Phenomenology becomes existentialist when applied to ordinary lived experiences.

Evidence

The brilliance of Sartre’s invention lay in the fact that he did indeed turn phenomenology into a philosophy of apricot cocktails — and of the waiters who served them. Also a philosophy of expectation, tiredness, apprehensiveness, excitement, a walk up a hill, the passion for a desired lover, the revulsion from an unwanted one, Parisian gardens, the cold autumn sea at Le Havre, the feeling of sitting on overstuffed upholstery, the way a woman’s breasts pool as she lies on her back, the thrill of a boxing match, a film, a jazz song, a glimpse of two strangers meeting under a street lamp. He made philosophy out of vertigo, voyeurism, shame, sadism, revolution, music and sex. Lots of sex. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 24

Categorization

• DEFINE: Vividly defines the shift from phenomenology to existentialism via everyday concrete experience.
• CANDY: The ‘philosophy of apricot cocktails — and of the waiters who served them’ line is a memorable, tweetable encapsulation of Sartre’s project.
• XREF: connects to: Phenomenology is fundamentally a descriptive method, not a theory — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 136; Existentialism sought lived experience rather than explaining it away through abstract systems — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 1025; Existentialism holds that philosophy grows out of concrete lived experience — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 54 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Existentialism sought lived experience rather than explaining it away through abstract systems #expands (0.85) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 1025
• Existentialism is by nature applied to real individual lives #expands (0.82) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 687
• Existentialism holds that philosophy grows out of concrete lived experience #corroborates (0.80) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 54