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Instructor: Lisa Guenther

What is the meaning of human existence? This question feels especially pressing at a time when generative AI is rapidly encroaching on activities that many once assumed were unique to human beings. It is also the core question of Existentialism, a philosophical movement that emerged in France during the Second World War. In this course, we will study three French existentialists - Sartre, Beauvoir, and Fanon – alongside writers who inspired and challenged existentialism, such as Nietzsche and Camus.

Existentialism is more than a theory; it’s a practice of radical freedom and responsibility. Inspired by Nietzsche’s perspectivism and by the phenomenological tradition, existentialism takes the concrete experience of individual consciousness as the starting point for philosophy. Many existentialists hold that the world, in itself, is meaningless and absurd; there is no God and no universal measure of right and wrong, good and evil. In the absence of objective standards for knowledge and ethics, individuals must choose or create their own meaning, accepting full responsibility for the implications of their choices. This includes the responsibility to affirm and support the freedom of others; to do otherwise would be bad faith: a refusal to affirm the radical freedom of all human beings. Ultimately, the practice of individual freedom demands a struggle for collective liberation from oppressive structures such as sexism, racism, colonialism, and economic inequality, which block the full expression of existential freedom and responsibility.