Date of Birth: 
About Herman Tønnessen
- Herman Tønnessen (24 July 1918 – 2001) was a Norwegian–Canadian philosopher and writer.
- Having studied with Arne Næss, in the years following the end of World War II he was affiliated with the Norwegian Institute for Social Research.
- In 1957 he became a professor of philosophy at the University of California, USA, a position he held until 1961, when he relocated to the University of Alberta, Canada.
- His primary influences were the pessimistic ideals of German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer and Norwegian biosophist Peter Wessel Zapffe.
- In his essay Happiness Is for the Pigs: Philosophy versus Psychotherapy (1966), he formulated his attempt to "out-Zapffe Zapffe", in rejecting the former's metaphysical theory that life is meaningless, and as a response to Zapffe's claim stated that life is not even meaningless.
- This idea is further elaborated in the book I Choose Truth (Jeg velger sannheten (1983)), a dialogue between Tønnessen and Zapffe in which they discuss the existential condition of humankind.
Read more at Wikipedia