Michael: Most people think philosophy is born in dusty libraries. The truth? One of the 20th century's most explosive ideas—the one that says you are terrifyingly free—was born over an apricot cocktail in a smoky Parisian bar. And it all started with one sentence. Kevin: A single sentence over a drink? That sounds more like the start of a bad joke than a philosophical movement. But I'm intrigued. What was the sentence? Michael: We'll get to that. But that moment, and that cocktail, are at the heart of Sarah Bakewell's At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails. Kevin: Right, this book was a huge deal when it came out, widely acclaimed for making these intimidating thinkers feel human. What's fascinating is that Bakewell herself fell in love with this stuff as a teenager, buying Sartre's Nausea with her birthday money. You can feel that personal connection throughout the book. Michael: Exactly. She’s not just a historian; she's a fellow traveler. And that's what makes the book so compelling. She takes us right into the lives of Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, and the rest. So let's go to that bar, the Bec-de-Gaz in Paris, around 1932.

Michael: Picture the scene. You have three young, brilliant, and slightly bored philosophers. There's Jean-Paul Sartre, not yet the famous public intellectual. There's his lifelong partner, the fiercely intelligent Simone de Beauvoir. And with them is their old friend, Raymond Aron, who has just returned from studying in Berlin. Kevin: And he's brought back a souvenir, I take it? Not a snow globe, but a new philosophy. Michael: Precisely. Sartre and Beauvoir are complaining about the stale, abstract philosophy they teach. It feels disconnected from real life. And Aron, swirling his apricot cocktail, leans in and says the magic words: "You see, mon petit camarade, if you are a phenomenologist, you can talk about this cocktail and make philosophy out of it!" Kevin: Hold on. 'Phenomenology.' It sounds incredibly intimidating. In simple terms, what did Aron actually tell Sartre that got him so fired up? Michael: He told him that philosophy didn't have to be about abstract, invisible things like 'Truth' or 'The Good.' Phenomenology, pioneered by a German thinker named Edmund Husserl, was about one simple command: go back "to the things themselves." Describe your lived experience, exactly as it appears to you, without preconceptions. Kevin: So it's like mindfulness, but for philosophers? Paying attention to the raw data of your experience, whether it's the taste of a cocktail or the feeling of boredom? Michael: That's a perfect way to put it. Husserl would literally tell his students, "Give me my coffee so that I can make phenomenology out of it." For Sartre, this was an explosion. He turned pale with emotion. He could finally write about the stickiness of honey, the feeling of being watched, the nausea of existence itself. He rushed out to a bookshop to find everything he could on the subject. Kevin: That's amazing. But how does that lead to the big, famous idea of existentialism? The one that ends up on posters. Michael: Because Sartre took Husserl's method and weaponized it. He applied it to the human condition and came up with his earth-shattering slogan: "Existence precedes essence." Kevin: Okay, that phrase is famous, but what does it actually mean? It sounds a bit like a bumper sticker. Michael: It means you are not born with a pre-defined purpose or nature, an "essence." A paperknife is made with a purpose—its essence comes before its existence. But humans, Sartre argued, are different. We are just... thrown into the world. We exist first. And then, through our choices and actions, we create who we are. We build our own essence. Kevin: So there’s no blueprint. You're not born a hero or a coward or a genius. You become one based on what you do. Michael: Exactly. You are nothing but the sum of your actions. You are radically, terrifyingly free to define yourself at every single moment. And that idea is what would set post-war Paris, and eventually the world, on fire.

Kevin: Okay, so this idea of radical freedom is exciting over cocktails in a peaceful Paris. But what happens when the world outside the café is literally on fire? How does this philosophy hold up during, say, the Nazi occupation of France? Michael: That is the central question, and Bakewell dives right into it. The war becomes the ultimate testing ground for these ideas. Suddenly, freedom isn't an abstract concept; it's a life-or-death choice. This is where we get one of the most powerful stories in the book: the story of Sartre's student. Kevin: I've heard about this one. It's a classic ethical dilemma. Michael: It is. During the Occupation, a young man comes to Sartre for advice. His brother was killed fighting the Germans, his father is a collaborator, and he's desperate to escape to England to join the Free French forces. But his mother lives with him, and he is her only consolation in life. If he leaves, she will be plunged into despair. Kevin: What a horrible choice. He's torn between two completely valid, but mutually exclusive, duties: patriotism and family. What does he do? Michael: He does what anyone would. He looks for an answer. He considers Christian doctrine, which says to love thy neighbor, but who is the greater neighbor? The stranger fighting for his country or his own mother? He considers Kantian ethics, but its abstract rules don't help. So finally, he goes to Sartre, the philosopher of freedom. Kevin: And Sartre's advice was basically, "I can't help you. You're on your own." That's brutal. Michael: It's brutal, but it's the core of existentialism. Sartre tells him, "No general ethics can show you what is to be done." He says, "You are free, therefore choose—that is to say, invent." No one can take that burden from you. You have to invent your own path and take full responsibility for it. Kevin: Wow. To be told that in that situation... that's both terrifying and liberating. It puts all the weight of the world on your shoulders. Michael: It does. But this also brings us to the most difficult and controversial figure in the book: Martin Heidegger. He was, in many ways, the philosophical wellspring for Sartre. But his story is much darker. Kevin: This is the elephant in the room, right? Heidegger talks a big game about authenticity and resisting what he calls 'das Man'—'the they,' the anonymous crowd—but as Bakewell details, he enthusiastically joined the Nazi party. How do we square that circle? Michael: We can't, and that's the point Bakewell makes so brilliantly. The book doesn't offer an easy answer. Heidegger's philosophy warns against the dangers of conformity, of letting 'the they' do your thinking for you. He writes about heeding the "call of conscience" to live an authentic life. Yet, in his own life, at a critical historical moment, he seems to have done the exact opposite. He became the Rector of his university under the Nazi regime and delivered speeches filled with their ideology. Kevin: So his life is a direct contradiction of his philosophy. It's a huge problem. It makes you question the entire enterprise. Michael: It does. And it highlights the central tension of the book: these were not saints. They were flawed, complex, often hypocritical human beings wrestling with monumental ideas in the most extreme circumstances imaginable. Their failures are as instructive as their triumphs.

Michael: That contradiction in Heidegger is a perfect example of the book's central theme: these were brilliant but deeply flawed humans. And their ideas have had a strange and powerful afterlife, often in places you wouldn't expect. Kevin: Right, it’s not like people are walking around quoting Sartre today, but the feeling of existentialism is everywhere. The anxiety of having too many choices on Netflix, the pressure to curate an "authentic" self on Instagram... it all feels very existential. Michael: Absolutely. Bakewell points out how existential themes saturate our culture. Think of a film like The Matrix. Neo is told he has to choose his own identity, to break free from a system designed to keep him passive. That's pure existentialism. Or Blade Runner, which asks what it means to be human when memories and identity can be manufactured. Kevin: Or even just the anxiety of the 'endless scroll' on our phones. We have infinite choice, but it feels paralyzing and meaningless. That's pure existential angst, right? The dizziness of absolute freedom with no guide. Michael: Exactly. And the book traces this legacy through to the very end of these philosophers' lives, which were often as dramatic and philosophical as their work. Albert Camus, for instance, died in a car crash at 46. In the wreckage, they found the unfinished manuscript for his novel, The First Man. Kevin: That's unbelievable. It's like his death was as absurd as the philosophy he wrote about. A random, meaningless event cutting short a life dedicated to finding meaning in a meaningless world. Michael: It's profoundly poignant. And then you have Sartre. When he died in 1980, his funeral was a massive public event. Fifty thousand people spontaneously poured into the streets of Paris to follow his coffin. It shows you how deeply these ideas had penetrated the culture. These weren't just academic concepts; they were ways of life that people passionately identified with. Kevin: It's a movement born in a café that ends up with a crowd the size of a rock concert mourning its founder. That's an incredible journey. Michael: And it's a journey that Bakewell captures with such warmth and intelligence. She shows us the ideas, the arguments, the love affairs, the political betrayals, and the enduring questions they left behind.

Kevin: So, after all this—the cocktails, the war, the messy lives—what's the one thing we should take away from existentialism today? What's the core insight from Bakewell's book? Michael: I think it’s that freedom isn't a gift; it's a constant, difficult project. Bakewell shows us it’s not about finding the 'right' answer in a book or from a guru. It's about having the courage to create your own answer, even when you're terrified and have no guarantee you're right. The world will always give you a million excuses to not be free—'the they,' the algorithm, your circumstances, your past. Existentialism is the permanent rebellion against that. Kevin: It's a philosophy of responsibility, then. You can't blame the system or your upbringing. At the end of the day, the choice is yours. Michael: Always. And that leaves you with a powerful question: In what small way today are you just 'playing a role,' like Sartre's famous example of the Parisian waiter who is too much of a waiter, instead of choosing freely? It's a challenging thought. Kevin: It really is. It makes you look at your own day-to-day life a little differently. We'd love to hear your reflections on this. Find us on our social channels and join the conversation. What roles are you playing? Michael: This is Aibrary, signing off.