"Companions the creator seeks, not corpses, not herds and believers. Fellow creators the creator seeks - those who write new values on new tablets. Companions the creator seeks, and fellow harvesters; for everything about him is ripe for the harvest." --Friedrich Nietzsche

The philosophy of individual essence and freedom, culminating from the influence of many disparate writers in the 20th century. As a self-conscious movement, however, it is primarily a 20th-century phenomenon. Heidegger, Sartre, and Camus are often seen as existentialist philosophers but its characteristic features occur earlier, especially in Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, and Kierkegaard.

Hermeneutics initially came to be associated with the interpretation of biblical scripture, becoming a dominant movement within Protestant theology. But with the development of its principles and theory by, particularly, Heidegger and Gadamer, it became a distinctive philosophical movement in its own right and has come to be influential within the field of Literary Criticism. Very broadly speaking, philosophical hermeneutics is concerned with the process through which understanding may occur between/among two or more 'alien' others--whether alien due to religion, historical period, geography, language, generation, or any other cultural difference that imposes challenges to peaceful communication and mutual understanding. Thus, hermeneutics is of particular relevance for us in our global world where, at times, the clash of cultural misunderstanding devastates human communities with 'resounding gong(s).'

"Nihilism is the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated. It is often associated with extreme pessimism and a radical skepticism that condemns existence. A true nihilist would believe in nothing, have no loyalties, and no purpose other than, perhaps, an impulse to destroy. While few philosophers would claim to be nihilists, nihilism is most often associated with Friedrich Nietzsche who argued that its corrosive effects would eventually destroy all moral, religious, and metaphysical convictions and precipitate the greatest crisis in human history. In the 20th century, nihilistic themes--epistemological failure, value destruction, and cosmic purposelessness--have preoccupied artists, social critics, and philosophers. Mid-century, for example, the existentialists helped popularize tenets of nihilism in their attempts to blunt its destructive potential. By the end of the century, existential despair as a response to nihilism gave way to an attitude of indifference, often associated with antifoundationalism." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

"Phenomenology is a school of philosophy whose principal purpose is to study the phenomena, or appearances, of human experience while attempting to suspend all consideration of their objective reality or subjective association. The phenomena studied are those experienced in various acts of consciousness, mainly cognitive or perceptual acts, but also in such acts as valuation and aesthetic appreciation". - Grolier Encyclopedia

Philosophers who are identified as "Continental" thinkers.