Existentialism

Existentialism is a philosophical and cultural trend that started with nineteenth-century writers like Søren Kierkegaard, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Friedrich Nietzsche, but became highly influential in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. Many philosophers, writers and theologians (such as Martin Buber, Franz Kafka, Rudolf Bultmann, Paul Tillich, Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus) include existential themes and ideas in their works. Existentialism lacks a central doctrine or philosophy, but there are certain ideas which run through existentialist thought, including: doubts about the value of objective study and systems of ideology and belief (including political ideologies and religions), conception of human life and existence as being a 'work in progress', not fixed or often even finished (except by death), and a belief in decisions made in "the moment" taking priority over other aspects of human life. The phrase "existence precedes essence" was used by Sartre as something of a description of the basic ideas of existentialism - that human life can not be abstracted into an 'essence', but the very essence of what it is to be human is decided by the individual's own existence.

The difficulty comes for existentialism in that if you accept that existence precedes essence, how can we judge whether one has a good life. Most philosophies have a built-in idea of the good life - reaching an enlightenment or eudamonia, salvation and union with God, the achievement of the Communist ideal, preparedness for death - but if you reject the philosophical or theological essences underpinning these, what criteria for success do we have? Existentialism proposes that one achieves a freedom through 'authenticity', being the author and maker of one's own life.

Existentialism was influential on art and cinema - with the films of Ingmar Bergman and the paintings of Abstract Expressionists like Jackson Pollock often being understood in the language of existentialism. Much of the critical theory that came to dominate Continental philosophy and culture has its roots in existentialism.