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Beginner's Guide (Oneworld Publications)
Existentialism
A lively introduction to this celebrated philosophical tradition.
Existentialism pervades modern culture, yet if you ask most people what it means, they won’t be able to tell you. In this lively and topical introduction, Wartenberg reveals a vibrant mode of philosophical inquiry that addresses concerns at the heart of the existence of every human being. Wartenberg uses classic films, novels, and plays to present the ideas of now-legendary Existentialist thinkers from Nietzsche and Camus to Sartre and Heidegger and to explore central concepts, including Freedom, Anxiety, and the Absurd. Special attention is paid to the views of Simone de Beauvoir and Franz Fanon, who use the theories of Existentialism to address gender and colonial oppression.
Existentialism pervades modern culture, yet if you ask most people what it means, they won’t be able to tell you. In this lively and topical introduction, Wartenberg reveals a vibrant mode of philosophical inquiry that addresses concerns at the heart of the existence of every human being. Wartenberg uses classic films, novels, and plays to present the ideas of now-legendary Existentialist thinkers from Nietzsche and Camus to Sartre and Heidegger and to explore central concepts, including Freedom, Anxiety, and the Absurd. Special attention is paid to the views of Simone de Beauvoir and Franz Fanon, who use the theories of Existentialism to address gender and colonial oppression.
224 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2008
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About the author
Thomas E. Wartenberg
29 books18 followersThomas E. Wartenberg, Ph. D., is a philosophy professor at Mount Holyoke College. His main areas of active research are the philosophy of film, philosophy for children, and the philosophy of art.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
November 12, 2022
What a name. Existentialism. Too long for most people. They’d fall asleep after the second syllable. Ex-ist-zzzz. That’s most people’s reaction.
The existentialists like to make a big hoo-hah about some pretty obvious stuff, but then they spend a lot of chatter in ignoring some obvious stuff about the obvious stuff if you get my drift. So they say that people are not rocks or animals. This is a point they make. Well any child knows this. And they say like this, rocks don’t know they’re rocks, animals likewise, but we know we are people. And, like a rock cannot but fall when part of an avalanche, and a dog cannot but chase at the cat or ball. However, we people do not have to do these things because we can stop and think … nah, not today man. This means we are free. And, there’s more : we people don’t like to be free, it’s like this dreadful burden. It’s what I’m like on holiday. I don’t like working but at least in the office I know what I’m supposed to be doing.
Okay, the obvious things to say about this obvious stuff is that in theory we people are free to do stuff – you can jack your tiresome job today, tell your boss you never liked his manners or his flappy jowls and just mooch on out of there. Just like in American Beauty and umpteen other male mid life crisis movies. But see unless you just wrote a hit book or top tune, you just have to go and get another job. So you ain’t free. People life is cram full of dire necessities. See here:
Chocoholics beware! Existentialists will not accept your addiction to chocolate as an excuse: you could have refrained from eating that delicious piece of chocolate cake if you had chosen to. Why? Because, as Sartre would put it, there was nothing in your nature as a consciousness that required you to be a “cake-eater”.
I note that they used chocolate and not crack cocaine here as an example. Does Sartre deny the addictive properties of crack? We’ll never know as he was dead before it hit the streets.
Sartre seems to think that we people are never feeling genuine emotion because we are conscious of the motion of the emotion as soon as we get it and therefore too self-conscious to get into it 100%. In this also he is somewhat idiotic as he did not notice that many people are overwhelmed by emotion all the time and never stop to light a Gauloise and think about being overwhelmed. To prove this all you have to do is watch the news or live with a 17 year old daughter* or play Stay with me Baby by Lorraine Ellison. She was really into the moment, there. No Gauloise.
Existentialists like Heidegger liked to jazz their philosophy with cute phrases like “everyone is the other and no one is himself” and “a for-itself conscious is a no-thing” and they like to describe human society as a bunch of alienated inauthentic daseins confronting the they. Well, I can get behind all that. Every in-crowd has its cool expressions, so no different here.
Descartes was very skeptical and said all you could be sure of was that you could think but Heidegger said no man, that’s too cold. There is many other people (that are called daseins) out there. It’s just you stay in your room and you don’t see that. Heidegger did not feel Descartes.
Chapter 5 is called finitude. In this chapter Leibniz’s philosophy comes gliding into view, a foul barquentine bearing a smiley face flag. Wartenburg, named most appositely after Hamlet’s university, says
Given the amount of pain and suffering that exists in our world, it is hard to accept Leibniz’s claim that this is the best of all possible worlds.
For real. The philosopher Leibniz was some potato head, coming up with trash like that. If it wasn’t that the Christians of the 18th century were wanting some fast food justifications of God I can imagine Leibniz being given a broom and told to sweep the best of all possible streets for the rest of his working life. If this book is a fair representation of Leibniz then his disrespect of humanity was so monumental it should have been a theme park & would have dwarfed the Grand Canyon.
Existentialists liked to get rid of God because that’s like obvious but they took a step further and got rid of rational thought. Nah, they said, rational thought is just Vanilla God. Camus said
One must imagine Sisyphus is happy.
You know, the boulder guy. Well, Sisyphus was not on holiday, so I can see that.
One thing I do like about these thinkers is that they thought that the other guys were completely wrong. It was like, cool philosophy, Camus, but totally wrong. Couldn’t be wronger. That was Thomas Nagel. He thought scorn was not the way. (Camus promoted being scornful. He said the boulder guy was happy, but scornful of Zeus.) It seems these existentialists were very keen to get the right attitude to life. When you buy your groceries you should realize the absurdity of this act, but take it seriously, and be scornful of Zeus, and not believe in God or rational thought, and that groceries are Kafkaesque. I regret that none of these existential philosophers lived long enough to take part in a reality tv show. That would have been a hoot. The Sartres. Thinking with the Stars. Strictly Come Beckett. I like that the existentialists think that you should live an authentic life by doing what you want to do and stuff everyone else. This is good when it comes to Joe Strummer dropping out of Eton to form The Clash but not so good when it comes to Jeffrey Dahmer. He was an authentic guy but the results were challenging.
Sometimes it seems that this school of philosophy boils down to saying well kid, there are no hard and fast rules to life, you just have to figure it out yourself. But that doesn’t make my dad an existentialist. He wouldn’t have known a dasein from an inauthentic They.
*Like tonight, she was in despair about her maths revision, I mean like despair, but then I said my friend at work can download the new series of Glee, which you cannot see in Britain for some unknown reason, and that made her authentically happy
The existentialists like to make a big hoo-hah about some pretty obvious stuff, but then they spend a lot of chatter in ignoring some obvious stuff about the obvious stuff if you get my drift. So they say that people are not rocks or animals. This is a point they make. Well any child knows this. And they say like this, rocks don’t know they’re rocks, animals likewise, but we know we are people. And, like a rock cannot but fall when part of an avalanche, and a dog cannot but chase at the cat or ball. However, we people do not have to do these things because we can stop and think … nah, not today man. This means we are free. And, there’s more : we people don’t like to be free, it’s like this dreadful burden. It’s what I’m like on holiday. I don’t like working but at least in the office I know what I’m supposed to be doing.
Okay, the obvious things to say about this obvious stuff is that in theory we people are free to do stuff – you can jack your tiresome job today, tell your boss you never liked his manners or his flappy jowls and just mooch on out of there. Just like in American Beauty and umpteen other male mid life crisis movies. But see unless you just wrote a hit book or top tune, you just have to go and get another job. So you ain’t free. People life is cram full of dire necessities. See here:
Chocoholics beware! Existentialists will not accept your addiction to chocolate as an excuse: you could have refrained from eating that delicious piece of chocolate cake if you had chosen to. Why? Because, as Sartre would put it, there was nothing in your nature as a consciousness that required you to be a “cake-eater”.
I note that they used chocolate and not crack cocaine here as an example. Does Sartre deny the addictive properties of crack? We’ll never know as he was dead before it hit the streets.
Sartre seems to think that we people are never feeling genuine emotion because we are conscious of the motion of the emotion as soon as we get it and therefore too self-conscious to get into it 100%. In this also he is somewhat idiotic as he did not notice that many people are overwhelmed by emotion all the time and never stop to light a Gauloise and think about being overwhelmed. To prove this all you have to do is watch the news or live with a 17 year old daughter* or play Stay with me Baby by Lorraine Ellison. She was really into the moment, there. No Gauloise.
Existentialists like Heidegger liked to jazz their philosophy with cute phrases like “everyone is the other and no one is himself” and “a for-itself conscious is a no-thing” and they like to describe human society as a bunch of alienated inauthentic daseins confronting the they. Well, I can get behind all that. Every in-crowd has its cool expressions, so no different here.
Descartes was very skeptical and said all you could be sure of was that you could think but Heidegger said no man, that’s too cold. There is many other people (that are called daseins) out there. It’s just you stay in your room and you don’t see that. Heidegger did not feel Descartes.
Chapter 5 is called finitude. In this chapter Leibniz’s philosophy comes gliding into view, a foul barquentine bearing a smiley face flag. Wartenburg, named most appositely after Hamlet’s university, says
Given the amount of pain and suffering that exists in our world, it is hard to accept Leibniz’s claim that this is the best of all possible worlds.
For real. The philosopher Leibniz was some potato head, coming up with trash like that. If it wasn’t that the Christians of the 18th century were wanting some fast food justifications of God I can imagine Leibniz being given a broom and told to sweep the best of all possible streets for the rest of his working life. If this book is a fair representation of Leibniz then his disrespect of humanity was so monumental it should have been a theme park & would have dwarfed the Grand Canyon.
Existentialists liked to get rid of God because that’s like obvious but they took a step further and got rid of rational thought. Nah, they said, rational thought is just Vanilla God. Camus said
One must imagine Sisyphus is happy.
You know, the boulder guy. Well, Sisyphus was not on holiday, so I can see that.
One thing I do like about these thinkers is that they thought that the other guys were completely wrong. It was like, cool philosophy, Camus, but totally wrong. Couldn’t be wronger. That was Thomas Nagel. He thought scorn was not the way. (Camus promoted being scornful. He said the boulder guy was happy, but scornful of Zeus.) It seems these existentialists were very keen to get the right attitude to life. When you buy your groceries you should realize the absurdity of this act, but take it seriously, and be scornful of Zeus, and not believe in God or rational thought, and that groceries are Kafkaesque. I regret that none of these existential philosophers lived long enough to take part in a reality tv show. That would have been a hoot. The Sartres. Thinking with the Stars. Strictly Come Beckett. I like that the existentialists think that you should live an authentic life by doing what you want to do and stuff everyone else. This is good when it comes to Joe Strummer dropping out of Eton to form The Clash but not so good when it comes to Jeffrey Dahmer. He was an authentic guy but the results were challenging.
Sometimes it seems that this school of philosophy boils down to saying well kid, there are no hard and fast rules to life, you just have to figure it out yourself. But that doesn’t make my dad an existentialist. He wouldn’t have known a dasein from an inauthentic They.
*Like tonight, she was in despair about her maths revision, I mean like despair, but then I said my friend at work can download the new series of Glee, which you cannot see in Britain for some unknown reason, and that made her authentically happy
April 23, 2017
It is an excellent introduction to existentialism and related philosophers. A nice book to begin with if you are interested in existentialism.
To me, it is more than a school of philosophy. As the author has put it, it stimulates us to reflect on our existence and take advantage of the freedom we possess to make a different for our life.
The book closes with the following:
"... the Existentialists' hope is to provide us with the intellectual tools that afford us the possibility of constructing meaningful lives for ourselves not by fulfilling some pre-ordained purpose, but by creating ourselves as beings who, in touch with the deepest possibilities of human existence, have realised those possibilities in our own unique and individual ways."
"Nothing was more important to the Existentialists than getting human beings to take more advantage of the freedom they possess. All too often, we tend to act as if our options for living are highly circumscribed. And, of course, sometimes they really are. But many times, we are our own worst enemies, at least in terms of accepting limitations on our hopes and aspirations that no one else has actually imposed on us. The fundamental message that the Existentialists hoped to deliver to us is that we have many more options for living our lives than we typically acknowledge, that we have the ability to be much more than we typically choose to be. In making their case, the Existentialists sought to us out of the ruts into which our lives so often fall, if for no other reason than the security those well-worn paths appear to offer. But the Existentialists ask us not to be satisfied with taking the easy route, urging us instead to confront our fears and opt for those less-travelled paths we may have to hew for ourselves. After all, this is the one shot you have at life. Why not live it as an Existentialist?"
To me, it is more than a school of philosophy. As the author has put it, it stimulates us to reflect on our existence and take advantage of the freedom we possess to make a different for our life.
The book closes with the following:
"... the Existentialists' hope is to provide us with the intellectual tools that afford us the possibility of constructing meaningful lives for ourselves not by fulfilling some pre-ordained purpose, but by creating ourselves as beings who, in touch with the deepest possibilities of human existence, have realised those possibilities in our own unique and individual ways."
"Nothing was more important to the Existentialists than getting human beings to take more advantage of the freedom they possess. All too often, we tend to act as if our options for living are highly circumscribed. And, of course, sometimes they really are. But many times, we are our own worst enemies, at least in terms of accepting limitations on our hopes and aspirations that no one else has actually imposed on us. The fundamental message that the Existentialists hoped to deliver to us is that we have many more options for living our lives than we typically acknowledge, that we have the ability to be much more than we typically choose to be. In making their case, the Existentialists sought to us out of the ruts into which our lives so often fall, if for no other reason than the security those well-worn paths appear to offer. But the Existentialists ask us not to be satisfied with taking the easy route, urging us instead to confront our fears and opt for those less-travelled paths we may have to hew for ourselves. After all, this is the one shot you have at life. Why not live it as an Existentialist?"
June 8, 2013
While this is in no way a comprehensive survey into all things existential it is a solid and serviceable introduction into this dynamic and fresh branch of philosophy.
I was amazed by how much resonance I felt between the Buddhist concept of "emptiness" and the existential idea of "nothingness" or aphorism about "existence preceding essence."
Recommended.
I was amazed by how much resonance I felt between the Buddhist concept of "emptiness" and the existential idea of "nothingness" or aphorism about "existence preceding essence."
Recommended.
May 18, 2022
read in college, re-read to teach it. makes philosophy accessible to younger audiences while arguing that the existentialist philosophy itself is widely accessible & relevant. I’m especially drawn to the Oppression chapter at the end- overall holds up exceptionally well.
February 26, 2012
A decent overview of the philosophy of Existentialism. It's very well-organized, and well-articulated. It reaches into the roots of Existentialism, thereby also making this somewhat an overview of Western philosophy in general. It also provides one-page biographies of all the Existential figureheads and several people who inspired them.
This book makes a decent case for Existentialism, particularly why it isn't the negative philosophy it has the reputation for being. This was actually the only thing about this book that bugged me. The author "drinks the Existentialist Kool-aid." Even at the end, when he said he would finally take the opportunity to criticize Existentialism, he doesn't.
Existentialism, and Western philosophy in general, is full of so many glaring, unquestioned assumptions, that I'm astonished anyone accepts them so blindly. Take, for example, human beings as the sole nihilating species, the only one capable of noticing the lack of something. I wonder if anyone who accept this claim is a pet owner. My cats definitely notice when I'm gone. Or, all the talk of the authentic self, which assumes there even is inherently such a thing as a separate self.
That said, I do love Existentialism's devotion to authenticity and non-conformity, and the boldness to state flat-out that life is meaningless, and that this gives us the freedom to find our own meaning.
This book makes a decent case for Existentialism, particularly why it isn't the negative philosophy it has the reputation for being. This was actually the only thing about this book that bugged me. The author "drinks the Existentialist Kool-aid." Even at the end, when he said he would finally take the opportunity to criticize Existentialism, he doesn't.
Existentialism, and Western philosophy in general, is full of so many glaring, unquestioned assumptions, that I'm astonished anyone accepts them so blindly. Take, for example, human beings as the sole nihilating species, the only one capable of noticing the lack of something. I wonder if anyone who accept this claim is a pet owner. My cats definitely notice when I'm gone. Or, all the talk of the authentic self, which assumes there even is inherently such a thing as a separate self.
That said, I do love Existentialism's devotion to authenticity and non-conformity, and the boldness to state flat-out that life is meaningless, and that this gives us the freedom to find our own meaning.
December 3, 2024
Thomas Wartenberg’s Existentialism: A Beginner's Guide is a well-crafted introduction to one of philosophy's most thought-provoking and often misunderstood schools of thought. For those new to existentialism, Wartenberg provides a clear and approachable overview, breaking down the complex ideas of key existential thinkers like Søren Kierkegaard, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Friedrich Nietzsche. His writing is concise yet engaging, making difficult philosophical concepts accessible to a wide audience.
One of the book's strengths is its practical approach, with Wartenberg illustrating the core ideas of existentialism using clear and relatable examples. Whether discussing themes of freedom, isolation, or the search for meaning in a seemingly indifferent universe, he uses real-life cases and scenarios that make existentialism feel less abstract and more relevant to everyday life. This is particularly helpful for readers who are just beginning to explore philosophy or for those seeking a deeper understanding of existentialism’s core tenets.
Wartenberg doesn’t shy away from the more difficult or controversial aspects of existentialism, such as its tension with traditional religious views. However, what stands out is how he presents existentialism without degrading religion too much. Rather than directly challenging or dismissing religious belief, Wartenberg gives a fair, balanced perspective that allows readers to appreciate existentialism as a worldview without necessarily abandoning their spiritual or religious convictions. His focus is on the existentialist’s view of human freedom and responsibility, which he presents as a way to navigate the challenges of life rather than a direct contradiction to faith.
In addition to introducing existentialism, Wartenberg also recommends a number of follow-up works for those interested in delving deeper into related topics. These works provide further exploration of existentialist thought, from Sartre's Being and Nothingness to Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus, as well as texts on phenomenology and humanism that continue the conversation about existence, freedom, and meaning.
One of the book's strengths is its practical approach, with Wartenberg illustrating the core ideas of existentialism using clear and relatable examples. Whether discussing themes of freedom, isolation, or the search for meaning in a seemingly indifferent universe, he uses real-life cases and scenarios that make existentialism feel less abstract and more relevant to everyday life. This is particularly helpful for readers who are just beginning to explore philosophy or for those seeking a deeper understanding of existentialism’s core tenets.
Wartenberg doesn’t shy away from the more difficult or controversial aspects of existentialism, such as its tension with traditional religious views. However, what stands out is how he presents existentialism without degrading religion too much. Rather than directly challenging or dismissing religious belief, Wartenberg gives a fair, balanced perspective that allows readers to appreciate existentialism as a worldview without necessarily abandoning their spiritual or religious convictions. His focus is on the existentialist’s view of human freedom and responsibility, which he presents as a way to navigate the challenges of life rather than a direct contradiction to faith.
In addition to introducing existentialism, Wartenberg also recommends a number of follow-up works for those interested in delving deeper into related topics. These works provide further exploration of existentialist thought, from Sartre's Being and Nothingness to Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus, as well as texts on phenomenology and humanism that continue the conversation about existence, freedom, and meaning.
December 17, 2019
Thomas E. Wartenberg’s overview of his book Existentialism is excellent, well thought out, and precise when talking about the basics of this extensive topic. This book is perfect for those who know little to nothing about Existentialism and would love to learn the basics of absurdity, nothingness, and different concepts of existence. Since I didn’t really know much to start out reading, I thoroughly enjoyed it and found it easy to understand. It was very thought-provoking and its relevance to our daily lives is immense. It should make you question–as it did with me–the ideas of existence and how you can see life in many different ways and perspectives. The author writes very professionally and is able to represent both sides of many philosophical ideas with little to no bias on his perspective of it. His philosophical discussion on the idea of freedom was something that struck me and made me really consider, are we really free? Or is our life laid out in front of us already? Do we have any control? Also, the author is able to describe these massive conceptual topics in a very explicit, easily understood way. Many students would be able to pick up this guide and understand what the author was describing because of his strong writing skills. This is an excellent guide that many would enjoy, especially if you want to learn more about the philosophical concepts of life.
August 24, 2022
I decided to read this book after reading The Myth of Sisyphus and I'm severely underwhelmed.
My first issue is the structure itself. At first, I thought it was quite cool as the book is separated by major themes of existentialism like existence, freedom, the absurd, etc. However, this means that Wartenberg can't really discuss any of the Existentialists' philosophies in detail. It would make so much more sense to separate each chapter by each philosopher as Heidegger's and Sarte's views are wildly different. They converge and arrive on similar ideas but you're doing both of them a disservice by not writing on them individually, or their philosophies in one thread.
Another thing that really annoyed me is that Wartenberg spends a lot of time discussing other philosophers and aspects of philosophy that aren't that relevant to Existentialism? I understand why they are included, as this is the beginner's guide so he probably didn't want to assume any familiarity to philosophy. However, the length he spends explaining them is completely unnecessary considering the fact that I bought this book to read about existentialism!
Anyway, this isn't a good place to start your reading on existentialism. I wish I knew a better introductory guide to the topic as the original texts are so dense but I can't as I clearly haven't found it myself.
My first issue is the structure itself. At first, I thought it was quite cool as the book is separated by major themes of existentialism like existence, freedom, the absurd, etc. However, this means that Wartenberg can't really discuss any of the Existentialists' philosophies in detail. It would make so much more sense to separate each chapter by each philosopher as Heidegger's and Sarte's views are wildly different. They converge and arrive on similar ideas but you're doing both of them a disservice by not writing on them individually, or their philosophies in one thread.
Another thing that really annoyed me is that Wartenberg spends a lot of time discussing other philosophers and aspects of philosophy that aren't that relevant to Existentialism? I understand why they are included, as this is the beginner's guide so he probably didn't want to assume any familiarity to philosophy. However, the length he spends explaining them is completely unnecessary considering the fact that I bought this book to read about existentialism!
Anyway, this isn't a good place to start your reading on existentialism. I wish I knew a better introductory guide to the topic as the original texts are so dense but I can't as I clearly haven't found it myself.
June 29, 2025
Overall a beautiful little book that offers a simple account of the fundamental issues of human life as raised by Existentialist giants such as Kierkegaard, Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, Heidegger, Sartre and Camus, and Simon de Beauvoir. Confirms my idea that not only am I a marxist but also an existentialist :-)
May 30, 2022
A very light and easy intro to such a complicated topic as existentialism. Thomas E. Wartenberg does an excellent job and making the book very easy to digest and understand abstract concepts. Not much more to say than that, it's a great start in this field if you are interested in it!
October 2, 2022
I knew from previous encounters that coming to an initial "grip" with Existentialism could be fraught. A recommendation from another review here on Goodreads led me to this introduction. I whole-hardheartedly endorse this book to that end.
January 24, 2024
While the Existentialist philosophers have added a lot of nonsense (in my opinion) to their idea, I still really like the core idea of Existentialism and this book helped me see that idea more fully and to out it in better context with the rest of the philosophy.
January 2, 2019
Really accessible introduction
August 19, 2019
A great introduction book and guide.It’s not fast food approach to Existentialism with biases.
September 30, 2021
Bravo!
September 9, 2021
I like how this author uses examples from literature and from every day life to make points about the topic. However, it is pretty deep for a "beginner's guide".
March 1, 2013
I found this book to be very helpful in understanding some of the more complicated aspects of Existentialism. Although a few concepts (such as "nothingness" and the relationship between the "in-itself and for-itself") are not as thoroughly explained as I would have liked, I have come away with a better understanding of what constitutes Existential philosophy.
There were several places in the book where the author impressed me with his fairness in handling philosophical ideas that he does not hold, but there were also places where I felt that he was unfair with other positions. Nonetheless, learning about Existentialism from the perspective of a self-proclaimed (or somewhat...there is that problem of joining the "They" of Existentialists) Existentialist has provided a more pure understanding of the philosophy of existence. Although I have many primary sources on my list to further my understanding, Wartenberg's text has been helpful in setting a framework for further study.
There were several places in the book where the author impressed me with his fairness in handling philosophical ideas that he does not hold, but there were also places where I felt that he was unfair with other positions. Nonetheless, learning about Existentialism from the perspective of a self-proclaimed (or somewhat...there is that problem of joining the "They" of Existentialists) Existentialist has provided a more pure understanding of the philosophy of existence. Although I have many primary sources on my list to further my understanding, Wartenberg's text has been helpful in setting a framework for further study.
August 4, 2011
As indicated by the tile, it's a book for the general public who are interested in existentialism and its influence to our society as well as the inspirations we can draw from their thoughts.
It's a nice beach reading with a booklist if you are interest in further exploratioin into this subject.
It's a nice beach reading with a booklist if you are interest in further exploratioin into this subject.
February 18, 2014
Well-written and clear - good qualities considering it is an introduction to the philosophy of existentialism.
The content itself, which I cannot give the author as much credit for since he is just relaying others' ideas, was also very thought-provoking. Was particularly moved by the concept of utter freedom and being able to construct who you are and why you're here totally.
The content itself, which I cannot give the author as much credit for since he is just relaying others' ideas, was also very thought-provoking. Was particularly moved by the concept of utter freedom and being able to construct who you are and why you're here totally.
May 28, 2015
Great book, was a nice overview of Existentialism that was a joy to read. If not really that familiar with this philosophic paradigm it is a nice way to test the waters before tackling the harder stuff.
January 9, 2011
Is it informative? Could be... thus remains as a "reference", but it is oversimplified even for a beginner.
August 30, 2011
Excellent introduction. His writing style isn't the prettiest thing in the world, but he does a great job of explaining difficult topics in an easy-to-understand way.
January 28, 2013
It is good refreshment of what existentialism can mean for your day to day life. It is one of the most practical philosophies and motivational for developing your own identity.
September 8, 2016
A great little introduction to the subject. Clear and concise with plenty of references for further reading.
November 6, 2013
An incredibly well written, concise and solid introduction into Existentialism.
March 21, 2015
It really is an interesting book. It provides the reader a good pile of information about Existentialism.
May 30, 2016
A brilliant introduction to the subject. Enjoyed reading every paragraph.
April 19, 2012
Guaranteed to make your mind smoke.
February 17, 2013
An unbiased comprehensive book to start getting introduced to basics of existentialism.
April 2, 2016
excellent introduction. I have read this at three times. clear and concise.
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