List of existentialists

File:FourExistentialPrecursors.jpg

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.

Name	Lived	Nationality	Occupation	Notes
	Template:Dts – September 9, 1990	Italy	Philosopher	Also associated with neopositivism
	Template:Dts – September 25, 1976	Colombia	Philosopher	Founded Nadaism
	Template:Dts – December 4, 1975	Germany	Philosopher	Also associated with phenomenology, associate of Heidegger
	Template:Dts – July 25, 2002	Egypt	Philosopher
	Template:Dts – March 18, 2008	United States	Philosopher, author	Translated Sartre into English
	Template:Dts – December 10, 1968	Switzerland	Theologian	Founder of neo-orthodoxy
	Template:Dts – March 25, 1948	Russia	Theologian, philosopher	Christian existentialist
	Template:Dts – September 12, 1977	South Africa	Activist
	Template:Dts – June 13, 1965	Germany	Theologian	Worked with Rosenzweig
	Template:Dts – July 30, 1976	Germany	Theologian
	Template:Dts – January 28, 1972	Italy	Author	Also associated with magical realism
	Template:Dts – January 4, 1960	France	Philosopher, author	Founded Les Temps modernes with de Beauvoir and Sartre; developer of the Absurdism
	Template:Dts – April 21, 1866	United Kingdom	Essayist	Wife of Thomas Carlyle
	Template:Dts – February 5, 1881	United Kingdom	Author, historian	Husband of Jane Welsh Carlyle
	Template:Dts – June 20, 1995	Romania	Philosopher, essayist	Also associated with pessimism
	Template:Dts – April 14, 1986	France	Philosopher, anthropologist	Founded Les Temps modernes with Camus and Sartre; predecessor of second-wave feminism
	Template:Dts –	United States	Philosopher, playwright, cultural critic	Author of Inwardness and Existence: Subjectivity in/and Hegel, Heidegger, Marx and Freud
	Template:Dts – February 9, 1881	Russia	Novelist	Foundational figure of existentialism
	Template:Dts – 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
	Template:Dts – April 16, 1994	United States	Novelist	Wrote Invisible Man, associate of Wright
	Template:Dts – December 6, 1961	France (Martinique), Algeria	Philosopher, anthropologist, psychiatrist	Also associated with Marxism
	Template:Dts – November 17, 1991	Czechoslovakia	Philosopher	Also associated with phenomenology
	Template:Dts – October 2 or 3, 1944	Romania	Author, poet, film director
	Template:Dts – October 20, 1894	United Kingdom	Historian
	Template:Dts – January 11, 1966	Switzerland	Artist	Known for his artistic style and the existential crisis within
	Template:Dts–1994	Lithuania	Philosopher	Christian existentialist
	Template:Dts – February 16, 1964	Colombia	Philosopher, Lawyer	Works inspired Nadaism
	Template:Dts–	United States	Philosopher	Also associated with Africana philosophy, Black existentialism, and phenomenology
	Template:Dts – May 26, 1976	Germany	Philosopher	Also associated with phenomenology and hermeneutics, associate of Arendt, rejected the label of "existentialist"
	Template:Dts – April 26, 1938	Austria, Germany	Philosopher	Founder of Phenomenology
	Template:Dts – March 15, 1940	Romania	Philosopher, mathematician
	Template:Dts – March 28, 1994	Romania	Playwright, essayist	Foundational figure of absurdism
	Template:Dts – August 26, 1910	United States	Philosopher, psychologist	Foundational figure of pragmatism
	Template:Dts – February 26, 1969	Germany	Philosopher	Also associated with neo-Kantianism
	Template:Dts – June 3, 1924	Austria-Hungary (Bohemian)	Novelist	Foundational figure of existentialism
	Template:Dts – September 4, 1980	United States	Philosopher	Translated Hegel, Goethe, Buber and Nietzsche's works into English
	Template:Dts – November 11, 1855	Denmark	Theologian, philosopher, author	Foundational figure of existentialism, Christian existentialist
	Template:Dts – April 19, 1928	Czechoslovakia	Philosopher, novelist	Also associated with subjective idealism
	Template:Dts – December 25, 1995	Lithuania, France	Philosopher, theologian	Studied with Heidegger and Husserl
	Template:Dts – May 28, 2007	United Kingdom	Theologian	Christian existentialist
	Template:Dts – October 7, 1944	Lithuania	Poet
	Template:Dts – August 30, 2006	Egypt	Novelist
	Template:Dts – October 8, 1973	France	Theologian, philosopher	Christian existentialist
	Template:Dts – May 3, 1961	France	Philosopher	Also associated with phenomenology, associate of de Beauvoir and Sartre
	Template:Dts – August 25, 1900	Germany	Philosopher	Foundational figure of existentialism, also associated with (opposition to) nihilism
	Template:Dts – October 18, 1955	Spain	Philosopher	Also associated with perspectivism, pragmatism, vitalism, and historicism
	Template:Dts–1969	Ukraine	Novelist, anthropologist
	Template:Dts – December 10, 1929	Germany	Theologian, philosopher	Worked with Buber
	Template:Dts – April 15, 1980	France	Philosopher, novelist, activist	Also associated with Marxism, co-founded Les Temps modernes with de Beauvoir and Camus
	Template:Dts – April 1, 1992	Palestine	Politician, philosopher
	Template:Dts – November 19, 1938	Russia, France	Philosopher	Also associated with Irrationalism
	Template:Dts – April 9, 1993	United States	Rabbi
	Template:Dts – October 22, 1965	United States, Germany	Theologian, philosopher	Christian existentialist
	Template:Dts–1978	South Africa	Philosopher	Also associated with Marxism, studied with Sartre
	Template:Dts – December 31, 1936	Spain	Novelist, essayist, dramatist, philosopher
	Template:Dts – 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
	Template:Dts – December 5, 2013	United Kingdom	Author	Wrote The Outsider
	Template:Dts – 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
	Template:Dts – October 12, 1990	Norway	Philosopher	Founded biosophy
	Template:Dts – 21 April 1938	Pakistan	Philosopher, writer, poet, politician	National Poet of Pakistan
	Template:Dts – Present	United States	Philosopher	Also associated with Sociology

Pre-existentialist philosophers

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
Augustine of Hippo	Template:Dts – August 28, 430	Algeria	Theologian	At various times associated with neoplatonism, Doctor of the Church
	Template:Dts – June 14, 1837	Italy	Poet, writer and philosopher	Romanticism, classicism and pessimism
Mulla Sadra	Template:Dts–1636	Persia	Philosopher	Islamic philosopher associated with illuminationism and transcendent theosophy
	Template:Dts – August 19, 1662	France	Mathematician, physicist, philosopher, theologian
	Template:Dts – July 2, 1778	Switzerland	Philosopher	Foundational figure of social contract theory, French Revolution, socialism
Socrates		Greece	Philosopher	Founder of Western philosophy
Stoics		Greece	–	Philosophical school influenced by Socrates through Plato
	Template:Dts – May 6, 1862	United States	Author, poet	Foundational figure of transcendentalism
Arthur Schopenhauer	Template:Dts  – September 21,1860	Germany	Philosopher	Post-Kantian philosophy, German idealism
Max Stirner	Template:Dts  – June 26,1856	Germany	Philosopher	Egoist anarchism, Young Hegelians