Existentialism in Education: Philosophy, Key Thinkers, and Pedagogy

Introduction to Existentialism

Existentialism is one of the most discussed — and least understood — philosophical movements today. Broadly, existentialism is the philosophy of existence or experience. More specifically, it has been associated with a philosophical engagement with nihilism. In other words, existentialism represents the theory that each person exists as an individual in a purposeless universe, and that he or she must oppose this hostile environment through the exercise of free will.

Major Existentialist Thinkers and Core Texts

Albert Camus stresses the idea of being present in the moment in order to make choices in his novel The Stranger, when Meursault declares, "we are all privileged." The Stranger was inspired by the works of Søren Kierkegaard and the German philosophers Friedrich Nietzsche, Edmund Husserl, and Martin Heidegger. The novel was particularly widely read around the mid-twentieth century, alongside the works of the French writer and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre and fellow writer and philosopher Simone de Beauvoir. The main tenets of the movement are set out in Sartre's L'Existentialisme est un humanisme, translated into English as Existentialism is a Humanism.

Though many — if not most — of those we consider existentialists were atheists, Søren Kierkegaard, Karl Jaspers, and Gabriel Marcel pursued more theologically oriented versions of existentialism. The erstwhile Marxist Nikolai Berdyaev developed a philosophy of Christian existentialism in his native Russia and later in France during the decades immediately preceding World War II.

Sartre's Existence Precedes Essence

The most famous and widely studied of the existentialist propositions is Sartre's dictum, "existence precedes and rules essence," which is broadly taken to mean that there is no pre-defined essence to humanity except that which we create for ourselves. Because Sartre's brand of existentialism does not acknowledge the existence of a higher power or any other determining principle, human beings are considered completely liberated to do as they choose.

Since there is no predefined human nature or ultimate standard of evaluation beyond that which humans project onto the world, people may only be judged or defined by their actions and choices. Human choices are, for existentialists, the ultimate evaluator. This concept resonates with Nietzsche's concept of eternal return — the idea that "things lose value because they cease to exist."

If all things were to exist perpetually, they would carry a tremendous weight of importance; but because things come to pass and eventually cease to exist, they lose their value. The idea of existence preceding essence is important because it identifies lived experience as the only conceivable measure of good or evil. If things simply "are," without directive, purpose, or general truth, then truth — or essence — is only the projection of a product of existence, that is, a set of collective experiences. For truth to exist, existence must come before it, rendering existence not only the predecessor but the ruler of its own objectivity.

Existentialism and Educational Philosophy

Maxine Greene was a leader in educational philosophy for well over half a century, working as a teacher, lecturer, and author. Greene developed a pedagogy of using curricular content to help students make sense of the world, which could consequently serve to promote the aim of education — a worthwhile life of perceived personal significance — especially when applied to specific situations through domain-specific, phenomenological pedagogical research. Foremost among her commitments was a belief in the centrality of morality in education.

Existentialists, including Greene, held a unique philosophy of education. For them, education was centered on the role of the teacher. The teacher must never impose his or her wishes upon the students in the classroom. Each student is an individual with his or her own character and personality, and this individuality is integral to the learning process. For a teacher to try to determine what is best for students is essentially to dominate them — and this, according to existentialists, is destructive of individuality and fundamentally wrong.