Crisis [continued]}[21st December 1990]

[Redbook8:135][19901221:1809b]{Crisis [continued]}[21st December 1990]

19901221.1809

[continued]

‘There is to be seen, too,* especially during later decades of this [twentieth] century, a questioning of the role of reason in human affairs – a questioning that stands in stark contrast with the ascending of rationalism in the two or three centuries preceding.** Doctrines and philosophies stressing the inadequacy of reason, the subjective character of human commitment, and the primacy of faith have rivalled – some would say conquered – doctrines and philosophies descended from the Age of Reason. Existentialism, with its emphasis on the basic loneliness of the individual, on the impossibility of finding truth through intellectual decision, and on the irredeemably personal, subjective character of man’s lfe, has proved to be a very influential philosophy in the writings of the 20^th century. ***Freedom, far from being the essence of hope and joy, is the source of man’s dread of the universe and of his anxiety for himself. Soren Kierkegaard’s 19th-century intimations of anguished isolation as the perennial lot of the individual have had rich expression in the philosophy and literature of the 20^th century.’

– E[ncyclopaedia] B[ritannica] 27:372

*[See last previous entry]

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