How does phenomenology compare or differ with existentialism?

Answer 1

Existentialism is the philosophy that basically says that life is meaningless there is no God or afterlife and it is up to us to give meaning to our own lives. (Sartre). Kierkegaard thought that void should be filled with religion, and Sartre didn't agree.

Phenomenology is the study of the structure of consciousness and experience. It deals with what it means to be aware and experience various phenomena. (Heidegger)

Quite distinct branches, actually.

Answer 2

If you follow the link you shall find more links to fill your plate.

http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/e/x.htm#existentialism

Existentialism

Existentialism is a diverse current of philosophers, who share a distinction between the categories of Being (Sein) and Existence (Existenz), holding that Being cannot be grasped through rational thought and perception, but only through personal existence.

Existentialism has its roots in the 19th century reaction against the “impersonal” Rationalism of the Enlightenment, Hegelianism and Positivism, especially Nietzsche and Kierkegaard. It also includes the Phenomenology of Edmund Husserl. Its founders are Martin Heidegger, Karl Jaspers, Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre.

See The Ethics of Ambiguity, Simone de Beauvoir, 1947, and Existentialism is a Humanism, Jean-Paul Sartre, 1946.

Answer 3

Existentialism is Sartre's interpretation of phenomenology


phenomenology is the study of structures of consciousness as experienced from the first-person point of view