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This book is a bit dangerous, because existentialism is dangerous. Existentialism is dangerous because it makes people feel more powerful than they are. There is not enough attention to social structures. In other words, there is not enough attention in existentialism to power. But the book is extremely well written. The biographies are rich and detailed. The understanding provided of the philosophical ideas, including very tricky such ideas like those of Heidegger, are reproduced well. It does a great job of describing the different forms of phenomenology. But I've stopped re-reading it (I was just reading it on loop for a while) because it makes me lose track of social structure and puts me too much into a mood of individualism.
Excellent. Cannot recommend enough if you want to read about existentialism in a sort of primer - was comparatively easy to understand - while learning about the context within which the discipline’s greatest tomes were written. I couldn’t put it down.
challenging
hopeful
informative
medium-paced
If allowed, I'd give this 4 1/2 stars. Not 5 only because, is anything perfect? Well, this book nearly is. For a little over 300 pages I lived with the great thinkers - certainly not all great people - of phenomenology and existentialism and I loved it. Philosophy with a light touch intertwined with biography which considering the ideas these people held about the primacy of our experience of the world (simple take on it on my part), makes tremendous sense. Enlightening, moving, and highly applicable to our world today.
The lives, loves & lessons of the existentialist set, from Sartre & Beauvoir to Camus. Less bio (although there’s plenty of that) than a mix of the people & philosophies that captivated Europe through much of the 20th century. The author makes a lively case to rescue existentialists from intellectual mothballs. (I guess they’ve fallen out of fashion lately.) But between “Being and Time” & “Being and Nothingness,” the arguments kinda sailed over my head. More fun are the anecdotal nuggets (Which philosopher was a Nazi?) that break up the deep thoughts.
informative
slow-paced
I picked it up soley because of the title - I didn't even look very closely at what I was buying; at first I didn't even know it was non-fiction. I'm glad I did so - it's not the book I would have chosen if I was making a conscious effort to look into existentialism, but it proved to be good. Normally I would not look to something so biographical for anything in the region of philosophy, but it brought the whole existentialist scene to life in a way that made me want to read more. I've read a few bits and pieces by writers of the scene, and always intended to read more of some of them (and always found something else to read instead), so I've always skirted around the existentialist clique, looking on with interest but never really engaging. This has motivated me to take a closer look.
wikipedia article in book form but i'd much rather read the wikipedia article
Luminous, entertaining, totally unpretentious treatment of some pretty challenging stuff.