Existentialism is a philosophy that emphasizes individual

existence, freedom and choice. It is the view that humans define their own
meaning in life, and try to make rational decisions despite existing in
an irrational universe. It focuses on the question of human existence, and the
feeling that there is no purpose or explanation at the core of existence. It holds
that, as there is no God or any other transcendent force, the only way
to counter this nothingness (and hence to find meaning in life) is
by embracing existence.
Thus, Existentialism believes that individuals are entirely free and must
take personal responsibility for themselves (although with this responsibility
comes angst, a profound anguish or dread). It therefore
emphasizes action, freedom and decision as fundamental, and holds that the
only way to rise above the essentially absurd condition of humanity (which is
characterized bysuffering and inevitable death) is by exercising our
personal freedom and choice (a complete rejection of Determinism).
Often, Existentialism as a movement is used to describe those who refuse to belong
to any school of thought, repudiating of theadequacy of any body of beliefs or
systems, claiming them to be superficial, academic and remote from life. Although it
has much in common with Nihilism, Existentialism is more a reaction against
traditional philosophies, such as Rationalism,Empiricism and Positivism, that seek to
discover an ultimate order and universal meaning in metaphysical principles or in
the structure of the observed world. It asserts that people actually make decisions
based on what has meaning to them, rather than what is rational.
Existentialism originated with the 19th Century philosophers Sren
Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche, although neither used the term in their work.
In the 1940s and 1950s, French existentialists such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert
Camus (1913 - 1960), and Simone de Beauvoir (1908 - 1986) wrote scholarly and
fictional works that popularized existential themes, such as dread, boredom,
alienation, the absurd, freedom, commitment and nothingness.
Main Beliefs

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Unlike Ren Descartes, who believed in the primacy of conciousness,

Existentialists assert that a human being is "thrown into" into a concrete,
inveterate universe that cannot be "thought away", and
therefore existence ("being in the world") precedes consciousness, and is
the ultimate reality. Existence, then, is prior to essence (essence is
the meaning that may be ascribed to life), contrary to traditional philosophical
views dating back to the ancient Greeks. As Sartre put it: "At first [Man] is nothing.
Only afterward will he be something, and he himself will have made what he will
be."
Kierkegaard saw rationality as a mechanism humans use to counter
their existential anxiety, their fear of being in the world.Sartre saw rationality as a
form of "bad faith", an attempt by the self to impose structure on a fundamentally
irrational and random world of phenomena ("the other"). This bad

faith hinders us from finding meaning in freedom, and confines us within everyday
experience.
Kierkegaard also stressed that individuals must choose their own way without the
aid of universal, objective standards.Friedrich Nietzsche further contended that
the individual must decide which situations are to count as moral situations.
Thus, most Existentialists believe that personal experience and acting on one's
own convictions are essential in arriving at the truth, and that
the understanding of a situation by someone involved in that situation
is superior to that of a detached, objective observer (similar to the concept
of Subjectivism).
According to Camus, when an individual's longing for order collides with the real
world's lack of order, the result is absurdity. Human beings are therefore subjects
in an indifferent, ambiguous and absurd universe, in which meaning is not
provided by thenatural order, but rather can be created (however provisionally
and unstably) by human actions and interpretations.
Existentialism can be atheistic, theological (or theistic) or agnostic. Some
Existentialists, like Nietzsche, proclaimed that "God is dead" and that the concept of
God is obsolete. Others, like Kierkegaard, were intensely religious, even if they did
not feel able tojustify it. The important factor for Existentialists is the freedom of
choice to believe or not to believe.
History of Existentialism

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Existentialist-type themes appear in early Buddhist and Christian writings

(including those of St. Augustine and St.Thomas Aquinas). In the 17th
Century, Blaise Pascal suggested that, without a God, life would be meaningless,
boring and miserable, much as later Existentialists believed, although, unlike
them, Pascal saw this as a reason for the existence of a God. His nearcontemporary, John Locke, advocated individual autonomy and selfdetermination, but in the positive pursuit of Liberalismand Individualism rather
than in response to an Existentialist experience.
Existentialism in its currently recognizable form was inspired by the 19th
Century Danish philosopher Sren Kierkegaard, the German philosophers Friedrich
Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, Karl Jaspers (1883 - 1969) and Edmund Husserl, and
writers like the Russian Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821 - 1881) and the Czech Franz
Kafka (1883 - 1924). It can be argued that Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
Hegel and Arthur Schopenhauer were also important influences on the
development of Existentialism, because the philosophies
of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche were written in response or in opposition to them.
Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, like Pascal before them, were interested in
people's concealment of the meaninglessness of life and their use of diversion to
escape from boredom. However, unlike Pascal, they considered the role of
making free choices on fundamental values and beliefs to be essential in the
attempt to change the nature and identity of the chooser. In Kierkegaard's case,
this results in the "knight of faith", who puts complete faith in himself and in

God, as described in his 1843 work "Fear and Trembling". In Nietzsche's case, the
much maligned "bermensch" (or "Superman")
attains superiority andtranscendence without resorting to the "otherworldliness" of Christianity, in his books "Thus Spake Zarathustra" (1885)
and"Beyond Good and Evil" (1887).
Martin Heidegger was an important early philosopher in the movement, particularly
his influential 1927 work "Being and Time", although he himself
vehemently denied being an existentialist in the Sartrean sense. His discussion of
ontology is rooted in an analysis of the mode of existence of individual human
beings, and his analysis of authenticity and anxiety in modern culture make him
very much an Existentialist in the usual modern usage.
Existentialism came of age in the mid-20th Century, largely through
the scholarly and fictional works of the French existentialists, Jean-Paul
Sartre, Albert Camus (1913 - 1960) and Simone de Beauvoir (1908 1986). Maurice Merleau-Ponty(1908 - 1961) is another influential and often
overlooked French Existentialist of the period.
Sartre is perhaps the most well-known, as well as one of the few to have
actually accepted being called an "existentialist"."Being and
Nothingness" (1943) is his most important work, and his novels and plays,
including "Nausea" (1938) and "No Exit(1944), helped to popularize the
movement.
In "The Myth of Sisyphus" (1942), Albert Camus uses the analogy of the Greek
myth of Sisyphus (who is condemned for eternity to roll a rock up a hill, only to
have it roll to the bottom again each time) to exemplify the pointlessness of
existence, but shows that Sisyphus ultimately finds meaning and purpose in his
task, simply by continually applying himself to it.
Simone de Beauvoir, an important existentialist who spent much of her life
alongside Sartre, wrote about feminist and existential ethics in her works,
including "The Second Sex" (1949) and "The Ethics of Ambiguity" (1947).
Although Sartre is considered by most to be the pre-eminent Existentialist, and by
many to be an important and innovative philosopher in his own right, others are
much less impressed by his contributions. Heidegger himself thought that Sartre
had merely taken his own work and regressed it back to the subjectobject orientated philosophy of Descartes and Husserl, which is exactly
what Heidegger had been trying to free philosophy from. Some see Maurice
Merleau-Ponty (1908 - 1961) as a betterExistentialist philosopher, particular for
his incorporation of the body as our way of being in the world, and for his more
complete analysis of perception (two areas in which Heidegger's work is often
seen as deficient).
Criticisms of Existentialism

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Herbert Marcuse (1898 - 1979) has criticized Existentialism, especially Sartre's

"Being and Nothingness", for projecting some features of living in a modern

oppressive society (features such as anxiety and meaninglessness) onto the

nature of existence itself.
Roger Scruton (1944 - ) has claimed that both Heidegger's concept
of inauthenticity and Sartre's concept of bad faith are bothself-inconsistent, in
that they deny any universal moral creed, yet speak of these concepts as if
everyone is bound to abide by them.
Logical Positivists, such as A. J. Ayer and Rudolf Carnap (1891 - 1970), claim that
existentialists frequently become confusedover the verb "to be" (which
is meaningless if used without a predicate) and by the word "nothing" (which is
the negation of existence and therefore cannot be assummed to refer
to something).
Marxists, especially in post-War France, found Existentialism to run counter to their
emphasis on the solidarity of human beings and their theory of economic
determinism. They further argued that Existentialism's emphasis on individual
choice leads tocontemplation rather than to action, and that only the bourgeoisie
has the luxury to make themselves what they are through their choices, so they
considered Existentialism to be a bourgeois philosophy.
Christian critics complain that Existentialism portrays humanity in the worst
possible light, overlooking the dignity and gracethat comes from being made in
the image of God. Also, according to Christian critics, Existentialists are unable to
account for the moral dimension of human life, and have no basis for an ethical
theory if they deny that humans are bound by thecommands of God. On the other
hand, some commentators have objected to Kierkegaard's continued espousal
of Christianity, despite his inability to effectively justify it.
In more general terms, the common use of pseudonymous characters in
existentialist writing can make it seem like the authors are unwilling to own their
insights, and are confusing philosophy with literature.
Criticisms of Existentialism and Humanism
In Existentialism and Humanism Sartre does not always provide arguments for his
contentions. Much of the lecture is delivered in rhetorical and exaggerated terms.
He does not for example defend but merely states his belief in the extent of human
freedom. But, perhaps more damagingly, it is questionable whether he actually
achieves his most important stated aim, namely to rebut the criticism that if there is
no God then anything is permitted - or to put it in other words, he never
demonstrates that his philosophy genuinely is a humanism, that it does not
encourage the moral anarchy that some of his contemporaries believed it did.
Sartre would argue that the fact that existentialists actually increase the scope of
responsibility beyond its usual domain, making each of us responsible for a whole
image of humankind, puts it beyond criticism in this respect. However, his move
from individual morality to responsibility for the whole species is at least
contentious. This is how he puts it:

To choose between this or that is at the same time to affirm the value of that which
is chosen; for we are unable ever to choose the worse. What we choose is always
the better. (p.29)
What he means here is that the fact that we choose any one course is evidence that
we think it the best course of action, that that is the way that we show what we
sincerely value in life. He goes on:
and nothing can be better for us unless it is better for all (p.29)
This is unclear. Why, because something is better for us should it be better for all?
This seems to go against most peoples experience and the diversity of human
taste. It is also self-contradictory because it assumes the human nature that
elsewhere he is at such pains to say does not exist. On the basis of this
unelaborated stipulation he continues:
If, moreover, existence precedes essence and we will to exist at the same time as
we fashion our image, that image if valid for all and for the entire epoch in which we
find ourselves. Our responsibility is thus much greater than we had supposed, for it
concerns mankind as a whole. (p.29)
This is surely a sleight of hand. In one swift movement Sartre has moved from the
individual choosing for him or herself to the whole of humankind in an entire
epoch.This at least needs some kind of argument to support it. Particularly in view
of the pivotal role it plays in his lecture. But even if we are to give Sartre the benefit
of the doubt on this, does his universalisability manoeuvre really protect him from
the charge that his philosophy would justify any behaviour whatsoever no matter
how heinous?
Take the example of Adolf Hitler. Here was a man who believed wholeheartedly that
what he was doing was not just right for him, but for humanity: his eugenics
programme and his entire philosophy of racial superiority, hideous as it was, was no
doubt delivered in good faith. Had Hitler been an existentialist he could have
declared that his choices had been made in a world without pre-existing values and
that they were not just binding on him but on the whole of humanity for the entire
epoch. What is to stop existentialism justifying Hitlers actions as examples of wilful
self-creation of the type advocated by Sartre?
In Existentialism and Humanism Sartre does argue that someone who genuinely
chooses to be free (i.e. an existentialist) cannot not will the freedom of others
(p.52). Quite clearly Hitler did not respect the freedom of people who disagreed with
him or happened to be of the wrong race, so perhaps Sartre could answer the
objection that his existential ethics could be used to justify the most horrendous
crimes. But Sartres argument for the principle of respecting others freedom is
sketchy. If we accept the principle, then existentialist ethics escapes the criticism.
However there is no obvious reason why someone who believes that there are no
preestablished values or guidelines should be prepared to accept such a principle: it
seems to contradict the existentialists basic assertion that for human beings
existence precedes essence.

Nevertheless, despite its flaws and obscurities, Existentialism and Humanism has
tremendous appeal as impassioned rhetoric. It addresses the kind of questions that
most of us hoped philosophy would answer and which contemporary analytic
philosophy largely ignores. Perhaps its greatest strength is its concentration on
freedom: most of us deceive ourselves most of the time about the extent to which
our actions are constrained by factors beyond our control. Even though Sartres
extreme position on freedom and responsibility is ultimately untenable, it serves to
remind us that we can exert far greater control over our lives than we generally
admit, and that most of our excuses are simply rationalisations.
Nigel Warburton 1996