Existentialism was foreshadowed by Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Kafka, and Heidegger, among others, but didn't really emerge as a distinct field of thought until Jean-Paul Sartre, in a famously flawed reading of Heidegger, coined the term in the 1950s. The philosophical slogan for... [more]

Existentialism was foreshadowed by Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Kafka, and Heidegger, among others, but didn't really emerge as a distinct field of thought until Jean-Paul Sartre, in a famously flawed reading of Heidegger, coined the term in the 1950s. The philosophical slogan for the movement was 'existence precedes essence.' By this phrase, Sartre meant that human beings are essentially born without a predetermined essence, absolutely free to create themselves as they choose. Existentialism requires the acknowledgment that the universe is essentially meaningless, the cosmos essentially chaotic. Then, in the midst of such nothingness, one may put forth one's own project, construct one's own realm, define one's own meaning. This concept was expected to initially produce various manifestations of dread, despair, anxiety, nausea, and other unpleasant psycho-physiological sensations. However, the ultimate result was expected to be a kind of Nietzschean transcendence, whereby protective illusions fall to the wayside, and, out from the crushing despair, the sufferer realizes the possibility of authentic existence. Some of the Abstract Expressionists in America took to the idea quite heartily. Simone de Beauvoir linked the movement to Feminism, and augmented its influence, especially as a potential source of novel lifestyles; de Beauvoir herself embodied the free, self-determining ideas that the movement espoused. Although Existentialism had and continues to have a widespread influence on literature and art, it is no longer considered to be very philosophically valent. [show less]