow’s “Primer of Existentialism” According to Bigelow, the rise of Existentialism can be discussed within the context of people becoming increasingly secularized, which intensifies the sensation of ‘universal loneliness’, on their part, “The main forces of history…have collectivized individual […]
• Existentialism in “Nausea” and “The Stranger” In Nausea, the main character is a well-traveled 30-year-old man afflicted with intense feelings of the meaninglessness of his own being, an experience he dubs ‘nausea.’ The main character and narrator, Roquentin, is portrayed as […]
• Literary Genre of Existentialist Novel Existentialist literature is often characterized by the absurdity of the existence of man, and how a man often dwells on the ugly and dark sides of things.
• Existentialism of the 20th Century They argued that human beings are actors in the world and hence are aware of what is in it unlike the trees and stones that just exist.
• Concepts of Sartre’s “Existentialism Is a Humanism” In this discussion, the objective is to describe the two outstanding concepts that make up the title of the speech: Existentialism and Humanism.
• “Going Local” and Existentialism The freedom of the individual stems from the ability to create their essence, since both the capacity of free will as humans is the sub of decisions made, including the roles and identities which constitute […]
• Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre The Judeo-Christian religious tradition insists that it is necessary for the soul to be viewed as being in a constant fight with the body in an attempt to transcend the temptations of the flesh. The […]
• Existentialism: Existence of the Exceptional Individual Jean-Paul Sartre established the idea of existentialism in the nineteenth century, and it focused on the duties of the people’s choices in the ecosphere that fell short of ethics.
• Sartre’s Philosophy of Existentialism The main thesis of the theory of existentialism is that existence precedes essence and that one has to start from subjectivity.
• Existentialism in Le Guin Story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” In this short story, the main characters refuse to follow the immoral attitudes of society and make their own choices which is the direct representation of existentialism which is beneficial for society.
• Postmodern Existentialism and Spirituality The road, referred to in the title of the book, is connected to humans’ idea that they are the prodigal son.
• Aspects of Existentialism as a Philosophical Concept It is not simply by a pure accident that the 20th century is now being strongly associated with the initial rise of existentialism, as an entirely new branch of Western philosophic thought, which is concerned […]
• Nietzsche & Emerson vs. Rational Western Existentialism According to Nietzche, simpler situations are always true and the problem is that people tend to complicate standards by engaging the emotive qualities of existentialism instead of focusing on the simple tenets of the truth.
• Continental Philosophy: Existentialism and Phenomenology World is irrational and absurd, it is impossible to find the true reasons and explanations of events, and humans confront the world only to be able to choose how to live within this world.
• Kierkegaard’s and Nietzsche’s Ideas of Existentialism Kierkegaard’s writing is developed in the context of his approach to Christianity, while Nietzsche’s thesis lies in the death of God.
• Cartesian Dualism Against Existentialist Nihilism In my belief, the idea that there is no God because His existence means the absence of freedom is not right.
• The Aspects that Influenced the Poetry of Auden and the Question of Existentialism The existence of a gift denotes the action of a provider and thus the question that remains is about the giver of the gift of writing poems.
• The Elephant in the Room: Existentialism and the Denial of Death In Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilych, Peter Ivanovich experiences a chilling moment as he contemplates his own mortality in light of the long and painful period of torture and agony that befell his colleague […]
• Contrasting Between William Shakespeare and Existentialism in the 20th Century
• The Development of Existentialism and Adlerian Theory Throughout History
• An Analysis of Jean-Paul Sartre’s Opinions in Existentialism and Human Emotions
• Tryst of Existentialism with Realism in Veronica Decides to Die by Paulo Coelho
• Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage and Existentialism
• The Purpose of Education and the Use of the Ideas of Essentialism and Existentialism
• The Role of Existentialism in Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex
• The Teleological Impulse: Thorstein Veblen, Existentialism, and the Philosophy of Science
• Black Existentialism and The Jazz Aesthetic in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man
• Existentialism in Demian and Crime and Punishment
• Existentialism in The Myth of Sisyphus by Camus and Waiting for Godot by Beckett
• The Concept Of Existentialism The Humanism of Existentialism By Sartre
• Describing Existentialism and its Fast Growth in the World
• The Philosophy of Existentialism in the Literature of Franz Kafka and Samuel Beckett
• The Educational Philosophies Of Existentialism And Social Reconstruction
• The Portrayal of Existentialism Within Beckett’s Play, ‘Rockaby’
• Understanding the Concept of the Philosophy of Existentialism
• The Themes of Existentialism in “The Shawshank Redemption”
• The Inception and History of Existentialism in the 19th and 20th Century
• Christians & Communists Against Jean-Paul Sartre’s Existentialism
• Understanding the Concept of Existentialism of Soren Kierkegaard
• Images Of Human Nature Underlying Psychoanalysis, Behaviorism And Existentialism
• The Historical Development of Continental Philosophy’s Existentialism and Phenomenology
• The Basic Themes of Existentialism in the Play No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre
• To What Extent Can Existentialism Give Us More Than a Satisfactory Philosophical Conclusion
• An Atheistic View of Existentialism in Jean-Paul Sartre’s The Humanism of Existentialism
• An Analysis of the French Existentialism Movement During the 20th Century
• The Popularity of the Concept of Existentialism in France During the Second World War
• Existentialism And Human Emotions By Jean-Paul Sartre Essay
• An Analysis of Sartre’s Philosophical Piece Existentialism and Human Emotions
• An Argument in Favor of the Philosophical Theory of Existentialism and Its Contributions to the World
• Notions Of Selflessness In Sartrean Existentialism And Theravadin Buddhism
• The Prevalence of Existentialism in The Stranger by Albert Camus
• The Philosophical Community As The Father Of Existentialism
• The Human Condition: Existentialism in Literature Relates to Religion
• Responsibility and Choices According to Jean-Paul Sartre’s Existentialism
• The Influence of Jean-Paul Sartre’s Leadership in French Existentialism
• The History and Development of the Philosophical Movement of Existentialism
• Existentialism: A Philosophical Movement Pursuing the Meaning of Existence
• Theories Of Existentialism In Cormac Mccarthy’s The Road
• Waiting for Godot: Existentialism and Christianity
• How Existentialism and Psychoanalysis Influenced Frankl?
• How Could Existentialism Affect One’s Belief in God?
• What Are the Main Ideas of Existentialism?
• What Is an Example of Existentialism?
• What Is Wrong With Existentialism?
• Is Existentialism Compatible With Christianity?
• What Is the Opposite of Existentialism?
• Who Is Considered the Father of Existentialism?
• What Are the Three Beliefs of Existentialism?
• How Do You Practice Existentialism?
• What Is the First Principle of Existentialism?
• What Are the Two Kinds of Existentialism?
• How Does Existentialism View the Human Person?
• What Is the Difference Between Humanism and Existentialism?
• What Is Existentialism in Simple Terms?
• What Are the Six Themes of Existentialism?
• Is There an Ethics of Existentialism?
• Who Spoke of Existentialism?
• Why Is Existentialism Important Today?
• Who Is the Most Famous Representative of Existentialism?
• What Is the Connection Between Classical Detectives and Existentialism?
• How to Compare and Contrast Person-Centred and Existentialism Therapy?
• What Is Contrasting Between William Shakespeare and Existentialism in the 20th Century Form?
• How Describing Existentialism and Its Fast Growth in the World?
• What Are Different Ideas Within the Philosophy of Existentialism?
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Existentialism Essay Topics

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If you are studying existentialism and have an exam coming up, the best way to prepare for it is to write lots of practice essays. Doing this helps you to recall the texts and the ideas you have studied; it helps you to organize your knowledge of these; it often triggers original or critical insights of your own. 

Here is a set of essay questions you can use. They relate to the following classic existentialist texts:

• Tolstoy, My Confession
• Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilyich
• Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground
• Dostoyevsky, The Grand Inquisitor

Nietzsche, The Gay Science

• Beckett, Waiting for Godot
• Sartre, The Wall
• Sartre, Nausea
• Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism
• Sartre, Portrait of an Anti-Semite
• Kafka, A Message From the Emperor, A Little Fable, Couriers, Before the Law
• Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus
• Camus, The Stranger

Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky

• Both Tolstoy 's Confession and Dostoyevsky 's Notes from Underground seem to reject science and rationalistic philosophy. Why? Explain and evaluate the reasons for the critical attitudes toward science in these two texts.
• Both Tolstoy’s Ivan Ilyich (at least once he falls sick) and Dostoyevsky’s Underground Man feel estranged from the people around them. Why? In what ways is the kind of isolation they experience similar, and in what ways is it different?
• The underground man says that ‘to be too conscious is an illness.’ What does he mean? What are his reasons? In what ways does the underground man suffer from excessive consciousness? Do you see this as the root cause of his sufferings or are there deeper problems that give rise to it? Does Ivan Ilyich also suffer from excessive consciousness, or is his problem something different?
• Both The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Notes From Underground portray individuals who feel separated from their society. Is the isolation they experience avoidable, or is it primarily caused by the sort of society they belong to.
• In the "Author's Note" at the beginning of Notes from Underground , the author describes the underground man as "representative" of a new type of person that must inevitably appear in modern society. What aspects of the character are "representative" of this new type of modern individual? Does he remain representative today in 21st century America, or has his "type" more or less disappeared?
• Contrast what Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor says about freedom with what the Underground Man says about it. Whose views do you most agree with?
• Tolstoy (in Confession ), Dostoyevsky’s Underground Man , and Nietzsche in The Gay Science , are all critical of those who think the main goal in life should be the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. Why? 
• When Nietzsche read Notes from Underground he immediately hailed Dostoyevsky as a ’kindred spirit’. Why?
• In The Gay Science , Nietzsche says: “Life—that is: being cruel and inexorable against everything about us that is growing old and weak….being without reverence for those who are dying, who are wretched, who are ancient." Explain, giving illustrative examples, what you think he means and why he says this. Do you agree with him?
• At the beginning of Book IV of The Gay Science , Nietzsche says "all in all and on the whole: some day I wish only to be a Yes-sayer." Explain what he means—and what he is opposing himself to--by reference to issues he discusses elsewhere in the work. How successful is he in maintaining this life-affirming stance?
• "Morality is herd instinct in the individual." What does Nietzsche mean by this? How does this statement fit in with the way he views conventional morality and his own alternative values?
• Explain in detail Nietzsche’s view of Christianity. What aspects of Western civilization, both positive and negative, does he see as largely due to its influence?
• In The Gay Science Nietzsche says: “The strongest and most evil spirits have so far done the most to advance humanity.” Explain, giving examples, what you think he means and why he says this. Do you agree with him?
• In The Gay Science Nietzsche seems to both criticize moralists who distrust the passions and instincts and also himself be a great advocate of self-control. Can these two aspects of his thinking be reconciled? If so, how?
• What is Nietzsche’s attitude in The Gay Science towards the quest for truth and knowledge? Is it something heroic and admirable, or should it be viewed with suspicion as a hangover from traditional morality and religion?
• Sartre famously observed that "man is condemned to be free." He also wrote that "man is a futile passion." Explain what these statements mean and the reasoning that lies behind them. Would you describe the conception of humanity that emerges as optimistic or pessimistic?
• Sartre’s existentialism was labeled by one critic “the philosophy of the graveyard,” and existentialism strikes many as dominated by depressing ideas and outlooks. Why would someone think this? And why might others disagree? In Sartre’s thinking which tendencies do you see as depressing and which uplifting or inspiring?
• In his Portrait of the Anti-Semite , Sartre says the Anti-Semite feels the "nostalgia of impermeability." What does this mean? How does it help us understand anti-Semitism? Where else in Sartre's writings is this tendency examined?
• The climax of Sartre's novel Nausea is Roquentin's revelation in the park when he contemplates. What is the nature of this revelation? Should it be described as a form of enlightenment?
• Explain and discuss either Anny’s ideas about ‘perfect moments’ or Roquentin’s ideas about ‘adventures (or both). How do these notions relate to the major themes explored in Nausea ?
• It has been said that Nausea presents the world as it appears to one who experiences at a deep level what Nietzsche described as "the death of God". What supports this interpretation? Do you agree with it?
• Explain what Sartre means when he says that we make our decisions and perform our actions in anguish, abandonment, and despair. Do you find his reasons for viewing human action in this way convincing? [In answering this question, make sure you consider Sartrean texts beyond just his lecture Existentialism and Humanism .]
• At one point in Nausea , Roquentin says, “Beware of literature !” What does he mean? Why does he say this? 

Kafka, Camus, Beckett

• Kafka's stories and parables have often praised for capturing certain aspects of the human condition in the modern age. With reference to the parables we discussed in class, explain which features of modernity Kafka' illuminates and what insights, if any, he has to offer.
• At the end of The Myth of Sisyphus Camus says that ‘one must imagine Sisyphus happy’? Why does he say this? Wherein lies Sisyphus’ happiness? Does Camus’ conclusion follow logically from the rest of the essay? How plausible do you find this conclusion?
• Is Meursault. the protagonist of The Stranger , an example of what Camus calls in The Myth of Sisyphus an ‘absurd hero’? Justify your answer with close reference to both the novel and the essay.
• Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot , is—obviously—about waiting. But Vladimir and Estragon wait in different ways and with different attitudes. How do their ways of waiting express different possible responses to their situation and, by implication, to what Beckett sees as the human condition?

Existentialism in General

• From Tolstoy's account of his suicidal despair in his Confession to Beckett's  Waiting for Godot, there is much in existentialist writing that seems to offer a bleak view of the human condition. On the basis of the texts you have studied, would you say that existentialism is indeed, a bleak philosophy, excessively concerned with mortality and meaninglessness? Or does it have a positive aspect also?
• According to William Barrett, existentialism belongs to a longstanding tradition of intense, passionate reflection on life and the human condition, yet it is also in some ways an essentially modern phenomenon. What is it about the modern world that has given rise to existentialism? And what aspects of existentialism are particularly modern?
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127 Existentialism Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

Inside This Article

Existentialism is a philosophical movement that explores the individual's freedom, choice, and responsibility in a world without inherent meaning or purpose. It is a complex and thought-provoking philosophy that has inspired countless essays, books, and debates. If you are looking for inspiration for your next existentialism essay, look no further. Here are 127 existentialism essay topic ideas and examples to get you started:

• The concept of authenticity in existentialism
• The role of freedom in existentialist thought
• The meaning of life in a world without inherent purpose
• Existentialist views on death and mortality
• The relationship between existentialism and absurdism
• The existentialist critique of traditional ethics and morality
• The concept of the "absurd hero" in existentialist literature
• Existentialist views on love and relationships
• The existentialist conception of time and temporality
• The importance of individual choice and responsibility in existentialism
• The existentialist critique of modern society and technology
• The role of anxiety and despair in existentialist thought
• The concept of "bad faith" in existentialist philosophy
• The existentialist perspective on art and creativity
• The relationship between existentialism and existential psychotherapy
• The existentialist critique of religious belief and dogma
• The concept of "existential freedom" in existentialist thought
• The existentialist perspective on human nature and essence
• The relationship between existentialism and feminism
• The concept of "existential dread" in existentialist literature
• The existentialist critique of capitalism and consumerism
• The role of alienation and isolation in existentialist thought
• The concept of "existential guilt" in existentialist philosophy
• The relationship between existentialism and postmodernism
• The existentialist perspective on identity and selfhood
• The concept of "existential angst" in existentialist literature
• The existentialist critique of political ideologies and systems
• The role of authenticity in existentialist ethics
• The relationship between existentialism and existential phenomenology
• The concept of "existential despair" in existentialist thought
• The existentialist perspective on the human condition
• The relationship between existentialism and psychoanalysis
• The concept of "existential crisis" in existentialist literature
• The existentialist critique of determinism and fatalism
• The role of choice in overcoming existential nihilism
• The relationship between existentialism and existential theology
• The concept of "existential dread" in existentialist philosophy
• The existentialist perspective on language and communication
• The relationship between existentialism and existential sociology
• The concept of "existential authenticity" in existentialist thought
• The existentialist critique of positivism and scientism
• The role of authenticity in overcoming existential alienation
• The relationship between existentialism and existential aesthetics
• The concept of "existential despair" in existentialist literature
• The existentialist perspective on the nature of reality
• The relationship between existentialism and existential ethics
• The existentialist critique of objectivity and rationality
• The role of choice in confronting existential absurdity
• The relationship between existentialism and existential hermeneutics
• The concept of "existential anxiety" in existentialist thought
• The existentialist perspective on power and authority
• The relationship between existentialism and existential ontology
• The existentialist critique of essentialism and essentialist thinking
• The role of authenticity in existentialist politics
• The relationship between existentialism and existential epistemology
• The concept of "existential despair" in existentialist philosophy
• The existentialist perspective on the limits of reason
• The existentialist critique of skepticism and relativism
• The role of choice in confronting existential nihilism
• The relationship between existentialism and existential metaphysics
• The concept of "existential guilt" in existentialist literature
• The existentialist perspective on the nature of truth
• The existentialist critique of dualism and dichotomous thinking

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Existentialism

As an intellectual movement that exploded on the scene in mid-twentieth-century France, “existentialism” is often viewed as a historically situated event that emerged against the backdrop of the Second World War, the Nazi death camps, and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, all of which created the circumstances for what has been called “the existentialist moment” (Baert 2015), where an entire generation was forced to confront the human condition and the anxiety-provoking givens of death, freedom, and meaninglessness. Although the most popular voices of this movement were French, most notably Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, as well as compatriots such as Albert Camus, Gabriel Marcel, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, the conceptual groundwork of the movement was laid much earlier in the nineteenth century by pioneers like Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche and twentieth-century German philosophers like Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, and Karl Jaspers as well as prominent Spanish intellectuals José Ortega y Gasset and Miguel de Unamuno. The core ideas have also been illuminated in key literary works. Beyond the plays, short stories, and novels by French luminaries like Sartre, Beauvoir, and Camus, there were Parisian writers such as Jean Genet and André Gide, the Russian novelists Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky, the work of Norwegian authors such as Henrik Ibsen and Knut Hamsun, and the German-language iconoclasts Franz Kafka and Rainer Maria Rilke. The movement even found expression across the pond in the work of the “lost generation” of American writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, mid-century “beat” authors like Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsburg, and William S. Burroughs, and the self-proclaimed “American existentialist,” Norman Mailer (Cotkin 2003, 185).

What distinguishes existentialism from other movements in the intellectual history of the West is how it stretched far beyond the literary and academic worlds. Its ideas are captured in films by Ingmar Bergman, Michelangelo Antonioni, Jean-Luc Goddard, Akira Kurosawa, and Terrence Malick. Its moods are expressed in the paintings of Edvard Munch, Marcel Duchamp, Pablo Picasso, Paul Cézanne, and Edward Hopper and in the vitiated forms of the sculptor Alberto Giocometti. Its emphasis on freedom and the struggle for self-creation informed the radical and emancipatory politics of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X as well as the writings of Black intellectuals such as Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright, and W.E.B. Du Bois. Its engagement with the relationship between faith and freedom and the incomprehensibility of God shaped theological debates through the lectures and writings of Karl Barth, Paul Tillich, and Martin Buber, among others. And, with its penetrating analyses of anxiety and the importance of self-realization, the movement has had a profound impact in the development of humanistic and existential approaches to psychotherapy in the work of a wide range of theorists, including R.D. Laing, Rollo May, Viktor Frankl, and Irvin Yalom.

With this broad and diverse range of incarnations, it is difficult to explain what the term “existentialism” refers to. The word, first introduced by Marcel in 1943, is certainly not a reference to a coherent system or philosophical school. [ 1 ] Indeed, the major contributors are anything but systematic and have widely divergent views, and of these, only Sartre and Beauvoir explicitly self-identified as “existentialists.” In surveying its representative thinkers, one finds secular and religious existentialists, philosophers who embrace a conception of radical freedom and others who reject it. And there are those who regard our relations with others as largely mired in conflict and self-deception and others who recognize a deep capacity for self-less love and interdependence. Given these disparate threads and the fact that there is no unifying doctrine, one can nonetheless distill a set of overlapping ideas that bind the movement together.

• 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.

These ideas serve to structure the entry.

1. Nihilism and the Crisis of Modernity

2.1 subjective truth, 2.2 perspectivism, 2.3 being-in-the-world, 2.4 embodiment, 3. existence precedes essence, 4.1 the anxiety of choice, 4.2 mediated freedom, 5.1 the power of moods, 5.2 kierkegaard’s knight of faith, 5.3 nietzsche’s overman, 5.4 heidegger’s resolute dasein, 5.5 self-recovery in sartre and beauvoir, 6.1 authentic being-for-others, 6.2 the ethics of recognition, 6.3 the ethics of engagement, 7.1 post-structuralism, 7.2 narrative and hermeneutic philosophy, 7.3 philosophy of mind and cognitive science, 7.4 critical phenomenology, 7.5 comparative and environmental philosophy, 7.6 philosophy of health and illness, 7.7 a new generation, other internet resources, related entries.

We can find early glimpses of what might be called the “existential attitude” (Solomon 2005) in the Stoic and Epicurean philosophies of antiquity, in the struggle with sin and desire in St. Augustine’s Confessions , in the intimate reflections on death and the meaning of life in Michel de Montaigne’s Essays , and in the confrontation with the “dreadful silence” of the cosmos in Blaise Pascal’s Pensées . But it was not until the nineteenth century that the ideas began to coalesce into a bona fide intellectual movement. By this time, an increasingly secular and scientific worldview was emerging and the traditional religious framework that gave pre-modern life a sense of moral orientation and cohesion was beginning to collapse. Without a north star of moral absolutes to guide us, the modern subject was left abandoned and lost, “wandering,” as Nietzsche writes, “as if through an endless nothing” (1887 [1974], §125). But it wasn’t just the rise of modern science and its cold mechanistic view of the world as a value-less aggregate of objects in causal interaction that contributed to the anxiety and forlornness of the modern age. The rise of Protestantism also played a role. With its rejection of hierarchical Church authority, this new form of Christianity emphasized subjective inwardness and created a unique social configuration grounded in principles of individualism, freedom, and self-reliance. The result was the loss of a sense of community and belongingness rooted in the close-knit social bonds of traditional society. And the Protestant shift intensified the Christian attitude of contemptus mundi (“contempt for the world”), contributing to feelings of loneliness and creating a perception of public life as a domain that was fundamentally inauthentic and corrupt (Aho 2020; Guignon 2004; Taylor 1989).

Along with these historical developments, social transformations associated with the Industrial Revolution and the formation of the modern state were emerging. With newly mechanized working conditions and bureaucratic forms of administration, an increasingly impersonal and alienating social order was established. When Ortega y Gasset introduces his notion of “the mass man,” he captures the automation and lifeless conformism of the machine age, where everybody “feels just like everybody else and is nevertheless not concerned about it” (1930 [1993, 15]). In their conceptions of “the public” (Kierkegaard), “the herd” (Nietzsche), and “the They” (Heidegger), existentialists offer powerful critiques of the leveled down and routinized ways of being that characterize mass society. And the novels and short stories of Dostoevsky, Camus, and Kafka capture the bourgeois emptiness and boredom of the managerial class and the paranoia and distrust that emerges when life is regulated and controlled by faceless bureaucrats.

These social transformations created the conditions for nihilism, where modern humanity suddenly found itself adrift and confused, unsure of which path to take or where to look for a stable and enduring sense of truth and meaning. The condition of nihilism involves the shocking recognition that there is no overarching reason, order, or purpose to our existence, that it is all fundamentally meaningless and absurd. Of all the existentialists, Nietzsche was the most influential and prophetic in diagnosing and conceptualizing the crisis. With the death of God and the loss of moral absolutes, we are exposed to existence “in its most terrible form … without meaning or aim” (Nietzsche 1887 [1974], §55). And it is against this anomic background that the question of existence, of what it means to be, becomes so urgent. But it is a question that requires taking a radically different standpoint than the one privileged by the philosophical tradition.

2. Engagement vs. Detachment

From Plato onward, Western philosophy has generally prioritized a methodology grounded in a perspective of rational detachment and objectivity to arrive at truths that are immutable and timeless. By practicing what Merleau-Ponty disparagingly calls, “high-altitude thinking” (1964 [1968], 73), the philosopher adopts a perspective that is detached and impersonal, a “God’s eye view” or “view from nowhere” uncorrupted by the contingencies of our emotions, our embodiment, or the prejudices of our time and place. In this way the philosopher can grasp the “reality” behind the flux of “appearances,” the essential and timeless nature of things “under the perspective of eternity” ( sub specie aeternitatis ). Existentialism offers a thoroughgoing rejection of this view, arguing that we cannot look down on the human condition from a detached, third-person perspective because we are already thrown into the self-interpreting event or activity of existing, an activity that is always embodied, felt, and historically situated. Existence, then, is generally grasped not just through dispassionate theorizing but through a careful analysis of first-person experience, of the concrete, flesh and blood particulars of everyday life and the feelings, relationships, and commitments that make us who we are. It is a philosophy that begins from the standpoint of the engagé , of the individual who is engaged in life and who confronts the givens of existence.

The existentialist critique of theoretical detachment was pioneered by Kierkegaard whose scorn was directed primarily at G.W. F. Hegel, a philosopher who adopted the “perspective of eternity” to build a metaphysical system that would provide complete knowledge of reality. By taking a disengaged and panoptic view, Kierkegaard argues Hegel’s system invariably covers over the deeply personal project of being human and the specific needs and concerns of the existing individual. In his words, “it makes the subject accidental, and thereby transforms existence into something indifferent, something vanishing” (1846 [1941, 173]). In response, Kierkegaard reverses the traditional orientation that privileges objectivity by claiming that, when it comes to the question of existence, one’s own subjective truth is “ the highest truth attainable ” (1846 [1941, 182]). This means the abstract truths of philosophical detachment are always subordinate to the concrete truths of the existing individual. “The real subject,” writes Kierkegaard, “is not the cognitive subject … the real subject is the ethically existing subject” (1846 [1941, 281]). And subjective truth cannot be reasoned about or explained logically; it emerges out of the situated commitments, affects, and needs of the individual. For this reason, it does not disclose timeless and objective truths; it discloses “a truth which is true for me” (1835 [1959, 44]). For Kierkegaard, to live this truth invariably results in feelings of anxiety and confusion because it is objectively uncertain; it has no rational justification, and no one else can understand or relate to it. It is an ineffable truth that is felt rather than known. In this sense, the existing individual “discovers something that thought cannot think” (Kierkegaard 1844 [1936, 29]). But prioritizing the contingent and unrationalizable truths of existence does not mean Kierkegaard is forwarding a position of “irrationalism.” He is claiming, rather, that the standpoint of rational detachment cannot help us access the self-defining commitments and projects that matter to the existing individual. Truths of flesh and blood cannot be reduced to systematic explanation because such truths do not provide us with objective knowledge. Rather, they lay bare the passionate and urgent sense of how we should live our lives. They tell the individual: “what I am to do , not what I am to know” (Kierkegaard, 1835 [1959, 44]).

Nietzsche echoes Kierkegaard’s misgivings about methodological detachment and philosophical systems but he does so by forwarding a pragmatic and perspectival account of truth. He argues that philosophers don’t discover objective truths by means of detached reasoning because truth claims are always shaped by and embedded in specific sociohistorical contexts. Truths, for Nietzsche, are best understood as social constructs; they are created or invented by a historical people, and they endure only so long as they are socially useful. On Nietzsche’s account, truths are passed down historically for generations to the point where they are uncritically accepted as “facts.” But from the standpoint of perspectivism, “facts are precisely what there is not, [there are] only interpretations. [The world] has no meaning behind it, but countless meanings” (Nietzsche 1901 [1968], §481). Nietzsche’s genealogy is one that shows how the history of Western philosophy is largely a history of forgetting how truths are invented. “It is only by means of forgetfulness,” he writes, “that man can ever reach the point of fancying himself to possess a ‘truth’” (Nietzsche 1889a [1990a], §93). This means human beings are already bound up in socially constructed perspectives that they cannot disengage or detach from. To exist, then, is to live in one’s “own perspectival forms, and only in them. We cannot see around our own corner” (Nietzsche 1887 [1974], §374). There is no aperspectival “reality.” The epistemological distinction between “appearance” and “reality” is a pseudo-problem that is always parasitic on the perspectival forms that we inhabit.

Nietzsche goes on to suggest there is a psychological motivation in our shared belief in objective truth. It shelters us from the terrifying contingency and mutability of existence. Nietzsche understands that human beings are vulnerable and frightened creatures, and the belief in truth—even though it is an illusion—has social and pragmatic utility by providing a measure of coherence and reliability. We need these truths for psychological protection, to help us cope with an otherwise chaotic and precarious existence. “Truth,” therefore, “is that sort of error without which a certain species of life could not live” (Nietzsche 1901 [1968], §493).

In Being and Time , Heidegger will expand on this critique of detachment and objectivity by developing his own phenomenological analysis of existence or “being-in-the-world” ( In-der-Welt-sein ). Following the core maxim of phenomenology introduced by his teacher Husserl, Heidegger’s philosophy attempts to return “to the things themselves,” to not explain but describe how things are given, reveal themselves, and make sense to us in our average everyday lives. Employing the word “Dasein,” a colloquial German term that refers to the kind of “existence” or “being” unique to humans, Heidegger makes it clear he is not interested in a systematic explanation of what we are , as if existence referred to the objective presence of a substance—e.g., a rational animal, an ego cogito , or an ensouled body. As a phenomenologist, he is concerned with how we are . In his version of phenomenology, Dasein is viewed not as a substance with what-like characteristics but as a self-interpreting, meaning-giving activity. Dasein refers to “the subject’s way of being ” (Heidegger 1927 [1982, 123]), someone who is always already involved and engaged with the equipment, institutions, and practices of a shared world and that embodies a tacit understanding of how to be in that world.

Heidegger’s conception of being-in-the-world articulates three related ideas that will become central to twentieth-century existentialism and phenomenology. First, it offers a thoroughgoing rejection of the Cartesian view of the self or “I” as a discrete mental container of “inner” thoughts and beliefs that is somehow separate and distinct from “outer” objects in the world. There is no inner-outer dualism because the self is not a disembodied mind or consciousness. It is the activity of existing, a relational activity that is structurally bound up in the world. Thus, “self and world belong together in the single entity, the Dasein” (Heidegger 1927 [1982, 297]). Second, Heidegger compels us to rethink what we mean by “world.” From a phenomenological perspective, the world is not a geometrical space nor is it the sum of objects. It is the relational setting of our lives, the shared context of meaning that we are already involved in. And our involvement in the world allows objects to count and matter to us in particular ways. Third, Heidegger suggests that being-in-the-world is a meaning-giving activity. When we engage with and handle objects in the world, we give them meaning; we encounter them as meaningful . What appears to us in the immediacy of lived experience is always shaped by the public meanings we grow into. The fact that our existence is “fraught with meaning” suggests that experience has an intentional structure; it is always directed towards objects; it is about or of something (Heidegger 1919 [2002, 60]). The experience of hearing, for example, is not a representation of bare sense data because sounds are invariably colored by the context of meaning we are thrown into. We hear some- thing : we hear “the thunder of the heavens, the rustling of the woods, the rumbling of the motors, the noises of the city” (Heidegger 1950 [1971, 65], emphasis added). Meaning, on this view, is not generated by detached cognitive associations. It emerges against the background of our functional involvement in the world, in the way we are situated and engaged in a shared network of equipment, roles, institutions, and projects. And this engagement reveals a kind of pre-reflective competence or practical “know how” ( können ) that can never be made theoretically explicit.

We see, then, that in their critique of third-person detachment existentialists forward the idea that we are already “caught up in the world” (Merleau-Ponty 1945 [1962, 5]). And an essential aspect of being caught up in this way is the experience of one’s own embodiment and the crucial role that bodily orientation, affectivity, perception, and motility play in our everyday being-in-the-world. In this way, philosophers such as Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, Beauvoir, and Marcel challenge the traditional interpretation of the body. Against the standard “Cartesian account,” the body is not regarded as a discrete, causally determined object, extended in space, and set apart from the disinterested gaze of the cognizing mind. The body is not something I have. It is a site of affectivity and meaning. It is who I am . And I cannot obtain objective knowledge of my body because I am already living through it; it is the experiential medium of my existence. “The body,” as Sartre puts it, “is lived and not known .” (1943 [1956, 427]) [ 2 ]

By building on the analysis of the lived body ( corps propre , corps vécu , corps vivant , Leib ), existentialists reveal how our moods, perceptions, and experiences are already bound up in worldly meanings, how we internalize these meanings, and how this act of internalization shapes the way we live, how we handle the tools of daily life, maneuver through lived space, relate to others, and interpret and perform our identities. In her pathbreaking work The Second Sex , Beauvoir illuminates this point by showing how a woman tends to internalize the dominant androcentric worldview, resulting in a representation of herself as subordinate, weak, and inferior. She is the “second sex” not because she is born with a particular biological body, but because she inhabits, enacts, and embodies the oppressive meanings and practices unique to her patriarchal situation. As Beauvoir famously puts it, the woman “is not born , but rather becomes a woman.” This is because “the body is not a thing; it is a situation… subject to taboos [and] laws… It is a reference to certain values from which [she] evaluates [herself]” (1949 [1952, 34, 36]).

The existentialist’s distinction between the object-body and the lived-body has made it possible for contemporary philosophers and social theorists to engage the lived experience of those who have been historically marginalized by the western tradition. By rejecting the standpoint of theoretical detachment and focusing on the structures of embodiment and being-in-the-world, influential thinkers such as Franz Fanon (1952 [1967]), Iris Marion Young (1984 [2000]), and Judith Butler (1990), among others, have explored different ways in which we enact and embody forms of oppression and how this can shape our self-image and inhibit the experience of movement, spatial orientation, and other forms of bodily comportment. These investigations help to broaden and pluralize our understanding of the human condition by shedding light on a diverse range of embodied perspectives, from ethnicity and race, sex and gender, and age and physical ability. And insofar as these analyses help capture what is distinct about the meaning-giving activity of humans, they illuminate what is arguably the unifying principle of existentialism: “existence precedes essence.”

This principle was initially introduced early on in Heidegger’s Being and Time when he writes, “The ‘essence’ of Dasein lies in its existence” (1927 [1962, 42]). [ 3 ] Sartre will later repackage this line with the pithy adage, “existence precedes essence” (1946 [2001, 292]). What this statement suggests is that there is no pre-given or essential nature that determines us, which means that we are always other than ourselves, that we don’t fully coincide with who we are. We exist for ourselves as self-making or self-defining beings, and we are always in the process of making or defining ourselves through the situated choices we make as our lives unfold. This is, according to Sartre, “the first principle of existentialism,” and it “means, first, that man exists, turns up, appears on the scene, and, only afterwards, defines himself” (1946 [2001, 292–3]). The point here is that there can be no complete or definitive account of being human because there is nothing that grounds or secures our existence. Existence is fundamentally unsettled and incomplete because we are always projecting forward into possibilities, “hurling ourselves toward a future” as we imagine and re-imagine who we will be. Existence, then, is not a static thing; it is a dynamic process of self-making.

Acknowledging existence as a self-making process does not mean the existentialist is denying that there are determinate aspects or “facts” about our situation that limit and constrain us. This is our givenness (or “facticity”), and it includes aspects of our being such as our embodiment and spatiality, our creaturely appetites and desires, and the socio-historical context we find ourselves in. But what distinguishes us as humans is that we have the capacity to rise above or “transcend” these facts in the way we relate to, interpret, and make sense of them. If I am compelled by a strong desire for sex, alcohol, or cigarettes, for instance, I do not out of necessity have to act on these desires. I have the freedom to question them and give them meaning, and the meanings I attribute to them shape my choices and the direction my life will take going forward.

This means, unlike other organisms, we are self-conscious beings who can surpass our facticity by calling it into question, interpreting it in different ways, and making decisions about how to deal with it in the future. This is what Kierkegaard means when he describes existence as “a relation that relates to itself” (1849 [1989, 43]). Existence is a reflexive or relational tension between “facticity” and “transcendence,” where we are constrained by our facticity but simultaneously endowed with the freedom to exceed or transcend it. The human being is, as Ortega y Gasset writes, “a kind of ontological centaur, half immersed in nature, half transcending it” (1941, 111). We are not wholly determined by our nature because our nature is always a question or an issue for us. We have the capacity to reflect on and care about it. And the way we care about our nature informs how we create ourselves. Sartre will go so far as to say that human existence is fundamentally “indefinable” and that “there is no human nature” because there is no aspect of our facticity that can fully describe us. Our facticity reveals itself to us only through the self-defining meanings and values that we give to it. “If man […] is indefinable, it is because at first he is nothing . Only afterward will he be something, and he himself will have made what he will be” (1946 [2001, 293]). This idea that facticity can always be nullified or negated by our choices reveals the key to understanding the existentialist conception of freedom.

Recognizing that there is no pre-given essence that determines existence, the existentialist makes it clear that it is up to the individual to make his, her, or their own identity through choices and actions. Sartre explains that the coward, for instance, is not the way he is because of an unstable childhood or a particular genetic makeup. The coward “makes himself a coward” by means of his decisions (1946 [2001, 301]). In this way, the existentialist generally affirms the view that the human being has free will, is able to make decisions, and can be held responsible for their actions. [ 4 ] But, as we will see, this does not mean that we can do whatever we want. It means, rather, that existence is structured by our capacity to give meaning to our situation based on the actions and choices we make as our lives unfold. Insofar as we exist, we are envisioning a certain kind of life, assigning a value to our identity, and making ourselves into the kind of person we are.

When we become aware of our freedom as an inescapable given of the human condition, the awareness is often accompanied by anxiety because we realize that we alone are responsible for our choices and the projects we undertake. There is no moral absolute, divine will, or natural law that can provide guidance or justify our actions. We are, in this sense, condemned to be free because “there are no excuses behind us nor justifications before us” (Sartre 1946 [2001, 296]).

In the canon of existentialist literature, no writer captures this idea better than Dostoevsky in his Notes from the Underground . The nameless “underground man” rebels against an increasingly scientized, rational, and mechanistic picture of human behavior promoted by Russian social reformers in the 1860s, where everything a person does was thought to be determined by causal laws. For the underground man, this view reduces the human being to a mechanical cog or “a piano key” (1864 [2009, 18]), and it undermines the one value that gives existence its meaning and dignity, that is, the capacity to choose and create our own lives. [ 5 ] To affirm his freedom, the underground man responds to this situation through self-immolating acts of revolt, doing the opposite of whatever the determinations of rationality, social convention, or the laws of nature demand. When he has a toothache, he refuses to see the doctor; when he is at a party with former school mates, he behaves in outrageous and humiliating ways; when the prostitute Liza reaches out to him in tenderness, he lashes out at her in rage. In this sense, the underground man is an anti-hero. He recognizes that freedom is the highest value, the “most advantageous advantage” (1864 [2009, 17]) for human beings, but at the same time he realizes there is no way of knowing what might come of our choices; they may, as they do for the underground man, result in our own self-destruction. As Dostoevsky writes: “What man wants is simply independent choice, whatever that independence may cost and wherever it may lead. And the choice, of course, the devil only knows what choice” (1864 [2009, 20]).

This account of freedom suggests that my being (or identity) is always penetrated by the possibility of its own negation because I can always question myself and assign new meanings to and interpretations of who I am in the future. My self-interpretation is always insecure or unstable. I may interpret myself as a philosophy professor today, but I am also not a professor insofar as I can freely choose to reject this identity and resign from my job tomorrow. In this sense, I am no-thing, a “being-possible.” As Sartre puts it: “human existence is constituted as a being which is what it is not and which is not what it is ” (1943 [1956, 107]). For the existentialist, anxiety discloses this predicament to me, revealing that I’ve been abandoned to a realm of possibilities, where I face a dizzying array of options, and I alone am answerable to whatever options I choose. Understood this way, anxiety is not directed at some external object or event in the world. If I am an incarnation of freedom, it is directed at me ; I am the source of it.

In Being and Nothingness , Sartre forwards an account of “radical” or “absolute” freedom, an unconditioned “freedom-in-consciousness” where we make or create ourselves ex nihilo , through the sheer “upsurge” of choice alone. But in the wake of Marxist criticism in the 1940s and 1950s, his views changed; he realized that this early account was far too abstract, interiorized, and influenced by Cartesian assumptions. [ 6 ] It failed to engage the social, historical, and material conditions that invariably limit and constrain our freedom. He came to recognize that our choices and actions are always mediated by the world, by the sociohistorical situation we’ve been thrown into. He sees that the idea of radical, unconditioned freedom “is nonsense. The truth is that existence ‘is-in-society’ as it ‘is-in-the-world’” (Sartre 1952 [1963, 590]). Freedom must be understood as “freedom-in-situation.” It is true that we are free to create ourselves, but it is also true that we are already created by our situation. “Man,” is best understood as “a totally conditioned social being who does not render back completely what his conditioning has given him” (Sartre 1972 [2008, 35]).

Sartre’s Marxist inspired conception of situated or mediated freedom is one that had already been forwarded and developed by Beauvoir in her major treatises The Second Sex and The Coming of Age and in her novels such as The Blood of Others (1945 [1970]) and The Mandarins (1954 [1991]). The view is also developed by her compatriot Merleau-Ponty. In Phenomenology of Perception , for example, Merleau-Ponty makes it clear that the options we choose to act on do not emerge out of nothing. They are already embedded in a sociohistorical situation “before any personal decision has been made.” (1945 [1962, 449]) The ways in which we create or make ourselves, then, are always circumscribed by the meanings of our situation. We are simultaneously self-making and already made. “We exist in both ways at once,” writes Merleau-Ponty. “We choose the world, and the world chooses us.” (1945 [1962, 453–454]). As we will see in section 6.3, the recognition of the extent to which freedom is mediated by the material conditions of our situation opened existentialism to a broader engagement with the social sphere and the structures of oppression and violence that shape our experience and self-understanding.

5. Authenticity

Existentialism is well known for its critique of mass society and our tendency to conform to the levelled-down norms and expectations of the public. Rather than living our own lives, we tend to get pulled along by the crowd, doing what “they” do. As Heidegger writes, “We take pleasure and enjoy ourselves as they take pleasure. We read, see, and judge about literature and art as they see and judge … we find ‘shocking’ what they find shocking. The ‘they’… prescribes the kind of being of everydayness” (1927 [1962, 126–7]). Living this way can be comforting, creating the illusion that we are living well because we are doing what everyone else does. But for the existentialist, this conformist way of being is a manifestation of inauthenticity or self-deception because it shows how we are unwilling or unable to face up to the freedom and contingency of our condition; it reveals the extent to which we are afraid of being an individual, of being true to ourselves, and of making our own life-defining choices.

In The Sickness unto Death , Kierkegaard describes inauthenticity in terms of fleeing from ourselves, of “not wanting to be oneself, [of] wanting to be rid of oneself” (1849 [1989, 43]). Insofar as we let others decide our lives for us, we live a life that is bereft of passion, a life of “bloodless indolence,” where we are unwilling or unable to “make a real commitment.” (Kierkegaard 1846 [1946, 266–67]). Similarly, Heidegger will refer to this condition as a form of estrangement that “alienates Dasein from itself,” where we exist as a “they-self” ( Man-selbst ) that drifts along in lockstep with others. (1927 [1962, 254–55]) And this self-estrangement is numbing or “tranquilizing” ( beruhigend ) because it covers over the anxiety of own freedom and finitude.

Sartre and Beauvoir refer to inauthenticity in terms of “bad faith” ( mauvaise foi ), where we either deny or over-identify with one of the two aspects of human existence, either facticity or transcendence. I am in bad faith, for example, when I over-identify with my factical situation and deny my freedom to act on and transform this situation. I am also in bad faith when I over-identify with freedom and deny my past conduct and the fact that my choices are limited and constrained by my situation. Sartre and Beauvoir recognize that the self is never wholly free or wholly determined; it is structurally unstable, it is a “double- property … that is at once a facticity and a transcendence” (Sartre 1943 [1956, 98]). When we cling to one or the other of these poles, we are denying this “double-property,” and this is a denial of the fundamental ambiguity and instability at the core of the human condition.

For the existentialists, the possibility of breaking free from engrained patterns of self-deception is generally not something that is accomplished by means of detached reflection. It emerges in the wake of powerful emotional experiences or moods. When the existentialist refers to feelings of “nausea” (Sartre), “absurdity” (Camus), “anxiety” (Kierkegaard), “guilt” (Heidegger), or “mystery” (Marcel) they are describing uncanny affects that have the power to shake us out of our complacency, where the secure and familiar world breaks apart and collapses, and we are forced to confront the question of existence. Jaspers refers to these moments as “limit” or “boundary situations” ( Grenzsituationen )—situations “when everything that is said to be valuable and true collapses before our eyes” (1932 [1956, 117]).

Although terrifying, the existentialist makes it clear that we should not close our eyes or flee from these experiences because they are structural to the human condition. They are, as Jaspers puts it, “impassable, unchangeable situations that belong to human existence as such” (1913 [1997, 330]). Instead of turning away from this basic anxiety, the existentialist asks us to turn toward and face it, because it is amidst a collapsing world that the ultimate questions emerge: Who am I? and What now? In this way, the existentialist sees the experience of anxiety and its related moods as an opportunity for personal growth and transformation. World-shattering moods open me up to the possibility of being authentic, of accepting and affirming the unsettling givens of my condition, of being released from distractions and trivialities, and of recognizing the self-defining projects that matter to me as an individual.

For Kierkegaard, the authentic individual is someone that is “willing to be one’s own self.” (1843 [1989, 43]) He, she, or they recognize(s) that there is more to life than following the crowd or chasing surface pleasures. Such a life is invariably scattered and disjointed, pulled apart by temporal desires and the fleeting fads and fashions of the public. Authenticity requires a passionate, “personality defining” ( personligheds definerende ) decision or commitment that binds together and unifies the fragmented and disjointed moments of our life into a focused and coherent whole. The “unifying power” of commitment is embodied in, what Kierkegaard calls, an attitude of “earnestness” ( alvor ), a sober recognition that existence is a serious affair, not a pleasure-seeking masquerade. But authenticity cannot be achieved simply by means of renouncing temporal pleasures and doing one’s duty according to some universal moral principle—such as the Ten Commandments or Kant’s Categorical Imperative. This is because, for Kierkegaard, the subjective truth of the individual is higher than the universal truths of morality. And this means there may be times in our lives where we must suspend our obligation to the ethical sphere and accept the terrible fact that it may be more important to be authentic (to be true to oneself) than it is to be moral (to do what is right.)

In Fear and Trembling , Kierkegaard draws on the biblical figure of Abraham to make this point. As a father, Abraham has a moral duty to love and protect his son, but when God demands that he break this commandment and kill Isaac, he is confronted with a personal truth that is higher than the universal. In committing himself to this truth, Abraham becomes a “knight of faith” by “leaping” ( springer ) into a paradox, one where the truth of “the singular individual is higher than the universal” (1843 [1985, 84]). As a religious existentialist, Kierkegaard contends that this is what is required to enter the sphere of faith and become a Christian. It has nothing to do with membership in a congregation or obedience to doctrinal statements. It is, rather, a willingness to commit to a truth that is fundamentally irrational and absurd. How, for example, can one make rational sense of God’s command to Abraham to kill his own son? “The problem,” writes Kierkegaard, “is not to understand Christianity, but to understand that it cannot be understood” (1835–1854 [1959, 146]). [ 7 ] An authentic or religious life, then, is always accompanied by anxiety and loneliness because the leap individualizes us; it cuts us off from the comforting truths of the public and its blanket conceptions of right and wrong. It compels us to follow a path that no one else may understand. Abraham’s decision is, for this reason, fraught with despair. In his willingness to suspend his moral duty, he appears “insane” because he “cannot make himself understood to anyone.” (1985 (1843], 103)

But with the despair of faith comes feelings of intensity, even joy, as we recognize the absurdity of religious existence, that the eternal or divine is not found in some otherworldly realm, it is bound up in the temporal; that it is this life , the finite, that has infinite significance. Freed from the temptations of the crowd and of blind obedience to moral principles, the knight of faith “takes delight in everything he sees” because he is now fully aware of the majesty and richness of finitude. For him, “finitude tastes just as good as to one who has never known anything higher” (1843 [1985, 69–70]).

Like Kierkegaard, Nietzsche is critical of our tendency to follow the herd and cling to universal moral principles. He forwards a conception of authenticity that accepts our nihilistic predicament and rises above Christian values of good and evil. He sees these values as representative of a tame and submissive way of being, a “slave morality” ( Sklavenmoral ) that is subservient to authority and bereft of any originality or style. Nietzsche contrasts this with a “master morality” ( Herrenmoral ) embodied in those who have the courage to face, even affirm, the cruel and tragic aspects of life and the self-directed power to create their own meanings and values against the backdrop of God’s death. Nietzsche refers to the individual who can overcome the meek and slavish values of tradition for the sake of self-creation as an “Overman” ( Übermensch ), an aristocratic figure who embodies the freedom, courage, and strength to be original, that is, to “give style” to life. “Such spirits,” writes Nietzsche, “are always out of fashion or explain themselves and their surroundings as free nature—wild, arbitrary, fantastic, and surprising” (1887 [1974], §290).

The key to living with style is, for Nietzsche, a radical acceptance of one’s existence and the world as it is , embracing all our strengths and weaknesses and all the blessed and cursed events that have been and will be. The Overman is a “yes-sayer” who affirms every aspect of his life, “every truth, even the simple, bitter, ugly, unchristian, immoral truths” (1887 [1996], §1). In The Gay Science , Nietzsche captures this attitude with a famous thought experiment called the “doctrine of eternal recurrence.” Here, he asks if we have the audacity to live the same life we are living now over and over for eternity. “And there will be nothing new about it,” he explains, “but every pain and every pleasure, and every thought and sigh, and everything unspeakably small and great in your life must come back to you and all in the same series and sequence.” On Nietzsche’s view, most of us would recoil in horror at the prospect of eternally suffering through the same boredom, failures, and disappointments. But overflowing with amor fati (love of one’s fate), the Overman welcomes this possibility, proclaiming, “I have never heard anything more godlike” (1887 [1974], §341). Camus describes this attitude as a form of rebellion against servile and conformist ways of being. Like the Overman, “the rebel” is someone “born of abundance and fullness of spirit,” and he embodies “the unreserved affirmation of human imperfection and suffering, of evil and murder, of all that is problematic and strange in our existence. It is born of an arrested wish to be what one is in a world that is what it is” (1951 [1956, 72]).

But not everyone has the inborn power to rebel against tradition and creatively express their unique style of living. For Nietzsche, only “the highest types” can manifest this kind of freedom and capacity for self-overcoming. To this end, his account of authenticity is unapologetically elitist and anti-democratic. Most of us are too mired in self-deception, too frightened and weak to break with the herd and become who we are. “Only a very few people can be free,” writes Nietzsche, “It is a prerogative of the strong” (1886 [1998], §29).

Heidegger devotes much of the second half of Being and Time to an analysis of authenticity, employing the German term Eigentlichkeit —formed from the stem of the adjective eigen (“own” or “property”)—that literally means “being own’s own” or “ownnness.” But he sets up his analysis of authenticity by first claiming that self-deception or “inauthenticity” is unavoidable; it is a structure of the human condition, one that he refers to as “falling” ( Verfallen ). What this means is that in our everyday lives we invariably conform (or “fall prey”) to the norms and values of the public world. This results in a kind of complacency and indifference about the question of existence, where we are not our own selves, where “everyone is the other, and no one is himself” (1927 [1962, 128]). Falling creates the illusion that our existence (or being-in-the-world) is secure and thing-like because we are doing what everyone else does. But, for Heidegger, there is nothing that fundamentally secures our existence. As a self-making activity, I am not a stable thing. I am nothing, a “not yet” ( noch nicht ) that is always unsettled, always in the process of making myself. The awareness of our own unsettledness emerges in moments of anxiety when the familiar and routinized world “collapses into itself” (1927 [1962, 186]), and I “die” ( sterben ) because I am no longer able-to-be, that is, to understand or make sense of who I am. [ 8 ]

Like Kierkegaard, Heidegger interprets anxiety as an individualizing mood, one that momentarily “snatches one back” from the tranquilizing routines of “the They,” leaving us vulnerable and exposed to confront our lives (1927 [1962, 384]). And this is potentially liberating because it can temporarily free us from patterns of self-deception, providing insight, a “moment of vision” ( Augenblick ) that can give our lives a renewed sense of urgency and focus. But this experience of individuation does not detach me from the world, turning me into a radical subject or “free floating ‘I’” (1927 [1962, 298]). Heidegger claims that our self-defining choices are always guided in advance by our historical embeddedness, what he calls “historicity” ( Geschichtlichkeit ). The meanings we choose to give to our lives, then, are not created out of thin air; they have already been interpreted and made intelligible by a historical community or “people” ( Volk ). [ 9 ] The moment of vision shakes me out of my fallen, everyday existence and allows me to come back to my historical world with fresh eyes, to seize hold of the publicly interpreted meanings that matter to me and make them “mine” ( Jemeinig ).

Heidegger refers to this authentic attitude in terms of “resoluteness” ( Entschlossenheit ), where I “pull [myself] together,” giving life a sense of cohesion and focus that was missing when I was lost and scattered in “the They.” But being resolute does not mean that I stubbornly cling to whatever possibilities I happen to choose. For Heidegger, authenticity demands an openness and flexibility with how I interpret myself. [ 10 ] Understanding that existence is a situated process of self-making, whatever values or meanings I commit myself to, I must also be willing to let go or give up on them depending on the circumstances of my life, that is, to “hold [myself] free for the possibility of taking it back ” (1927 [1962, 308]). Resoluteness, on this view, does not mean “becoming rigid” and holding fast to a chosen identity because my self-understanding is always insecure; it can die at any time. For this reason, authenticity requires “readiness” or “anticipation” ( Vorgriff ), where we passionately hold ourselves open and free for the inescapable breakdowns and emergencies of life. It is, in Heidegger’s words, “an impassioned freedom towards death—a freedom which has been released from the illusions of the ‘They’” (1927 [1962, 266]).

Sartre and Beauvoir follow Heidegger in viewing self-deception as structural to the human condition. It is, as Sartre writes, “an immediate, permanent threat to every project of the human being” (1943 [1956, 116]). Although I can certainly deceive myself by over-identifying with freedom and denying the extent to which my possibilities are constrained by facticity, the most common and familiar form of bad faith is when I over-identify with my facticity, as if I were a fully realized object or thing, a being “in-itself” ( en-soi ). This form of self-deception is understandable as it creates the consoling impression that there is something secure and thing-like about my identity, that “I am what I am,” and there is nothing that can change me. But to live this way is to deny my freedom and transcendence, that I am self-making, that I live for myself —or, in the vernacular of Sartre and Beauvoir, “for-itself” ( pour-soi ). Human beings are, on their view, always in the process of making or constituting themselves, modifying and negating their being through moment-to-moment choices and actions. This means my identity is never fixed or stable because I can always choose to take a new path or interpret myself in other ways. Regardless of how I see myself at a given time—as a professor, a father, or a political activist—I am also “not” that person, because my identity is never realized and complete; I am always free to negate a given identity and define myself differently in the future. This means I am “what I am not ” (1943 [1956, 103]). And this situation appears to undermine the prospect of authenticity altogether. If the self is always unstable, always in question, how can I ever be genuine or true to myself?

In Being and Nothingness , Sartre provides an answer, referring to authenticity in terms of a “recovery” ( récupération ) of a self or way of being “that was previously corrupted” (1943 [1956, 116]). [ 11 ] But this act of “self-recovery” has nothing to do with creating or holding on to a particular identity. It involves, rather, a clear-eyed awareness and acceptance of the instability and ambiguity of the human condition. And, along with this acceptance, a willingness to act in the face of this ambiguity and to take responsibility, however horrible, for wherever these actions might lead. As Sartre writes, “authenticity consists in a lucid consciousness of the situation, in assuming the responsibilities and risks it involves, in accepting it […] sometimes with horror and hate” (1946 [1948, 90]). But just because existence is fundamentally ambiguous does not mean that our chosen projects are meaningless or absurd. My projects have meaning and value because I chose these projects, but the meaning is contingent; it is never enduring or stable. In The Ethics of Ambiguity , Beauvoir explains: “The notion of ambiguity must not be confused with that of absurdity. To declare that existence is absurd is to deny that it can ever be given a meaning; to say that it is ambiguous is to assert that its meaning is never fixed” (1947 [1948, 129]). The point of authenticity, then, is not to be concerned with who I am —because, at bottom, I am nothing. It is to be concerned with what I do . As Sartre writes, “Authenticity reveals that the only meaningful project is that of doing (not that of being)” (1948 [1992, 475]). For Sartre and Beauvoir, to be authentic is to recover and accept the ambiguous tension of the self, that: we are who we are not —and— we are not who are . And by means of this recovery, recognize that the task of existence involves acting and doing, that is, realizing our freedom through projects in the world but also, as we will see, taking responsibility for how these projects might enhance or diminish freedom for others.

Existentialist ethics generally begins with the idea that there is no external moral order or table of values that exists a priori. “It must be understood,” as Beauvoir writes in The Ethics of Ambiguity , “that the passion in which man has acquiesced finds no external justification. No outside appeal, no objective necessity permits of its being called useful.” But this does not mean that the existentialists are promoting a form of moral nihilism. Beauvoir admits it is true that the human being “has no reason to will itself. But this does not mean that it cannot justify itself, that it cannot give itself reasons for being that it does not have .” It is human existence itself “which makes values spring up in the world on the basis of which it will be able to judge the enterprise in which it will be engaged.” (1947 [1948, 12, 15]). [ 12 ] There is, then, a coherent account of ethical responsibility grounded in freedom, not as a theoretical abstraction but as a concrete expression of transcendence, and the obligation to help others realize their own freedom so that I can realize mine. When I acknowledge that freedom is my essence, I must also acknowledge that it is the essence of others and work, to the best of my ability, to help them realize it. My freedom, then, is not free-floating; it is invariably bound up in the freedom of others. As Sartre puts it: “We want freedom for freedom’s sake and in every particular circumstance. And in wanting freedom we discover that it depends entirely on the freedom of others, and that freedom of others depends on ours […] I am obliged to want others to have freedom at the same time that I want my own freedom” (1945 [2001, 306]).

Sartre and Beauvoir argue that we generally exist as “a being-for-others” ( un être-pour-autrui ), which is to say that I understand or see myself in the way that I do through “the look” ( le regard ) of the Other. And the look has the power to strip away my freedom and turn me into an object. Human relations, on this account, are best understood as a form of conflict, a dyadic power struggle where I try to assert my freedom and subjectivity by turning the Other into an object, while the Other tries to do the same to me. “While I attempt to free myself from the hold of the Other,” writes Sartre, “the Other is trying to free himself from mine; while I seek to enslave the Other, the Other seeks to enslave me… Conflict is the original meaning of being-for-others” (1943 [1956, 475]). This struggle for self-assertion leads to Sartre’s famous claim in his play Huis Clos (No Exit) that “Hell is— other people ” (1944 [1989, 45]).

But the struggle to objectify and possess the Other by stripping them of their freedom is a manifestation of inauthentic being-for-others. There is an authentic counterpart. Beauvoir, for example, explores what it means to develop and cultivate freedom for others with her account of “authentic love” ( l’amour authentique ), describing it as a relationship where we acknowledge and nurture the other’s freedom and transcendence while at the same time resisting the temptations of bad faith, that is, to see the Other as an object or thing to be manipulated and possessed. As a moral stance, authentic being-for-others is a form of reciprocity that involves “the mutual recognition of two freedoms […] [where] neither would give up transcendence [and] neither would be mutilated” (1949 [1952, 667]). In this way authenticity and morality belong together, whereby we have a shared obligation to liberate or free each other so that we can create ourselves and take responsibility for the life we lead. Therefore, as Beauvoir puts it, “to will oneself moral and to will oneself free are one and the same decision” (1947 [1948, 24]).

Heidegger develops a similar idea in Being and Time with his account of “liberating concern” ( befreiend Fürsorge ), a form of care where the central aim is to free the Other from patterns of self-deception so that they can anxiously face and create their own existence. It is a relational stance that “helps the Other become transparent to himself in his care and to become free for it” (1927 [1962, 122]). When we care in this way, we resist the temptation to “leap-in” ( einspringen ) for the Other, as if the Other were a dependent thing or object that needs to be sheltered from the unsettling question of existence. Heidegger refers to this sheltering tendency in terms of a kind of tacit mastery or “domination” ( Beherrschung ) that strips the Other of the anxious responsibility they have for their own life. Instead of leaping-in for the Other and disburdening them of their responsibility, an authentic relation is one that “leaps-ahead” ( vorausspringt ) of the Other, giving them back their anxiety and the freedom to care for and confront their condition. As Heidegger writes, we leap-ahead of the Other, “not in order to take away his ‘care’ but rather to give it back to them authentically as such for the first time” (1927 [1962, 122]). Here, we see the development of an ethical maxim: to act in such a way as to will the realization of your own freedom and the realization of freedom for others.

There is also heterodox current among some religious existentialists, one that suggests that moral demands are placed on us when we recognize ourselves not as voluntaristic subjects—or, in the words of Iris Murdoch, “brave naked wills” (1983, 46) severed from bonds of community and attachment—but as relational beings who are fundamentally bound together in mutual vulnerability. And this recognition may serve as the foundation for an ethics by pulling us out of our everyday self-absorption and awakening us, not to our freedom, but to our essential dependency.

Speaking through the religious elder Father Zossima in The Brothers Karamazov , Dostoevsky offers a powerful indictment of the “terrible individualism” that he sees as endemic to modernity, where unfettered freedom and self-affirmation have become the highest values. Such a view leads not to self-actualization but to loneliness and despair. The modern man, says Zossima, “is accustomed to rely upon himself alone and to cut himself off from the whole; he has trained himself not to believe in the help of others, in men and in humanity […] but this terrible individualism must inevitably have an end, and all will suddenly understand how unnaturally they are separated from one another” (1879 [1957–80, 279]). Against the vision of the willful subject who makes choices without evaluative limits or constraints, Dostoevsky suggests it is only in recognizing the Other as dependent and vulnerable that we can come to recognize ourselves. True freedom emerges when we release ourselves from the bondage of our own egoistic striving and adopt an attitude of humility and self-sacrifice. The aim is to show that the human being is not an isolated will but a frail and defenseless being that is dependent on the self-less love, compassion, and charity of others. [ 13 ] When we free ourselves from the temptations of individualism in this way, Zossima says a moral demand is placed on us, one where we begin to see that “we are all responsible to all and for all” (1879–80 [1957, 228).

The Jewish existentialist Martin Buber expands on this idea in his masterwork I and Thou . He claims that in our everyday lives we generally relate to others from an instrumental and objectifying standpoint, what he calls the “I-It” ( Ich-Es ) relation, where the other is encountered as a thing (or “it”) to be manipulated and controlled for one’s own use. This relation is comforting because it creates the illusion that we have control of our situation. But there are moments in our lives when this illusion collapses, and we become vulnerable to the other, not as an “it” but as a “you.” In the “I-You” ( Ich-Du ) relation, all the egoistic defenses we rely on to conceal our essential dependency and openness to the Other break down. Buber refers to this as an experience of grace, where the Other is revealed to me as a whole person, defenseless and exposed, and I am revealed in the same way. It is a moment where “two human beings reveal the You to one another” (1923 [1970, 95]). In this way, anxiety isn’t a radically individualizing affair, where the forlorn subject is cut off from the relational world to confront their own freedom. For Buber, exposure to the I-You relation shakes us out of our own egoistic concerns and awakens us to the fact that we are not isolated individuals but beings who are always in living relation with others. With this experience “the barriers of the individual are breached,” and this creates an affective union, a “bridge from self-being to self-being across the abyss of dread” (1938 [1965], 201, 207]).

The Nazi occupation of France, his own experience as a prisoner of war, and the attacks on his philosophy from influential Marxist critics, compelled Sartre to shift his focus from the individual to the social. Following the war, he, along with Merleau-Ponty and Beauvoir, launched the influential journal of social criticism Le Temps Modernes (Modern Times), and Sartre made his aims clear in the first issue, writing: “Our intention is to help effect certain changes in the Society that surrounds us… one is responsible for what one is … Totally committed and totally freed. And yet it is the free man who must be delivered , by enlarging his possibilities of choice” (Sartre 1945 [1988, 264–65]). Here we see existentialists making the connection that for the Other to realize their freedom, philosophy must engage the “bases and structures” that limit and constrain them. This is because these structures are not philosophical abstractions; they “are lived as schematic determinates of the individual’s future” (Sartre 1957 [1968, 94]). Society, here, is viewed not as an aggregate of voluntaristic subjects; it is the mediating background of our lives, and if we are going to create a situation of freedom and “enlarge the possibilities of choice,” we must recognize how this background can be violent and oppressive—especially to historically marginalized and undervalued people—and to act in such a way as to transform it.

Of all the major developers of existentialism, it is unquestionably Beauvoir who offered the most sustained and influential analyses of oppression and of possibilities for emancipation, not only in her feminist masterwork The Second Sex , but in her bleak account of the dehumanization of the elderly in The Coming of Age (1970 [1996]) and her reflections on the experience of Black populations in the Jim Crow South in her memoir America Day by Day (1954 [1999]). In these works, Beauvoir illuminates how socioeconomic and political structures can restrict the human capacity for freedom and transcendence, how they have the power to “freeze” the Other, strip away possibilities for agency and self-creation, and trap them in “immanence.” But in these works, Beauvoir makes it clear that this situation is not a destiny. Human beings have no essential nature; no one is born inferior or submissive. We are constituted intersubjectively by growing into, internalizing, and enacting ready-made structures of oppression. But insofar as these structures are constituted and maintained by the choices and actions of individuals, they are not fixed and static. Like human beings, they too are subject to change. Here we see how the recognition that existence precedes essence moves from the ontological realm to the ethical, it becomes a call to action, to engage and transform the material conditions that limit the possibilities of choice for those who are oppressed and marginalized.

In this way, postwar existentialism began to engage the realities of the social sphere and the painful “isms”—classism, racism, colonialism, sexism, anti-Semitism—haunting the western world. It was a philosophy that had come to recognize, in Sartre’s words, that “the individual interiorizes his social determinations; he interiorizes the relations of production, the family of his childhood, the historical past, the contemporary in institutions, and he then re-exteriorizes these acts and options which necessarily refer us back to them” (1972 [2008, 35]). And insofar as these social determinations are not fixed and timeless but contingent human constructs, they can be resisted and transformed to free others.

7. Contemporary Relevance

Existentialism has had a profound impact on how philosophers conceptualize and understand the human condition, with rich accounts of affectivity and embodiment, facticity (or worldliness), and the ways in which we are constituted intersubjectively. It has opened new paths for philosophy to engage with concrete and acute human problems, from sexuality, race, disability, and old age to broader issues of social and political violence and oppressive relations in general. And the movement continues to thrive in the academy today. Not only is the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy (SPEP) flourishing as the second largest philosophical organization in the English-speaking world, with smaller research groups (or “Circles”) devoted to every major figure. There is a cascade of scholarship published every year in leading journals and academic presses that captures the enduring relevance of existentialist thought, including important new work engaging the significance of French existentialism as an ethical theory (Webber 2018), reframing our conceptions of virtue and human flourishing (McMullin 2019), and even addressing current analytic debates in philosophies of life-extension, anti-natalism, and transhumanism (Buben 2022). Indeed, the core ideas and major figures of existentialism are not just alive and well; they are shaping developments in a diverse range of areas across the humanities and social sciences.

The legacy is most clearly present in the European philosophies that proceeded it. Existentialism’s critique of foundationalism and the authority of reason as well as its rejection of universalism, essentialism, and “grand narratives” (or metanarratives) all had a decisive impact on post-structural philosophies in France. Nietzsche and Heidegger in particular served as decisive influences on the project of “de-centering the subject” in Jacques Derrida’s method of deconstruction and in Michel Foucault’s genealogy of power, demonstrating how the subject is not the privileged center or origin of truth and knowledge. The subject is, rather, shaped in advance by sociohistorical structures, an overlapping network of norms and practices, linguistic conventions, and shared meanings, and this shaping takes place in a way that we are never fully conscious of. [ 14 ] The individual, on this view, is more of a placeholder or crossing point in these anonymous structures, where the subject exists as “the inscribed surface of events […] totally imprinted by history” (Foucault 1977, 148). Of course, existentialists reject the idea that this historical imprinting or “decentering” is total or absolute. They are, after all, still committed to the value of freedom and authenticity, but they recognize that freedom is never unconditioned. Beyond the philosophies of Heidegger and Nietzsche, we see this recognition in Merleau-Ponty’s conception of mediated freedom, in Sartre’s postwar account of “freedom-in-situation,” and in what Beauvoir calls “ la force des choses ” (the power of circumstances). The recognition of historicity as an impersonal force that structures our identity had such an impact on Foucault’s work that he once remarked: “My entire philosophical development was determined by my reading of Heidegger” (Foucault 1985, cited in Dreyfus 1995, 9).

In viewing the self not as a substance or thing but as a self-interpreting, meaning-giving activity that is always already bound up in the world, existentialism has also informed key developments in narrative and hermeneutic philosophy. Prominent anglophone philosophers such as Harry Frankfurt (1971), Charles Taylor (1985), and Alasdair MacIntyre (1981) have drawn on classical existentialism to illuminate how we exist in the meanings and self-interpretations that we create for ourselves. My sense of who I am is constituted by an ongoing process of choosing, pulling together, and consolidating the roles, projects, and meanings that matter to me and that are made available by the sociohistorical situation I find myself in. On this view, the story I create for myself is held together by the narrative unity and cohesion that I give to it. This is what Taylor means when he says that we can only understand or “grasp our lives in a narrative” (1989, 47). And this conception of narrative identity not only offers a response to overly reductive conceptions of the self that are grounded in the substance ontologies of mind and body; it demonstrates an attentiveness to the ambiguous tension of our condition, that our choices are both self-fashioning and socially embedded, that we simultaneously make ourselves and are already made.

Beginning with Hubert Dreyfus’s (1972) groundbreaking critique of Artificial Intelligence (AI), philosophers of mind and cognitive scientists have been drawing on existentialist philosophy—especially Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty—to challenge the overly mentalistic picture of selfhood and agency that modern philosophy inherits from Descartes and Kant and to dismantle traditional representational theories of knowledge. Key works by Shaun Gallagher (2005), Thomas Fuchs, (2018), and Dan Zahavi (2005) have replaced the picture of the disembodied mind with the now widely accepted notion of the embedded, enactive, and embodied self. This is a rejection of the long-held assumption that human action must somehow be represented or “mirrored” in the mind. Existentialism illuminates how—as a situated way of being-in-the-world—human beings already embody a tacit understanding of the world in a way that we are not and can never be thematically conscious of. This means we do not understand things as discrete objects. We understand things in terms of how we use and handle them and in terms of the purposive, meaning-giving roles these things play in our everyday lives. The traditional view of the mind as something resembling the rule-governed processes of a computer program have continually failed to capture this ambiguous and embodied sense of being-in-the-world.

The attentiveness to conditions of oppression, subjugation, and violence among postwar existentialists in France has had a decisive impact on recent developments in critical phenomenology by giving voice to those who have been historically marginalized or undervalued in the western tradition. Beauvoir’s pioneering account of the woman’s experience in The Second Sex is well known for laying the conceptual foundations for second wave feminism, and her late career phenomenology of aging broke new ground by shedding light on the existence of older persons and exposing the toxic ageism in contemporary capitalist societies. Together with Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, her ideas would inform Franz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks (1952 [1967]), a seminal work that disclosed the dehumanizing experience of colonized Black populations and helped give birth to Africana critical theory or “black existentialism” (Gordon 2000). The focus on the ways in which structures of discrimination along with the limits of our own embodiment can constrain our capacities for freedom and transcendence has, in turn, influenced recent phenomenological accounts of intersectionality and the lived experience of, among others, indigenous peoples, immigrants, and exiles (Coulthard 2014; Ortega 2016), queer and trans identities (Ahmed 2006; Salamon 2010), those who are imprisoned or in solitary confinement (Guenther 2013; Leder 2016), and the elderly, disabled, and chronically ill (Aho 2022; Reynolds 2022; Dickel 2022).

Interpreting existence in terms of the situated activity of being-in-the-world not only serves as a rejection of substance ontology and the metaphysical dualisms (subject-object; mind-body; inner-outer) that we inherit from Cartesian and empiricist epistemologies; it also reveals deep affinities with the nonduality of Buddhism and other incarnations of Eastern thought. (Loy 2018; Kalmanson 2020) And the recognition of our enmeshment in the world has informed a range of important advances in the philosophy of place, deep ecology, and eco-phenomenology (Brown & Toadvine 2003; Malpas 2017; Morton 2016; Rentmeester 2016). These endeavors have exposed the limitations of the scientific worldview and our uncritical dependence on technological innovation to address the current ecological crisis. Modern science generally assumes a binary paradigm of the subject as separate and distinct from a value-less domain of objects (or nature), a domain that can, in turn, be mastered and controlled by technoscience. In this way, it betrays our ordinary experience, that in our day-to-day lives we are not atomistic, self-certain subjects but beings that are fundamentally entwined with the world and the meaning and value that this intertwining brings to our experience. For the existentialist, then, extricating ourselves from environmental doom requires not a technoscientific fix but an ontological transformation in our own self-understanding, an awaking to the reality of our interdependence with nature, that the earth is not apart from us but rather part of us.

Outside of the humanities and social sciences, existentialism has also had a deep and lasting impact on the allied health professions. The role it has played in the development of existential and humanistic approaches to psychotherapy (Cooper 2003; Spinneli 2007; van Deurzen 2015) and to phenomenological psychopathology (Parnas & Gallagher 2015; Ratcliffe 2015; Stanghellini et al. 2019) is well-known, but in recent years we have seen its influence emerge in a range of different areas, from narrative medicine to nursing, and from gerontology to palliative care. To this end, existentialism has informed a move away from the reductive and objectifying tendencies of modern biomedicine to recover the first-person experience of health and illness, viewing the body not so much as a biophysical machine that needs to be adjusted and maintained but as the experiential and interpretative medium of our existence. This shift has not only allowed clinicians to challenge the emergent tendency to medicalize ever-expanding swaths of the human condition; it makes it possible for the clinician to better understand the patient’s experience by getting a sense of “what it means” and “what it feels like” to suffer when the body breaks down (Aho 2018; Slatman 2014; Svenaeus 2022; Zeiler & Käll 2014).

Beyond its ascendency in the healing arts, its myriad cultural influences, and its wide-ranging impact on the humanities and social sciences, the enduring legacy of existentialism is perhaps most visible in the classroom. Existentialist-themed courses are often among the most popular in the philosophy curriculum as young students confront, for the first time, the unsettling questions of freedom and the meaning of their own existence. And these questions have never been more pressing as they develop against the backdrop of anthropogenic climate change, species extinction, global pandemics, and the reemergence of authoritarian and fascist politics. Amidst these planetary emergencies, a new generation is facing the predicament of nihilism and the death of God and owning up to the uncanny truth of the human condition: that existence precedes essence.

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• Dreyfus, H., 1972. What computers can’t do: A critique of artificial reason , New York: Harper and Row.
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• Fanon, F., 1952 [1967]. Black skin, white masks , C. Markmann (trans.), New York: Grove Press.
• Foucault, M., 1977. “Nietzsche, genealogy, history,” in D. F. Bouchard (ed.), Language, counter-memory, practice: Selected essays and interviews , Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
• –––, 1985. “Final interview,” Raritan , 5(1): 1–13.
• Frankfurt, H., 1971. “Freedom of the will and the concept of a person,” Journal of philosophy , 68(1): 5–20.
• Fuchs, T., 2018. Ecology of the brain: the phenomenology and biology of the embodied mind , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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• Gordon, L. (ed.), 1997. Existence in black: An anthology of black existential philosophy , New York: Routledge.
• Guenther, L., 2013. Solitary confinement: Social death and its alternatives , Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
• Guignon, C., 1993. “Editor’s introduction,” in C. Guignon (ed.), Dostoevsky’s “The grand inquisitor”: With related chapters from The Brothers Karamazov, C. Garnett (trans.), Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.
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• Guingon, C. & Aho, K., 2019. “Authenticity and social critique,” in K. Becker & I. Thomson (eds.), The Cambridge history of philosophy, 1945–2015 , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Habermas, J., 1985 [1990]. The philosophical discourse of modernity: Twelve lectures , F. Lawrence (trans.), Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• Heidegger, M., 1927 [1962]. Being and time , J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson (trans.), New York: Harper and Row.
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• Husserl, E., 1912 [1989]. Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to Phenomenological Philosophy, Second Book , R. Rojcewicz and A. Schuwer (trans.), Dordrecht: Kluwer. (1912 is the year the second edition was initially drafted.)
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• Kierkegaard, S., 1844 [1936]. Philosophical fragments , D. Swenson (trans.), Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• –––, 1846 [1941]. Concluding unscientific postscript , D. Swenson, L. Swenson, & W. Lowrie (trans.), Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• –––, 1846 [1946]. “The present age,” A. Dru (trans.), in R. Bretall (ed.), A Kierkegaard anthology , Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• –––, 1835–1854 [1959]. The journals of Kierkegaard , A. Dru (trans.), New York: Harper Torchbooks. (1835–1854 are the years of the journal entries.)
• –––, 1843 [1985]. Fear and trembling , A. Hannay (trans.), New York: Penguin Books.
• –––, 1849 [1989]. The sickness unto death , A. Hannay (trans.), New York: Penguin books.
• Leder, D., 2016. The distressed body. Rethinking illness, imprisonment, and healing , Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
• Loy, D., 2018. Lack and transcendence: The problem of death and life in psychotherapy, existentialism, and Buddhism , Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications.
• MacIntyre, A., 1981. After virtue , Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press.
• Malpas, J., 2017. Heidegger and the thinking of place: Explorations in the topology of being , Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
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• Merleau-Ponty, M., 1945 [1962]. Phenomenology of perception , C. Smith (trans.), London: Routledge & Keegan Paul.
• –––, 1964 [1968]. The visible and the invisible: Followed by working notes , A. Lingis (trans.), Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
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• Nietzsche, F., 1886 [1998]. Beyond good and evil , M. Faber (trans.), New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• –––, 1887 [1974]. The gay science , W. Kaufmann (trans.), New York: Vintage Books.
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• –––, 1889b [1990b] Twilight of the idols , R. J. Hollingdale (trans.), New York: Penguin Books.
• –––, 1901 [1968]. The will to power , W. Kaufmann (trans.), New York: Vintage Books.
• Ortega y Gasset, J., 1941. Toward a philosophy of history , H. Weyl (trans.), New York: W.W. Norton.
• –––, 1930 [1993] The revolt of the masses , (anonymous trans.), New York: W.W. Norton.
• Ortega, M., 2016. In-between: Latina feminist phenomenology, multiplicity, and the self , Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
• Parnas, J. & Gallagher, S., 2015. “Phenomenology and the Interpretation of Psychopathological Experience,” in L. Kirmayer, R. Lemelson, and C. Cummings (eds.), Re-Visioning Psychiatry: Integrating Biological, Clinical and Cultural Perspectives , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Ratcliffe, M., 2015. Experiences of depression. A study in phenomenology , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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• Rentmeester, C., 2016. Heidegger and the environment , London: Rowman and Littlefield.
• Salamon, G., 2020. Assuming a body: Transgender and rhetorics of materiality , New York: Columbia University Press.
• Sartre, J-P., 1943 [1956]. Being and nothingness , H. Barnes (trans.), New York: Washington Square Press.
• –––, 1952 [1963]. Saint Genet, actor and martyr , B. Frechtman (trans.), New York: George Braziller Inc.
• –––, 1957 [1968]. Search for a method , H. Barnes (trans.), New York: Vintage Books.
• –––, 1945 [1988]. “What is literature?” and other essays , S. Ungar (ed.), J. Mehlman (trans.), Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• –––, 1944 [1989]. No exit , S. Gilbert (trans.), New York: Vintage Press.
• –––, 1948 [1992]. Notes for an ethics , D. Pellauer (trans.), Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
• –––, 1946 [2001]. “Existentialism is a humanism,” B. Frechtman (trans.), in C. Guignon and D. Pereboom (eds.), Existentialism: Basic writings , Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Press.
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• Solomon, R., 2005. Existentialism , 2 nd edition, New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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• Svenaeus, F., 2022. The hermeneutics of medicine and the phenomenology of health: Steps towards a philosophy of medical practice , 2 nd edition, Dordrecht: Springer.
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• Vogel, L., 1994. The fragile “we”: Ethical implications of Heidegger’s Being and Time, Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
• Webber, J., 2018. Rethinking existentialism , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Wolin, R., 1990. The politics of being: The political thought of Martin Heidegger , New York: Columbia University Press.
• –––, 1995. “Karl Löwith and Martin Heidegger—Contexts and Controversies: An Introduction,” in Karl Löwith, Martin Heidegger and European nihilism , G. Steiner (trans.), New York: Columbia University Press.
• Young, I. M., 1984 [2000]. On the female body experience: “Throwing like a girl” and others essays , New York: Oxford University Press.
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• Zeiler, K. & Käll, L., 2014. Feminist Phenomenology and Medicine , Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

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• Crowell, Steven, “Existentialism”, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2022 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), URL = < https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2022/entries/existentialism/ >. [This was the previous entry on this topic in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy – see the version history .]
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• Existentialism , entry at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Norther American Sartre Society
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• Simone de Beauvoir , entry at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• The International Simone de Beauvoir Society
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Beauvoir, Simone de | Buber, Martin | Heidegger, Martin | hermeneutics | Husserl, Edmund | Jaspers, Karl | Kierkegaard, Søren | Marcel, Gabriel (-Honoré) | Merleau-Ponty, Maurice | Nietzsche, Friedrich | Ortega y Gasset, José | phenomenology | Sartre, Jean-Paul

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Existentialism Research Paper Topics

This page provides a comprehensive list of existentialism research paper topics , offering an extensive guide for philosophy students exploring this crucial area of study. It covers a wide range of themes, encompassing a detailed topic list categorized into ten distinct sections, a thorough article examining existentialism and the multitude of research paper topics it entails, and a complete overview of the iResearchNet’s writing services, tailored to support students in their academic pursuits.

100 Existentialism Research Paper Topics

The study of existentialism is crucial for understanding the human condition and our place in the world. It addresses the most fundamental questions of existence, freedom, and meaning. This page provides a comprehensive list of existentialism research paper topics that can guide students in exploring the profound ideas and themes associated with this philosophical movement.

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• Basics of Existentialism
• The concept of ‘being’ in existentialism
• The role of freedom and choice in existentialism
• Existentialism and the absurd
• The concept of ‘bad faith’ in existentialism
• The relationship between existentialism and nihilism
• Existentialism and the concept of ‘the other’
• The role of anxiety and dread in existentialism
• Existentialism and the search for meaning
• The concept of ‘authenticity’ in existentialism
• The role of death and finitude in existentialism
• Existentialism and Religion
• Kierkegaard’s concept of ‘leap of faith’
• Existentialism and the problem of evil
• The role of God in existential thought
• The existential critique of religious institutions
• Existentialism and atheism
• The concept of ‘despair’ in Kierkegaard’s thought
• Existentialism and mysticism
• The role of faith and belief in existentialism
• Existentialism and the concept of ‘the absurd’ in religious contexts
• The relationship between existentialism and Buddhism
• Key Figures in Existentialism
• The philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard
• The philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche
• The philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre
• The philosophy of Albert Camus
• The philosophy of Martin Heidegger
• The philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir
• The philosophy of Karl Jaspers
• The philosophy of Fyodor Dostoevsky
• The philosophy of Franz Kafka
• The philosophy of Gabriel Marcel
• Existentialism in Literature and Arts
• Existential themes in the works of Franz Kafka
• The representation of existentialism in film
• Existentialism and the theatre of the absurd
• The role of existentialism in modern art
• Existentialism in the works of Albert Camus
• The influence of existentialism on music
• Existential themes in the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky
• The representation of existentialism in popular culture
• Existentialism and postmodern literature
• The influence of existentialism on contemporary theatre
• Ethical Considerations in Existentialism
• The concept of ‘bad faith’ and its ethical implications
• Existentialism and the ethics of responsibility
• The role of freedom and choice in existential ethics
• Existentialism and the concept of ‘the other’ in ethics
• The ethical implications of existential nihilism
• The ethics of authenticity in existentialism
• Existentialism and the ethics of despair
• The ethical implications of existential anxiety
• Existentialism and the ethics of death and finitude
• The ethics of existentialism in a globalized world
• Existential Psychology
• The influence of existentialism on humanistic psychology
• Existential psychotherapy and the concept of ‘the other’
• The role of anxiety and dread in existential psychology
• Existential psychology and the search for meaning
• The concept of ‘authenticity’ in existential psychology
• The role of death and finitude in existential psychology
• Existential psychology and the concept of ‘the absurd’
• The influence of existential psychology on contemporary psychotherapy
• Existential psychology and the treatment of depression
• The role of existential psychology in understanding mental health
• Feminist Existentialism
• Simone de Beauvoir and the concept of ‘the other’
• Existentialism and the feminist critique of patriarchy
• Feminist existentialism and the concept of ‘bad faith’
• The role of freedom and choice in feminist existentialism
• Feminist existentialism and the search for meaning
• The concept of ‘authenticity’ in feminist existentialism
• Feminist existentialism and the ethics of responsibility
• The role of existentialism in contemporary feminist thought
• Feminist existentialism and the concept of ‘the absurd’
• The influence of feminist existentialism on contemporary gender studies
• Existentialism in Modern Context
• Existentialism and the challenges of globalization
• Existentialism and the ethics of technology
• The role of existentialism in contemporary political thought
• Existentialism and the challenges of environmentalism
• The influence of existentialism on postmodern thought
• Existentialism and the ethics of social justice
• The role of existentialism in contemporary education
• Existentialism and the challenges of secularism
• The influence of existentialism on contemporary psychology
• Existentialism and the ethics of artificial intelligence
• Comparative Studies (Existentialism vs. other philosophies)
• Existentialism and phenomenology
• Existentialism and Marxism
• Existentialism and rationalism
• Existentialism and empiricism
• Existentialism and postmodernism
• Existentialism and pragmatism
• Existentialism and structuralism
• Existentialism and deconstruction
• Existentialism and psychoanalysis
• Existentialism and humanism
• Criticisms of Existentialism
• The critique of existentialism by rationalists
• The critique of existentialism by empiricists
• The critique of existentialism by Marxists
• The critique of existentialism by feminists
• The critique of existentialism by postmodernists
• The critique of existentialism by psychoanalysts
• The critique of existentialism by theologians
• The critique of existentialism by humanists
• The critique of existentialism by pragmatists
• The critique of existentialism by deconstructionists

The comprehensive list provided above demonstrates the relevance and necessity of research in existentialism. It encompasses a broad spectrum of topics, from the fundamental concepts of existential thought to its influence on contemporary society, literature, and art. Students and scholars alike can benefit from exploring these existentialism research paper topics, as they delve into the complexities and nuances of this influential philosophical movement.

The Range of Existentialism Research Paper Topics

Existentialism, a philosophical movement that originated in the 19th and 20th centuries, has been a significant influence on various aspects of modern thought and culture. This philosophical approach focuses on the individual’s experience and emphasizes freedom, choice, and responsibility. It has had a profound impact on literature, art, psychology, theology, and even politics. The range of existentialism research paper topics is vast and provides a rich field for academic research and exploration.

Importance and relevance of existentialism in philosophy

Existentialism addresses the most fundamental aspects of human existence, focusing on individual experience, freedom, responsibility, and the search for meaning in a seemingly indifferent or even hostile world. This philosophy challenges individuals to confront the ‘absurdity’ of life and to create their own meaning and values, rather than relying on external authorities or traditional beliefs. It also emphasizes the importance of personal responsibility and the consequences of our choices and actions. These themes are incredibly relevant in today’s world, where many people struggle with feelings of alienation, meaninglessness, and existential anxiety.

Discussion on Topics

Exploring the various existentialism research paper topics can provide a deeper understanding of the different aspects of this philosophy and its impact on various fields of study. Here are some areas worth exploring:

• Basics of Existentialism: Understanding the foundational concepts of existentialism is crucial for anyone interested in this philosophy. Research topics in this area can include the concept of ‘being’ in existentialism, the role of freedom and choice, existentialism and the absurd, and the concept of ‘bad faith.’
• Existentialism and Religion: Existentialism has a complex relationship with religion. Some existentialist thinkers, such as Kierkegaard, were deeply religious, while others, like Sartre, were atheists. Research topics in this area can explore the role of God in existential thought, the existential critique of religious institutions, and the relationship between existentialism and Buddhism.
• Key Figures in Existentialism: The works of key figures in existentialism, such as Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and Simone de Beauvoir, provide a wealth of material for research. Topics can include an exploration of their individual philosophies, a comparison of their ideas, or an analysis of their influence on literature, art, or modern culture.
• Existentialism in Literature and Arts: Existentialism has had a significant influence on literature, film, theatre, and art. Research topics in this area can explore the representation of existentialism in film, the role of existentialism in modern art, and the influence of existentialism on music.
• Ethical Considerations in Existentialism: Existentialism places a strong emphasis on personal responsibility and the ethical implications of our choices and actions. Research topics in this area can explore the ethics of existentialism, the concept of ‘bad faith’ and its ethical implications, and the role of freedom and choice in existential ethics.
• Existential Psychology: Existential psychology focuses on the human experience and the existential challenges and concerns that we all face, such as freedom, responsibility, meaning, and death. Research topics in this area can explore the influence of existentialism on humanistic psychology, the role of existential psychology in understanding mental health, and the treatment of depression using existential psychotherapy.
• Feminist Existentialism: Feminist existentialism explores the intersection of existentialism and feminism. Research topics in this area can explore the philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir, the role of freedom and choice in feminist existentialism, and the influence of feminist existentialism on contemporary gender studies.
• Existentialism in Modern Context: Existentialism continues to be relevant in the modern world and has influenced various aspects of contemporary society, such as politics, education, and technology. Research topics in this area can explore the challenges of globalization, the ethics of technology, and the role of existentialism in contemporary political thought.
• Comparative Studies (Existentialism vs. other philosophies): Comparing existentialism with other philosophical movements, such as phenomenology, Marxism, rationalism, or postmodernism, can provide valuable insights into the similarities and differences between these philosophies. Research topics in this area can explore the relationship between existentialism and phenomenology, existentialism and Marxism, or existentialism and postmodernism.
• Criticisms of Existentialism: Existentialism has faced various criticisms from other philosophical movements and thinkers. Research topics in this area can explore the critique of existentialism by rationalists, empiricists, Marxists, feminists, postmodernists, psychoanalysts, theologians, humanists, pragmatists, or deconstructionists.

The importance of existentialism cannot be overstated. It addresses fundamental questions about human existence, freedom, responsibility, and the search for meaning in a seemingly indifferent or even hostile world. The range of existentialism research paper topics is vast and provides a rich field for academic research and exploration. Whether you are interested in the foundational concepts of existentialism, its influence on literature, art, or modern culture, its ethical implications, or its relevance in today’s world, there is a wealth of material to explore and analyze. Understanding existentialism and its various research areas is not only academically rewarding but can also provide valuable insights into the challenges and concerns of our modern world.

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Existentialism Essay Topics

• Essay Topics

Existentialism Essay Titles

• Comparing Existentialism and William Shakespeare in the 20th Century
• The Historical Evolution of Existentialism and Adlerian Theory
• An Examination of Jean-Paul Sartre’s Perspectives on Existentialism and Human Emotions
• Existentialism and Realism in Paulo Coelho’s Veronica Decides to Die
• Existentialism and The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
• The Objective of Education and the Implementation of Existentialism and Essentialism
• Where Existentialism Fits Into Simone de Beauvoir’s “The Second Sex.”
• Thorstein Veblen, Existentialism, and the Philosophy of Science: The Teleological Impulse
• The Jazz Aesthetic and Black Existentialism in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man
• The Existentialism of the Novels Demian and Crime and Punishment
• The Myth of Sisyphus and Waiting for Godot by Camus and Beckett Are examples of existentialist literature.
• The Meaning of Existentialism Sartre’s Humanism of Existentialism
• Describing Existentialism and Its Rapid Global Growth
• The Philosophy of Existentialism in Franz Kafka and Samuel Beckett’s Literature
• Existentialism and Social Reconstruction in Educational Philosophy
• The Existentialism Portrayed in Beckett’s Play ‘Rockaby.’
• Understanding the Concept of Existentialism’s Philosophy
• Existentialist Themes in “The Shawshank Redemption.”
• The Origin and History of Existentialism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Essay Topics on Existentialism

• Christians & Communists Against Jean-Paul Sartre’s Existentialism
• Understanding Soren Kierkegaard’s Concept of Existentialism
• Underlying Psychoanalysis, Behaviorism, and Existentialism Are Images of Human Nature.
• The Historical Development of Existentialism and Phenomenology in Continental Philosophy
• The Primary Existentialism Themes in Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit
• How Far Can Existentialism Offer More Than a Satisfying Philosophical Conclusion?
• A View of Existentialism from an Atheistic Perspective in Jean-Paul Sartre’s The Humanism of Existentialism
• A Study of the Existentialism Movement in France During the 20th Century
• Popularity of the Existentialism Concept in France During the Second World War
• Existentialism and Human Emotions: An Essay by Jean-Paul Sartre
• Existentialism and Human Emotions: An Analysis of Sartre’s Philosophical Work
• A Case for Existentialism as a Philosophical Theory and Its Contributions to the World
• Conceptions of Selflessness in Sartre’s Existentialism and Theravada Buddhism
• The Prevalence of Existentialism in Albert Camus’s The Stranger
• The Philosophical Community As Existentialism’s Father
• Existentialism in Literature Relates to Religion: The Human Condition
• Responsibility and Options in Existentialism According to Jean-Paul Sartre
• The Impact of Jean-Paul Sartre’s Leadership on Existentialism in France
• The History and Growth of the Existentialism Philosophical Movement
• Existentialism: A Philosophical Movement Concerned with Existence’s Meaning
• Existentialism Theories in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road
• Existentialism and Christianity in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot

Existentialism Questions

• Existentialism and Psychoanalysis Had What Effect on Frankl?
• How Might Existentialism Influence Belief in God?
• What Are Existentialism’s Key Concepts?
• What Is an Existentialist Example?
• Why Does Existentialism Fail?
• Existentialism and Christianity: Are They Compatible?
• What Is Existentialism’s Antithesis?
• Who Is Considered Existentialism’s Father?
• What Are the Three Existentialism Beliefs?
• How Does One Apply Existentialism?
• What Is Existentialism’s First Principle?
• Which Two Types of Existentialism Exist?
• How Does Existentialism Perceive the Human Individual?
• What Is the Difference between Existentialism and Humanism?
• What Does Existentialism Mean Simply?
• What Are Existentialism’s Six Themes?
• Who Discussed Existentialism?
• Why Is Existentialism Crucial Now?
• Who Is the Most Famous Existentialism Representative?
• What Is the Relationship between Traditional Detective Fiction and Existentialism?
• How to Compare and Contrast Existentialism and Person-Centered Therapy?
• What Contrasts William Shakespeare and the Existentialism of the 20th Century?
• How to Describe Existentialism and Its Rapid Global Growth?
• What Are the Various Concepts Within Existentialism Philosophy?

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1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology

Philosophy, One Thousand Words at a Time

Existentialism

Author: Addison Ellis Category: Phenomenology and Existentialism ,  Ethics Word Count: 1000

Video below

1. Mr. Green 

Mr. Green is many things: a teacher, a husband, a father, a college graduate, and a medical patient, to name a few. Some of his features may be counted as accomplishments, others failures, and yet others unlucky accidents thrust upon him by the world. But is this all there is to Mr. Green?

According to the philosophical tradition of Existentialism , something is missing in this characterization. For the existentialist, we are not merely a collection of facts; we are also  self-conscious, living,   caring beings . While trees, seagulls, and fish are all similarly  alive , they do not live the same sorts of lives that we do. Existentialism is the philosophical science of our peculiar sorts of lives. 1

Our lives are  ongoing activities . Mr. Green’s existence, just like the existence of every similarly self-conscious, caring being, is more than a series of events or a set of facts. In providing such an understanding, Existentialism breathes new life into old ideas about the nature of value, freedom, and even more broadly into questions about the nature of reality and knowledge. In this essay, we will restrict our focus to what existentialists have to say about human nature and living a meaningful life. 2

2. Existence Precedes Essence

Many philosophers, both historical and contemporary, believe that the way something is is determined by its  essence . That is, essences are fixed determinants of the way things are.

Those who follow this line of thought may take essences to be the non-physical and eternal standards to which things conform. 3 Thus, the essence of a table is what determines table-like behavior. Likewise, the essence of a human being is what determines what a human being is like. These fixed determinants can range from principles given by God to those we attribute to society.

Martin Heidegger helpfully points out that we often speak of the way “one” does things, referring to no one in particular. We say things like “this is the way one does x ,” because doing x correctly means doing it in accordance with some pre-established standard. 4 But Heidegger believes that this way of thinking should not extend to our ways of living. That is, we should not understand ourselves as living correctly only when we live “as one lives.” Existentialism reverses this picture by suggesting that it is our living which determines our essence, and not the other way around.

Let’s go back to Mr. Green. In order to understand what sort of being he is, we must understand that who he is is not a fact he was born with, nor is it a fact that was established merely after some important events in his life unfolded. He is who he is because of what he chooses , and one can never stop choosing. For even by trying to decide that I will no longer make choices, I am making the choice not to choose. Jean-Paul Sartre, the most famous of the historical existentialists, expresses the idea that we are who we make ourselves, and not who we are pre-determined to be, with a concise slogan: “existence precedes essence.” 5

3. Freedom & Authenticity

If Sartre is right and our lives are essentially up to us, then existentialists must also be committed to a robust kind of freedom , since we are not determined by what happens to us.

But if Mr. Green’s essence is up to him, and he’s free to craft his essence as he pleases, then on what standards does he draw to guide himself in his crafting? It would seem that existentialists cannot simply draw from a set of independently existing standards. If this were so, then who we are is again simply a matter of conforming to some pre-established standards.

If the standards are up to us, then why should we choose any one set of standards over any other? That is, how can we make sense of the idea that there is a right way to live and a wrong way to live if there is no external standard for judging whether we have made the right choice ? 6

This is a difficult issue in Existentialism, one that is grappled with by all the major figures in the tradition. The answer we will entertain here is that it is possible to find a standard within our own activities that determines whether they are being performed well or poorly. This is what existentialists refer to as authenticity . 7

Mr. Green, knowing that he has terminal lung cancer, can arrange the final years of his life in a variety of ways; it is up to him how he will structure his remaining time. But there are two ways in which he can choose:

(i) he can see his choices as simply thrust upon him by the world—i.e., he can believe that he really doesn’t have a choice at all,

(ii) he can see his choices as his own while taking full responsibility for them.

Only by acting in this way is Mr. Green acting authentically , since it is only under these conditions that he is true to himself. Acting inauthentically , then, involves excusing oneself from responsibility by ignoring one’s freedom. The existentialist hopes to have shown that despite the lack of external guidance, we are perfectly capable of telling from within our own activities whether we are acting authentically or inauthentically. 8

4. Conclusions

Existentialism gives us some tools for understanding (i) our essence, and (ii) how it is possible to live a meaningful life.

The ideas defended by existentialists have been thought to have both positive and negative implications for us. On the one hand, our lives are not determined by God, society, or contingent circumstances; on the other hand, absolute freedom can be a burden. As Sartre puts it, “man is condemned to be free.” 9 That is, it was never up to us to be free, and we cannot cease to be free. Since we must be free, and because freedom entails responsibility, we can never opt out of being responsible. Thus we are simultaneously unencumbered and encumbered by our freedom to choose who we will be.

1  This is not to denigrate the lives of things radically different from us, but merely to point out that paradigm human creatures live peculiar sorts of lives. The demarcating line here between  lives like ours and  lives unlike ours needn’t be drawn along purely biological lines. There are potentially things—certain non-human animals, futuristic artificially intelligent systems—that have lives like ours, and whose lives are properly studied by Existentialism. Similarly, there are some biological humans—the very young, the severely mentally handicapped—whose lives are  not like ours , and hence, whose lives are not properly studied by Existentialism.

2  Existential themes can be traced as far back as St. Augustine in his Confessions . Most philosophers today agree, however, that 19 th- Century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard and 19th-Century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche did much to provide the framework for what Existentialism would become in its more definitive era. The major figures of Existentialism include not only Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, but also (perhaps more importantly) Jean-Paul Sartre and Martin Heidegger, in the 20 th century.

3  What Plato calls “forms.”

4  This is an expression of what Heidegger calls the They-self, Being and Time S ection 129

5  Sartre,  Existentialism Is a Humanism (20)

6  There is some debate about whether Existentialism is actually a moral theory. One reason for the doubt is precisely this one – that there is nothing action-guiding about Existentialism.

7  Steven Crowell makes this point in his SEP article when discussing Nietzsche’s idea of a ‘ruling instinct.’

8  There is a serious worry here that must be addressed by the existentialist, and I will leave it as an exercise for the reader. While it seems better to act authentically than to act inauthentically, don’t we need to meet even more standards in order to count as living a truly good life? In other words, we might worry about whether authenticity is the only guiding principle that we really need. Perhaps it is possible to be an authentic genocidal dictator. If so, then perhaps Existentialism does not, on its own, suffice as a moral theory.

9  Sartre, op. cit . (29)

Crowell, Steven. “Existentialism.”  Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy . Stanford University, 23 Aug. 2004. Web. 18 Apr. 2014.

Heidegger, Martin.  Being and Time . Trans. John Macquarrie. Ed. Edward Robinson. New York: HarperPerennial/Modern Thought, 2008.

Sartre, Jean-Paul.  Existentialism Is a Humanism . Ed. John Kulka and Arlette Elkaïm-Sartre. New Haven: Yale UP, 2007.

Related Essays

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Meaning in Life: What Makes Our Lives Meaningful? by Matthew Pianalto

Moral Luck by Jonathan Spelman

Free Will and Free Choice  by Jonah Nagashima

Free Will and Moral Responsibility  by Chelsea Haramia

About the Author

Addison Ellis is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at The American University in Cairo. His interests include Kant and Post-Kantian European Philosophy, with special attention to the topics of self-consciousness, ontology, and cognitive capacities and attitudes. philpeople.org/profiles/addison-ellis

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Existentialism Essay Topics

Existentialism Essay Titles

• Comparing Existentialism and William Shakespeare in the 20th Century
• The Historical Evolution of Existentialism and Adlerian Theory
• An Examination of Jean-Paul Sartre’s Perspectives on Existentialism and Human Emotions
• Existentialism and Realism in Paulo Coelho’s Veronica Decides to Die
• Existentialism and The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
• The Objective of Education and the Implementation of Existentialism and Essentialism
• Where Existentialism Fits Into Simone de Beauvoir’s “The Second Sex.”
• Thorstein Veblen, Existentialism, and the Philosophy of Science: The Teleological Impulse
• The Jazz Aesthetic and Black Existentialism in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man
• The Existentialism of the Novels Demian and Crime and Punishment
• The Myth of Sisyphus and Waiting for Godot by Camus and Beckett Are examples of existentialist literature.
• The Meaning of Existentialism Sartre’s Humanism of Existentialism
• Describing Existentialism and Its Rapid Global Growth
• The Philosophy of Existentialism in Franz Kafka and Samuel Beckett’s Literature
• Existentialism and Social Reconstruction in Educational Philosophy
• The Existentialism Portrayed in Beckett’s Play ‘Rockaby.’
• Understanding the Concept of Existentialism’s Philosophy
• Existentialist Themes in “The Shawshank Redemption.”
• The Origin and History of Existentialism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Essay Topics on Existentialism

• Christians & Communists Against Jean-Paul Sartre’s Existentialism
• Understanding Soren Kierkegaard’s Concept of Existentialism
• Underlying Psychoanalysis, Behaviorism, and Existentialism Are Images of Human Nature.
• The Historical Development of Existentialism and Phenomenology in Continental Philosophy
• The Primary Existentialism Themes in Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit
• How Far Can Existentialism Offer More Than a Satisfying Philosophical Conclusion?
• A View of Existentialism from an Atheistic Perspective in Jean-Paul Sartre’s The Humanism of Existentialism
• A Study of the Existentialism Movement in France During the 20th Century
• Popularity of the Existentialism Concept in France During the Second World War
• Existentialism and Human Emotions: An Essay by Jean-Paul Sartre
• Existentialism and Human Emotions: An Analysis of Sartre’s Philosophical Work
• A Case for Existentialism as a Philosophical Theory and Its Contributions to the World
• Conceptions of Selflessness in Sartre’s Existentialism and Theravada Buddhism
• The Prevalence of Existentialism in Albert Camus’s The Stranger
• The Philosophical Community As Existentialism’s Father
• Existentialism in Literature Relates to Religion: The Human Condition
• Responsibility and Options in Existentialism According to Jean-Paul Sartre
• The Impact of Jean-Paul Sartre’s Leadership on Existentialism in France
• The History and Growth of the Existentialism Philosophical Movement
• Existentialism: A Philosophical Movement Concerned with Existence’s Meaning
• Existentialism Theories in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road
• Existentialism and Christianity in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot

Existentialism Questions

• Existentialism and Psychoanalysis Had What Effect on Frankl?
• How Might Existentialism Influence Belief in God?
• What Are Existentialism’s Key Concepts?
• What Is an Existentialist Example?
• Why Does Existentialism Fail?
• Existentialism and Christianity: Are They Compatible?
• What Is Existentialism’s Antithesis?
• Who Is Considered Existentialism’s Father?
• What Are the Three Existentialism Beliefs?
• How Does One Apply Existentialism?
• What Is Existentialism’s First Principle?
• Which Two Types of Existentialism Exist?
• How Does Existentialism Perceive the Human Individual?
• What Is the Difference between Existentialism and Humanism?
• What Does Existentialism Mean Simply?
• What Are Existentialism’s Six Themes?
• Who Discussed Existentialism?
• Why Is Existentialism Crucial Now?
• Who Is the Most Famous Existentialism Representative?
• What Is the Relationship between Traditional Detective Fiction and Existentialism?
• How to Compare and Contrast Existentialism and Person-Centered Therapy?
• What Contrasts William Shakespeare and the Existentialism of the 20th Century?
• How to Describe Existentialism and Its Rapid Global Growth?
• What Are the Various Concepts Within Existentialism Philosophy?

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Essay Samples on Existentialism

The concept of existentialism: search for meaning and freedom.

Existentialism is one of the terms that derive its meaning from intellectual history and philosophy. The term was adopted through the postwar era. It is a philosophical concept that presents wide dissemination of information of mid-20th century society. Therefore, existentialism became a common term that...

• Existentialism
• Philosophical Concept

Existentialism In The Fight Club

Fight Club (1999) is told from the point of view of an anonymous storyteller. The unnamed protagonist who is referred to as Jack has an ordinary life with a steady occupation and lives in a pleasant apartment in a big city. Nonetheless, his life additionally...

Existentialism And Nihilism In John Gardner’s "Grendel"

When John Gardner’s Grendel appeared in 1971, it was instantly and widely welcomed by many reviewers, critics, and readers. Like James Joyce’s Ulysses before it, the late Gardner’s Grendel derives plenty of its substances, wit, and ingenuity from reference to the antiquated epic that inspires...

Comparison and Contrast of the Underground Man and Grand Inquisitor in Notes from Underground

In Notes from Underground and “The Grand Inquisitor’ chapter from The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky details two characters, the Underground Man, an older man disconnected from society who understands himself to be smarter and of greater consciousness than others, and the Grand Inquisitor, a Roman...

• Notes from Underground
• The Brothers Karamazov

An Introduction to Dostoyevsky: Notes from the Underground

The Russian novelist and philosopher Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky, who was born in Moscow in 1821 and died of epilepsy 1881. We will tackle on his philosophy and theology from one of his most famous works, and some of the influences of his life. Tackling on...

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Comprassion of Sartre's and Camus' Ideas of Existentialism

Existentialism is a way of thinking about finding oneself and the significance of life through choice, decision, and moral obligation. The belief is that individuals are looking to discover who and what they really are throughout their life as they settle on decisions depending on...

• Albert Camus
• Finding Yourself

Theme of Existentialism in The Stranger by Albert Camus

In the novel, The Stranger by Albert Camus, Meursault is a French man who just had his mother pass away. However, Meursault while he may not realize it is an existentialist. As we see him progress through the novel we notice that he lacks the...

• The Stranger

The Theme of Absurdity in "The Stranger" by Albert Camus

Absurdity in The Stranger by Albert Camus is a vastly discussed topic, mainly because Camus has managed to bring on a subject of humanity that is not often discussed. Absurdity, in philosophy, is the conflict to find meaning to something that doesn’t have meaning, and...

• Meaning of Life

Simone De Beauvoir One of the Greatest Woman

Simone-Ernestine-Lucie-Marie-Bertrand de Beauvoir was a French writer, political activist, feminist thinker and existentialist philosopher. She had worked alongside other famous existentialist such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus and Maurice Merleau-Ponty and was able to produce wonderful works such as She Came to Stay, Pyrrhus and...

• Simone De Beauvoir
• Someone Who Inspires Me

Simone De Beauvoir: Existentialist Philosopher and Feminist

Simone de Beauvoir was an existentialist philosopher, French writer, political activist, social theorist and feminist. Despite her works having a significant influence on both feminist existentialism and feminist theory, she did not consider herself to be a philosopher. De Beauvoir’s most noteworthy work, The Second...

• Women's Rights

"The Second Sex": Deconstructing Patriarchy and Femininity

Simone de Beauvoir's "The Second Sex" is a seminal work in feminist philosophy that deconstructs the concept of womanhood and exposes the ways in which women are oppressed by patriarchy. Published in 1949, the book remains a cornerstone of feminist theory and has had a...

• Gender Inequality

Breaking the Constraints of the Other: A Critical Analysis on 'The Second Sex' by Simone De Beauvoir 

Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex argues that throughout history, women have been seen as “the Other”, scrutinizing women to a life of prejudice, and viewed as -as described by the title- the secondary sex, after men. The Second Sex is one the earliest attempts...

Soren Kierkegaard: The Father of Existentialism

Philosophy as an area of study and quest for truth was based solely on objective, logical approaches right before the 1840s, where the influential Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard revolutionized the field with his contributions. He is commonly regarded as the “father of existentialism,” a concept...

• Philosophy of Life

Questioning Life with Philosophies of Nihilism and Existentialism

What is one’s purpose in life? What meaning does life have? These are a few of the many questions that countless philosophers and ordinary people have been asking for centuries. This idea of questioning the reason for life is known as existentialism. We have all...

Person-Centered Therapy Against Existentialism

Abstract This paper discusses Person Centered Theory and Existentialism and the importance these theories have contributed to psychology, as well as compares and contrasts the similarities and differences between the two. Person Centered Therapy, also known as PCT, focuses on understanding and empathy rather than...

Existential Philosophy in Kafka's "The Metamorphosis"

Franz Kafka's "The Metamorphosis" is a literary masterpiece that is often regarded as one of the most influential works of existential literature. The novella is a thought-provoking exploration of the human experience, delving into themes of freedom, choice, absurdity, alienation, and death. Kafka's use of...

• The Metamorphosis

Existentialism and Despair in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment

Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment suggests an intriguing conversation starter about the sources of criminal conduct, is the Earth in charge of an individual's activities, or does the craving for wrongdoing begin from inside? Russian pundit, D.I. Pisarev trusted the previous. He conjectured that Raskolnikov's...

• Crime and Punishment

Best topics on Existentialism

1. The Concept of Existentialism: Search for Meaning and Freedom

2. Existentialism In The Fight Club

3. Existentialism And Nihilism In John Gardner’s “Grendel”

4. Comparison and Contrast of the Underground Man and Grand Inquisitor in Notes from Underground

5. An Introduction to Dostoyevsky: Notes from the Underground

6. Comprassion of Sartre’s and Camus’ Ideas of Existentialism

7. Theme of Existentialism in The Stranger by Albert Camus

8. The Theme of Absurdity in “The Stranger” by Albert Camus

9. Simone De Beauvoir One of the Greatest Woman

10. Simone De Beauvoir: Existentialist Philosopher and Feminist

11. “The Second Sex”: Deconstructing Patriarchy and Femininity

12. Breaking the Constraints of the Other: A Critical Analysis on ‘The Second Sex’ by Simone De Beauvoir 

13. Soren Kierkegaard: The Father of Existentialism

14. Questioning Life with Philosophies of Nihilism and Existentialism

15. Person-Centered Therapy Against Existentialism

• Human Nature
• Personal Identity
• Ethics in Everyday Life
• Immanuel Kant
• Metaphysics

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Existentialism is a Humanism

38 pages • 1 hour read

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

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Preface-“Existentialism Is a Humanism”

“Existentialism Is a Humanism” Post-Lecture Discussion

“A Commentary on The Stranger”

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Important Quotes

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Discussion Questions

In “Existentialism is a Humanism,” Sartre writes: “Man is nothing other than his own project. He exists only to the extent that he realizes himself, therefore he is nothing more than the sum of his actions, nothing more than his life” (37). Is Sartre contradicting himself, or can this statement be reconciled with the central tenet of existentialism: that man’s existence precedes his essence? Support your answer with quotations from the text.

In the following quotation, what do you think Sartre means by saying that “man passes beyond himself”? Refer to specific passages from “Existentialism is a Humanism” to support your answer. Feel free to incorporate quotations from Sartre’s other works to support your position:

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Hamlet, Don Quixote, and Blade Runner - what do these works of literature have in common? They are vivid examples of existentialist writing. Though it’s not the most popular philosophy thought nowadays, it doesn’t mean that essays in existentialism aren’t demanded in college or university. Indeed, many students are assigned to analyze, for example, Jean Paul Sartre essays in existentialism, so it’s important to know how to produce a top-notch paper and impress your professors.

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Draw topic & writing ideas from this essay on  existentialism chapter analysis.

Introduction

Kneller (1958) defines existentialism as the philosophy that gives emphasis to the existence of an individual with choice and freedom whereby human beings decide on their paths and meaning of their lives as rational human beings with the capability of following unique directions in life. In essence, it is free will and each person has the responsibility of ethically making judgments and taking courses of action for which they are individually responsible. Chapter five gives an explanation of the philosophical view of existentialism and its relation to education.

Chapter Analysis

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Many philosophers have identified various branches of egalitarianism. One such branch is the luck egalitarianism philosophy, which recognizes distinctive interpretations and critiques. Elizabeth Anderson formulates a distinctive branch of egalitarianism that opposes luck egalitarianism, namely the democratic equality philosophy. This essay will first delineate the main points of Anderson’s opposition to luck egalitarianism and democratic equality. After this review, there will be applied an insightful analysis of the presented principles, which will be opposed. For a balanced presentation, there will also be provided a response to the identified objections.

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My Name We are undergoing a tremendous spiritual renaissance. The current awakening in spirituality is unparalleled, at least in modern world history and is somewhere linked with the all-pervasive desire for a better quality of life. The authors of this article make a case for existentialism as a pathway to achieve the dual goals of spirituality and psychological betterment. The aim of this paper is to provide a review and critique of the article titled ‘Existential Theory and Our Search for Spirituality’ by Eliason, G.T., Samide, J.L., Williams, G., & Lepore, M.F. (2010).

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275 words = 1 page double-spaced

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