ABSTRACT

Existentialism may be regarded as the most characteristic expression of the fundamental thought and feeling of the most recent past. Though it originated in Europe, it has aroused the greatest interest throughout the civilized world. Man has become a problem to himself, not only as suffering, but as a being capable of frightful atrocities. Add to this that immediately before the wars man’s intellectual life had been infected by scepticism and relativism without providing an answer to the ultimate questions of human existence, and the scene is set for the appearance of existentialism. The demonic abysses of life that have been uncovered in time simply do not admit of a mere formal-intellectual analysis of the immediate world of sense. So far the intellectual progress of the movement had led to a rejection of all binding statements and ethical ties, leaving as the only solution the bold deed.