Shame, Guilt—and the Slow Work of Healing

There are moments in life when something in us quietly collapses.

Not necessarily because we have broken a law.
Not because someone has pointed a finger at us.
But because something in the relationship—to ourselves, or to another human being—has been disturbed.

We call it shame.
Sometimes guilt.
Often, we are not even sure what to call it.

In my own work with the sexual abuse og children and adults since 1982, I have met hundreds of people who carry this as an unbearable burden.. This was also what I wrote about in my Ph.D. thesis (see references below). Sometimes visibly, but more often silently. It is not always something they can explain. It is something they feel—in their body, in their relationships, in the way they withdraw or hesitate in the world.

The philosopher Martin Buber helps us here. He reminds us that there is a form of guilt—and I would say also shame—that cannot be reduced to psychology, diagnoses, or hidden memories. It arises in the space between people. In relationships. In the way we either meet—or fail to meet—one another (Buber, 1958) 

Buber says that it is not enough with a small beam of light.

What is needed is an ocean of light.

Illustration created by Open AI/ChatGPT in cooperation with the author.

When Something Falls Between Us

We do not exist alone. Each of us stands, always, in relation to others.

This is what makes life possible. It is also what makes us vulnerable.

A relationship can remain distant and objective. But sometimes, something more happens. We step into a personal encounter. We open ourselves. And in that opening, something is at stake.

Because in that same space, there is also the possibility of:

• acceptance
• rejection
• transgression

When something is violated in this space, a wound appears.

And here is something important I have learned, both professionally and personally:

The wound cannot be healed by someone else.

But it can be met by someone else.

And that matters.

Helping Without Taking Over

When we meet a person who carries shame or guilt, there is often a temptation:
to guide, to explain, to show the way.

But this is not how healing works.

No one can be shown “the correct path” through shame. Each person must find their own way. Their own movement. Their own truth.

And yet—we are not without a role.

We can accompany.
We can help the person come to a place where a path becomes visible.
A starting point. A first step.

Sometimes that is enough.

Three Spaces We Move Within

Buber describes three different spheres in which guilt—and I would say also shame—can be understood:

• the judicial sphere
• the sphere of conscience
• the sphere of faith

These are not just abstract categories. They are ways of understanding how a human being relates to themselves, to others, and to something beyond.

1. The Judicial Sphere – Society’s Gaze

This is the sphere of laws, rules, and judgments.

Here, guilt is something that can be declared, punished, and regulated. Society sets the terms.

We also know—through thinkers like Martha Nussbaum—that shame can be used socially, even politically, as a way of controlling or disciplining people.

But as helpers, therapists, or fellow human beings, this is not our field.

We are not there to judge.
Nor to reinforce shame.

2. The Sphere of Faith – The Inner Relationship to the Absolute

This is a deeply personal space.

It concerns the individual’s relationship to God, or to something ultimate. Here we find confession, forgiveness, fear, hope.

But this is also not a space we can enter on behalf of another person.

If someone struggles here, we must be careful. This is sacred ground.
To intervene without understanding can do more harm than good.

3. The Sphere of Conscience – Where Healing Becomes Possible

This is where something begins to open.

Here, the person turns toward themselves. Not to punish—but to understand.

And here, I believe, is where we can meet another human being in a meaningful way.

Buber points to three movements within this sphere:

• self-knowledge
• endurance
• expiation

Let me stay with these for a moment.

Martin Buber 1878-1965. Photo from Wikipedia

To See Oneself Clearly

Self-knowledge is not comfortable.

It requires honesty. It asks us to look at who we have been—and who we are becoming.

Buber describes conscience as the human ability to distinguish between what we once approved of and what we now cannot accept.

There is something deeply human in this.
We are the only beings, as far as we know, who can step back—not only from the world, but from ourselves.

And in that distance, something important can happen.

To Endure What We Discover

Insight alone is not enough.

What we see, we must also be able to bear.

Endurance is not about punishment. It is about staying present in what is difficult—without collapsing, without fleeing.

Many people who struggle with shame know this place well. It can feel like quicksand. The more one struggles, the deeper one sinks.

And yet, slowly, it is possible to stand.

To Make Amends Without Destroying Oneself

Expiation is a delicate movement.

It is not the same as self-punishment.
Not the same as inflicting more suffering on oneself.

It is about repair. About making things right—where that is possible.

And equally important: knowing when repair must take another form.

Sometimes, the deepest movement is not outward—but inward.

When Shame Becomes Existential

One of the most important insights in Buber’s thinking is this:

Shame is not primarily about breaking rules.

It is about something deeper—something existential.

We may follow all the rules and still feel shame.
And we may break rules without feeling it.

Shame arises when something in our relationship to our own existence is disturbed.

And this is why it cannot be reduced to social norms or psychological categories alone.

To take responsibility for this kind of shame is not about obeying rules.
It is about taking responsibility for one’s own life.

The Turning Point

There is a moment—sometimes quiet, almost invisible—when something shifts.

A person who has been caught in shame begins to turn toward themselves.

Not with condemnation.
But with courage.

Buber describes this as a movement from lower levels of conscience—where the self punishes and tortures itself—to higher levels, where a person begins to reclaim their own life.

I have seen this moment.

It does not come through pressure.
Not through advice.

It comes when a person dares to see—and still remain.

An Ocean of Light

Buber uses a powerful image.

He says that it is not enough with a small beam of light.
What is needed is an ocean of light.

A full awakening.

This awakening does not deny the past.
It does not erase what has happened.

But it allows a person to say:

The one I was… and the one I am… are the same person.

And from that place, something new becomes possible.

Toward Restoration

Healing is not about becoming someone else.

It is about becoming oneself—more fully, more truthfully.

This requires effort.
It requires energy.
It requires, sometimes, a deep devotion—to others, and to life itself.

There is also a danger here: the splitting of the self. The feeling of being divided, contradictory, lost.

To heal is, in part, to gather oneself again.

And Perhaps This Is the Most Hopeful Thought

Buber says something that has stayed with me:

We cannot do evil with our whole being.
But we can do good with our whole being.

And perhaps this is where hope lies.

Because when a person finds their true self—not the defended self, not the ashamed self, but the deeper one—then something shifts.

Good does not have to be forced.

It begins to happen.

References

Buber, M. (1958). Schuld und Schuldgefühle. Heidelberg: Heidelberg. 

Nussbaum, M. C. (2001). Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Nussbaum, M. C. (2004). Hiding from Humanity: Disgust, Shame, and the Law. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Pettersen, Kaare Torgny, 2009: An Exploration into the Concept and Phenomenon of Shame within the Context of Child Sexual Abuse. An Existential-Dialogical Perspectiveof Social Work within the Settings of a Norwegian Incest Centre.  PhD 2009 Department of Social Work and Health Science Faculty of Social Sciences and Technology Management. Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NTNU, Trondheim, Norway. Doctoral theses 2009: 184

With what I have lived, and what I have understood so far - I take my next step.

The text is written by me, in an open conversation with OpenAI/ChatGPT

When life becomes serious.A reflection around Kierkegaard and H.C.Andersen

 From the Papers of One Still Living

A personal reflection on Kierkegaard, Andersen—and the seriousness of being human

There are some books you read.

And then there are those you carry with you.

For me, Søren Kierkegaard has never been someone I “finished.” He has been a companion. Sometimes demanding, sometimes unsettling—but always present.

I still remember when it began. In 1995, during my graduate (masters degree) studies in social work, my supervisor, Professor and Philosopher John Lundstøl, suggested I read The Sickness Unto Death. At the time, I did not fully understand what I was stepping into. Looking back, I see that it was less an academic recommendation—and more an invitation into a lifelong conversation.

Now, more than 30 years later, I am still in that conversation.

On the shelf behind me stands the complete Søren Kierkegaard’s Writings. Fifty-six volumes. A kind of quiet presence in the room. I sometimes look at them not as books, but as reminders: of questions that cannot be settled once and for all.

Kierkegaard has that effect. He does not give you answers you can underline twice. He places you in front of yourself.

When life becomes serious

Hans Christian Andersen 1805-1875, Photo from Store Norske Leksikon

I have been reading Kierkegaard’s very first publication: From the Papers of One Still Living (1838). At first glance, it is a literary critique of Hans Christian Andersen. But it does not take long before something else begins to emerge.

Something more existential.

The title itself stopped me.

One still living.

Why formulate it like that?

And then I began to read his life into the text.

Kierkegaard was the youngest of seven siblings. One after another, they died—most before the age of 33. His mother died. His father died. And suddenly, at 25, he found himself almost alone.

Imagine that for a moment.

To grow up surrounded by death in that way. To experience loss not as an exception—but almost as a pattern.

Kierkegaard came to believe that something rested over the family. A kind of shadow. He called it “the great earthquake.”

We do not know exactly what he meant by it. But we can sense its weight.

At one point, he writes about a realization that changed everything: that life could not be taken for granted. That time was not open-ended. That something demanded a response—now.

He believed he would not live beyond 33.

Whether that was true is, in a way, irrelevant.

What matters is how it shaped his way of being in the world.

Living as if time matters

I find myself pausing here.

Because this is not only Kierkegaard’s story.

It touches something recognizable.

We all live, most of the time, as if time is abundant. As if there will always be another opportunity, another conversation, another chance to choose differently.

But sometimes life interrupts that illusion.

Through loss. Through illness. Through encounters that shake something in us.

And then something shifts.

Not necessarily dramatically—but quietly.

Life becomes more serious. Not heavy—but real.

Reading Kierkegaard, I sense that this seriousness came early for him. And it stayed.

It shaped how he thought. How he wrote. How he related to existence itself.

And perhaps that is why his words still reach us.

Andersen—and the fragile genius

Kierkegaard’s book is, formally, a critique of Hans Christian Andersen’s novel Only a Fiddler.

I had not read it before. But through Kierkegaard’s reading, the story becomes vivid: a young man, Christian, gifted—perhaps even a genius—but unable to find his place in the world. He is not recognized. Not protected. Not given the conditions he needs.

And in the end, he breaks.

There is something deeply human in that story.

We have all, in one way or another, seen potential that never unfolded. Lives that did not find their form. People who were perhaps never truly seen.

Andersen seems to suggest that genius is fragile. That it can be shaped—or crushed—by circumstances.

Kierkegaard cannot accept that.

The question beneath the critique

What strikes me is that Kierkegaard is not only criticizing a novel.

He is asking a deeper question:

What sustains a human life?

His answer is demanding.

He says that a work of art—and by implication, a human life—must be grounded in what he calls a life-view.

Not as a theory. Not as a set of ideas.

But as something lived. Something wrestled with. Something that gives coherence from within.

Without this, he argues, both literature and life risk becoming fragmented. Chaotic. Perhaps even unbearably private.

I recognize something here from my own field—from years of working with people in difficult life situations.

We often look for solutions, methods, interventions.

But beneath all that, there is something more fundamental:

Does a person have something to stand in?

A harsh voice—and something softer beneath

Kierkegaard can be hard on Andersen.

At times, almost merciless.

He accuses him of lacking distance. Of being too entangled in his own story. Of allowing the text to become an extension of himself—almost like something torn out of him.

But then, near the end, something changes.

He admits that he felt gratitude.

I find that moment important.

Because it reminds me that even in critique, there can be recognition. Even in disagreement, there can be a form of connection.

Perhaps Kierkegaard saw something of himself in Andersen. Something he resisted—but also understood.

Two ways of understanding a human life

As I read this, I find myself thinking:

This is not only about Andersen and Kierkegaard.

It is about two ways of understanding what it means to be human.

On the one hand:

We are shaped by circumstances. By what meets us—or fails to meet us. By the conditions we are given.

On the other:

There is something within us that cannot be reduced to those conditions. Something that must respond. Choose. Take responsibility.

Kierkegaard expresses it strongly:

Genius is not something the world can simply extinguish. It is something that, under pressure, may burn even more intensely.

This is not an easy position.

But it is a deeply challenging one.

Reading Kierkegaard today

What moves me most in this early text is not only what Kierkegaard writes—but how he writes.

He writes as someone who is involved.

Not as an observer. Not as a detached academic voice.

But as a human being who feels that something is at stake.

And perhaps that is what I carry with me into my own work—whether in writing, teaching, or practice.

That theory and life are not separate.

That thinking is not something we do from a distance.

That understanding something also means being touched by it.

Still living

I return, in the end, to the title.

From the Papers of One Still Living.

There is something almost quiet about it.

Not dramatic. Not declarative.

Just a simple acknowledgment:

I am here.

For now.

And perhaps that is enough.

Or perhaps it is exactly where everything begins.

References

Garff, J. (2000). Søren Aabye Kierkegaard: A biography. Copenhagen: GADS Forlag.

Kierkegaard, S. (1962). Collected works (Vol. 1). Copenhagen: GADS Forlag.

Kierkegaard, S. (1997). Søren Kierkegaard’s writings (Vol. 1). Copenhagen: GADS Forlag.

Kierkegaard, S. (1997). Commentary volume K1. Copenhagen: GADS Forlag.

Kierkegaard, S. (2011). Søren Kierkegaard’s writings (Vol. 27). Copenhagen: GADS Forlag.

Kierkegaard, S. (2011). Commentary volume 27K. Copenhagen: GADS Forlag.

With what I have lived, and what I have understood so far—I take the next step.

 

This text is written by me, in conversation with OpenAI/ChatGPT

Why Greek Philosophy Still Matters in Today’s Scientific Debate

Truth, Method, and Meaning: Why Greek Philosophy Still Matters in Today’s Scientific Debate

Martin Heidegger 1889-1976

I have been working my way through Die Grundbegriffe der antiken Philosophie (GA 22) by Martin Heidegger. What began as a study of ancient thought has gradually turned into something else: a reflection on our own time.

Because the questions raised by the early Greeks—and reawakened by Heidegger—are not behind us. They are right in front of us, embedded in today’s debates about science, knowledge, and truth.

We might think we have moved far beyond Heraclitus and Parmenides. But when we argue about evidence, interpretation, and what counts as knowledge, we are still circling the same fundamental tension:

Is truth something we measure, or something we understand?

From Physis to Data: A Quiet Transformation

The early Greeks spoke of physis—the emerging, self-unfolding world. They did not stand outside reality as observers. They were part of it, addressed by it.

Today, we increasingly relate to the world as data.

In modern science, reality becomes:

• measurable
• quantifiable
• modelable

This transformation has given us extraordinary power. Medicine, technology, and research have improved lives in ways the Greeks could not have imagined.

But something else has happened quietly along the way:

The world has become something we stand over, rather than something we belong to.

Heidegger would say: Being has been reduced to what can be calculated.

The Ideal of Certainty - and Its Limits

Across disciplines, we see a strong ideal: knowledge should be clear, verifiable, and reproducible. In many fields, especially medicine, psychology, and the natural sciences, this ideal is not only valued—it is required.

We want answers we can trust.
We want conclusions we can underline twice.

And rightly so.

But difficulties arise when this model is extended to all forms of knowledge.

In fields dealing with human beings—education, social work, therapy, ethics—we often encounter situations where:

• variables cannot be isolated
• outcomes cannot be predicted
• meaning cannot be quantified

Yet the pressure remains: produce evidence, demonstrate effect, standardize practice.

Here, the ancient question returns in a new form:

Can all truth be reduced to method?

Hermeneutics in a Scientific Age

Hans-Georg Gadamer offers a response that is both simple and unsettling.

Understanding is not a method. It is a mode of being.

In Truth and Method, Gadamer argues that in the human sciences, truth does not emerge through control and measurement alone. It arises through dialogue, interpretation, and openness to what addresses us.

This is precisely what makes hermeneutics controversial.

Because it challenges a deeply rooted assumption in modern science:
That objectivity requires distance.

Hermeneutics suggests the opposite:
That understanding requires involvement.

This is not relativism. It is responsibility.

The Individual, the Decision, and the Limits of Knowledge

Søren Kierkegaard reminds us that even if science could give us perfect knowledge, it would still not answer the most important questions.

No dataset can decide:

• what is right
• what is meaningful
• what we ought to do

These are not technical questions. They are existential ones.

Kierkegaard places the weight back on the individual—the one who must choose, act, and take responsibility.

In this sense, the demand for certainty can become a way of avoiding something more difficult:
The necessity of decision without guarantees.

Nietzsche and the Suspicion of Objectivity

Friedrich Nietzsche pushes the critique further.

He asks whether our belief in objective truth is itself shaped by deeper forces—by language, culture, and what he calls the “will to power.”

From this perspective, the scientific ideal is not neutral. It reflects a desire:

• to stabilize
• to control
• to make the world manageable

Again, this does not invalidate science. But it situates it within human life, rather than above it.

Artificial Intelligence and the New Horizon

Today, these questions take on new urgency with the rise of artificial intelligence.

AI systems can:

• process vast amounts of data
• detect patterns beyond human capacity
• generate answers with impressive speed

But they do not understand in the hermeneutic sense.

They do not stand in a world of meaning.
They do not take responsibility.
They do not choose.

This raises a critical question for our time:

If knowledge becomes increasingly automated, what happens to understanding?

Returning to the Question

What I take with me from Heidegger’s reading of Greek philosophy is not a rejection of science. It is a call to remember its foundation—and its limits.

Science asks:
What can be known?

Hermeneutics asks:
What does it mean?

And life asks:
What shall I do?

These questions do not cancel each other out. They belong together.

A Closing Reflection

In my own scientific research, I have often stood in situations where evidence was necessary—but not sufficient.

Where guidelines existed—but did not fit the person in front of me.
Where knowledge was available—but meaning had to be created in the moment.

Perhaps this is where the early Greek insight still speaks to us:

Truth is not only something we discover.
It is something that happens—between us, in situations, in decisions.

And perhaps the task today is not to choose between science and understanding, but to hold them together—without reducing one to the other.

Because if we lose that balance, we risk gaining certainty at the cost of meaning.

References

Aristotle. (1998). Metaphysics (H. Tredennick & G. C. Armstrong, Trans.). Harvard University Press. (Original work ca. 350 BCE)

Gadamer, H.-G. (2004). Truth and method (2nd rev. ed., J. Weinsheimer & D. G. Marshall, Trans.). Continuum.

Heidegger, M. (1998). Basic concepts of ancient philosophy (R. Rojcewicz, Trans.). Indiana University Press. (Original work 1926)

Heidegger, M. (1993). Gesamtausgabe Band 22. Die Grundbegriffe der antiken Philosophie. Vittorio Klostermann: Frankfurt am Main. (Original work 1926)

Kierkegaard, S. (1992). Concluding unscientific postscript (H. V. Hong & E. H. Hong, Trans.). Princeton University Press. (Original work 1846)

Nietzsche, F. (1974). The gay science (W. Kaufmann, Trans.). Vintage Books. (Original work 1882)

With what I have lived, and what I have understood so far—I take the next step.

 

This text is written by me, in conversation with OpenAI/ChatGPT

The Critical Choice

 

The Critical Choice

To make a choice is to show engagement. And when a choice is truly critical for us, it becomes more than a decision—it becomes a commitment.

Without engagement, we do not gain new reasons for action, new responsibilities, or new values in life. A critical choice, then, is not simply about deciding—it is about becoming. And without passion, without a sense of involvement, the individual does not truly become oneself.

Søren Kierkegaard understood this deeply. For him, engagement was not an optional addition to action—it was its very essence:

“An action without the interest of an idea is like dialectics without the interest of knowledge – sophistry.”

Søren Aabye Kierkegaard 1813-1855

The photo is from Wikipedia 

When engagement is absent, something hollow emerges. Action becomes empty. Conversation becomes noise. Life risks dissolving into indifference.

It is in critical moments—those turning points in life—that this becomes most visible. Here, we are forced to choose with conviction. And what we choose must carry weight in itself. It must have intrinsic value. Only then can it sustain us.

What Does It Mean That Something Is “Critical”?

The word critical comes from the Greek krinein, a word that carries two meanings: to judge, and to distinguish.

In Plato, it appears as the act of judging—of examining and forming a conclusion. In Heidegger, however, the emphasis shifts. For him, krinein is about making a distinction—not between things, but between Being and beings. It is only through such distinctions, he argues, that we enter the truly philosophical domain.

These two meanings—judging and distinguishing—meet in Kierkegaard. And they come alive in the ethical life.

The Paradox of Choice

Kierkegaard describes a familiar human situation with unsettling clarity. A person seeks advice in a difficult moment. There are two possible paths. And then comes the honest—but troubling—response:

You can do one thing or the other… but you will regret both.

Here, we encounter something essential: the impossibility of escaping responsibility. There is no choice without consequence. No path without loss.

At first glance, this may feel almost hopeless. If regret is unavoidable, how are we to choose?

A Quiet Wisdom in the Midst of Choice

There is a short prayer, written by Reinhold Niebuhr, that has found its way into countless human lives, perhaps most visibly through Alcoholics Anonymous. It is known as:

 The Serenity Prayer:

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference.”

While it holds a special place within AA, where it often becomes a lifeline in the midst of struggle and recovery, its meaning reaches far beyond any one community. It speaks to something universal in the human condition: the moment when life confronts us with choices we cannot avoid.

In such moments, we are asked to discern what must be accepted, what can be changed, and who we are called to become in that tension. The prayer does not remove the difficulty—but it gives direction. It reminds us that acceptance is not resignation, and that change is not control, but responsibility.

Perhaps this is also what Kierkegaard points toward, in another language: that we are not freed from the burden of choice—but invited to carry it with honesty, courage, and awareness.

Formation: Becoming a Self

Kierkegaard’s answer is not to eliminate regret—but to deepen the self.

He points toward paideia—the formation of the soul. A lifelong process of becoming. Not a fixed identity, but an ongoing shaping of who we are.

The Norwegian philosopher John Lundstøl captures this beautifully. To become oneself is to take one’s own experiences seriously—to recognize that we are shaped by where we come from, by the culture and conditions we grow up within. Yet formation is not passive. It requires both continuity and rupture. Stability and change.

It also requires courage.

To remain in difficult, even painful situations without fleeing. To endure contradiction. To develop what Aristotle called practical wisdom—the ability to navigate life without placing oneself in situations one cannot bear.

And perhaps most importantly: to trust that standing within one’s own tradition is not a limitation, but a necessary ground for growth.

The Ethical Life

At its core, this is about learning to distinguish. Between right and wrong. Between what carries meaning and what does not.

The ethical choice is rarely between two equally good options. More often, it is between choosing what is right—or withdrawing into indifference.

And indifference, in this sense, is itself a choice.

To live ethically is to turn the gaze inward. To judge oneself. To reflect critically on one’s own life—on one’s abilities, one’s limitations, one’s past.

It is to acknowledge responsibility for what has been—and for what is yet to come.

And in this, something remarkable happens.

Freedom becomes concrete.

Not as an abstract ideal, but as a lived reality. We do not simply possess freedom—we are, in a sense, sentenced to it. Condemned to choose. Condemned to take responsibility for our own lives.

This is not something we can step outside of. As Heidegger suggests, it is already woven into what it means to be a self.

A Quiet Ending

Perhaps the critical choice is not about finding the perfect option. Perhaps it is about choosing with honesty. With courage. With engagement.

And accepting that to live fully is also to live with tension—with uncertainty, with responsibility, and yes, sometimes with regret.

But also with freedom.

References

Heidegger, M. (1977) [1927]. Being and Time. Gesamtausgabe, Vol. 2. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann.

Heidegger, M. (1975). The Basic Problems of Phenomenology. Marburg lectures, summer 1927. Gesamtausgabe, Vol. 24. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann.

Heidegger, M. (2000) [1931/1932, 1940]. Plato’s Doctrine of Truth. Sandefjord: Epos. Translated into Norwegian by Kåre T. Pettersen.

Husted, J. (1999). Wilhelm’s Letters: The Ethical According to Kierkegaard. Copenhagen: Gyldendal.

Kierkegaard, S. (1962) [1843]. Either–Or, Vol. 2. Collected Works Vol. 3. Copenhagen: Gyldendal. (Published under the pseudonym Victor Eremita).

Kierkegaard, S. (1962) [1848]. The Point of View for My Work as an Author. Copenhagen: Gyldendal.

Kierkegaard, S. (1967). Journals and Papers, Vol. 1. Edited by H.V. Hong & E.H. Hong. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Niebuhr, R. (1951). The Serenity Prayer. In The Irony of American History. New York: Scribner. (The prayer was used earlier, but this is the most used reference)

Pettersen, K. T. (2001). Paths to Self-Understanding: Foundational Issues in Social Work. Oslo: Oslo University College. (A master´s thesis in Social Work)

Plato (1997). Ion. In J. M. Cooper (Ed.), Plato: Complete Works. Indianapolis: Hackett.

Sartre, J.-P. (1973) [1948]. Existentialism and Humanism. London: Methuen.

  

With what I have lived, and what I have understood so far—I take the next step.

This text is written by me, in conversation with OpenAI/ChatGPT