E. M. Cioran
1911-1995 · Existentialism · Prominent
Cioran was a Romanian aphorist and philosopher of failure who settled in Paris and wrote in fragments, in French, about insomnia, decay and despair. Being born was the catastrophe, he held, and everything after it is detail. He made existence sound like a disaster in prose so keen that reading him lifts the mood he condemns. As a young man in Bucharest he cheered the fascist Iron Guard.
Signature
The position Cioran is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Meaning
- strongly leans Constructed
- Theology
- Atheism / Misotheism
Positions on the 2 axes the sources answer
- The Divine
- leans Indescribable (75 on a 0–100 scale from Describable to Indescribable)
- Meaning
- strongly leans Constructed (4 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
18 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Cioran refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Atheism / Misotheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Highest Good
- Other
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Moral Tragedy
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - End of Things
- Annihilation / Age of Decline
What is the ultimate end of all things? - Knowledge
- Skepticism
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Time
- Cyclical Return / Ancestral Time
What is the fundamental shape of time? - Death
- Annihilation
What happens at death? - Role of Emotion
- Cognitive Theory of Emotion
What is the proper role of emotion? - Human Nature
- Irredeemably Corrupted
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- Self
What is your primary bond and loyalty?