For Sartre human beings live in anguish, or the feeling of total and deep responsibility, not because life is terrible, but because, as he says: “Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.” We are born without a choice, yet here we are bornContinue reading “Freedom and Responsibility – Sartre”
Category Archives: Existentialism
Existence precedes Essence – Sartre
Sartre is also a leading figure in phenomenology, a branch of philosophy that offered a radical account of the workings of human consciousness. In other words, it is experiencing reality as we experience it with our perceptions, distinguished from the world as it really is. He studied under Edmund Husserl, the world’s leader in thatContinue reading “Existence precedes Essence – Sartre”
Nausea & The Absurdity of the World – Jean Paul Sartre
Sartre’s first novel, Nausea, gave a name for existential angst. He considered it as one of his most precious novels, it portrays Antoine Roquentin, a French writer who is horrified at his own existence and finds it meaningless. He lives alone, has no friends, and usually eavesdrops on other people’s conversations and watches their actions.Continue reading “Nausea & The Absurdity of the World – Jean Paul Sartre”
An Introduction to Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre had a great influence on many areas of modern thought. A writer of prodigious brilliance and originality, Sartre worked in many different genres: as a philosopher, a novelist, and a cultural critic. Sartre is one of the key figures in the philosophy of Existentialism, which emphasises the existence of the individual orContinue reading “An Introduction to Jean Paul Sartre”
An Introduction to Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche was a German philosopher of the 19th century, apart from having one of the most bad-ass mustaches in history (just look at it!), he is one of the most revolutionary thinkers in Western philosophy and intellectual history. He was a cultural critic of his era, of traditional European morality and religious fundamentalism, especiallyContinue reading “An Introduction to Friedrich Nietzsche”
An Introduction to Fyodor Dostoevsky
Fyodor Dostoevsky (pronounced dos-toy-ev-ski) is most popularly known as a Russian novelist as well as a philosopher. His works explore human psychology in the troubled socio-political atmosphere of 19th century Russia. His novels had a great impact on psychology, the study of how the human mind works, especially of people who lose their reason, whoContinue reading “An Introduction to Fyodor Dostoevsky”
The Ultimate Truth: Subjectivity – Kierkegaard
The world is absurd, and we must live in it. “As I grew up, I opened my eyes and saw the real world, I began to laugh and I haven’t stopped since”. – Søren Kierkegaard One can try making sense of life by laying a worldview or template on it, but Kierkegaard would guarantee you thatContinue reading “The Ultimate Truth: Subjectivity – Kierkegaard”
Angst & Despair – Kierkegaard
Kierkegaard spends most of his writing talking about concepts such as anxiety or angst and despair. The Sickness Unto Death is a life changing book about the despair of not being one’s true self and also quite short at around a few hundred pages long, depending on the version. One of his famous quotes isContinue reading “Angst & Despair – Kierkegaard”
Fear and Trembling: The Religious and the Ethical – Kierkegaard
Fear and Trembling is a thrilling and enthralling book as well as a great introduction to Kierkegaard, it is also relatively short at around 200 pages (Either/Or and Stages on Life’s Way are around 800 pages long!) To recap the previous posts on Kierkegaard, we know that he presents three stages on life’s way: theContinue reading “Fear and Trembling: The Religious and the Ethical – Kierkegaard”
Stages on Life’s Way: The Religious – Kierkegaard
Kierkegaard’s second book Stages on Life’s Way was written as a continuation of his masterpiece Either/Or where he introduced the Aesthetic and the Ethical stages. In Stages on Life’s Way, Kierkegaard introduces a third stage: the Religious. Kierkegaard was a Christian, but if you compared him to every other Christian you’ve ever met, he’s aContinue reading “Stages on Life’s Way: The Religious – Kierkegaard”