WHO OR WHAT IS AN EXISTENTIALIST?

Few if any other modern Western philosophical movements have had as strong an impact on the general culture as has existentialism. The epicenter of this impact was certainly Paris, especially the Latin Quarter of Paris, and the time of maximum intensity was the period following the end of the Second World War, during which Paris had been under German occupation. But of course there had been existentialist stirrings, at least some of which had had broader cultural influence beyond the world of philosophy, in other places and long before that time, and there would be existentialist waves of extended cultural influence in many other countries for years to come, arguably right up to the present time. It would be impossible to track down and catalogue all of these earlier and later impacts; and any such enterprise would be burdened from the start by disagreements concerning just which cultural tendencies were “really” influenced by existentialism and to what degree, as well as by the question of just which of the various “existentialisms” were of greater importance in such-and-such an instance. After all, both “existentialism” and “culture” are concepts with exceedingly vague edges.

The nature of this difficulty can perhaps most easily be seen if we focus our attention initially on the immediate post-war Paris scene to which I have referred, on the highly diverse currents that were operative even within that comparatively small “epicenter” within just a few years' time. A recounting of the interaction of a few of these currents will at the same time offer insights into just how strongly existentialism influenced the society in question and into something of the nature of that influence.