# List of existentialists

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 |
| 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 | 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 | 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 | 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 | 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

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 | November 13, 354 – August 28, 430 | Algeria | Theologian | At various times associated with neoplatonism, Doctor of the Church |
| Giacomo Leopardi | 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 | June 19, 1623 – August 19, 1662 | France | Mathematician, physicist, philosopher, theologian | |
| Jean-Jacques Rousseau | June 28, 1712 – July 2, 1778 | Switzerland | Philosopher | Foundational figure of social contract theory, French Revolution, socialism |
| Socrates | 469–399 BC | Greece | Philosopher | Founder of Western philosophy |
| Stoics | fl. 3rd century BC – AD 529 | Greece | – | Philosophical school influenced by Socrates through Plato |
| Henry David Thoreau | 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 | October 25, 1806 – June 26,1856 | Germany | Philosopher | Egoist anarchism, Young Hegelians |