Description
With its emphasis on individuality, freedom, and personal responsibility, existentialism was one of the 20th century’s most significant philosophical movements. Through such writers as Sarte, de Beauvoir, and Camus, it influenced literature, the arts and humanities, and politics. Thomas R. Flynn examines the philosophy’s core beliefs, focusing on several key existential themes, and introduces the leading existentialist thinkers, from Kierkegaard and Nietzsche to Sartre.
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Flynn (philosophy, Emory U., US) introduces the actual philosophical dimensions of existentialism, to augment the common view of it as a cultural phenomenon centering on Sartre and Beauvoir in post-war Paris. Though its emergence in that time and place shaped it of course, he says, its manner of doing philosophy and way of addressing issues that matter in people's lives are as old as philosophy itself, and maybe older. Among his topics are becoming an individual, arguments for and against humanism, authenticity, existentialism and social thought, and existentialism in the 21st century. The first edition was published by Oxford University Press in 2006; this second is illustrated. Annotation ©2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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