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Existentialism

“all the consequences of this”

Kile Jones argues that atheistic existentialism is more compelling than religious existentialism.

Existentialism, as I understand it, is primarily a philosophy of tragedy. It often speaks of tragedy as bound up with existence – that you cannot have one without the other.

Tragedy

Before the rise of German, and in turn French, existentialism, tragedy was considered primarily a poetic and literary style. We can think of Aeschylus’ Oresteia, Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, or Euripides’ Alcestis as well-known examples of tragedy. Centuries later, in Germany, the writings of Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Jaspers.

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