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[2] [3] The idea originates from a speech by F. W. J. Schelling delivered in December 1841. [4] Søren Kierkegaard was present at this occasion and the idea can be found in Kierkegaard's works in the 19th century, [5] but was explicitly formulated by philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre in the 20th century.
According to Sartre, a person can only be defined negatively, as "what it is not", and this negation is the only positive definition of "what it is". [3] From this, an individual is aware of a host of alternative reactions to our freedom to choose an objective situation, since no situation can dictate a single response.
Kierkegaard used the pseudonym Vigilius Haufniensis (which, according to Josiah Thompson, is the Latin transcription for "the Watchman" [2] [3] of Copenhagen) for The Concept of Anxiety. [4] All of Kierkegaard's books have either a preface, dedication, or prayer at the beginning. This book includes a lengthy introduction.
Like Kierkegaard, Sartre saw problems with rationality, calling it a form of "bad faith", an attempt by the self to impose structure on a world of phenomena—"the Other"—that is fundamentally irrational and random. According to Sartre, rationality and other forms of bad faith hinder people from finding meaning in freedom.
Not only is man what he conceives himself to be, but he is also only what he wills himself to be after this thrust toward existence" (Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism, trans. Bernard Frechtman (New York, 1947)). Sartre wrote other works in the spirit of atheistic existentialism (e.g. the short stories in his 1939 collection The Wall).
Sartre synthesized Husserl and Heidegger's ideas. His modifications include his replacement of Husserl's concept, epoche , with Heidegger's structure of being-in-the -world . [ 9 ] His existential phenomenology, which is articulated in his works such as Being and Nothingness (1943), is based on the distinction between being-in-itself and being ...
According to Kierkegaard, personal authenticity depends upon a person finding an authentic faith and, in so doing, being true to themselves. [clarification needed] Moral compromises inherent to the ideologies of bourgeois society and Christianity challenge the personal integrity of a person who seeks to live an authentic life as determined by the self. [11]
Many of Kierkegaard's earlier writings from 1843 to 1846 were written pseudonymously. In the non-pseudonymous The Point of View of My Work as an Author, he explained that the pseudonymous works are written from perspectives which are not his own: while Kierkegaard himself was a religious author, the pseudonymous authors wrote from points of view that were aesthetic or speculative.