The Philosophy of Existential Despair

Listen to this episode from Eternalised on Spotify. The Russian existentialist philosopher Lev Shestov is known for his “philosophy of despair” or “philosophy of tragedy”. For Shestov, the sources of philosophy were the human tragedy, the horrors and sufferings of human life and the sense of hopelessness.     Tragedies take place in the depth of the human soul, where no eye can reach out to see. Consequently, He saw the beginning of philosophy starting not with knowledge, not with wonder, but with despair.    Despair is what he considers a “penultimate knowledge”, that is, a preliminary step that we must acknowledge, in order to progress towards something higher, the “ultimate knowledge”. ☕ Donate a coffee ⭐ Support on Patreon Send me anything you like to my mailing address: Eternalised P.O. Box 10.011 28080 Madrid, Spain ━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⌛ Timestamps (0:00) Introduction (0:52) Philosophy of Despair (3:32) Conflict between Faith and Reason (6:14) Penultimate Knowledge: Despair and Awakening (11:03) Ultimate Knowledge: Freedom and God