Stoicism vs Existentialism: Two Ways of Dealing With the Same Problem

Both philosophies start from the same uncomfortable place: life is hard, uncertain, and doesn't come with instructions. Where they go from there is completely different.

Stoicism says the problem is your reaction. Existentialism says the problem is your freedom. Those sound similar, but they lead to pretty different lives.

What Stoics actually believe (not the Instagram version)

The word "stoic" gets used to mean "emotionally numb guy who doesn't complain." That's not what the Stoics meant.

Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Seneca — none of them were trying to feel nothing. They were trying to stop suffering over things outside their control. The dichotomy of control is the core idea: some things are up to you (your judgments, choices, actions), and everything else isn't. The goal is to invest your energy only in the first category.

Epictetus was a slave. He had essentially zero external freedom. And he argued that no one could take away what mattered most: how he chose to respond to his circumstances. That's not a cope. That's a pretty radical claim about where human dignity actually lives.

The Stoic life looks like: clear principles, consistent action, emotional steadiness not because you suppress feelings but because you've stopped attaching your wellbeing to outcomes you can't guarantee.

What Existentialists actually believe (not the "nothing matters" version)

Sartre's famous line is "existence precedes essence." Most people read that as nihilism. It's actually the opposite.

He meant: you weren't born with a fixed purpose. You're not a hammer (built for a specific job) or an animal (driven by instinct). You show up first, then you decide what you are through your choices. That's terrifying. It's also, according to Sartre, the source of genuine human dignity.

Camus took a slightly different angle. He thought the universe was absurd — not evil, just indifferent, completely unresponsive to our need for meaning. His answer wasn't despair. It was defiance. You imagine Sisyphus happy, pushing his boulder, because the act of choosing to continue is itself a kind of rebellion.

The Existentialist life looks like: radical honesty about uncertainty, constant self-authorship, refusing to hide behind roles or social expectations, and taking full responsibility for what you become.

Where they actually disagree

The tension is about where meaning comes from.

Stoics believe there's a natural order (the Logos) and that living in alignment with reason and nature is genuinely good. There's a kind of cosmic confidence underneath Stoicism — the universe is rational, virtue is objectively real, and you can know what a good life looks like.

Existentialists reject that foundation. For Sartre, there's no Logos, no pre-given essence, no rational cosmic order to align with. You have to build your own meaning from scratch, with no guarantees and no safety net.

This is why Stoics tend to feel more settled and Existentialists tend to feel more unsettled. One is working with the universe; the other is working despite it.

Which one are you?

It's not a trick question. Most people lean toward one instinctively before they ever hear the arguments.

If you feel most alive when you have clear principles and a consistent routine, and if you find peace by focusing on what you can control, Stoicism probably resonates.

If you feel most alive when you're creating something new, resisting convention, or making a choice that's entirely yours regardless of what anyone else thinks, Existentialism probably fits better.

A lot of people are somewhere in between. There's a version of Stoic Existentialism that's actually pretty coherent: you accept radical freedom (Sartre) but you exercise it through disciplined, principled action (Marcus Aurelius). Viktor Frankl's logotherapy is basically this synthesis, built out of his experience surviving Nazi concentration camps.

And if neither tradition quite fits, you might lean toward something else entirely. Secular Humanism shares Existentialism's rejection of external authority but grounds meaning in reason and shared humanity rather than individual self-creation. Buddhism addresses the same suffering both traditions start from, but through a very different lens.

If you want to find out where you actually land, Inner Quests maps your answers to a detailed philosophical profile, including how much Stoic or Existentialist thinking shapes the way you see the world. Take the assessment.