Existentialism
Existence precedes essence: each person chooses what to become
Key ideas
- Freedom and responsibility for one's choices
- Anxiety, despair and the absurd as human experience
- Authentic existence instead of living "like everyone else"
- Kierkegaard and Nietzsche as forerunners; Sartre and Camus as 20th-century classics
Key thinkers
- Søren Kierkegaard (founder) — Danish philosopher and theologian, 1813–1855
- Friedrich Nietzsche — German philosopher, 1844–1900
- Martin Heidegger — German philosopher, 1889–1976
- Jean-Paul Sartre — French philosopher and writer, 1905–1980
- Simone de Beauvoir — French writer and philosopher, 1908–1986
- Albert Camus — French writer and philosopher, 1913–1960
- Nikolai Berdyaev — Russian religious philosopher, 1874–1948
Grew out of
- German idealism c. 1781 – 1850 · Europe
Meanwhile elsewhere
- Confucianism Asia
- Buddhist philosophy Asia
- Taoism Asia
- Nyaya Asia
- Madhyamaka Asia
- Yogachara Asia
- Chan and Zen Asia
- Advaita Vedanta Asia
- Kalam Middle East
- Neo-Confucianism Asia
- American transcendentalism Americas
- Russian religious philosophy Eastern Europe & Russia
- Pragmatism Americas
- Russian cosmism Eastern Europe & Russia
- Kyoto School Asia
- Négritude Africa