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4.22 AVERAGE
4.22 AVERAGE
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
This is a fantastic introduction to the varied philosophers who identify as Existentialist and who are related to that philosophy. The author does an admirable job of balancing biography and philosophy. The explanations of the concepts that are included are digestible without being dumbed down. The tangible examples of how this philosophy connects to the worlds and how the ideas connected to the philosophers experience make the concepts come alive.
A few criticisms...
The author has a dismissive, simplistic understanding of Marxism-- and a very "end of history" view of socialism, as a failed belief system proven by history. She only address the most general definitions of socialism without its deep philosophic and political implications. She harshly criticizes any of the philosophers, Sartre in particular, who believed in Marxism. This is odd especially when one considers how much grace she is willing to offer Heidegger for his Nazism. Her dismissal of socialism leads her to grossly misrepresent the German Revolution and the way that the proto-fascists blamed the Socialists for the failing of the German government of the Kaiser. another significant misrepresentation that the authors anti-marxism leads to is in her explanation of Sartre's support of the "the least favored". The post-colonial movements that this often was in reference to were often Marxists movements: China, Cuba, Palestine, and others. I can't help but feel that the author's understanding of Socialism comes only through having read about Marx and not having read the source material, let alone Lenin, Mao, or other post-marxists. All of this leads me to roll my. eyes and grit my teeth when ever the author questions philosophers who had strong held convictions and lived their political philosophies a bit more actively than her.
Connected to this point is the author's generosity for Heidegger and harsh criticism for Sartre. Every mistake that Sartre made is laid out in detail and his politics and laughed at. Meanwhile Heidegger is just this silly little guy who supported a regime that sent people to death camps.
This is the other point that I think gets missed when the topic of the break up of the relationships between many of the friendships comes up. The author talks about how at first DeBeauvoir and Sartre were willing to be friends with people of differing political views, but as time goes on they blinded themselves with ideology and could no longer be friends with people with different ideas. To quote Abigale Thorn,
"If you're a fascist and anti-fascists come for you, you have a choice. You can give it up. You can apologise, renounce what you said, say "I'm sorry, I'm gonna retire and read a load of books and understand why I was wrong." Alternatively, you could just go on with the rest of your life and stop turning up at fascist rallies. And anti-fascists probably aren't gonna buy you a pint and be your best friend, but they'll move on.
A few criticisms...
The author has a dismissive, simplistic understanding of Marxism-- and a very "end of history" view of socialism, as a failed belief system proven by history. She only address the most general definitions of socialism without its deep philosophic and political implications. She harshly criticizes any of the philosophers, Sartre in particular, who believed in Marxism. This is odd especially when one considers how much grace she is willing to offer Heidegger for his Nazism. Her dismissal of socialism leads her to grossly misrepresent the German Revolution and the way that the proto-fascists blamed the Socialists for the failing of the German government of the Kaiser. another significant misrepresentation that the authors anti-marxism leads to is in her explanation of Sartre's support of the "the least favored". The post-colonial movements that this often was in reference to were often Marxists movements: China, Cuba, Palestine, and others. I can't help but feel that the author's understanding of Socialism comes only through having read about Marx and not having read the source material, let alone Lenin, Mao, or other post-marxists. All of this leads me to roll my. eyes and grit my teeth when ever the author questions philosophers who had strong held convictions and lived their political philosophies a bit more actively than her.
Connected to this point is the author's generosity for Heidegger and harsh criticism for Sartre. Every mistake that Sartre made is laid out in detail and his politics and laughed at. Meanwhile Heidegger is just this silly little guy who supported a regime that sent people to death camps.
This is the other point that I think gets missed when the topic of the break up of the relationships between many of the friendships comes up. The author talks about how at first DeBeauvoir and Sartre were willing to be friends with people of differing political views, but as time goes on they blinded themselves with ideology and could no longer be friends with people with different ideas. To quote Abigale Thorn,
"If you're a fascist and anti-fascists come for you, you have a choice. You can give it up. You can apologise, renounce what you said, say "I'm sorry, I'm gonna retire and read a load of books and understand why I was wrong." Alternatively, you could just go on with the rest of your life and stop turning up at fascist rallies. And anti-fascists probably aren't gonna buy you a pint and be your best friend, but they'll move on.
And the historical evidence supports this: when fascists in a particular city stop getting together and organising anti-fascists go back to their lives as well. In fact, some anti-fascists engage with fascists and provide services to try and get them out of the movement, so they can get on and move on with their lives.
But if you're a person of colour, if you're trans, or a person with a disability, or gay, or Jewish, or whatever and fascists come for you, there is nothing you can do that can make them happy, except stop existing.
That's the key ideological difference between the Far Left and the Far Right, anti-fascists organise themselves against those that a building fascism, not those who have fascist sympathies, or fascist thoughts in the privacy of their own heads, but those who are choosing to be out in public building a fascist government, and if you're doing that, that is something you can non-violently stop doing. If you're a political enemy of antifa, you can become a friend.
If you're a political enemy of fascism though, either they lose or you die."
Introduction and more to the lives and thinking and interconnections of various of the phenomological and existentialist philosophical schools. Cleanly constructed with so delicate digressions and callbacks throughout to retain engagement.
This book made me fall in love with philosophy all over again.
This book made me fall in love with philosophy all over again.
A great entry point into the world of philosophy that circles around Sartre not only sharing in his life and thought but also those of his contemporaries and their influences too. Excellent stuff.
took waayyy too long to finish it. but it was worth every second ❤️
4.5
My first look into philosophy and it was a fantastic one. Not having one clue about any sort of philosophy, this was a good starting step.
Bakewell laid out the history of existentialism perfectly and intertwined a fantastic story within. Now it being a philosophy book, I had to do a lot of rereading and at times it was just quite confusing. Now this is the reason my score is only a 4.5. Now Bakewell does a fantastic job of trying to make it as easy as possible, but at times I feel some confusing things were not explained greatly. I am planning on coming back to this book in the future, when I have then read more philosophical texts.
I feel practice is needed with reading philosophy because it asks for a different type of thinking, and when I can then do that much more smoother this book will be far more enjoyable. In doing so it will bump up this score.
Recommended to someone with and with out a philosophy background.
My first look into philosophy and it was a fantastic one. Not having one clue about any sort of philosophy, this was a good starting step.
Bakewell laid out the history of existentialism perfectly and intertwined a fantastic story within. Now it being a philosophy book, I had to do a lot of rereading and at times it was just quite confusing. Now this is the reason my score is only a 4.5. Now Bakewell does a fantastic job of trying to make it as easy as possible, but at times I feel some confusing things were not explained greatly. I am planning on coming back to this book in the future, when I have then read more philosophical texts.
I feel practice is needed with reading philosophy because it asks for a different type of thinking, and when I can then do that much more smoother this book will be far more enjoyable. In doing so it will bump up this score.
Recommended to someone with and with out a philosophy background.
This book left such a strong impression on me. Can't recommend it enough. Bakewell tells the stories of key existentialist thinkers, weaving together the history that they lived through in the twentieth century with the key parts of their personal lives that interacted with and influenced their ideas and philosophy. As someone who did not know much about existentialism prior to read the book, I found it to be the ideal primer: accessible, thought-provoking, engrossing. I wanted to start the book over right when I finished it...found it to be that good. It gave me a language and historical foundation to think about lots of the terms and emotions that we think of as normal and take for granted now, like the notions of being "genuine" and "authentic," "anxiety" "powerlessness", etc.
And since I'm writing this after being sheltered at home for the past month under quarantine, this book hit at just the right time, provoking as it does lots of ideas about existence, consciousness, and how to think about and observe the seemingly banal details of everyday life.
This passage relates to what we may all be experiencing due to COVID-19 right now:
"Mostly we don’t see the fundamental problem of life because we don’t stop to think about it. We get up, commute, work, eat, work, commute, eat, sleep. But occasionally a breakdown occurs, a Chandos-like moment in which a beat is skipped and the question of purpose arises. At such moments, we experience ‘weariness tinged with amazement’, as we confront the most basic question of all: why exactly do we go on living?"
Some of the ideas and quotations from Maurice Merleau-Ponty, a philosopher who I had never heard of prior to reading the book, made the biggest impression on me. Here are two:
“I am a psychological and historical structure. Along with existence, I received a way of existing, or a style. All of my actions and thoughts are related to this structure, and even a philosopher’s thought is merely a way of making explicitly his hold upon the world, which is all he is. And yet, I am free, not in spite of or beneath these motivations, but rather by their means. For that meaningful life, that particular signification of nature and history that I am, does not restrict my access to the world; it is rather my means of communicating with it.”
and
“A philosopher is marked by the distinguishing trait that he possesses inseparably the taste for evidence and the feeling for ambiguity. A constant movement is required between these two—a kind of rocking motion ‘which leads back without ceasing from knowledge to ignorance, from ignorance to knowledge.’"
And since I'm writing this after being sheltered at home for the past month under quarantine, this book hit at just the right time, provoking as it does lots of ideas about existence, consciousness, and how to think about and observe the seemingly banal details of everyday life.
This passage relates to what we may all be experiencing due to COVID-19 right now:
"Mostly we don’t see the fundamental problem of life because we don’t stop to think about it. We get up, commute, work, eat, work, commute, eat, sleep. But occasionally a breakdown occurs, a Chandos-like moment in which a beat is skipped and the question of purpose arises. At such moments, we experience ‘weariness tinged with amazement’, as we confront the most basic question of all: why exactly do we go on living?"
Some of the ideas and quotations from Maurice Merleau-Ponty, a philosopher who I had never heard of prior to reading the book, made the biggest impression on me. Here are two:
“I am a psychological and historical structure. Along with existence, I received a way of existing, or a style. All of my actions and thoughts are related to this structure, and even a philosopher’s thought is merely a way of making explicitly his hold upon the world, which is all he is. And yet, I am free, not in spite of or beneath these motivations, but rather by their means. For that meaningful life, that particular signification of nature and history that I am, does not restrict my access to the world; it is rather my means of communicating with it.”
and
“A philosopher is marked by the distinguishing trait that he possesses inseparably the taste for evidence and the feeling for ambiguity. A constant movement is required between these two—a kind of rocking motion ‘which leads back without ceasing from knowledge to ignorance, from ignorance to knowledge.’"
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
emotional
funny
informative
reflective
medium-paced