Toward the end of the 19th century the thought of two quite different thinkers arrived on the Western philosophy scene. The insights they spawned helped give rise to the movement known as “Existentialism.” It got that name because it stressed the importance of human existence and values over that of abstract intellectual analysis and philosophical system building. This movement greatly contributed to the stress and pain of World War Two because people were then anxious about the meaning of human life and thought.
The first of these existentialist thinkers was Soren Kierkgaard (1813-1855) and the second was Frederick Nietzsche (1844-1900). Both of these seminal thinkers were impatient with the abstract system building that had characterized Western thought from Plato onwards, and which had become especially prevalent during the 19th Century. It was no surprise that the mode of thought and writing of these two “newcomers” was more “literary” than “systematic”, more personal than abstract. Nonetheless, their combined efforts helped redesign the nature of philosophy. Their focus was on “exist-ence” and integrity rather than abstractions.
Kierkegaard wrote many books under various pseudonyms and was in constant trouble with the established religious culture of his day, while Nietzsche’s writings focused on cultural and historical blind spots in our common traditional understanding of who we are as humans and races. Neither of these thinkers was very influential during their own time, but both have become extremely important in the ensuing years. Ironically, Kierkegaard’s thought was religious in character while Nietzsche’s was basically atheistic. Existentialism as a movement would not exist without them.
Both Karl Jaspers and Martin Buber were more or less religious in their emphases, while Jean-Paul Sartre and Martin Heidegger were essentially atheistic in their approach. In any case, all those classified as “existentialists” focused on the key issues of individual human existence in the face of tragedy and death.
While Jaspers and Heidegger did so in highly abstract terms, Buber and Sartre did so in very concrete, personal terms. Sartre in particular stressed the choices humans must make when confronted with personal life and death issues. His novel Nausea, his deep philosophical treatise Being and Nothingness, and his short story “No Exit”, all reinforce the conclusions of his well-known essay “Existentialism is a Humanism”, that we are alone in the universe and fully responsible for the choices, and thus the values, we live by.
In this latter essay Sartre counseled a student who came to him for advice as to whether he should join the fight against Nazism or stay at home and take care of his mother. Sartre insisted that all he could do was choose, since there was no rational way out of his dilemma. Indeed, Sartre argued, the very fact that the student had come to him for advice indicated what course of action he should take. For Sartre it is the choices we make that define us and our existence, so all we can do is choose. More than one of his short stories focuses on the futility of trying to calculate our existence ahead of time.
All of the above writings are rather abstract in character, stressing the philosophical and theological implications of the existential perspective. Perhaps the most concrete demonstration of the existentialist point of view is to be found in the novels of yet another French thinker, Albert Camus. Although he was a close colleague of Sartre’s during the French resistance to Nazism, Camus in many respects went his own way when it came to political alignments after the war.
In his first major novel The Stranger Camus presents a picture of modern humanity as alienated from both society and itself. The main character is unable to respond in a normal way to the ins and outs of everyday experience and decisions. In short, he is “alienated” both from other people and from existence itself. Camus wrote several essays in which he detailed in abstract terms this mode of alienated existence. Unfortunately, Camus was killed in an automobile accident pretty much in the middle of his career.
Fortunately, on the other hand, before he died, he wrote what has come to be thought of as his finest novel, namely The Plague. In this story of the North African city of Oran is overcome with an infestation of the bubonic plague and must be completely closed to any outside contact. Trapped in this symbolic world of sickness and death the main characters struggle to make sense of life. Dr. Rieux works feverishly to fulfill his commitment to help as many citizens as possible but is essentially overcome by the plague.
Rieux is helped in his fight against the plague by his friends, especially Tarrou with whom he carries on a continuous dialogue about the nature of evil and what is to be done about it. Rieux starts out convinced that there must be a reason for all this suffering, while Tarrou maintains that there is no “rationale”, no point behind human life and suffering. It is a beautiful and powerful novel about human existence and whether or not it has “meaning.” Dr. Rieux, like Camus, is committed to alleviating as much human suffering as possible in his own lifetime. There are several other characters who express and live diverse postures to suffering and evil.
To be sure, the image of the plague carries with it the whole of human evil and suffering, but it also implies the horrors of the Nazi fascism which formed the backdrop against which the novel, as well as human existence, is played out. Camus has Dr. Rieux state that he will fight against the plague no matter what if anything lies behind it. God does not enter into the drama. This novel has come to signify not only Camu’s response to human evil, but that of those who follow the existentialist way of thinking.
Camus also wrote a novel titled The Fall in which he depicts an individual’s struggle with his own lack of response to the cries of a drowning man. Perhaps the title is meant to connect up with what theologians call “The fall of Humanity” into sin. In any case it can hardly be denied that Albert Camus was one of our greatest writers and existentialist thinkers. All of his writings are well worth the effort of reading them. It is worth noting that while Camus and his compatriot Sartre both worked in the underground movement against Nazism, they differed markedly in their ideas about how it should be countered.
In more recent times philosophers have moved on to different topics and Existentialism is pretty much a thing of the past as far as “movements” go. Its influence is still felt, however, in some European circles, although diminishing.