A common thread in existentialist philosophy is the importance that thinkers within this tradition place on the individual and their individual existence. This is as true of the atheistic existentialist Friedrich Nietzsche, who declares in his Untimely Meditations that:

 

No one can construct for you the bridge upon which precisely you must cross the stream of life, no one but yourself alone.

 

As it is of the religious existentialist Søren Kierkegaard, who writes in a journal entry:

 

What I really need is to get clear about what I am to do, not what I am to know … to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die. 

 

Existentialist thinkers resist the idea that philosophy should be done in a way that is isolated and removed from the existential concerns of the individual. Some are even sceptical of the suggestion that philosophy can be done without the existential concerns of the individual playing an indispensable role. If we believe Nietzsche in Beyond Good and Evil, then philosophy is always and inevitably a “confession,” an “involuntary and unconscious memoir.” Nietzsche, who often described himself as a psychologist, thought that he could detect behind the arguments and rationality of every great philosopher a set of deeply rooted, psychological and physiological needs guiding the thinker toward the philosophy which best served to satisfy these needs. Under Nietzsche’s picture, the life in the thinker will always have its say within the philosophy she produces, albeit in hidden and unconscious ways.

 

Nietzsche above questions the possibility of philosophy removed from life. A closely related existentialist position is to question the worth or value of philosophy removed from life, that is, the value of philosophy which doesn’t relate to individual existential concerns. In this spirit, Kierkegaard takes aim at systematising philosophers who he believes think in a way that is too abstract and divorced from concrete, lived existence. Kierkegaard suggests that this style of thinker builds “castles” of intellectual thought which are very impressive, but so distant from existence that they are forced to live in an adjoining “shack.” For Kierkegaard, this way of practicing philosophy was almost pointless:

 

Of what use would it be to me to discover a so-called objective truth, to work through the philosophical systems so that I could, if asked, make critical judgments about them, could point out the fallacies in each system; of what use would it be to me to be able to develop a theory … constructing a world I did not live in but merely held up for others to see … to be able to explain many specific points - if it had no deeper meaning for me and for my life?

 

Existentialist thinker E.M. Cioran also takes issue with the distance he perceives between traditional forms of philosophy and individual existential concerns. In an interview, Cioran describes growing disenchanted with philosophy after discovering that it was unable to provide him with any answers to the real problems of his existence. For Cioran, the solution was to cease engaging with traditional philosophy completely, and turn to literature instead: 

 

I realised that in moments of great despair philosophy is no help at all, that it holds absolutely no answers. And so I turned to poetry and literature, where I found no answers either, but states that were analogous to my own.

 

But for thinkers like Cioran who are interested in their own existence, what does literature offer that philosophy does not? What Cioran finds in literature is perhaps best understood by turning to his own writing, which resists easy classification into neatly defined categories of philosophy and literature.

 

In what could serve as a methodological principle for the existentialists, Cioran writes in The Trouble with Being Born that:

 

We do not create a body of work without attaching ourselves to it, without subjugating ourselves to it. Writing is the least ascetic of all notions.

 

Existentialist philosophy in the style of Cioran is philosophy that attempts to write from within, or attached to, the flesh, nerves, and body of the philosopher. In another aphorism, Cioran declares that no one has lived so close to their skeleton as himself, and that it is from within this intimate relationship to his own body that he develops his truths. In other words, Cioran’s philosophy originates in his entire person, and there is no idea that he produces which can be easily divorced from himself and his life.

 

So, if this is how existentialist philosophy thinks itself, how then does it write itself? That is, what means of expression does the existentialist thinker employ when she wants to place herself and her existence at the centre of her philosophy?

 

How existentialist philosophy doesn’t write itself is through the logic-centric and abstract argumentation found in much traditional philosophy, wherein emotion and any other personal element is often suppressed or absent. Thus, Cioran writes that:

 

He detested objective truths, the burden of argument, sustained reasoning. He disliked demonstrating, he wanted to convince no one.

 

Cioran’s distaste here appears to echo Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, who rebuffs the suggestion that he needs to provide reasons for his positions:

 

‘Why?’ said Zarathustra. ‘You ask about why? I am not one of those who may be questioned about their why. Do my experiences date from yesterday? It is a long time since I experienced the reasons for my opinions.’

 

Note the turn of phrase Zarathustra employs: it has been a long time since he experienced the reasons behind his opinions. This highlights an important notion for the existentialists, namely the lived and experiential quality of their philosophical argumentation. Existentialist philosophers do not just think their reasons; their reasons are not the product of their head alone. Rather, their reasons originate in their existence and grow from within their emotional and experiential engagement with the world.

 

This, then, is one of the reasons why existentialist philosophy is often written through literature, or in a literary style that blurs the line distinguishing philosophy from literature. Compared to the overly abstract discourse of traditional philosophy, existentialist philosophy is far more connected to the flesh and blood of life. The literary forms of expression it employs offer, as it were, an experience: the existentialists embed thought within a living context that reflects the presence of the thinker’s heart as well as their head. Existentialist writing begins with the presupposition that the existence of the thinker cannot find adequate expression in logical, propositional argument. Rather, existentialist philosophy requires the architecture of literary writing since it allows the entire life of the thinker – the life in which her philosophy originates – a real opportunity for expression.