Existentialism emphasizes that individuals are solely responsible for giving their own lives meaning and purpose through the choices they make. A key idea is that existence precedes essence, meaning people exist first and then define their own essence or nature through their actions and decisions. Existentialists believe the universe is inherently meaningless and absurd, yet people still have freedom to choose how to act and the responsibility to accept consequences. Individuals experience anxiety in confronting this radical freedom and facing nothingness and death alone.

1. A complex philosophy
emphasizing the
absurdity of reality
and the human
responsibility to make
choices and accept
consequences!

2. Big Ideas of Existentialism
Despite encompassing a
huge range of philosophical,
religious, and political
ideologies, the underlying
concepts of existentialism
are simple…

3. Existence Precedes Essence
Existentialism is the title of the set of philosophical ideals
that emphasize the existence of the human being, the lack
of meaning and purpose in life, and the solitude of human
existence… “Existence precedes essence” implies that
the human being has no essence (no essential self).

4. Absurdism
• The belief that nothing can explain or
rationalize human existence.
• There is no answer to “Why am I?”
• Humans exist in a meaningless, irrational
universe and any search for order will
bring them into direct conflict with this
universe.

5. GEORGIO DE CHIRICO
Love Song
It was during the
Second World War,
when Europe found
itself in a crisis
faced with death and
destruction, that the
existential
movement began to
flourish, popularized
in France in the
1940s.

6. Choice and Commitment
• Humans have freedom to choose.
• Each individual makes choices that
create his or her own nature.
• Because we choose, we must accept risk
and responsibility for wherever our
commitments take us.
• “A human being is absolutely free and absolutely responsible. Anguish is
the result.” –Jean-Paul Sartre

7. Dread and Anxiety
• Dread is a feeling of general
apprehension. Kierkegaard interpreted it
as God’s way of calling each individual to
make a commitment to a personally valid
way of life.
• Anxiety stems from our understanding
and recognition of the total freedom of
choice that confronts us every moment,
and the individual’s confrontation with
nothingness.

8. • Death hangs over all of us. Our
awareness of it can bring freedom or
anguish.
• I am my own existence. Nothing structures
my world.
• “Nothingness is our inherent lack of self. We are in
constant pursuit of a self. Nothingness is the creative
well-spring from which all human possibilities can be
realized.” –Jean-Paul Sartre
Nothingness and Death

9. EDGAR DEGAS
“L’absinthe” (1876)
Alienation or
Estrangement
• From all other
humans
• From human
institutions
• From the past
• From the future
• We only exist right now,
right here.

10. Edward Hopper “New York Movie” (1939)
Human Subjectivity
“I will be what I choose to be.”
It is impossible to transcend
human subjectivity.
“There are no true connections
between people.”
My emotions are yet another
choice I make. I am responsible
for them.

11. All existentialists are concerned with the study of being or
ontology.
TO REVIEW: An existentialist believes that a person’s life
is nothing but the sum of the life he has shaped for
himself. At every moment it is always his own free will
choosing how to act. He is responsible for his actions,
which limit future actions. Thus, he must create a
morality in the absence of any known predetermined
absolute values. God does not figure into the equation,
because even if God does exist, He does not reveal to men
the meaning of their lives. Honesty with oneself is the
most important value. Every decision must be weighed in
light of all the consequences of that action.
Life is absurd, but we engage it!

12. Some Famous
Existentialists
• Søren Kierkegaard
(1813-1855)
• Friedrich Nietzsche
(1844-1900)
• Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-
1980)
• Albert Camus (1913-
1960)
“A woman is not born…she
is created.”
de Beauvoir’s most famous text is
The Second Sex (1949), which some
claim is the basis for current
gender studies.

13. Albert Camus dissociated himself
from the existentialists but
acknowledged man’s lonely condition
in the universe. His “man of the
absurd” (or absurd hero) rejects
despair and commits himself to the
anguish and responsibility of living as
best he can.
Basically, man creates himself through the choices he makes.
There are no guides for these choices, but he has to make them
anyway, which renders life absurd.

14. “You will never be happy if
you continue to search for
what happiness consists of.
You will never live if you are
looking for the meaning of
life.”
“It was previously a question of finding out
whether or not life had to have a meaning to be
lived. It now becomes clear, on the contrary, that
it will be lived all the better if it has no
meaning.”