ABSTRACT
The philosophy of existence springs from the essentially religious meditations of Kierkegaard. When this philosophy is mentioned people usually think of Sartre—a non-religious and even at times an anti-religious philosopher. This chapter presents some examples of conflict on matters of fundamental importance between the doctrines of some of the so-called philosophers of existence. If the philosophy of Hegel is not satisfactory to Kierkegaard it is largely because Hegel ignores the element of absolute inwardness, the fact that we cannot externalize ourselves completely. The proof that there is such a thing as the philosophy of existence is that we can legitimately apply the term to certain philosophies and not to others. The chapter shows how Heidegger holds that it is the essence of man that he seeks to define and how he concludes that the essence of man is his existence.
