Existentialism claims that propositions that directly refer to individuals depend on those individuals for their existence. I argue for two points regarding Existentialism. First, I argue that recent accounts of Existentialism run into difficulties accommodating the possibility of there being a lonely alien electron. This problem is distinct from one of the better-known alien problems—concerning iterated modal properties of aliens—and can’t be solved using a standard response to the iterated case. Second, though the lonely alien electron problem might seem to (...) be reason to reject the sort of Existentialist view at hand, there’s a plausible way to preserve the view: accept the existence of possible worlds that directly refer to individuals that don’t exist in those worlds. Such a solution might seem incompatible with Existentialism, but I show that Existentialists can avoid the incompatibility and should find the resulting view plausible. (shrink)

Existentialism, Second Edition concentrates on the "big four" existentialists - Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Sartre - while providing a strong sense of the breadth and variety of existentialist thought. In this edition, Solomon provides new translations of Kierkgaard, even more extensive Heidegger and Sartre selections, and bit more Nietzsche, as well as updated selections from a wide range of world authors. The resulting volume is an excellent introduction to the richness of existentialist thought and an outstanding sourcebook for the classic (...) existentialist texts. (shrink)

First published in 1990, _Existentialism_ is widely regarded as a classic introductory survey of the topic, and has helped to renew interest in existentialist philosophy. The author places existentialism within the great traditions of philosophy, and argues that it deserves as much attention from analytic philosophers as it has always received on the continent.

Existentialism enjoyed great popularity in the 1940s and 1950s, and has probably had a greater impact upon literature than any other kind of philosophy. The common interest which unites Existentialist philosophers is their interest in human freedom. Readers of Existentialist philosophy are being asked, not merely to contemplate the nature of freedom, but to experience freedom, and to practise it. In this survey, Mary Warnock begins by considering the ethical origins of Existentialism, with particular reference to Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, and (...) outlines the importance of a systematic account of man's connection with the world as expounded by Husserl. She discusses at length the common interests and ancestry of Existentialism in the works of Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Sartre, and offers some conclusions about the current nature and future of this committed and practical philosophy. This revised edition includes a postscript reviewing the status of Existentialism in the 1990s, and has a thoroughly updated bibliography. (shrink)

The author is concerned with steering existentialism in a positive direction, making it at once more rigorous as to method and more genuinely relevant to the human situation. In arguing that possibility is the fundamental mode and sense of human reality, he challenges the positions of other existentialists who, though they employ the concept of the possible as the basic tool of philosophical analysis, do so incoherently. By a careful and consistent use of this concept, he clarifies its relations with (...) those of inquiry, commitment, time, freedom and death. (shrink)

This book, first published in 1953, was one of the first written in English that attempted to provide a sympathetic analysis of the new movement of Existentialism. In the attempt to bring out what is of permanent value in what was at the time a study yet to gain academic recognition, it is a valuable work that presents a clear-eyed analysis from the ground up.

It was to correct common misconceptions about his thought that Jean-Paul Sartre, the most dominent European intellectual of the post-World War II decades, accepted an invitation to speak on October 29, 1945, at the Club Maintenant in Paris. The unstated objective of his lecture (“Existentialism Is a Humanism”) was to expound his philosophy as a form of “existentialism,” a term much bandied about at the time. Sartre asserted that existentialism was essentially a doctrine for philosophers, though, ironically, he was about (...) to make it accessible to a general audience. The published text of his lecture quickly became one of the bibles of existentialism and made Sartre an international celebrity. The idea of freedom occupies the center of Sartre’s doctrine. Man, born into an empty, godless universe, is nothing to begin with. He creates his essence—his self, his being—through the choices he freely makes (“existence precedes essence”). Were it not for the contingency of his death, he would never end. Choosing to be this or that is to affirm the value of what we choose. In choosing, therefore, we commit not only ourselves but all of mankind. This book presents a new English translation of Sartre’s 1945 lecture and his analysis of Camus’s _The Stranger_, along with a discussion of these works by acclaimed Sartre biographer Annie Cohen-Solal. This edition is a translation of the 1996 French edition, which includes Arlette Elkaïm-Sartre’s introduction and a Q&A with Sartre about his lecture. (shrink)

Existentialism was one of the leading philosophical movements of the twentieth century. Focusing on its seven leading figures, Sartre, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, de Beauvoir, Merleau-Ponty and Camus, this Very Short Introduction provides a clear account of the key themes of the movement which emphasized individuality, free will, and personal responsibility in the modern world. Drawing in the movement's varied relationships with the arts, humanism, and politics, this book clarifies the philosophy and original meaning of 'existentialism' - which has tended to (...) be obscured by misappropriation. Placing it in its historical context, Thomas Flynn also highlights how existentialism is still relevant to us today. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable. (shrink)

The pieces collected here are written by fifteen philosophers and one poet who have been influenced by Stephen Priest, or develop themes in Priest’s philosophy, or both. They include contributions from the United Kingdom, the USA, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Taiwan and Japan by authors working in range of traditions. Topics covered include philosophical method, the analytical/continental divide, the nature of the mind (or self, or soul), metaphysics, and the meaning of life. The volume also includes responses by Priest and an (...) intellectual biography, describing some of the life-experiences which caused Priest to become interested in philosophy, and to make the transition from existentialism to metaphysics. (shrink)

Existentialism and phenomenology seem, at first glance, to constitute one of those rare strands of modern Western philosophy that converges productively with feminism. They form a tradition that opposes abstract, rationalist thought and is instead committed to elucidating concrete, “lived experience,” including experiences of embodiment and emotion. As such, they anticipate much “second‐wave” feminist thought that criticizes abstraction, beginning from accounts of women's concrete experiences and emphasizing the importance of personal politics. However, feminists engaged with the tradition have also cautioned (...) that the main canonical figures remained ensconced in masculinism, since their allegedly generic accounts of “human existence” were tacitly grounded in male experience. During the 1980s interest in existentialism and phenomenology waned, as notions of women's experience increasingly came under suspicion with the poststructuralist, or “postmodern,” turn in feminism. But in the last few years interest has grown again, as theorists have sought insights from the tradition that might move theory beyond the impasses that postmodernism now seems to some to present. (shrink)

Provides an accessible and scholarly introduction to the core ideas of the existentialist tradition. Kevin Aho draws on a wide range of existentialist thinkers in chapters centering on the key themes of freedom, being-in-the-world, alienation, nihilism, anxiety and authenticity. He also addresses important but often overlooked issues in the canon of existentialism, with discussions devoted to the role of embodiment, the movement's contribution to ethics, politics, and environmental and comparative philosophies, as well as its influence on contemporary psychiatry and psychotherapy. (...) The enduring relevance of existentialism is shown by applying existentialist ideas to contemporary philosophical discussions of interest to a wide audience. The book covers secular thinkers such as Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Nietzsche, Sartre, Camus, and Beauvoir as well as religious authors, such as Buber, Dostoevsky, Marcel, and Kierkegaard"--Back cover. (shrink)

In this highly original book, Markus Gabriel presents 'Neo-Existentialism', an anti-naturalist view that holds that human mindedness consists in an open-ended proliferation of mentalistic vocabularies. Challenged by Charles Taylor, Andrea Kern and Jocelyn Benoist, Gabriel deftly refutes naturalism's metaphysical claim to epistemic exclusiveness.

Existentialism concerning singular propositions is the thesis that singular propositions ontologically depend on the individuals they are directly about in such a way that necessarily, those propositions exist only if the individuals they are directly about exist. Haecceitism is the thesis that what non-qualitative facts there are fails to supervene on what purely qualitative facts there are. I argue that existentialism concerning singular propositions entails the denial of haecceitism and that this entailment has interesting implications for debates concerning the philosophy (...) of language, the nature of propositions, and the metaphysics of modality. (shrink)

The canonical texts of the existentialist tradition were written and published before it became common to differentiate between sex and gender. Nonetheless, it has long been recognized that the work of thinkers associated with existentialism – especially, of course, Simone de Beauvoir – provides us with a useful framework for thinking through the complex terrain of gender identity, and indeed for interrogating and problematizing the sex/gender distinction itself.1 The relevance of existentialism to these issues more broadly, even beyond Beauvoir’s more (...) explicit engagement with them, becomes readily apparent when we consider the existentialists’ emphasis on the dynamic friction between freedom and constraint. For the figures explored in the present volume, the human condition is characterized by a simultaneous recognition of ourselves as, on the one hand, self-reflective agents burdened with choice and responsibility and, on the other, ineluctably social and inescapably vulnerable, factical creatures. These complicated dialectics, especially the ways in which they play out in our relation to our own bodies and projects, are only too clearly applicable to a set of phenomena that themselves involve such multifaceted interrelations between self and society, choice and normativity, and embodiment and culture that even defining ‘gender’ is a contested endeavour, arguably even more so today.2 In this context, gender – however defined – can be seen as a manifestation of what Beauvoir, even before she turned to the question of what it means to become ‘woman’, called our fundamental ambiguity (2018 [1947]). The aim of this chapter is to give an overview of those existentialist analyses that are most clearly relevant to discourses about gender. These are Sartre’s account of the body and his brief remarks about sexual differentiation, Beauvoir’s investigation of how one becomes ‘woman’ and Fanon’s explorations of the ways in which racialization and colonization shape how individuals experience and enact masculinity and femininity. (shrink)

Philosophy as a way of life -- Becoming an individual -- Humanism : for and against -- Authenticity -- A chastened individualism? Existentialism and social thought -- Existentialism in the twenty-first century.

It was to correct common misconceptions about his thought that Jean-Paul Sartre, the most dominent European intellectual of the post-World War II decades, accepted an invitation to speak on October 29, 1945, at the Club Maintenant in Paris. The unstated objective of his lecture was to expound his philosophy as a form of “existentialism,” a term much bandied about at the time. Sartre asserted that existentialism was essentially a doctrine for philosophers, though, ironically, he was about to make it accessible (...) to a general audience. The published text of his lecture quickly became one of the bibles of existentialism and made Sartre an international celebrity. The idea of freedom occupies the center of Sartre’s doctrine. Man, born into an empty, godless universe, is nothing to begin with. He creates his essence—his self, his being—through the choices he freely makes. Were it not for the contingency of his death, he would never end. Choosing to be this or that is to affirm the value of what we choose. In choosing, therefore, we commit not only ourselves but all of mankind. This book presents a new English translation of Sartre’s 1945 lecture and his analysis of Camus’s _The Stranger_, along with a discussion of these works by acclaimed Sartre biographer Annie Cohen-Solal. This edition is a translation of the 1996 French edition, which includes Arlette Elkaïm-Sartre’s introduction and a Q&A with Sartre about his lecture. (shrink)

A lively introduction to this celebrated philosophical tradition. -/- Existentialism pervades modern culture, yet if you ask most people what it means, they won’t be able to tell you. In this lively and topical introduction, Wartenberg reveals a vibrant mode of philosophical inquiry that addresses concerns at the heart of the existence of every human being. Wartenberg uses classic films, novels, and plays to present the ideas of now-legendary Existentialist thinkers from Nietzsche and Camus to Sartre and Heidegger and to (...) explore central concepts, including Freedom, Anxiety, and the Absurd. Special attention is paid to the views of Simone de Beauvoir and Franz Fanon, who use the theories of Existentialism to address gender and colonial oppression. (shrink)

Existentialism and Romantic Love investigates the thinking of five existential philosophers (Max Stirner, Soren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Simone de Beauvoir) to uncover fresh insights about what is wrong with our everyday ideas about romantic loving, why reality often falls short of the ideal, sources of frustrations and disappointments, and possibilities for creating authentically meaningful relationships.

Webber argues for a new interpretation of Sartrean existentialism. On this reading, Sartre is arguing that each person’s character consists in the projects they choose to pursue and that we are all already aware of this but prefer not to face it. Careful consideration of his existentialist writings shows this to be the unifying theme of his theories of consciousness, freedom, the self, bad faith, personal relationships, existential psychoanalysis, and the possibility of authenticity. Developing this account affords many insights into (...) various aspects of his philosophy, not least concerning the origins, structure, and effects of bad faith and the resulting ethic of authenticity. This discussion makes clear the contributions that Sartre’s work can make to current debates over the objectivity of ethics and the psychology of agency, character, and selfhood. Written in an accessible style and illustrated with reference to Sartre’s fiction, this book should appeal to general readers and students as well as to specialists. (shrink)

Jean-Paul Sartre is an undisputed giant of twentieth-century philosophy. His intellectual writings popularizing existentialism combined with his creative and artistic flair have made him a legend of French thought. His tumultuous personal life - so inextricably bound up with his philosophical thinking - is a fascinating tale of love and lust, drug abuse, high profile fallings-out and political and cultural rebellion. This substantial and meticulously researched biography is accessible, fast-paced, often amusing and at times deeply moving. Existentialism and Excess covers (...) all the main events of Sartre's remarkable seventy-five-year life from his early years as a precocious brat devouring his grandfather's library, through his time as a brilliant student in Paris, his wilderness years as a provincial teacher-writer experimenting with mescaline, his World War II adventures as a POW and member of the resistance, his post-war politicization, his immense amphetamine fueled feats of writing productivity, his harem of women, his many travels and his final decline into blindness and old age. Along the way there are countless intriguing anecdotes, some amusing, some tragic, some controversial: his loathing of crustaceans and his belief that he was being pursued by a giant lobster, his escape from a POW camp, the bombing of his apartment, his influence on the May 1968 uprising and his many love affairs. Cox deftly moves from these episodes to discussing his intellectual development, his famous feuds with Aron, Camus, and Merleau-Ponty, his encounters with other giant figures of his day: Roosevelt, Hemingway, Heidegger, John Huston, Mao, Castro, Che Guevara, Khrushchev and Tito, and, above all, his long, complex and creative relationship with Simone de Beauvoir. Existentialism and Excess also gives serious consideration to Sartre's ideas and many philosophical works, novels, stories, plays and biographies, revealing their intimate connection with his personal life. Cox has written an entertaining, thought-provoking and compulsive book, much like the man himself. (shrink)

This book explores what it means to exist in virtual worlds. Chiefly drawing on the philosophical traditions of existentialism, it articulates the idea that — by means of our technical equipment and coordinated practices — human beings disclose contexts or worlds in which they can perceive, feel, act, and think. More specifically, this book discusses how virtual worlds allow human beings to take new perspectives on their values and beliefs, and explore previously unexperienced ways of being. Virtual Existentialism will be (...) useful for scholars working in the fields of philosophy, anthropology, media studies, and digital game studies. (shrink)

There are already many excellent books on existentialism. Some of them deal with particular problem or particular existentialist writers. Most of those that deal with existentialism as a whole divide their subject-matter according to authors, presenting chapters on Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre, and the rest. Thus I think that there is room for the present book, which attempts a comprehensive examination and evaluation of existentialism, but does so by thematic treatment. That is to say, each chapter deals with a major theme (...) of existentialist philosophy, and these themes are arranged in the order of the existential dialect. Of course, each chapter is illustrated with material from the writings of existentialists, from Kierkegaard to Camus. (shrink)

Jonathan Webber articulates an original interpretation of existentialism as the ethical theory that human freedom is the foundation of all other values. Offering an original analysis of classic literary and philosophical works published by Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Frantz Fanon up until 1952, Webber's conception of existentialism is developed in critical contrast with central works by Albert Camus, Sigmund Freud, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. -/- Presenting his arguments in an accessible and engaging style, Webber contends that Beauvoir and Sartre (...) initially disagreed over the structure of human freedom in 1943 but Sartre ultimately came to accept Beauvoir's view over the next decade. He develops the viewpoint that Beauvoir provides a more significant argument for authenticity than either Sartre or Fanon. He articulates in detail the existentialist theories of individual character and the social identities of gender and race, key concerns in current discourse. Webber concludes by sketching out the broader implications of his interpretation of existentialism for philosophy, psychology, and psychotherapy. (shrink)

Cybernetic-Existentialism: Freedom, Systems, and Being-for-Others in Contemporary Art and Performance offers a unique discourse and an original aesthetic theory. It argues that fusing perspectives from the philosophy of Existentialism with insights from the 'universal science' of cybernetics provides a new analytical lens and deconstructive methodology to critique art. In this study, Steve Dixon examines how a range of artists' works reveal the ideas of Existentialist philosophers including Kierkegaard, Camus, de Beauvoir and Sartre on freedom, being and nothingness, eternal recurrence, the (...) absurd, and being-for-others. Simultaneously, these artworks are shown to engage in complex explorations of concepts proposed by cyberneticians including Wiener, Shannon, and Bateson on information theory and 'noise', feedback loops, circularity, adaptive ecosystems, autopoiesis, and emergence. Dixon's ground-breaking book demonstrates how fusing insights and knowledge from these two fields can throw new light on pressing issues within contemporary arts and culture, including authenticity, angst and alienation, homeostasis, radical politics, and the human as system. (shrink)

At the heart of this volume is the assertion that Sartrean existentialism, most prominent in the 1940s, particularly in France, is still relevant as a way of ...

Existentialism is compatible with a broadly biological vision of who we are. This thesis is grounded in an analysis of “concrete” or “individual” possibility, which differs from standard conceptions of possibility in that it allows for possibilities to come into being or disappear through time. Concrete possibilities are introduced both in individual life and by major transitions in evolution. In particular, the advent of ultrasociality and of language has enabled human goals to be formulated in partial independence from the vestigial (...) “goal” of biological replication. The existentialist stance is validated by the necessity of choice grounded in emotion, in a way that does not require a commitment to a Kantian Will. (shrink)

Have you ever wondered what the phrase “God is dead” means? You’ll find out in _Existentialism For Dummies_, a handy guide to Nietzsche, Sartre, and Kierkegaard’s favorite philosophy. See how existentialist ideas have influenced everything from film and literature to world events and discover whether or not existentialism is still relevant today. You’ll find an introduction to existentialism and understand how it fits into the history of philosophy. This insightful guide will expose you to existentialism’s ideas about the absurdity of (...) life and the ways that existentialism guides politics, solidarity, and respect for others. There’s even a section on religious existentialism. You’ll be able to reviewkey existential themes and writings. Find out how to: Trace the influence of existentialism Distinguish each philosopher’s specific ideas Explain what it means to say that “God is dead” See culture through an existentialist lens Understand the existentialist notion of time, finitude, and death Navigate the absurdity of life Master the art of individuality Complete with lists of the ten greatest existential films, ten great existential aphorisms, and ten common misconceptions about existentialism, _Existentialism_ _For Dummies_ is your one-stop guide to a very influential school of thought. (shrink)

This article analyses little-known short stories of modern Ukrainian writers Valerian Pidmohylny and Mykhailo Yatskiv in the context of the 20th century existentialism. It can be considered as a cultural phenomenon which combines philosophy with literature. Pidmohylny’s short stories were significantly influenced primarily by the ideas of the European philosophers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Therefore, we can search for similar motives in the works of Pidmohylny and the existentialists, which developed under the influence of the ideas (...) of Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche. Also, the authors consider Yatskiv’s short stories through the prism of the core concepts of existentialism, namely, fate and death. Pidmohylny and Yatskiv can be assigned to existential writers on the basis of retrospective analysis of the themes of their short stories and the thematic areas of 20th century existentialism. (shrink)

This chapter challenges the received doxa that the generation of ‘poststructuralist’ philosophers broke decisively with existentialism and rendered it out of date, a mere historical curiosity. Drawing on recent research in the area, it draws some lines of influence, and even argues for some surprising points of commonality, between existentialism and poststructuralism. At least some of the core philosophical ideas of poststructuralists such as Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida and Gilles Deleuze bear more in common with existentialism than is often supposed. (...) Furthermore, it addresses a common resistance to poststructuralism by committed existentialists by showing that poststructuralism does not abandon concern with responsibility and decision, but in fact develops these themes in ways that are proximate to existentialist concerns. Finally, it argues that some of the needs that some prominent contemporary philosophers find lacking in poststructuralism – in particular, the need for subjective agency – are already met in significant ways in existentialism. These three points serve to throw new light on the contemporary relevance of existentialism, and to open up new directions for research. (shrink)

This chapter examines the connections between French existentialism and politics. Fellow travellers like Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, and de Beauvoir saw themselves as engaging with two theoretical trajectories that for them dominated the mid-twentieth century intellectual milieu, one of which was ostensibly apolitical (phenomenology), the other of which involved a politicised understanding of philosophy (Marxism). Part of the motivation behind renewing phenomenology as existential phenomenology, as opposed to classical Husserlian phenomenology, was to allow them both to comprehend what was taking place during (...) World War Two and, related to this, to allow them to try to do justice to the Marxian insight that the point is not only to understand the world but also to change it. While there are some serious risks associated with any politicising of philosophy, this chapter highlights some of the central contributions of French existentialist politics, beginning with Sartre’s Being and Nothingness and the manner in which it at least appears to consign politics to an inessential realm, before considering the subsequent illuminations on historical and political matters proffered by his contemporaries, de Beauvoir and Merleau-Ponty. We conclude via consideration of Sartre’s Critique of Dialectical Reason, which perhaps was the culmination of existential Marxism, notwithstanding the subsequent contributions made by both Sartre and de Beauvoir. Central themes to be explored include the role of dialectical thinking in political theory, the failings that existentialists diagnosed at the heart of orthodox liberal and Marxist positions, and the specific contributions that they made in regard to issues to do with responsibility and dirty hands. (shrink)

This book discusses the work of the existential phenomenologists - Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty and de Beauvoir - and the final chapter looks at the legacy of existentialism upon the thought of Derrida and other post-structuralist thinkers.

This paper critically examines the philosophical foundations of Colin Wilson’s New Existentialism. I will show how Wilson’s writings promoted a phenomenological strategy for understanding states of ecstatic affirmation within so-called ‘peak experiences’. Wilson subsequently attempted to use the life affirming insights bestowed by peak states to establish an ontological ground for values to serve as a foundation for his New Existentialism. Because of its psychological focus however, I argue that Wilson’s New Existentialism contains an ambivalent framework for establishing ontological categories, (...) which leads his thought into theoretical difficulties. More precisely, Wilson’s strategy runs into problems in coherently integrating its explicitly psychological interpretation of Husserl’s theory of intentionality within a broader, and philosophically coherent, phenomenological framework. Wilson’s psychological reading of Husserl’s transcendental reduction, for example, manifests tensions in how it reconciles the empirical basis of acts of transcendence with an essentialist conception of the self as a transcendental ego. The above tensions, I argue, ultimately render the New Existentialism susceptible to criticism from a Husserlian-transcendental perspective. After outlining a Husserlian critique of Wilson’s position, I end the paper by suggesting how some of the central insights of the New Existentialism might help to bridge the gap that persists between pure phenomenological description and metaphysics. (shrink)

PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION THIS work, which is now for the first time presented to the American public, was written when Existentialism had ...

Existentialism, 2/e, offers an exceptional and accessible introduction to the richness and diversity of existentialist thought. Retaining the focus of the highly successful first edition, the second edition provides extensive material on the "big four" existentialists--Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Sartre--while also including selections from twenty-four other authors. Giving readers a sense of the variety of existentialist thought around the world, this edition also adds new readings by such figures as Luis Borges, Viktor Frankl, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Keiji Nishitani, and Rainer (...) Maria Rilke. Existentialism, 2/e, also features: New translations of Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Buber More extensive selections from Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Sartre New selections by Hazel E. Barnes, Miguel de Unamuno, Joseph Heller, Philip Roth, and Colin Wilson The Grand Inquisitor (from Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov) Ideal for undergraduate courses in existentialism and Continental philosophy, Existentialism, 2/e, is fascinating reading for anyone interested in the subject. (shrink)

The notion that Søren Kierkegaard is the “father of existentialism” is so widespread in popular culture that it requires little introduction. Less obvious, perhaps, is what this tagline might mean. This study focuses on five central themes in the existential tradition, comparing and contrasting Kierkegaard's treatment of them with those thinkers who inherit his thought: the self as a synthesis, despair as an imbalanced self‐interpretation, freedom and anxiety, the dialectic of recognition, and the autonomous choice of values.

In this enduring text, renowned philosopher Robert C. Solomon provides students with a detailed introduction to modern existentialism. He reveals how this philosophy not only connects with, but also derives from, the thought of traditional philosophers through the works of Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty.

There are two main accounts of what it is for external objects to be presented in visual experience. According to particularism, particular objects are built into the representational contents of experiences. Existentialism is a quite different view. According to existentialism, the representational contents of perceptual experiences are general rather than particular, in the sense that the contents can be fully captured by existentially quantified statements. The present paper is a defense of existentialism. It argues that existentialism is much better equipped (...) than particularism to explain the contents of hallucinations, and it defends existentialism against three objections. (shrink)

A wide range of decision-making models have been offered to assist in making ethical decisions in the workplace. Those that are based on normative moral frameworks typically include elements of traditional moral philosophy such as consequentialist and/or deontological␣ethics. This paper suggests an alternative model drawing on Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialism. Accordingly, the model focuses on making decisions in full awareness of one’s freedom and responsibility. The steps of the model are intended to encourage reflection of one’s projects and one’s situation and (...) the possibility of refusing the expectations of others. A case study involving affirmative action in South Africa is used to demonstrate the workings of the model and a number of strengths and weaknesses are identified. Despite several weaknesses that can be raised regarding existential ethics, the model’s success lies in the way that it reframes ethical dilemmas in terms of individual freedom and responsibility, and in its acceptance and analysis of subjective experiences and personal situations. (shrink)

"The compiling of a bibliography requires both a thorough knowledge of the subject . . . and the ability to discriminate effectively. Success depends as much on the clear definition of focus as on the evaluation of the texts considered. Orr succeeds on each count, thereby rendering an invaluable service to students and scholars alike. . . . Particularly interesting is the inclusion of works devoted to the interrelatedness of existentialism and the political and social sciences. And extremely helpful are (...) the notations referring the researcher to sections of a work either of particular significance or pertinent to a specific point of view. An excellent introduction emphasizes the movement away from the fundamental (ontological) concerns of existential thought. . . . Orr's effort to resituate the research within the original dimensions of existentialism and phenomenology as exploratory processes, as opposed to intellectual systems, is most commendable."FRENCH REVIEW. (shrink)

This essay utilizes the work of the comedy group, Monty Python, as a means of introducing basic concepts in Existentialism, especially as it pertains to the writings of Nietzsche, Sartre, and Camus.

Understanding Existentialism provides an accessible introduction to existentialism by examining the major themes in the work of Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty and de Beauvoir. Paying particular attention to the key texts, Being and Time, Being and Nothingness, Phenomenology of Perception, The Ethics of Ambiguity and The Second Sex, the book explores the shared concerns and the disagreements between these major thinkers. The fundamental existential themes examined include: freedom; death, finitude and mortality; phenomenological experiences and 'moods', such as anguish, angst, nausea, boredom, (...) and fear; an emphasis upon authenticity and responsibility as well as the denigration of their opposites ; a pessimism concerning the tendency of individuals to become lost in the crowd and even a pessimism about human relations more generally; and a rejection of any external determination of morality or value. Finally, the book assesses the influence of these philosophers on poststructuralism, arguing that existentialism remains an extraordinarily productive school of thought. (shrink)

Understanding Existentialism provides an accessible introduction to existentialism by examining the major themes in the work of Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty and de Beauvoir. Paying particular attention to the key texts, Being and Time, Being and Nothingness, Phenomenology of Perception, The Ethics of Ambiguity and The Second Sex, the book explores the shared concerns and the disagreements between these major thinkers. The fundamental existential themes examined include: freedom; death, finitude and mortality; phenomenological experiences and 'moods', such as anguish, angst, nausea, boredom, (...) and fear; an emphasis upon authenticity and responsibility as well as the denigration of their opposites ; a pessimism concerning the tendency of individuals to become lost in the crowd and even a pessimism about human relations more generally; and a rejection of any external determination of morality or value. Finally, the book assesses the influence of these philosophers on poststructuralism, arguing that existentialism remains an extraordinarily productive school of thought. (shrink)

Existentialism is a concern about the foundation of meaning, morals, and purpose. Existentialisms arise when some foundation for these elements of being is under assault. In the past, first-wave existentialism concerned the increasingly apparent inability of religion, and religious tradition, to provide such a foundation, as typified in the writings of Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, and Nietzsche. Second-wave existentialism, personified philosophically by Sartre, Camus, and de Beauvoir, developed in response to the inability of an overly optimistic Enlightenment vision of reason and the (...) common good to provide such a foundation. There is a third-wave existentialism, a new existentialism, developing in response to advances in the neurosciences that threaten the last vestiges of an immaterial soul or self. With the increasing explanatory and therapeutic power of neuroscience, the mind no longer stands apart from the world to serve as a foundation of meaning. This produces foundational anxiety. This collection of new essays explores the anxiety caused by this third-wave existentialism and some responses to it. It brings together some of the world’s leading philosophers, neuroscientists, cognitive scientists, and legal scholars to tackle our neuroexistentialist predicament and explore what the mind sciences can tell us about morality, love, emotion, autonomy, consciousness, selfhood, free will, moral responsibility, law, the nature of criminal punishment, meaning in life, and purpose. (shrink)

Essays culled from two former books by the leading French exponent of this philosophy.

A keen athlete in his late forties, philosophy professor Kevin Aho hadn't given much thought to his own mortality, until he suffered a sudden heart attack that left him fighting for his life. Confronted with death for the first time, he realized that the things he thought gave his life meaning, such as his independence or his ability to plan his own future, were in tatters. Aho turned to those thinkers who have reflected deeply on the meaning of life and (...) the anxiety of living when every heartbeat might be your last: the existentialists. Armed with insights from the likes of Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Nietzsche, and de Beauvoir, he found new meaning and comfort in a view of life that strives for authenticity and accepts aging and death as part of what makes life worthwhile. Existentialism asks us to face the frailty of our existence and to live with a sense of urgency and gratitude toward its manifold beauties. It is only then that we can be released from patterns of self-deception and begin to appreciate what truly matters in our fleeting, precious lives. (shrink)

Existentialism exerts a continuing fascination on students of philosophy and general readers. As a philosophical phenomenon, though, it is often poorly understood, as a form of radical subjectivism that turns its back on reason and argumentation and possesses all the liabilities of philosophical idealism but without any idealistic conceptual clarity. In this volume of original essays, the first to be devoted exclusively to existentialism in over forty years, a team of distinguished commentators discuss the ideas of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, (...) Merleau-Ponty and Beauvoir and show how their focus on existence provides a compelling perspective on contemporary issues in moral psychology and philosophy of mind, language and history. A further sequence of chapters examines the influence of existential ideas beyond philosophy, in literature, religion, politics and psychiatry. The volume offers a rich and comprehensive assessment of the continuing vitality of existentialism as a philosophical movement and a cultural phenomenon. (shrink)

Offering a critical examination of Lewis Gordon’s work by international scholars engaging in radical epistemological transformation for social change, this volume explores the importance of radical theory and thinkers to push for projects of change in the area of Black Existentialism.

Rethinking Existentialism, by WebberJonathan. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. 229.