DE Weekly: Existentialism, Humanism, & Life as a Project
Below is an archived email originally sent on November 3, 2025.
Existentialism, Humanism, & Life as a Project
Existentialism sometimes has a rap for being a rather convoluted philosophy. We can assign blame to its most famous authors, I think, for that perception; Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jean-Paul Sartre, and the like wrote in such a way that many of the philosophy’s takeaways seem abstruse to the average reader.
This being the case, if we were to pose the question, “What is Existentialism?”, where would we begin? It’s unhelpful when those like Albert Camus and even Sartre himself rejected the term “existentialist.”
Simone de Beauvoir, a lifelong friend of Sartre’s, wrote in her diary Force of Circumstance that neither she nor Sartre liked the term, likely introduced by Gabriel Marcel in 1943 when he used it to refer to Sartre.
“My philosophy is a philosophy of existence;” said Sartre, “I don’t even know what Existentialism is.”
This attitude and refusal of the term “existentialist” did not last long, however. Just two years later in 1945, Sartre held a published lecture called L’Existentialisme est un Humanisme (Existentialism is a Humanism), both embracing the existentialist moniker and defending it against critics of the philosophy.
What is today one of his best-known works might have been titled deliberately to provoke his critics; reviewers had responded negatively to Sartre’s novel Nausea (one of my personal favorites), calling it bleak and––get this––anti-humanistic.
As a result, Sartre felt it incumbent upon himself to defend his novel and, indeed, his entire philosophy as a humanistic one. Thus was born Existentialism is a Humanism.
“In the end,” said Sartre, “we took the epithet that everyone used for us and used it for our own purposes.”
Before we dive into the existentialist humanism Sartre defined, let us first define Humanism itself.
Humanism is a philosophy that emphasizes the human individual, human potential, and the human condition. The philosophy theorizes that humans are at the center of things in the world; instead of speculating about nature outside of ourselves (such as the nature of God), humanists are concerned with our own nature and the works of humanity itself.
This type of inquiry was a product of the Renaissance and has manifested in many ways since then, not least with regard to existentialism.
“...[M]an first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world – and defines himself afterwards,” writes Sartre. “If man as the existentialist sees him is not definable, it is because to begin with he is nothing. He will not be anything until later, and then he will be what he makes of himself” (28).
The above emphasizes one of the core beliefs of existentialism––that existence precedes essence––and, at least for Sartre, stresses the importance of the individual freedom each of us have to make responsible choices toward the creation of values.
For him, there is an optimism in his declaration that we are “nothing” until we essentially invent ourselves. “Man is the future of man,” he writes, and despite the absence of any predetermined value in our lives, we can take our humanity in our hands and make something of ourselves.
With humanism defined, how do we define existential humanism?
It’s important to distinguish between the two with a major difference: while traditional humanism holds that there are existing human values which help to advance human welfare through ever-marching progress, existential humanism posits that there are no such values unless we ourselves invent them.
In this way, the humanistic qualities of existentialism are incredibly pronounced. It is not humanistic at the level of humanity; rather, it is humanistic at the level of the individual.
Individuals must create their own values and their own meaning through personal responsibility and actions, ultimately creating their own essence over the course of their lives.
Existential humanism is radically more subjective in this manner than traditional humanism. In terms of understanding one’s existence, the experience of the individual is at the heart of the project.
And that’s precisely how Sartre viewed human life––as a project. Herein lies how I would really define existentialism: as a philosophy of action.
When left to your own devices, some might despair in the directionlessness of life Sartre suggests we are abandoned to. For him, though, this shouldn’t lead us to nihilism and despair, but should encourage us to accept the responsibility we have and to find purpose and create value through a real commitment to life.
It is an ethical responsibility, in fact, that we eagerly try to create values coherent with the world in which we live. Everything falls back on the individual in existential humanism. While life may be absurd, it also offers us a canvas upon which we can realize our potential and paint a picture of meaning.
We should do away with the “deterministic excuses” of life, Sartre argues, and take responsibility for our behavior. We should turn our anguish into action that guides ourselves and all of humanity toward a life of purpose and meaning.
There is optimism in the possibilities this level of radical freedom affords us. The project of life should inspire us to want to create an essence, to make something from nothing.
“This is humanism because we remind man that there is no legislator other than himself and that he must, in his abandoned state, make his own choices, and also because we show that it is not by turning inward, but by constantly seeking a goal outside of himself in the form of liberation, or of some special achievement, that man will realize himself as truly human.” –– Jean-Paul Sartre
Thanks for reading.
Sincerely,
Brandon J. Seltenrich
P.S.––
I have ragged on Sartre for being too pessimistic and reductive. So have others, and I hold that he deserves it in some regards. But, like I hopefully illustrated above, the Sartre I wrote about in this newsletter is a little more optimistic. You can’t pigeon-hole someone into a box forever; people are complex and think many thoughts over the years.
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