Lev Isaakovich Shestov(Born in Kiev January 31, 1866 - Died November 19, 1938), variously known as Leon Shestov, Léon Chestov, Leo Shestov. A Ukrainian/Russian existentialist philosopher. Born in Kiev (Russian Empire). He emigrated to France in 1921, fleeing from the aftermath of the October Revolution. He lived in Paris until his death. Shestov's philosophy is, at first sight, not a philosophy at all: it offers no systematic unity, no coherent set of propositions, no theoretical explanation of philosophical problems. Most of Shestov's work is fragmentary. With regard to the form (he often used aphorisms) the style may be deemed more web-like than linear, and more explosive than argumentative. The author seems to contradict himself on every page, and even seeks out paradoxes. This is because he believes that life itself is, in the last analysis, deeply paradoxical, and not comprehensible through logical or rational inquiry. Shestov maintains that no theory can solve the mysteries of life. Fundamentally, his philosophy is not 'problem-solving', but problem-generating, with a pronounced emphasis on life's enigmatic qualities. His point of departure is not a theory, or an idea, but an experience, the experience of despair, which Shestov describes as the loss of certainties, the loss of freedom, the loss of the meaning of life. The root of this despair is what he frequently calls 'Necessity', but also 'Reason', 'Idealism' or 'Fate': a certain way of thinking (but at the same time also a very real aspect of the world) that subordinates life to ideas, abstractions, generalisations and thereby kills it, through an ignoring of the uniqueness and livingness of reality. Less