Existentialist Background: Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Jaspers, Heidegger

Existentialist Background: Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky,Nietzsche, Jaspers, HeideggerThese essays explore the relationship to existentialism of some of Sartre's 19th-century predecessors and near-contemporaries. For example, Kierkegaard was never told that he was an existentialist, and Heidegger rejected the label. Nevertheless, they, along with the others discussed in this volume, are frequently identified as such. Some of the contributors clarify these issues through their disagreements with one another, while others analyze major affinities and differences between Sartre and other existentialists on such basic subjects as freedom, transcendence, and the connection between human beings and Being.