Product Description

Existentialism was one of the leading philosophical movements of the twentieth century. Focusing on its seven leading figures, Sartre, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, de Beauvoir, Merleau-Ponty and Camus, this Very Short Introduction provides a clear account of the key themes of the movement which emphasized individuality, free will, and personal responsibility in the modern world. Drawing in the movement's varied relationships with the arts, humanism, and politics, this book clarifies the philosophy and original meaning of 'existentialism' - which has tended to be obscured by misappropriation. Placing it in its historical context, Thomas Flynn also highlights how existentialism is still relevant to us today.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #65454 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

About the Author
Thomas Flynn is Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Philosophy at Emory University. He is a specialist in contemporary continental philosophy, aesthetics and social and political philosophy. His previous publications include Sartre and Marxist Existentialism: The Test Case of Collective Responsibility (Chicago 1986) and Sartre, Foucault, and Historical Reason (Vols. I & II; Chicago, 1997, 2005).

Customer Reviews

A GREAT INTRODUCTION TO THIS/THESE SCHOOL(S) OF THOUGHT
Couldn't agree less with the other reviewer. Hence, the five-star rating. As an area of thought that had always interested me but had yet to be looked at in any depth, I found this book a great - as it says on the tin - introduction to the area. Yes, you can't just skim through it in a couple of hours and know enough to hold your own in a brief existentialist chit-chat but, with a little effort, you get quite a lot out of a little package, and I think the author deserves a lot of credit for that.

So, yes, although it is an introduction, it isn't a dumbed-down text, but one that provides a nice background and foundation for anyone approaching this area for the first time and, as such, is highly recommended.

Give this one a miss ...
I'm afraid that I, for one, was deeply disappointed with this offering from the frequently excellent "Very Short Introduction" series, and now bitterly regret buying it. The style of writing is suffocatingly dense, leaden and dreary: the history of existentialism and existentialist thought itself makes for a fascinating story in the right hands. These are not the right hands, and in fact it seems as though the author is going out of his way to make existentialism seem as cataclysmically dry and tedious as possible, making the book a "Very Short Introduction" to something almost unendurably boring. One star merely because (for some reason) Amazon still doesn't allow reviewers to give a book zero stars. The reader genuinely interested in a good overview of existentialism would do infinitely better in tracking down John MacQuarrie's magnificent book - now out of print, I believe, but still findable.

Good but incomplete Intro
A very good point of this book is the first part which links the ancient stoics with the 19th and 20th century existentialists.

This is a good intro and a mediocre read that starts out pretty good but kind of looses itself along the way. Also it tends to focus very much on the French thinkers of the 20th century towards the end, almost missing the American existentialists along the way.

IMO this book could use an update covering (1) the american sucessors to the french thinkers and (2) an account of the resurgence of existentialism in the 21st century.