In his magnum opus Being in Time (1927), Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) argued that individuals have assumed that their existence is "a given," when in actual fact they simply have the ability to be. Justifying Our Existence examines the ways in which human beings attempt to calm their existential concerns by magnifying and proving their existence through phenomena such as self-righteousness, careerism, nationalism, and religion.

Using remarkably accessible and concise writing, Graeme Nicholson provides a close reading of Heidegger's methods to indicate how his work has...