“Leur philosophie est pour les autres; il m’en faudroit une pour moi”: Rousseau, Kierkegaard and the development ofexistenz-philosophy

Abstract

In 1835 Kierkegaard (1813-1855) wrote that “the thing is to find a truth which is truth for me, to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die.” Now, more than 50years earlier Rousseau (1712-1778) had written that “their philosophy [meaning the French systematics] is for the others; what I need is one for myself.” The curious thing, though, is that Kierkegaard would develop his production independently from any contact with the work of Rousseau, which he would only read from 1850 onwards, a time when most of his work was alread published. Thus, this article aims at drawing a confrontation between some of the existential concepts present in the work of both thinkers, which, on its turn, will allow an estimation of the prominent role played by Rousseau in the development of the so-called “philosophy of existence”.