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What Is Existentialism?

Existentialism is a philosophical movement built on one uncomfortable idea: you’re free. Radically, terrifyingly free. There’s no script for your life, no predetermined purpose, no cosmic plan telling you what to do. You have to figure it out yourself — and that freedom is both exhilarating and deeply unsettling.

The Big Claim

The phrase most associated with existentialism is Jean-Paul Sartre’s “existence precedes essence.” In plain language, that means you exist first, and then you define who you are through your choices. A hammer has an essence before it exists — someone designs it with a purpose. But you? You showed up without instructions.

This flips centuries of Western philosophy on its head. Plato, Aristotle, and most religious traditions assumed humans had a fixed nature — an essence that determined what a good human life looked like. Existentialists said no. There’s no human nature you’re born with. You build yourself through action.

And here’s the kicker: you can’t escape this. Even refusing to choose is a choice. Sartre called this being “condemned to be free.”

Where It Started

Most histories trace existentialism back to Soren Kierkegaard, a Danish philosopher writing in the 1840s. Kierkegaard was frustrated with Hegel’s abstract philosophical systems, which he felt ignored what it actually feels like to be a living, deciding, anxious human being. His big contribution was emphasizing subjective experience — the inner life of the individual — over grand theoretical frameworks.

Friedrich Nietzsche, writing a few decades later, added another crucial ingredient. His famous declaration that “God is dead” wasn’t a celebration. It was a warning. If the traditional foundation for morality and meaning disappears, what do you replace it with? Nietzsche’s answer: you create your own values. He called this the task of the “Ubermensch” — the person who builds meaning from scratch.

Neither Kierkegaard nor Nietzsche used the word “existentialism.” That came later.

The 20th Century Explosion

Existentialism really took off in the 1940s and 1950s, mostly in France. World War II had just demonstrated — in the most visceral way imaginable — that civilization’s guarantees were fragile. The Holocaust, the atomic bomb, the sheer scale of destruction. People were ready for a philosophy that acknowledged absurdity and confronted meaninglessness head-on.

Jean-Paul Sartre became the public face of existentialism. His 1943 work Being and Nothingness laid out the philosophical foundations, but it was his 1946 lecture “Existentialism Is a Humanism” that made the ideas accessible. Sartre emphasized radical freedom, personal responsibility, and “bad faith” — his term for the self-deception people use to avoid confronting their freedom.

Simone de Beauvoir applied existentialist thinking to gender. Her 1949 book The Second Sex argued that women weren’t born into a fixed feminine nature — they were made into “women” by social forces. “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” This was existentialism applied to lived experience, and it basically launched second-wave feminism.

Albert Camus is the tricky one. He rejected the existentialist label and preferred “absurdism.” His version focused on the clash between human desire for meaning and the universe’s stubborn refusal to provide any. In The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), he argued that you should imagine Sisyphus happy — rolling his boulder up the hill forever, finding satisfaction in the struggle itself.

Martin Heidegger approached things differently in Germany. His Being and Time (1927) explored what it means to exist as a being who knows it will die. Heidegger argued that awareness of death — what he called “being-toward-death” — is what makes authentic living possible. If you forget you’re mortal, you drift into conformity and inauthenticity.

Core Themes

Freedom and responsibility. You’re free to choose, but you’re also fully responsible for those choices. No blaming God, society, your upbringing, or your genes. Sartre was ruthless about this — he said even a soldier drafted into war chooses how to respond.

Authenticity. Living authentically means owning your freedom and making genuine choices rather than following the crowd. Heidegger called the alternative “das Man” — the “they-self,” where you just do what “one does” without ever really choosing.

Absurdity. Camus emphasized this most. The world doesn’t owe you meaning. The gap between your need for purpose and the universe’s silence is the absurd. Your job isn’t to solve this — it’s to live fully despite it.

Anxiety and dread. Not clinical anxiety, but the deep unease that comes from confronting your freedom and mortality. Kierkegaard called it “the dizziness of freedom.” It’s the feeling you get staring at infinite possibilities with no guidebook.

Bad faith. Sartre’s term for lying to yourself about your freedom. The waiter who becomes nothing but a waiter. The person who says “I had no choice.” Bad faith is comfortable. Authenticity is hard.

Why People Get It Wrong

The biggest misconception about existentialism is that it’s depressing. Gloomy French intellectuals chain-smoking in cafes, convinced life is meaningless. That’s a caricature.

Existentialism is actually aggressively optimistic in a weird way. Yes, there’s no built-in meaning. But that means you get to create it. You’re not trapped by destiny or fate. Every moment is a chance to choose differently. Sartre explicitly said existentialism is a form of humanism — it puts humans in the driver’s seat.

The other common mistake is confusing it with nihilism. Nihilism says nothing matters. Existentialism says nothing matters until you make it matter. That’s a huge difference.

Existentialism Beyond Philosophy

The movement’s influence spread far beyond academic philosophy. In literature, Fyodor Dostoevsky (a proto-existentialist) and Franz Kafka explored existential themes decades before the movement had a name. Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man are drenched in existentialist ideas.

In psychology, existential therapy emerged as a distinct approach. Irvin Yalom, Rollo May, and Viktor Frankl (whose Man’s Search for Meaning chronicled finding purpose in a concentration camp) all drew on existentialist ideas. The core therapeutic question: what gives your life meaning?

Film, music, and pop culture absorbed existentialism too. From Ingmar Bergman’s movies to the Coen Brothers, from the lyrics of The Cure to the philosophy behind The Matrix — existential themes show up everywhere once you start looking.

Does It Still Matter?

Here’s what most people miss about existentialism: it’s more relevant now than when Sartre was writing. In a world of algorithmic feeds, curated identities, and constant distraction, the existentialist questions hit harder than ever. Are you making real choices, or just scrolling through options someone else designed for you? Are you living authentically, or performing a version of yourself for social media?

The existentialists didn’t have answers to everything. But they asked the right questions — and they insisted that you answer them, not some authority, algorithm, or tradition. That insistence on personal responsibility? Still radical. Still uncomfortable. Still necessary.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is existentialism the same as nihilism?

No. Nihilism says life has no meaning, period. Existentialism agrees there's no built-in meaning but insists you can — and must — create your own. Sartre called this radical freedom. So existentialism is actually a response to nihilism, not an endorsement of it.

Can you be religious and existentialist?

Absolutely. Kierkegaard, widely considered the first existentialist, was a devout Christian. Religious existentialists argue that faith itself is an act of radical personal choice — a 'leap of faith' made without guarantees. Gabriel Marcel and Paul Tillich continued this tradition.

What is existential dread?

Existential dread (or angst) is the anxiety that comes from confronting your own freedom and mortality. It's not fear of something specific — it's the unsettling realization that you're responsible for creating meaning in a universe that doesn't provide it. Kierkegaard and Heidegger both wrote extensively about this feeling.

Further Reading

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy — Existentialism
• Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy — Existentialism
• British Library — Existentialism