Man, unlike the animal, is self-conscious. He is aware that he is alive and that he must die. And because he is self-conscious he is not only aware of living, but of living well or badly. Life is not according to values he follows. Human existence is a task. In the past two centuries or so of European philosophizing there have been a number of attempts to clarify this task: the Hegelian elevation of individual finitude into infinity in the Absolute: the Kierkegaardian life in in wardness; and the Heideggerian authentic life of preparation for the self revelation of Being, among others.