Continental Philosophy Essay 1

Continental Philosophy Essay

Keith D Baker

Axia College

Continental Philosophy Essay 2

The historical development of existentialism and phenomenology in Continental philosophy was in direct response to Hegelian philosophy of idealism. In the nineteenth century, the history of the existentialism and phenomenology premise dates back to Socrates and the pre Socratics (Moore and Bruder, 2005). Each and every thought has played a significant part within the other that it attracted two of the most influential Continental philosophers, Martin Heidegger and Jean Paul Sarte. The existentialism sought to break all the limits of united thought when relating to the consciousness. Existentialist believe that with utter honesty in confronting a range of problems of the human existence, life can only deteriorate these problems, the individual will find no meaning or value in life (Moore and Bruder, 2005, p. 159).

Existentialism centers on the fact that traditional philosophy does not address the issues of real life. Philosophy has to center on each other’s understanding with the world, the world is not rational and is completely beyond understanding why it is the way it is and that humanity is plagued with illogicality and meaninglessness’ that only leads to despondency (Richardson, 1997).

The first major existential philosopher was Soren Kierkegaard, who disagreed with Hegel. He believed that the individual had a direct relationship with the absolute that the relationship was thought to be ethical in parallel with the universe norms. Kierkegaard argued Hegel’s system, believing that a person will and need is what needs to be thought of when making important decisions. He...