[.ca] Existentialism (ISBN 0075537117)

good, cheap existential dread, fits in your pocket:
This is a diverse and engaging collection of excerpts from a range of works, many of which I have never seen collected in "existentialist" compilations. A good cheap overview of the major writers. I believe these are still first edition paperbacks, and as far as I know, only Amazon.com still has them. So if you want it, you'd better get it now. And if you just want a single volume, inexpensive intro. to Existentialism, then this is what you want.

What it means to truly reflect.:
This is an fantastic display of Existentialism. It says anything and everything about the philosophy including the views of the Greats. I highly recommend this book to anyone unfamiliar with the topic or is anxious to learn more

Weak Translation:
Authors included are Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Hesse, Heidegger, Marcel, Jaspers, Kafka, Gide, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, de Beauvoir, Rieocer, Berdygev, Buber, Tillich, Pinter, Beckett, Mailer, Laing, Bellon Bach, Weiss, and Muller.

Good choice of selections:
_Existentialism_ includes excerpts from 26 existentialists, from a couple pages in length to over 40 in the case of Jean-Paul Sartre. These excerpts are each preceded by a brief biographical introduction. If the purpose of this book was to pique my interest in further reading of the included authors, it accomplished its purpose. I found myself really touched by the excerpts of Kierkegaard, for example, and have since read much more of him. Editing the work of these great thinkers, might on the surface, seem like a simple task, but now that I am more specifically aware of body of work by Kierkegaard and to a lesser extent, a few of the others, I appreciate the job Solomon did of selecting these texts. Athough I am pleased, I am sure Solomon didn't please everyone! Robert C. Solomon begins this book with a fine eleven page essay on existentialism. Here are a few excerpts: "It is a commonly accepted half-truth that existentialism is a revolt against traditional Western rationalistic philosophy. It is also a demonstrable half-truth that existentialist philosophy is very much a continuation and logical expansion of themes and problems in Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Marx, and Husserl. Existentialism is not simply a philosophy or philosophical revolt. Existentialist philosophy is an explicit conceptual manifestation of the existential attitude--a spirit of 'the present age.' It is a philosophical realization of self-conscious living in a 'broken world' (Marcel), an 'ambiguous world' (de Beauvoir), a 'dislocated world' (Merleau-Ponty)..." "So long as we think of philosophy as a set of (hopefully) true propositions, we will continue to be tempted by notions that philosophy can be a 'science,' that there is a correct way of doing philosophy, that philosophical judgement or body of judgement can be true. If instead we allow ourselves to think of philosophy as expression, these rigid demands seem pointless or vulgar." Some might consider it twinkish to read through a book of excerpts, but had there not been such a text, I don't think I would have been exposed to many of the writers that are featured. My appreciation and thanks goes to Robert C. Solomon.