List of existentialists

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Many of the founding figures of existentialism represent its diverse background (clockwise from top left): Dane Søren Kierkegaard was a theologian, German Friedrich Nietzsche an anti-establishment wandering academic, Czech Franz Kafka a short-story writer and insurance assessor, and Russian Fyodor Dostoyevsky a novelist

Existentialism is a movement within continental philosophy that developed in the late 19th and 20th centuries. As a loose philosophical school, some persons associated with existentialism explicitly rejected the label (e.g. Martin Heidegger), and others are not remembered primarily as philosophers, but as writers (Fyodor Dostoyevsky) or theologians (Paul Tillich). It is related to several movements within continental philosophy including phenomenology, nihilism, absurdism, and post-modernism.

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.

Name  | Lived  | Nationality  | Occupation  | Notes

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Nicola Abbagnano | July 15, 1901 – September 9, 1990  | Italy  | Philosopher  | Also associated with neopositivism
Gonzalo Arango | January 18, 1931 – September 25, 1976  | Colombia  | Philosopher  | Founded Nadaism
Hannah Arendt[1] | October 14, 1906 – December 4, 1975  | Germany  | Philosopher  | Also associated with phenomenology, associate of Heidegger
Abdel Rahman Badawi | February 17, 1917 – July 25, 2002  | Egypt  | Philosopher  |
Hazel Barnes | December 16, 1915 – March 18, 2008  | United States  | Philosopher, author  | Translated Sartre into English
Karl Barth | May 10, 1886 – December 10, 1968  | Switzerland  | Theologian  | Founder of neo-orthodoxy
Nikolai Berdyaev | March 18, 1874 – March 25, 1948  | Russia  | Theologian, philosopher  | Christian existentialist
Steve Biko | December 18, 1946 – September 12, 1977  | South Africa  | Activist  |
Martin Buber | February 8, 1878 – June 13, 1965  | Germany  | Theologian  | Worked with Rosenzweig
Rudolf Bultmann | August 20, 1884 – July 30, 1976  | Germany  | Theologian  |
Dino Buzzati | October 16, 1906 – January 28, 1972  | Italy  | Author  | Also associated with magical realism
Albert Camus | November 27, 1913 – January 4, 1960  | France  | Philosopher, author  | Founded Les Temps modernes with de Beauvoir and Sartre; developer of the Absurdism
Jane Welsh Carlyle | July 14, 1801 – April 21, 1866  | United Kingdom  | Essayist  | Wife of Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle | December 4, 1795 – February 5, 1881  | United Kingdom  | Author, historian  | Husband of Jane Welsh Carlyle
Emil Cioran | April 8, 1911 – June 20, 1995  | Romania  | Philosopher, essayist  | Also associated with pessimism
Simone de Beauvoir | January 9, 1908 – April 14, 1986  | France  | Philosopher, anthropologist  | Founded Les Temps modernes with Camus and Sartre; predecessor of second-wave feminism
Walter A. Davis | November 9, 1942 –  | United States  | Philosopher, playwright, cultural critic  | Author of Inwardness and Existence: Subjectivity in/and Hegel, Heidegger, Marx and Freud
Fyodor Dostoyevsky | November 11, 1821 – February 9, 1881  | Russia  | Novelist  | Foundational figure of existentialism
William A. Earle | 1919 – October 16, 1988  | United States  | Philosopher  | Also associated with Phenomenology, co-founded the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy with Wild and James M. Edie
Ralph Ellison[2] | May 1, 1913 – April 16, 1994  | United States  | Novelist  | Wrote Invisible Man, associate of Wright
Frantz Fanon | July 20, 1925 – December 6, 1961  | France (Martinique), Algeria  | Philosopher, anthropologist, psychiatrist  | Also associated with Marxism
Vilém Flusser | May 12, 1920 – November 17, 1991  | Czechoslovakia  | Philosopher  | Also associated with phenomenology
Benjamin Fondane | November 14, 1898 – October 2 or 3, 1944  | Romania  | Author, poet, film director  |
James Anthony Froude | April 23, 1818 – October 20, 1894  | United Kingdom  | Historian  |
Alberto Giacometti | October 10, 1901 – January 11, 1966  | Switzerland  | Artist  | Known for his artistic style and the existential crisis within
Juozas Girnius | 1915–1994  | Lithuania  | Philosopher  | Christian existentialist
Fernando González | April 24, 1895 – February 16, 1964  | Colombia  | Philosopher, Lawyer  | Works inspired Nadaism
Lewis Gordon | 1962–  | United States  | Philosopher  | Also associated with Africana philosophy, Black existentialism, and phenomenology
Martin Heidegger | September 26, 1889 – May 26, 1976  | Germany  | Philosopher  | Also associated with phenomenology and hermeneutics, associate of Arendt, rejected the label of "existentialist"
Edmund Husserl | April 8, 1859 – April 26, 1938  | Austria, Germany  | Philosopher  | Founder of Phenomenology
Nae Ionescu | June 16, 1890 – March 15, 1940  | Romania  | Philosopher, mathematician  |
Eugène Ionesco | November 26, 1909 – March 28, 1994  | Romania  | Playwright, essayist  | Foundational figure of absurdism
William James[1] | January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910  | United States  | Philosopher, psychologist  | Foundational figure of pragmatism
Karl Jaspers | February 23, 1883 – February 26, 1969  | Germany  | Philosopher  | Also associated with neo-Kantianism
Franz Kafka | July 3, 1883 – June 3, 1924  | Austria-Hungary (Bohemian)  | Novelist  | Foundational figure of existentialism
Walter Kaufmann | July 1, 1921 – September 4, 1980  | United States  | Philosopher  | Translated Hegel, Goethe, Buber and Nietzsche's works into English
Søren Kierkegaard | May 5, 1813 – November 11, 1855  | Denmark  | Theologian, philosopher, author  | Foundational figure of existentialism, Christian existentialist
Ladislav Klíma | August 8, 1878 – April 19, 1928  | Czechoslovakia  | Philosopher, novelist  | Also associated with subjective idealism
Emmanuel Levinas | January 12, 1906 – December 25, 1995  | Lithuania, France  | Philosopher, theologian  | Studied with Heidegger and Husserl
John Macquarrie | June 27, 1919 – May 28, 2007  | United Kingdom  | Theologian  | Christian existentialist
Vytautas Mačernis | June 5, 1921 – October 7, 1944  | Lithuania  | Poet  |
Naguib Mahfouz | December 11, 1911 – August 30, 2006  | Egypt  | Novelist  |
Gabriel Marcel | December 7, 1889 – October 8, 1973  | France  | Theologian, philosopher  | Christian existentialist
Maurice Merleau-Ponty | March 14, 1908 – May 3, 1961  | France  | Philosopher  | Also associated with phenomenology, associate of de Beauvoir and Sartre
Friedrich Nietzsche | October 15, 1844 – August 25, 1900  | Germany  | Philosopher  | Foundational figure of existentialism, also associated with (opposition to) nihilism
José Ortega y Gasset | May 9, 1883 – October 18, 1955  | Spain  | Philosopher  | Also associated with perspectivism, pragmatism, vitalism, and historicism
Viktor Petrov | 1894–1969  | Ukraine  | Novelist, anthropologist  |
Franz Rosenzweig | December 26, 1887 – December 10, 1929  | Germany  | Theologian, philosopher  | Worked with Buber
Jean-Paul Sartre | June 21, 1905 – April 15, 1980  | France  | Philosopher, novelist, activist  | Also associated with Marxism, co-founded Les Temps modernes with de Beauvoir and Camus
Aous Shakra | April 22, 1908 – April 1, 1992  | Palestine  | Politician, philosopher  |
Lev Shestov | January 31, 1866 – November 19, 1938  | Russia, France  | Philosopher  | Also associated with Irrationalism
Joseph B. Soloveitchik | February 27, 1903 – April 9, 1993  | United States  | Rabbi  |
Paul Tillich | August 20, 1886 – October 22, 1965  | United States, Germany  | Theologian, philosopher  | Christian existentialist
Rick Turner | 1942–1978  | South Africa  | Philosopher  | Also associated with Marxism, studied with Sartre
Miguel de Unamuno | September 29, 1864 – December 31, 1936  | Spain  | Novelist, essayist, dramatist, philosopher  |
John Daniel Wild | April 10, 1902 – October 23, 1972  | United States  | Philosopher  | Originally associated with empiricism, realism, and pragmatism; later associated with phenomenology; co-founded the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy with Earle and James M. Edie
Colin Wilson | June 26, 1931 – December 5, 2013  | United Kingdom  | Author  | Wrote The Outsider
Richard Wright | September 4, 1908 – November 28, 1960  | United States  | Author  | Pioneer of Black existentialism and chronicler of the black experience in the American South. Onetime mentor of James Baldwin; strongly influenced Fanon and other Négritude writers, close friends with Sartre and De Beauvoir. Had significant impact on European and African literary existentialism
Peter Wessel Zapffe | December 18, 1899 – October 12, 1990  | Norway  | Philosopher  | Founded biosophy
Muhammad Iqbal[3] | November 9, 1877 – 21 April 1938  | Pakistan  | Philosopher, writer, poet, politician  | National Poet of Pakistan
Zachary A. Behlok | October 3, 1996 – Present  | United States  | Philosopher  | Also associated with Sociology

## Pre-existentialist philosophers

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Several thinkers who lived prior to the rise of existentialism have been retroactively considered proto-existentialists for their approach to philosophy and lifestyle.

Name  | Lived  | Nationality  | Occupation  | Notes

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Augustine of Hippo[1][4] | November 13, 354 – August 28, 430  | Algeria  | Theologian  | At various times associated with neoplatonism, Doctor of the Church
Giacomo Leopardi[5] | June 29, 1798 – June 14, 1837  | Italy  | Poet, writer and philosopher  | Romanticism, classicism and pessimism
Mulla Sadra | 1571–1636  | Persia  | Philosopher  | Islamic philosopher associated with illuminationism and transcendent theosophy
Blaise Pascal[4] | June 19, 1623 – August 19, 1662  | France  | Mathematician, physicist, philosopher, theologian  |
Jean-Jacques Rousseau[1] | June 28, 1712 – July 2, 1778  | Switzerland  | Philosopher  | Foundational figure of social contract theory, French Revolution, socialism
Socrates[1] | 469–399 BC | Greece  | Philosopher  | Founder of Western philosophy
Stoics[1] | fl. 3rd century BC – AD 529 | Greece  | –  | Philosophical school influenced by Socrates through Plato
Henry David Thoreau[1] | July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862  | United States  | Author, poet  | Foundational figure of transcendentalism
Arthur Schopenhauer | February 22, 1788  – September 21,1860  | Germany  | Philosopher  | Post-Kantian philosophy, German idealism
Max Stirner[6] | October 25, 1806  – June 26,1856  | Germany  | Philosopher  | Egoist anarchism, Young Hegelians

## References

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1. ^ a b c d e f g Murchland, Bernard (2008), The Arrow That Flies by Night (1st ed.), United States: University Press of America, ISBN 978-0-7618-4031-2
2. ^ Marino, Gordon (April 13, 2004), Basic Writings of Existentialism, Modern Library Classics (1st ed.), United States: Modern Library, ISBN 0-375-75989-1
3. ^ Shah, Farhan and McDaniel, Jay Iqbalian Existentialism: Muhammad Iqbal's Process Existentialism
4. ^ a b Earnshaw, Seven (2006), Existentialism: A Guide for the Perplexed, Guides for the Perplexed (First ed.), Continuum International Publishing Group, p. 2, ISBN 0-8264-8530-8
5. ^ (in Italian) Giovanni Fornero, Recensione a "Le origini storiche dell'esistenzialismo" di Nicola Abbagnano
6. ^ Leopold, David (4 August 2006). "Max Stirner". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.