Learn Existentialism: A Guide for People Who Don't Have a PhD
Existentialism is not pessimism. It's a set of tools for creating meaning when life doesn't hand it to you — and for living authentically when everything is uncertain.
Existentialism gets a bad reputation because it's associated with black turtlenecks, Parisian cafes, and the vague sense that nothing matters. This is accurate about the aesthetic and completely wrong about the ideas.
The existentialists — Sartre, Camus, Simone de Beauvoir, Kierkegaard before them — were responding to a specific problem: once you take God out of the picture (or once the inherited certainties of your culture stop working), how do you live? What do you orient yourself by? How do you make choices when there's no cosmic instruction manual?
These are not academic questions. They're the questions that hit people at 3am after a breakup, or in the middle of a job transition, or when they look at a life that's objectively fine and realize something is wrong.
The core insight: existence precedes essence
Sartre's most famous phrase — and the most important idea in existentialism — is this: existence precedes essence.
What it means: you exist first, without a predetermined nature or purpose. You are not born with an essence — a fixed character, a predetermined role, a meaning. You exist, and then through your choices, your actions, and your commitments, you create your essence.
This is the opposite of how most people think about themselves. Most people believe they have a “real self” buried under circumstances and obligations — a true nature they need to discover. Sartre says no: you are what you do, not what you feel you are or would do if conditions were different.
“Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.”
— Jean-Paul Sartre
Bad faith and authenticity
Sartre's concept of bad faith is one of the most useful ideas in existentialism. Bad faith is the state of pretending you had no choice — telling yourself you had to stay in the job, you had to go to that school, you can't leave the relationship.
This isn't lying to others. It's lying to yourself about your own freedom. The comfort of bad faith is that it removes responsibility. If you had no choice, you can't be blamed for the outcome.
The cost is authenticity. You lose the ability to act freely when you've convinced yourself you can't.
The test: Find the sentences in your thinking that include “I have to,” “I can't,” or “I had no choice.” Then ask: Is that actually true? Or is there a choice here that I've been unwilling to face?
Camus and the absurd
Albert Camus — who rejected the label “existentialist” but is usually grouped with the movement — attacked the same problem from a different angle.
In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus frames what he calls “the only serious philosophical question”: given that life is meaningless (the universe doesn't care about us, we die, nothing persists), why not commit suicide?
His answer: revolt. The absurd — the gap between our desperate need for meaning and the universe's silence — doesn't require resolution. It requires defiance. You keep going anyway, not because it will eventually make sense, but because the struggle itself is the point.
“One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”
— Albert Camus
This is not comfortable. It's also, for many people, more honest than the alternatives — more honest than pretending there's a plan, and more useful than giving up.
Simone de Beauvoir on freedom and responsibility
De Beauvoir extended existentialism in a crucial direction: she insisted that your freedom is bound up with the freedom of others. You can't be truly free while others are oppressed — not just because it's wrong, but because authentic freedom requires recognizing the full humanity of the people around you.
Her most famous line: “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” What looks like fixed nature is often the accumulated effect of social conditioning, pressure, and expectation. Recognizing this is the first step toward choosing differently.
How to use existentialism practically
When you feel stuck
Apply the bad faith test. Find the 'I have to' and ask if it's actually true. What would you do if you genuinely believed you had more freedom than you currently claim?
When life feels meaningless
Apply Camus. Don't look for meaning to be given — ask what you're going to commit to. What projects, relationships, and causes are you going to throw yourself into? The meaning is in the engagement, not in the result.
When you're making a big decision
Apply Sartre's radical responsibility. You will be the person who made this choice. Not circumstances, not upbringing, not society. You. What does that mean for how you want to decide?
When you're living someone else's life
Apply de Beauvoir. What in your life is your actual choice versus what has been shaped by expectation, social pressure, or the path of least resistance? What would you change if you were being honest?
Where to start
The most accessible entry points into existentialism:
- Albert Camus, The Stranger — a novel, read in a sitting. Gives you the existentialist frame through story.
- Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus — short essays. The clearest statement of the absurd.
- Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity — the most practical existentialist ethics text, shorter than it sounds.
- Sartre's Existentialism Is a Humanism — a lecture, not a treatise. The most accessible Sartre.
Avoid starting with Being and Nothingness. It's 800 pages and you don't need it to understand what existentialism is for.
Talk to Sartre and de Beauvoir
In PhilosophizeMe, you can chat with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir directly — ask them about freedom, meaning, bad faith, and how to live when nothing is given. Free on iOS.