Existentialism

Thomas R. Flynn

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Arabic Language Translation Copyright 2014 Hindawi
Foundation for Education and Culture.
Existentialism
Copyright Thomas Flynn 2006.
Existentialism was originally published in English in 2006. This translation is
published by arrangement with Oxford University Press.
All rights reserved.

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(1) La Quinzaine Litteraire. ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2006.

122

Albert Camus, The Plague (New York: Vintage, 1991).
Pierre Hadot and Arnold Davidson, Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual
Exercises from Socrates to Foucault (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995).
Sren Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical
Fragments, tr. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1992).
, Papers and Journals: A Selection (London: Penguin Books, 1996).
Dermot Moran, Introduction to Phenomenology (London: Routledge, 2000).
Jean-Paul Sartre, Intentionality: A Fundamental Idea of Husserls Phenomenology, Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, 1 (2):
5.
, Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions (London: Routledge, 2002).
, What is Literature? And Other Essays (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1998).

Joakim Garff, Sren Kierkegaard: A Biography (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 2005).


Karl Jaspers, Basic Philosophical Writings (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1994).
Sren Kierkegaard, Either/Or, 2 vols., tr. Howard V. Hong and Edna H.
Hong (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987); an abridged
version in one volume, tr. Alastair Hannay (London: Penguin, 1992).
, Fear and Trembling and Repetition, tr. Howard V. Hong and Edna
H. Hong (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983).
, Stages on Lifes Way, tr. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988).
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ, Ecce Homo, Twilight of the Idols: And
Other Writings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
, Beyond Good and Evil (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2001).
Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism, in Walter Kaufmann
(ed.), Existentialism: From Dostoevsky to Sartre (London: Penguin
Plume, 1988).

Saul Bellow, Herzog (New York: Viking, 1961).
Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays (New York: Vintage,
1991).
Gabriel Marcel, The Philosophy of Existentialism (New York: Citadel, 1961).
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Battle over Existentialism, Sense and
Non-Sense (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1964).
Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).
, Thus Spoke Zarathustra (New York: Viking Compass, 1966).
Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness (New York: Citadel, 1984).

124


, Nausea (New York: New Directions, 1969).

Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity (New York: Citadel, 2000).
Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness (New York: Citadel, 1984).
, Notebooks for an Ethics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1992), pp. 474515.
Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilyich (New York: Bantam Books, 2004).

Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (New York: Knopf, 1989).
Karl Jaspers, The Future of Mankind (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1968).
, The Question of German Guilt (Bronx, NY: Fordham University
Press, 2001).
Sren Kierkegaard, Two Ages: The Age of Revolution and the Present Age.
A Literary Review (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978).
Gabriel Marcel, Man Against Mass Society (Chicago: Gateway, 1970).
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Humanism and Terror: The Communist Problem
(Somerset, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2000).
Rdiger Safranski, Martin Heidegger: Between Good and Evil (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1998).
Jean-Paul Sartre, The Condemned of Altona (New York: Vintage, 1963).

Zygmunt Bauman, Postmodern Ethics (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993).
Catherine Belsey, Poststructuralism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2002).

125


Jean Grondin, Introduction to Philosophical Hermeneutics (New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press, 1994).
Martin Heidegger, Letter on Humanism, Martin Heidegger: Basic Writings,
ed. David Krell (San Francisco: Harper, 1993).
Jean-Paul Sartre, Critique of Dialectical Reason, vol. 1 (London: Verso,
2002) and vol. 2 (London: Verso, 2006).
John Sturrock, Structuralism, 2nd edn. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003).

126

An older but still valuable introduction to existentialism is Irrational Man:
A Study in Existential Philosophy by William Barrett (New York: Anchor
Books, 1962, 2nd edn. 1990). Two helpful collections of writings by leading existentialist authors are Existentialism: Basic Writings, ed. Charles
Guignon and Derk Pereboom (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1995) and The
Existentialist Reader: An Anthology of Key Texts, ed. Paul S. MacDonald
(New York: Routledge, 2001). Someone wishing to pursue essays on the
basic concepts of existential and phenomenological thought by a variety
of authors, as well as existential and phenomenological contributions to a
number of topics in current philosophical discussion should consult Hubert L. Dreyfus and Mark A. Wrathall (eds.), A Companion to Existentialism
and Phenomenology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006).
Chapter-length essays on existentialism, phenomenology, and most
of the individual philosophers discussed here, along with helpful suggestions for further reading, are available in the Stanford Encyclopedia
of Philosophy, online at http://plato.stanford.edu. Relevant essays on individual philosophers can be found in The Macmillan Encyclopedia of
Philosophy, 2nd edn. (Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2006); The


Routledge History of Philosophy, especially vol. 7, The Nineteenth Century,
ed. C. L. Ten, and vol. 8, Continental Philosophy in the 20th Century, ed.
Richard Kearney (London: Routledge, 1994); The Edinburgh Encyclopedia
of Continental Philosophy, ed. Simon Glendinning (Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 1999); and A Companion to Continental Philosophy, ed.
Simon Critchley and William Schroeder (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998).

:
Those interested in this topic might consult Pierre Hadot, What is Ancient
Philosophy? (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), Michel Foucault, Fearless Speech (Los Angeles, CA: Semiotext(e), 2004), and Alexander Nehamas, The Art of Living: Socratic Reflections from Plato to Foucault
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998). Among the many arresting examples of the overlap between existential philosophy and imaginative literature are Fyodor Dostoevskys Notes from Underground (New
York: Penguin, 2004) and Franz Kafkas The Trial (New York: Schocken
Books, 1998), or its film version by Orson Welles (1963) with Anthony
Perkins (DVD). A concise introduction to the thought of Husserl is Robert
Sokolowskis Introduction to Phenomenology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).

:
A valuable survey of this topic is Becoming a Self: A Reading of
Kierkegaards Concluding Unscientific Postscript, by Merold Westphal
(West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1996). Individualizing
choice is a theme of Sartres play The Flies in No Exit and Three Other
Plays (New York: Vintage, 1989). Albert Camuss The Outsider (London:

128


Penguin, 1970), translated in America as The Stranger, is a classic
study of becoming an existentialist individual. Of the many existential
themes not treated here, alienation is certainly a major one. To fill this
gap, consider Richard Schmitts Alienation and Freedom (Boulder, CO:
Westview Press, 2003). An excellent biography of Nietzsche is provided
by Rdiger Safranski, Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography (New York:
Norton, 2002).

: :
A helpful historical survey is Tony Daviess Humanism (London: Routledge, 1997). For an introduction to atheistic or naturalist humanism, consider Richard Normans On Humanism (London: Routledge, 2004). For a
theistic critique, see Henri de Lubac, The Drama of Atheistic Humanism
(San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1995). Two relevant classics are Martin
BubersI and Thou (New York: Touchstone, 1996) and Paul Tillichs The
Courage to Be (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000).

:
A valuable overview is Jacob Golombs In Search of Authenticity:
From Kierkegaard to Camus (London: Routledge, 1995). The Ethics of
Authenticity by Charles Taylor (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1991) has rightly become an influential study of this topic by
a non-existentialist. Charles Guignons On Being Authentic (London:
Routledge, 2004) assesses the strengths and weaknesses of this concept
in an accessible manner. Two careful studies of this topic in Sartres
thought are Ronald E. Santonis Bad Faith, Good Faith, and Authenticity
in Sartres Early Philosophy (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995)

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and Joseph S. Catalanos Good Faith and Other Essays: Perspectives on
Sartres Ethics (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1996).

:
De Beauvoirs autobiography, especially Force of Circumstance, covering
194462 (New York: Putnam, 1965), and All Said and Done, covering
196272 (New York: Putnam, 1974), provides a first-hand account of
those years of the existentialist movement. William McBride, Sartres
Political Theory (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1991) offers
a thorough analysis of Sartres political thought throughout his life.
Thomas R. Flynn, Sartre and Marxist Existentialism: The Test Case of
Collective Responsibility (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984)
analyses Sartres social ontology. Many of Merleau-Pontys political
essays are reprinted in Sense and Non-Sense and in Signs (Evanston,
IL: Northwestern University Press, 1964, both texts). Daniel Conway
argues for the political significance of Nietzsches thought in Nietzsche
and the Political (New York: Routledge, 1996). Similarly, see Tracy B.
Strong, Friedrich Nietzsche and the Politics of Transfiguration (Urbana, IL:
University of Illinois Press, 2000).

:
A rich and useful study is Kierkegaard in Post/Modernity, ed. Martin
J. Matutk and Merold Westphal (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University
Press, 1995). The Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche, ed. Bernd Magnus
and Kathleen Higgins (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996)
contains several relevant essays. The collection Questioning Ethics:
Contemporary Debates in Continental Philosophy, ed. Richard Kearney

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and Mark Dooley (London: Routledge, 1999) brings existentialist concepts
and authors into the recent discussion either explicitly or by implication.
Gary Gutting, Foucault: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2005) introduces Sartre into the discussion, as does
Thomas R. Flynn, Sartre, Foucault and Historical Reason, 2 vols (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1997 and 2005).

131

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