On The Vanity and Suffering of Life is an essay that appears in the second volume of Schopenhauer’s...
Camus on the Absurd in The Stranger
The absurd, for Camus in The Stranger as well as in The Myth of Sisyphus, is the meaninglessness...
What Does Sartre Mean by “Bad Faith”?
Bad faith lies at the heart of the existentialism of Sartre. It appears early in Being and Nothingness...
Heidegger on Death in Being and Time
Heidegger discusses death at length in Being and Time. This article introduces and explains Heidegger’s existential conception of...
Explaining Sartre’s “Existence Precedes Essence”
“Existence precedes essence” was first mentioned in a public lecture that was later published as Existentialism Is a...
Camus on the Two Kinds of Suicide
In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus distinguishes between two kinds of suicide. The first one is the event...
Explaining Schopenhauer’s Pessimism
Schopenhauer’s pessimism resides in two related claims: that “all life is suffering”, and accordingly that the world and...
Camus on Absurdity in The Myth of Sisyphus
Camus begins The Myth of Sisyphus with the question of suicide, but it is the thought of the...
Heidegger: the Holy, Ontotheology, and God(s)
For Heidegger, the holy is what precedes the appearing of god(s). The holy is the site in which...
Sartre on Freedom, Condemnation, and the Situation
For Sartre, freedom and responsibility are linked in such a way that places them in a constant relatedness...
Schopenhauer on Egoism: “War, All Against All”
In The World as Will and Representation, Schopenhauer defines egoism as an event in which a person “makes...
Camus on the Two Forms of Hope
In the writings and works of Camus, two forms of hope are constantly placed over against each other:...
Freud: Mourning, Melancholia, the Ego, and the Self/Other Relation
Mourning and melancholia are two types of depression. In melancholia, Freud noticed a splitting of the ego and...
Heidegger: The Problem of Other Minds, Everydayness, and Being-in-the-World as Being-With
Heidegger attempts to solve the problem of other minds by analyzing Dasein’s “being-in-the-world”. Dasein’s everydayness is essentially “being-with”...
Schopenhauer on Suicide
According to Schopenhauer, “all life is suffering”. Hence, suicide might arise as a possibility, as the only response...
Sartre: Solipsism, the Problem of Other Minds, and the Look
In Being and Nothingness, Sartre attempts to overcome solipsism by proving the existence of other minds through his...
Heidegger on Poetry and the Grounding of Being
For Heidegger, language is that through which being shows itself. And in poetry, when it is an originary...
Schopenhauer and Freud on Repression, the Unconscious, Madness, and Sex
The notions of repression, the unconscious, madness, and sex lie at the heart of Freud’s psychoanalysis; they also...
Schopenhauer on Philosophy, Religion, and Salvation
In the philosophy of Schopenhauer, there is a relation linking together religion, philosophy, and salvation, yet this relation...
Sartre on the Contingency of Being
For Sartre, the contingency of being means existing without ever finding the reason for this existence and hence...