Rethinking Existentialism

Rethinking Existentialism PDF Author: Jonathan Webber
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191054763
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
In Rethinking Existentialism, 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.

Rethinking Existentialism

Rethinking Existentialism PDF Author: Jonathan Webber
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191054763
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 264

Get Book

Book Description
In Rethinking Existentialism, 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.

Rethinking Existentialism

Rethinking Existentialism PDF Author: Jonathan Mark Webber
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780191799853
Category : Existentialism
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
In 'Rethinking Existentialism', 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.

Rethinking Political Judgement

Rethinking Political Judgement PDF Author: Masa Mrovlje
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 147443715X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
The first book-length study to provide a detailed examination of a distinctive crossroads in the history of the left.

The Cambridge Companion to Camus

The Cambridge Companion to Camus PDF Author: Edward J. Hughes
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139827340
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 187

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Book Description
Albert Camus is one of the iconic figures of twentieth-century French literature, one of France's most widely read modern literary authors and one of the youngest winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature. As the author of L'Etranger and the architect of the notion of 'the Absurd' in the 1940s, he shot to prominence in France and beyond. His work nevertheless attracted hostility as well as acclaim and he was increasingly drawn into bitter political controversies, especially the issue of France's place and role in the country of his birth, Algeria. Most recently, postcolonial studies have identified in his writings a set of preoccupations ripe for revisitation. Situating Camus in his cultural and historical context, this 2007 Companion explores his best-selling novels, his ambiguous engagement with philosophy, his theatre, his increasingly high-profile work as a journalist and his reflection on ethical and political questions that continue to concern readers today.

The Religious Existentialists and the Redemption of Feeling

The Religious Existentialists and the Redemption of Feeling PDF Author: Anthony Malagon
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1498584772
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
Traditional philosophizing has generally depended upon reason as its primary access to truth. Subjective experiences such as feelings, the passions, and emotions have typically been viewed as secondary to reason, untrustworthy, or both. The Religious Existentialists and the Redemption of Feeling revisits how the movement of existentialism, via the religious existentialists, has contributed to a rethinking of the role of subjective experience, in contrast to the rationalist and idealist traditions, thus reframing the importance of feelings in general for the philosophical enterprise as a whole. Through the considerations of a variety of thinkers, this collection provides a fresh look at the contributions of twentieth-century existentialists, thereby re-contextualizing the very notion of existentialism, offering a powerful and genuine re-evaluation of the significance of subjectivity, and underscoring the continued relevance of the religious existentialists.

Situating Existentialism

Situating Existentialism PDF Author: Jonathan Judaken
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231519672
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 441

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Book Description
This anthology provides a history of the systemization and canonization of existentialism, a quintessentially antisystemic mode of thought. Situating existentialism within the history of ideas, it features new readings on the most influential works in the existential canon, exploring their formative contexts and the cultural dialogues of which they were a part. Emphasizing the multidisciplinary and global nature of existential arguments, the chosen texts relate to philosophy, religion, literature, theater, and culture and reflect European, Russian, Latin American, African, and American strains of thought. Readings are grouped into three thematic categories: national contexts, existentialism and religion, and transcultural migrations that explore the reception of existentialism. The volume explains how literary giants such as Dostoevsky and Tolstoy were incorporated into the existentialist fold and how inclusion into the canon recast the work of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, and it describes the roles played by Jaspers and Heidegger in Germany and the Paris School of existentialism in France. Essays address not only frequently assigned works but also underappreciated discoveries, underscoring their vital relevance to contemporary critical debate. Designed to speak to a new generation's concerns, the collection deploys a diverse range of voices to interrogate the fundamental questions of the human condition.

Rethinking Sartre

Rethinking Sartre PDF Author: John C. Carney
Publisher: University Press of America
ISBN: 9780761836889
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 144

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Book Description
This work reexamines Sartre's phenomenology from the perspective of contemporary debates in political theory with particular attention to the reemergence of theories of human nature. For Sartre, any construct that stood between the self and its direct encounter with the world was suspect. Sartre's version of direct realism is a strong refutation of the "new essentialism" that has emerged in recent years as a back-door invocation of theories of human nature. This book provides an account of the major ideas that inform the new essentialism and that serve to further identify it as other than what it claims to be, a scientific grounding of human behavior. Instead, from the perspective of Sartre's realism it is exposed as an abstract ideology. One aspect of this new essentialism has been its encouragement of ideological claims about human essences, historically and culturally derived attributes of individuals that, it is alleged, define individual human existence itself. Thus human freedom is diminished even while essentialist categories such as male aggression become an overlooked underpinning for political ideology. Sartre's later philosophical account of why essentialist theories of human nature are particularly damaging in relation to political theory is explained with an eye towards the current global danger wherein ideologies of human nature are increasingly masked as religion. Sartre's philosophy insists that the full exposition of human freedom and agency must be established first for only then can the life of history and culture enhance and not detract from the actualization of humanist goals. It explicates this concept first, through a study of Sartre's early article on Intentionality, and then the larger work, Transcendence of the Ego. A detailed account is given of Sartre's direct realism in which the intentional structure of consciousness emerges as evidence against essentialist claims of human nature. Professor Carney's analysis considers the way Sartre develops the concept of Intentional

Sartre, Nietzsche and Non-Humanist Existentialism

Sartre, Nietzsche and Non-Humanist Existentialism PDF Author: David Mitchell
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030431088
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 195

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Book Description
This book argues that existentialism’s concern with human existence does not simply make it another form of humanism. Influenced by Heidegger’s 1947 ‘Letter on Humanism’, structuralist and post-structuralist critics have both argued that existentialism is synonymous with a naïve ‘humanist’ idea of the subject. Such identification has led to the movement’s dismissal as a credible philosophy; this book aims to challenge such a view. Through a lucid and thought-provoking exploration of the concept of perversity in Sartre and Nietzsche, Mitchell argues that understanding the human as a ‘perversion’ of something other than itself allows us to have a philosophy of the human without the humanist subject. In short, through perversion, we can talk about the human as not merely having a relation to the world, but of being that relation. With an explicit defence of Sartre against the charge of humanism, accompanied by a novel and distinctive reinterpretation of Nietzsche, Mitchell recovers an existentialism that is at once both radical and philosophically relevant.

Existentialism: A Philosophical Inquiry

Existentialism: A Philosophical Inquiry PDF Author: Joel Smith
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000590070
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
Existentialism asks some of the most fundamental questions about human existence: What gives our lives meaning and value? What is it to choose freely? How do I live an authentic life? How should I relate to myself and to others? In this book Joel Smith introduces and assesses the arguments and controversies surrounding these questions in an engaging way, providing a superb introduction to this important and perennial philosophical subject. Connecting existentialist themes with contemporary questions in ethics, philosophy of action, and the emotions, he brings existentialism to life. He does so by focusing on a set of distinctively existentialist questions and themes, including race and gender, whilst at the same time engaging with the classic existentialist texts from Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, de Beauvoir, Fanon and others. The book is organised clearly around the following key topics: Life Subjectivity Meaning Freedom Angst Bad Faith Alienation Gender Race Authenticity Including chapter summaries and annotated further reading, Existentialism: A Philosophical Inquiry is the ideal starting point for anyone interested in this fascinating and important subject, in Philosophy as well as related disciplines such as Literature and Religion.

Monotheism and Existentialism

Monotheism and Existentialism PDF Author: Deborah Casewell
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108987907
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 134

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Book Description
Existentialism is often seen and at times parodied as the philosophy of individuality, authenticity, despair, and defiance in a godless world. However, it cannot be understood without reference to religion, and in particular the monotheism of Christianity. Even the existentialist slogan, 'existence precedes essence', is formulated in relation to monotheism. This Element will show that monotheism and existentialism are intertwined: they react to each other, and share content and concerns. This Element will set out a genealogy of existentialist thought; explore key atheistic and theistic existentialists; and argue that there are productive conversations to be had as regards key concepts such as freedom and authenticity, relationality, and ethics.