"The first existentialist was not Sartre, though he coined the term. Nor was it Kierkegaard or Nietzsche, though most of the textbooks say so. Nor was it even Pascal, though he foreshadowed half of Kierkegaard and was the first to write about the fundamental existential experience of cosmic anxiety and meaninglessness. It was not even Saint Augustine, whose Confessions stands out as the profoundest example of depth psychology and existential autobiography ever written. It was not even Socrates, who alone among philosophers totally existed his philosophy. Rather, the first existentialist was Solomon, or whoever wrote Ecclesiastes."
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Academics from the United StatesPhilosophers from the United StatesEducators from the United StatesCatholics from the United StatesTheologians from New Jersey
Original Language: English
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Sources
Three Philosophies of Life: Ecclesiastes: Life as Vanity, Job: Life as Suffering, Song of Songs: Life as Love (1990), p. 18
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Peter_Kreeft
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Peter Kreeft
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