A Commentary on Jean-Paul Sartre's Being and Nothingness

by Joseph S. Catalano

"[ A Commentary on Jean-Paul Sartre's Being and Nothingness ] represents, I believe, a very important beginning of a deservingly serious effort to make the whole of Being and Nothingness more readily understandable and readable. . . . In his systematic interpretations of Sartre's book, [Catalano] demonstrates a determination to confront many of the most demanding issues and concepts of Being and Nothingness . He does not shrink—as do so many interpreters of Sartre—from such issues as the varied meanings of 'being,' the meaning of 'internal negation' and 'absolute event,' the idiosyncratic senses of transcendence, the meaning of the 'upsurge' in its different contexts, what it means to say that we 'exist our body,' the connotation of such concepts as quality, quantity, potentiality, and instrumentality (in respect to Sartre's world of 'things'), or the origin of negation. . . . Catalano offers what is doubtless one of the most probing, original, and illuminating interpretations of Sartre's crucial concept of nothingness to appear in the Sartrean literature."—Ronald E. Santoni, International Philosophical Quarterly

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction

256 pages, Paperback

First published September 15, 1985

Reviews

[Brady · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somewhat useful!

[Tyler · Rating 4 out of 5]

This author follows Being and Nothingness section by section to explain Sartre's specialized vocabulary and unique ideas, and to direct the reader's attention to Sartre's reasons for including each part in his opus. The commentary, which makes no judgment as to the validity of Sartre's reasoning, concentrates only on explaining just what Sartre himself is saying. This is an excellent work to read alongside Being and Nothingness, and I recommend it for anyone wanting to read Sartre's famous master work.

[Jack Stephens · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good short read that works best when reading it along with Jean-Paul Sartre's Being and Nothingness. The language can get a little technical but it helps make reading Being and Nothingness a lot easier.

[Adam Sanchez · Rating 4 out of 5]

I consulted both this book and Paul Vincent Spade’s online class notes while reading Sartre’s Being and Nothingness. Of the two, I think Spade was more helpful, but I think that was just a matter of style (Spade’s notes were in prose form rather than, say, point form, and it includes all the repetition and ‘remembers this’ or ‘recall that’ that goes with attending a lecture--that’s very helpful to me). Nevertheless, Catalano’s work made Sartre all the more accessible to me.

[Charles Comer · Rating 5 out of 5]

VERY USEFUL for one attempting Being and Nothingness, inside or outside the context of a course on Sartre or existentialism.