Existentialism was larger than Sartre.

So we need to stop defining it using Sartre’s most famous definition: “existence precedes essence.” Scholars of existential philosophy have stopped using Sartre’s definition to define the existential movement because they recognize that it mostly only fits Sartre’s brand of existentialism.

Today, the term existentialism no longer refers primarily to Sartre’s philosophy, but to a larger 19th and 20th Century movement in European philosophy that took existence as its central concept.

To avoid unnecessary confusions, we need to find a new way to define existentialism as a whole.

existentialism has a broader sense than it used to

Nowadays, the term ‘existentialism’ no longer refers solely to Sartre’s philosophy.

Contemporary scholars use the term to refer to a broader movement in 19th and 20th Century philosophy. And they have stopped using Sartre’s definition to define this larger movement because they understand it doesn’t fit all thinkers that belonged to that movement.

For instance, most academics today would consider Heidegger’s Being and Time one of the foremost existentialist works. But in “Letter on Humanism” Heidegger explicitly rejected Sartre’s definition as fitting for his own stance in that work.

Heidegger was rejecting the term because it used to be synonymous with Sartre’s philosophy. But it isn’t anymore.

Most scholars today define existentialism using ‘a family resemblance’ approach. They identify existentialists through common core concerns and themes like existence, finitude, mortality, meaning, etc.

Yet, online, I still see many trying to define existentialism using Sartre’s definition. The most popular introduction to existentialism on Youtube (by crashcourse) also uses Sartre’s definition to present existentialism’s main framework.

using Sartre’s definition today causes unnecessary confusions

But when I teach existentialism, I see the popularity and predominance of Sartre’s definition causing unnecessary confusions.

Students often ask me the following questions:

• why are we studying Heidegger as an existentialist when he rejected that he was an existentialist?
• why are we studying Camus during our existentialist module when he rejected existentialism?
• how can religious believers be existentialists when they believe that God was their creator and created them with an essence?
• how can meaning be discovered if we create it through existing?
• and so on.

To answer their questions I need to show them that these are not really substantial issues. They are absolutely fair questions to raise, but they are only what philosophers would call ‘false problems’ stemming from the way terms are defined and language is being used. So I first need to teach them to stop using Sartre’s definition as their main touchpoint and understand that the term is used more broadly today.

I do think existentialism as a whole can be defined.

And it can be defined in a more simple way than that offered by a family resemblance approach, which often only amounts to a long list of similar features.

But first we have to stop giving Sartre the privilege of defining existentialism for us today.