Articles Index

Soren Kierkegaard Biography
Soren Kierkegaard was a Danish philosopher whose ideas about the nature of human freedom in an uncertain world make him one of the founders of the modern philosophy of existentialism, even though he did not use that label for himself. There is, indeed, little in existentialism today which cannot also be found in the writings of Kierkegaard.

Simone de Beauvoir Biography
Simone de Beauvoir was a French novelist who played an important role in the development of existentialism and feminism in the 20th century. An important goal of hers was to combat the repression created by traditional, patriarchal religion and theism. A number of her novels were explicitly about existentialist themes, for example the attempt to find meaning and purpose in an absurd world.

Friedrich Nietzsche Biography
A difficult, complex, and controversial philosopher, Nietzsche has been claimed as part of a number of difficult philosophical movements. Because his work was consciously designed to break from the philosophy of the past, it is perhaps expected that much of what would come after him would expand upon the themes he discussed and therefore claim him as their forerunner.

Edmund Husserl Biography
Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl was a German philosopher who is generally associated with the modern development of phenomenology (a term which he coined) as he attempted to create out of it a pure, non-empirical science. Husserl's focus was simply to study the nature of consciousness and how a conscious person could be conscious of their own consciousness.

Karl Jaspers Biography
Karl Jaspers was a German philosopher whose place in the history of philosophy is based primarily on his work in existentialism - indeed, he may be considered the first to construct a self-consciously existentialist philosophy in the modern era. Jaspers originally studied law and medicine, even receiving an M.D. from University of Heidelberg and teaching psychiatry at Heidelberg for a while.

Martin Heidegger Biography
Martin Heidegger was a German philosopher who employed Husserl's ideas about phenomenology in an effort to better understand the nature of 'Being' - i.e., questions about ontology. Indeed, according to Heidegger there is only one basic question in philosophy: the Seinsfrage, or the question of being. As a result, Heidegger developed a philosophy in which he argued that the nature of human existence involved active participation in the world.

Jean Paul Sartre Biography
Jean-Paul Sartre was a French novelist and philosopher who is perhaps most famous for his development and defense of atheistic existential philosophy - as a matter of fact, his name is linked with existentialism more closely than any other, at least in most people's minds. Throughout his life, even as his philosophy changed and developed, he continually focused upon the human experience of being.

Albert Camus Biography
Albert Camus was a French-Algerian journalist and novelist whose literary work is regarded as a primary source of modern existentialist thought. A principle theme in Camus' novels is the idea that human life is, objectively speaking, meaningless. This results in 'absurdity' which can only be overcome by a commitment to moral integrity and social solidarity.