Whose Philosophy Founded Existentialism?

Existentialism — the philosophical tradition emphasising individual existence, freedom, choice, and the search for meaning in an apparently meaningless universe — has roots in 19th-century thinkers. Soren Kierkegaard, a Danish philosopher, explored anxiety, despair, and the "leap of faith" in works like "Either/Or" (1843) and "The Concept of Anxiety" (1844). Friedrich Nietzsche contributed the ideas of the "will to power," eternal recurrence, and the famous declaration "God is dead" (meaning traditional values had lost their authority). In the 20th century, Martin Heidegger "Being and Time" (1927) explored the nature of human existence (Dasein). Jean-Paul Sartre crystallised existentialism with his 1946 lecture "Existentialism Is a Humanism," declaring "existence precedes essence" — we are not born with a fixed nature; we create ourselves through our choices. Simone de Beauvoir applied existentialist ideas to gender in "The Second Sex" (1949), and Albert Camus explored absurdism (closely related to existentialism) in "The Stranger" (1942) and "The Myth of Sisyphus" (1942).