Existentialism

Existentialism was a general strike against system-philosophy. Kierkegaard fired first: Hegel’s "whole" contains no anxious, choosing, concrete me. Heidegger dug to the ontological floor — the human being is thrown into the world, a being-toward-death. Sartre supplied the famous formula, existence precedes essence, with its terrifying corollary: condemned to be free, every excuse is bad faith. Beauvoir turned the same analysis onto gender — one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman. Camus declined membership and asked the only question he thought mattered: the world being absurd, why not suicide? His answer was Sisyphus — the struggle up the slope is itself enough to fill a heart.

Who belongs to it

Whom it opposed — and who opposed it