H ow to Be an Existentialist is a witty and entertaining book about the philosophy of existentialism. It is also a genuine self-help book offering clear advice on how to live according to the principles of existentialism formulated by Nietzsche, Sartre, Camus, and the other great existentialist philosophers. An attack on contemporary excuse culture, the book urges us to face the hard existential truths of the human condition. By revealing that we are all inescapably free and responsible - 'condemned to be free,' as Sartre says - the book aims to empower the reader with a sharp sense that we are each the master of our own destiny. Cox makes fun of the reputation existentialism has for being gloomy and pessimistic, exposing it for what it really is - an honest, uplifting, and potentially life changing philosophy!
Gary Cox is a British philosopher and biographer and the author of several books on Jean-Paul Sartre, existentialism, general philosophy, ethics and philosophy of sport.
This is a weird little book that does a middling job fulfilling its two distinct aims. It is neither an excellent theoretical introduction to existentialism for the uninitiated nor a practical manual that actually lays out a distinct method for implementing existentialism towards living a better life. The book adopts a hip, irreverent style and the discussion is interspersed with ironic asides-- presumably all to draw in the non-specialist reader and put him at ease with the weighty concepts. However, all this bravado of attitude is incidental, and rarely of any use to understanding the difficult concepts. Cox's descriptions of the philosophy itself often fails to escape the circularity of jargon to which so much philosophical writing is prone, and one is left with grand exhortations... and attitude. ironically, this little book that purports to emancipate the reader from bad faith seems better designed to encourage the smug self-satisfaction of the sardonic fleeting dabbler in esoterica. How could that not be bad faith?
As a general introduction to existentialism, it is merely passably good. It is good insofar as Cox narrows in on the most useful and fundamental concepts: bad faith, authenticity, being-situation, being-towards-death, eternal recurrence. It is unsatisfying insofar as it purports to ground explanation of these crucial principles in a basic description of existentialism, its method, ontology and so forth. As a reader who has already read a bit of Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, Camus and Merleu-Ponty (not to mention Dostoevsky and Flaubert who figure prominently here), I found many parts of the book to be a decent synthesis of concepts I already knew. For example, Cox's makes a crucial between authenticity (the audacious crafting of one's own meaning from recognition of the underlying meaninglessness of life) and sincerity (a form of bad faith that consists of convincing oneself of the solidity and necessity of certain aspects of one's phenomenal context). His discussion of Nietzsche and Heidegger in relation to authenticity are mercifully clear.
On the other hand, he could have gone so much further in writing a clear guide to the difference between bad faith and authenticity! We all must agree that Heidegger was a Nazi and that Nazis are bad. But why does it follow that Heidegger's adherence to national socialism was a form of bad faith? Is every membership in a group inauthentic? Must the true existentialist disavow any affiliation with a political cause insofar as this involves alignment with an external purpose? Cox joins in the universal denunciation of Heidegger without really explaining why in relation to his central narrative.
And what about the self-help part of the book? This seems mostly bravado. Cox repeats the assertions of existentialists that belief in existentialist principles and the struggle to be authentic can lead to true emancipation. He tells us about the existence of existential counseling and that it improves on typical psychoanalysis by acknowledging anxiety as a fundamental reasoned reaction to the meaninglessness of existence. However, Cox doesn't actually tell us anything about HOW to build from that realization towards a more robust and healthy perspective. He provides no method, only madness.
I certainly got something out of this as somewhat of a specialist, but I can't recommend it to anyone looking for a first introduction to existentialism. Nor can I recommend it to anyone looking for a way to apply existentialism to liberate his or her consciousness. Perhaps you should try Buddhism, which, in some its recent adaptations seems to be a form of existentialism coupled with method.
It might be strange to find this book in my collection on the Sense of History. And I must confess, I wasn't really thrilled by it. But it contains a few pages on the philosopy of time that really are of interest to my focus of attention.
Cox elaborates on how existentialist philosophers pay a lot of attention to the concept of consciousness, as being the relation between us and reality. What struck me was that he writes: "what we are is the endless march forward in time", past and future are interconnected, in both ways, and the present is no fixed moment, because the future constantly becomes the past. Cox goes further (always citing existentialists): "there is no such thing as time apart from consciousness; It is consciousness that brings time into the world, consciousness that temporalizes the world (...). Without consciousness, there are no processes of becoming, growth, decay and destruction”.
Of course, this raises the classic problem of solipsism: is it true that there is no reality at all or no time or space, beyond myself? Since it has been raised (I believe in the 18th century) this question has been proven false, of course. But what we really must understand is that it is consciousness that is responsible for the relational existence of time and space and reality. We can not know reality without this instrument. And thus, I would add, our view on the past always is a construction (by our consciousness), and that is a lesson to reckon with in the viewing of history!
Finally, Cox elaborates on temporality and freedom: "we are free precisely because we are not fixed in the present. Only a temporal being can be free because to be free is to have possibilities and genuine alternatives in the future. We are our future possibilities and our freedom consists in being free towards the future.” Now that statement opens up a whole scala of ways to look at the past, and how men have chosen their options.
I would recommend this book to anyone who has a basic ability to grasp abstract concepts. Overall, it approaches its point with a direct simplicity, not over-saturating the concept with muddling jargon and academic posturing.
There is a bit in the middle when I started to feel a bit over my head (once he starts in with the "facticity"s) but it quickly passed.
It is short enough not to seem daunting, as many philosophers are dreadfully verbose, taking three pages to say what might be said in one.
I would recommend reading it with a highlighter pen, as there are many "ahas" to be found, even if you want nothing more than to understand what existentialists believe.
My main criticism would be that Cox, who has spent much of his life studying Sartre, is willing, although slightly hesitant, to stray outside of this prominent existentialist's body of work. To me it seems more like Cox feels Sartre is all one needs, more than being ignorant of what others have said. That may be true, but I felt a little force fed regarding so much from one existentialist philosopher.
This little book blew me away, for two reasons. Firstly, I had expected to be done with it in maybe 2 hours. Secondly, I expected it to be a silly jokey read, on the basis of its silly jokey title. I was wrong on both counts. The book is a short and dense treatise on existentialism, written in as jargon-free a language as possible, and still maintaining something of a 'the world is meaningless, get off your ass and do something about it' vibe, that is kind of inspiring without being mawkish. The author's speciality is obviously Sartre, and most of the concepts are enunciated from Sartre's writings on the topic at hand. This is alright, but even with the author's efforts at attempting to be jargon-free, the going does get a little tough especially when the author is discussing abstract concepts such as 'nothingness of consciousness' and 'bad faith' where it seems impossible to avoid high-level philosophical terms, even though these things are very real and practical. This is definitely a very worthy read, and it is the kind of book that you would gift to friends. The only possible drawback? The author's flood of adolescent jokes that I suspect was included at the behest of the publisher. And when I say adolescent, I mean adolescent. Lines like "If you thought existentialism and Buddhism had nothing in common, Zen think again" are unforgivable.
During my first phenomenology-course at the University of Heidelberg, I almost gave up the idea to continue my studies of philosophy. I did not understand a single word as the professor started to talk about the two heavy-weights Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger and their concepts of ‘Dasein’ (German for ‘being-there’). “The term refers to a person’s unique spatial and temporal situated-ness in this world.”, I remember him saying. I was too scared to ask, what the heck this was supposed to mean. Most of the other students, however, clicking their tongues due to this epiphanic realization, seemed to get it immediately. I only developed the concept of “not-being-there” in this unique spatial and temporal classroom. *** Why did this handsome post-graduate, writing his PhD on Satre, tell me (a clueless undergraduate, after a couple glasses of red wine), that, if i really want to dive into Satre’s world, I have to understand his predecessors? For me, existentialism so far, only meant to wear black dresses, drinking tons of coffee and /or wine and smoking in cafés while writing smart things on tissue papers. And I was quite happy with that concept – existential philosophy as a vivid, practical and hip lifestyle; a way of ‘being’ I could easily relate to. Why change something that is already as good as it is? Well, because after a few days of drinking too much black coffee and smoking too many heavy cigarettes, my body seriously complained. Hence, I started studying, reading up, whatever I could get into my hands, to understand more and also impress the PhD-guy at the next discussion round. Long and lonely nights in the library were following: Me vs. Satre. Everyone, who has been busily engaged in studying philosophy, knows that kind of feeling. I really wanted to crack the nut! Because I figured out that the ideas behind existentialism can be quite explosive. Sentences like “We are all free and can’t stop being free.” or “Existentialists recognize that life is ultimately absurd and full of terrible, inescapable truths.” shook me up. But – to tell you the truth – if Gary Cox’s book ‘How to Be an Existentialist’ would have been out there already, it would have enlightened my mind – and hence, saved precious life time. ‘How to Be an Existentialist’ is a concise and clearly entertaining introduction into the philosophy of existentialism, nicely explaining much-worried-about notions such as “authenticity” or “bad faith”. The long and well written chapters on “What is existentialism” and “How not be an existentialist” accompany the curious reader through concepts, including true-to-life examples. The following chapter “How to be authentic” focuses on the acceptance of how things really are: “Authenticity involves a person confronting reality and facing up the hard truth that he is at all times a free being.” This is where Cox makes fun of the reputation existentialism has for being gloomy and pessimistic, exposing it for what it really is – an honest, uplifting and potentially life-changing philosophy! *** With the publication of ‘How to Be an Existentialist’, Gary Cox qualified as Britain’s new ‘pop-philospher’, as the book has a slightly light, but definitely witty touch. On the other hand, Cox’s aim is to jolt the I blame everyone but myself-society, where it became fashionable and so easy for all of us to not take over responsibility for our own (and freely chosen) actions. Hence, he chose to bridge the gap between the academic ivory tower-research and the worldly needs of an interested but theoretically untrained reader. “In an age where philosophy is simply regarded as an academic subject alongside other academic subjects, the claim that profound personal enlightenment can result from the study of philosophy sounds grandiose. According to the Ancient Greek founders of Western philosophy, however, achieving personal enlightenment is precisely the point of studying philosophy. The trouble with too many philosophy students and teachers is that they think the point of studying philosophy is to get a degree – and to hell with enlightenment!” (page 94) Branding his work as self-help-literature surely helps to catch some of the lost souls roaming around in book stores, searching for alternatives to “How to life my life…for Dummies”. And Cox is not be blamed for it – such a substantial and entertaining introduction to existentialism, which also makes you chuckle (and that’s quite rare in philosophy, believe me!), deserves a place even in your library.
I liked how this book both explained existentialism, AND demonstrated how it can be used in life if we are wanting to subscribe to the existentialist lifestyle. Although I knew a lot of the knowledge already it clarified many of the ideas for me.
I’m giving it two stars because the writing was patronising and unprofessional. I don’t know how some of the lines got past editing. I’ll leave one of its more questionable remarks here and to be honest I think it speaks for itself.
“Now, before anyone gets on their feminist high horse, ‘man’ here means men and women and is not just singing out men. It is not gender specific. People who use the term ‘man’ in this kind of context show their essential ignorance and petty mindedness. [...] Anyway, it was Simone de Beauvoir herself who said, ‘man’s nature is to have no nature,’ and she practically invented feminism”
I think that the best thing going for this book is Cox's attempt to explain what "authenticity" and "bad faith" are in plain English. Usually these terms are described in books about Existentialism as either allegories that one must interpret or esoteric language that needs to interpret as well (the trouble with this is that the reader could mess up in their interpretation, and things can be lost in translation). It was refreshing to read someone trying to interpret these concepts for the reader.
A brilliant, concise book on existentialism which makes difficult concepts easier to grasp. I read this following an introduction on existentialist counselling on my course, of which very little made sense. This book has filled in the gaps (gaping chasms!). And I love the sarcastic asides!!
This is an easy-to-read book about a philosophical tendency that's not that complicated - at least not that complicated after you've read the book. It's most interesting; simply, the idea is to take responsibility, make choices, stop being passive, and so forth. That's an over-simplification, but the whole point seems to be about buying into whatever role you have to play, such as a job, rather than pretend you're doing the job, because it's really not you. Own whatever it is you do.
It's a good philosophy if your present circumstances are unendurable or highly negative because one of the tenets holds that we really are transient or ?ephemeral beings -- we're never really in the present, our lives are a process of progressing into the future, and our reality is a relationship to events & needs. Some things filtered in from what I read, maybe in a somewhat muddled form. Also, that life is random and therefore ultimately meaningless. That I can agree with; as I've aged, I've decided that meaninglessness or randomness must be the "meaning" of life. So I think that this must be true. The rest of the dogma that's thrown at us from day 1 - to try to inject meaning into existence - it's all justification for the patriarchy/establishment getting folks to be submissive and fearful. You make your own meaning by means of your own choices and taking responsibility for your choices - that about is the essence of existentialism. Not that a person can be that way 100% of the time. People aren't machines. The frameworks that have been erected since time immemorial - the social structures - aren't easy to get away from, and many find them comforting. But no-one can say that we all have to be trapped in those notions, and we especially don't need to be trapped in them as a way of getting meaning in our lives.
Trump's election "proves" that meaninglessness underlies everything; for many people, it probably didn't phase them at all to vote for an unqualified liar, who may have been successful as a reality show star, or gained a following spouting hateful conspiracy theories and racist nonsense but didn't know his a** from his elbow when it comes to policy questions. For Trump and/or his followers, the slogans and chants were enough. Trump's stupidity and lack of qualification was all the same to them, since all is meaningless in the end anyway - and they might as well bring on maximum chaos so that the world can match the destructive whirlwind of conspiracy theories and hate that occupies their minds. The Constitution doesn't say if a demented liar and racist can't run for POTUS! So tens of millions of voters voted for an unbalanced, lying, racist because they could. They had no future - they were convinced they had no future - so they figured what was the difference if they voted for an idiot? They may have done so as an act of rebellion or to send a message that they were unhappy with the establishment; they may not have believed he'd actually win since every poll said he wasn't going to win, so what was the harm for voting for him as a goof? Something they could laugh about afterwards. And now they, and all of us, are stuck with him. Nobody's laughing now. The Trumpocalypse "means" we need to be responsible to ourselves, make choices for ourselves, create meaning in a meaningless, heartless world - even as the universe seems to get more chaotic daily. We make our lives meaningful by our own choices, we chose to be free and we know this choice at least is true. Those of us who don't agree with Trumpism find ways to resist by organizing, demonstrating, investigating, writing, etc. Or laughing at Trump's loony-tunes antics and foibles and lies. Nothing is a foregone conclusion. We don't collapse into a ball out of despair. Not at all. We patiently wait for the results of the investigation into collusion, hopefully the results will take down not just the present administration but all the corrupt Republicans who enabled the debacle.
The many quotes from the book:
"[Existentialism] ...aims to reveal to you that you are a fundamentally free being so that you can start living accordingly; so that you can start asserting your individual freedom, your true 'nature', rather than living as though you were a robot programmed by other people, social convention, religious dogma, morality, guilt, and all the other age old forces of oppression."
"[An existentialist] ... never tries to convince himself for the sake of his peace of mind that some half-baked doctrine is true."
"Existentialism holds that you can only truly change the way you think and feel about your life by acting differently, by acting rather than simply reacting, by asserting your will rather than simply allowing yourself to be swept along by circumstance, by always taking responsibility for yourself and what you do."
"You could say we live in a blame culture, or more precisely, a blame everyone but myself culture."
"In 1948 ... the Catholic Church ... decided that Jean-Paul Sartre's atheistic, iconoclastic, anti-authoritarian, revolutionary existentialist ideas were so dangerous that they placed his entire works on the Vatican Index of Prohibited Books... even those books he hadn't written yet!"
"...if there is one thing that existentialism encourages it is questioning and the spirit of criticism."
"He or she continually strives to overcome bad faith and to achieve what existentialist philosophers call authenticity."
"For the Ancient founders of Western philosophy .... achieving enlightenment is the ultimate aim of studying philosophy.
"Like Platonism, although its view of reality is radically different, existentialism also offers enlightenment and a way out of the deep, dark cave of ignorance, a way of seeing what is so rather than what only appears to be so."
"Socrates said that philosophy is a peculiar practice because it build by destroying and what it destroys is assumptions."
"[British and American analytical philosophers] ... like to bang on endlessly about logic and meaning in language..."
"...we are doomed to die from the moment we are born into a meaningless universe where God is at least very elusive and at most downright non-existent."
"[Existentialism] ...outlines how you can go on to live an honest and worthwhile life in spite of the fact that human existence is ultimately pointless and absurd."
"In choosing to live...a person confers value and significance on a life that has no value or significance in itself. ... ....although life's struggle has no ultimate purpose and always the same final result, a person can still create a sense of purpose through the struggle itself and through the way he plays life's game."
"The writings of Heidegger, Sartre and the rest established existentialism as a distinct branch of philosophy. ... At the heart of their system is the wonderful maxim 'existence precedes essence.'"
"[Sartre's 1946 book called 'Existentialism and Humanism'] ...encapsulates a view fundamentally opposed to idealism that there are no ideal, otherworldly, God-given, abstract, metaphysical essences giving reality or meaning to particular things. There are particular things, like chairs and stones, and there is nothing beyond the series of particular things other than consciousness, which is nothing but consciousness of particular things."
"With ... regard to people, 'existence precedes essence' refers to the view that each person exists first, without meaning or purpose, and strives thereafter to give himself meaning and purpose."
"Mainstream existentialism, then, is anti-idealist, anti-metaphysical and atheistic."
"...Simone de Beauvoir [claims] that man's nature is to have no nature, and ... consciousness is nothing in itself?"
"...the phenomenological theory of consciousness ... underpins all the other claims that existentialism makes about time, freedom, personal relations, bad faith, authenticity and so on."
"Sartre was so convinced that consciousness is nothing in itself that he called his greatest book on existentialism, "Being and Nothingness' - the nothingness referred to in the title being consciousness."
"...desires, ... thoughts, ...expectations ... are not things inside his head! They are aspects of his relationship with the world."
"...desire is desire of something, thoughts are thoughts of something, expectation is expectation of something..."
"The view that consciousness is consciousness of ____ is known as the theory of intentionality."
"The theory of intentionality states that consciousness is intentional, it always intends something, it is always directed toward something, it is always about something."
"...according to Brentano and Husserl and their many phenomenologist followers, things are actually just collections of appearances."
"...Sartre argues that when there is no consciousness present on the scene there is only what he called undifferentiated being."
"...Sartre, like Kant, is saying that the world of phenomena we are aware of is a synthesis of whatever is 'out there' and the activity of consciousness upon whatever is 'out there'."
"The world we know is a product of the intimate relationship that exists between consciousness and being."
"We constantly encounter a world characterized and defined by the motives, intentions and attitudes we choose to have and the evaluations we choose to make."
"According to Sartre and other existentialist philosophers, differentiated being, the richly varied world of phenomena we all inhabit, is grounded or based on consciousness, or at least, upon the negations, lacks and absences that consciousness places into being."
"...phenomena are grounded not upon being but upon non-being, they arise for consciousness when consciousness places particular negations into undifferentiated, porridge-like being so giving rise to differentiated being."
"Every situation a person encounters is understood as presently lacking something desired, expected, intended or anticipated."
"...according to existentialist philosophers, a consciousness, a person, can never be completely satisfied."
"... a person always lacks the future toward which he is constantly heading."
"You will always experience some lack, some boredom, some dissatisfaction."
"...the best way to fully grasp the meaning and sense of the paradox of consciousness is to think of it in terms of the ceaseless passage of time..."
"...for consciousness [the present] is only its presence to the world as a being constantly flowing forward in time. Existentialist refer to this constant temporal motion of consciousness as temporal transcendence, temporal surpassing or temporal flight."
"Like an object in motion consciousness is never there or there."
"The really mind-blowing claim that phenomenologists and existentialist philosophers make about time is that there is no such thing as time apart from consciousness."
"Something is always lacking, namely the future."
"...time and consciousness are almost the same thing."
"...it is alien to the human condition for a person to be completely satisfied and contented for any length of time."
"We are our future possibilities and our freedom consists in being free towards the future..."
"The appearance of the Other signifies the disintegration of the world from John's point of view."
"Against his will in opposition to his freedom and his joyful transcendence, other people force him to be what he is for them rather than what he is for himself."
"'All is vanity.'"
"Have you ever thought hat modesty and shyness are just very crafty ways of getting attention?"
"...existentialist philosophers tend to characterize human relationships as a ceaseless power struggle for domination and transcendence, arguing that the basis of all human relationships is conflict."
"[Sartre:] 'Hell is other people!'"
"The real truth seems to be that other people are sometimes hell, sometimes heaven."
"...submergence in an us...is often maintained through conflict with a them as opponent or hate object -- conflict at the group level."
"Alternatively, a group united together by religion, music, dancing or drugs, or all of these highs simultaneously, may achieve a state of reverie or synergy amounting to a collective loss of egoism. Pure heaven."
"...most existentialist philosophers are interested in civil liberties and human rights, [and] their advocacy of human freedom is not just a political stance, a desire to promote liberty and justice around the world, it is deeply philosophical."
"...the existentialist theory of personal freedom ...is just as much a theory of personal responsibility."
"[Consciousness] exists only as a perpetual temporal flight or transcendence away from the past towards the future."
"... it's often when we get ... away from pens, paper and books that we do our best thinking."
"It is in the future at which we aim that w are free."
"The fact that consciousness has to be a temporal transcendence in order to exist... the fact that it cannot not be an opening up of possibilities, implies that it cannot not be free."
"[Sartre:] 'Not to choose is, in fact, to choose not to choose.'"
"...existentialist philosophers call the adversity and resistance of things and situations facticity."
"In order to avoid freedom-anxiety people often adopt strategies to convince themselves and others that they are not free, that they need not or cannot choose, or have not chosen when in fact they have."
"To deny the reality of freedom and choice ...is what existentialist philosophers call bad faith."
"[Sartre:] 'If we reject the language and the materialistic mythology of psychoanalysis, we perceive that the censor in order to apply its activity with discernment must know what it is repressing.'"
"Sartre explains as forms of bad faith the attitudes and behaviors that Freud explains as products of a psychic duality within a single person."
"...bad faith is more like an ongoing project of self-distraction or self-evasion than self-deception."
"[The flirt] ... distracts herself from the meaning of her situation and the disposition of her limbs by fleeing herself towards the future."
"To fail to respect the freedom of others, as we do when we tease and tantalize them, is to fall into a certain kind of bad faith, it is to fail to be authentic."
"Striving to be a thing in order to escape the responsibility of being free is certainly an identifiable and common enough form of bad faith."
"...he has become his performance in the sense that when he is absorbed in his performance he does not reflect hat he is performing."
"Bad faith is moaning about your circumstances but doing nothing to change them."
"...far from being a pure transcendence, he is and must be the transcendence of his facticity."
"...he is not just a facticity but the transcendence of a facticity."
"...to declare myself a facticity when in reality I am the transcendence of my facticity -- that is bad faith."
"Confession that aims at absolution is bad faith."
"Some religious groups ... offer personalized confession and forgiveness services as a cure for the disease of guilt they spread around for free. It is a brilliant marketing strategy that never goes out of fashion and has paid for a wealth of fancy buildings and bric-a-brac."
"...he has to accept that he chooses his conduct."
"...bad faith is willful ignorance that aims at the avoidance of responsibility."
"In Sartre's view, as in Nietzsche's, to know the truth, to know the way things are and to see life for what it is, does not require great intelligence but rather honesty and courage in face of reality."
"For Sartre, to dispense with willful ignorance and irresponsibility and instead to courageously affirm the existential truths of the human condition -- abandonment in a Godless universe, freedom, responsibility, mortality and so on -- is to overcome bad faith in favor of authenticity."
"For Sartre, existence is contingent in the sense of being absurdly superfluous. It is a ... de trop existence that exists for no reason and for no purpose."
"Human society, most human endeavor, constantly aims to suppress contingency by imposing meanings and purposes on the world. This is achieved largely by naming and categorizing things."
"The truth, according to existentialist philosophers, is that things only have meaning and purpose relative to other things and the whole lot only has the relieve meaning and purpose that our ultimately pointless activities give it."
"The philosopher Schopenhauer, who had a huge influence on Nietzsche and existentialism generally, was himself heavily influenced by Buddhism."
"Sartre's philosophy is characterized by an abiding hatred and distrust of people, usually middle-class (bourgeois) people, who seem totally unaware of life's contingency..."
"They assume that they have an immortal essence, that their existence is inevitable, that they exist by some divine decree rather than by accident."
"They believe that society is rooted in this absolute values and that the way things are in society constitutes the only possible reality."
"All they have to do to claim their absolute right to be respected by others and to have the respect of others sustain the illusion of their necessity is to dutifully fulfill the role prescribed to them by society and identify themselves totally with that rule."
"Dwelling on the strangeness and contingency of their existence is strictly off limits."
"When you talk with them you feel you are following a script that permits the listing of mundane facts and forbids all discussion, analysis, introspection and flights of imagination."
"...it is typical of the bourgeois to strive to be his social role..."
"Sartre details the personal development of a typical salaud [French for swine or bastard] in a ... short story he wrote called 'The Childhood of a Leader.'"
"[Lucien] ... adopts Daddy's positive view of capitalism, his nationalism and above all his Antisemitism. He joins the French Fascist movement and helps to beat up an immigrant in a racially motivated attack."
"In fiercely despising Jews, his badge of honor among his fellow Fascists, he not only find a scapegoat for his past actions, he sees himself as important and substantial in comparison to people he despises."
"His convictions define him and give him solidity; they demand the respect of others."
"Lucien's slide into chronic, cowardly, morally repugnant bad faith is complete. He has become an absolute salaud, a total swine. He has persuaded himself that his existence is not accidental but essential and that he has sacred rights granted by God and his nation, such as the right to have unquestionable opinions and prejudices and the right to have his necessary existence confirmed by the respect of others, especially his social inferiors."
"...in 'Nausea' .. the novel's central character...[visits] a museum to look at the ostentatious portraits of the respectable, dutiful now dead elders of Bouville - a town loosely based on the port of Le Havre where Sartre lived for several years."
"In having themselves portrayed in this fashion the elders were attempting to convince themselves and others of their necessity and indispensability; that they had a God given place in the universe and society, and above all that they had rights."
"Though dead, there is a sense in which the elders are still trying to convince the world of their superiority and their entitlement."
It would be more proper to title this work: How to Be Sartean or How to Be a Sartean Existentialist. There are different schools of thought within existentialism: e.g. Kierkegaardian, Christian existentialism, Merleau-Ponty's existential thought, et cetera. This book deals primarily with Sartre's version which is, of course, the most influential of them all.
Regardless, the first section goes over some fundamental concepts that prevail in the majority of all 20th century existentialist schools of thought. And this is by far the best feature of the book. In order to properly understand existentialism, one must understand phenomenological ontology - specifically existential phenomenology. These concepts include temporality, being-for-others, freedom, responsibility, and anxiety among many others. In my opinion, the book explains these seemingly difficult concepts quite well and very accessibly to the general, non-philosophical, audience.
Afterwards, the author goes over Sartre's notion of bad faith and what it means to fall into bad faith. Bad faith, according to the author, is the major problem keeping people away from living authentic lives.
In the third section, the author explains what it is to live authentically (he is specifically addressing what that means for Sartre). At the end of the section he explains what it means to live authentically for other existentialists other than Sartre - specifically Nietzsche and Heidegger. And then the book ends with a short, but interesting, section on existential counseling which I had no idea even existed until I had read about it.
Overall the book gives a good general overview of the fundamental concepts of existential phenomenology, as well as what it is to live an existentially authentic life and the common pitfalls which keep us from that. I would give the book 5/5 stars, but the author is very opinionated at times. He makes it clear that he is on the political left and despises any sort of religious thought. That's what the Huffington Post is for. I bought the book for existentialism so stick to that please.
In my university years I was very attracted to existentialism. I'm not a specialist, but of all philosophies I've come to know, this was the one I thought was most relevant, especially through its close link with real life. I read quite a lot by Camus and also some by Sartre, and I was especially charmed by the notions of freedom and responsibility.
Some thirty years later I found this rather thin book in a bookstore and I couldn't resist a renewed acquaintance. I'll say it straightforwardly: I was a little bit disappointed. The author really is an expert in existentialist philosophy (view his list of publications), and he really tries to write as clearly as possible (a bit too funny to my taste).
But almost whole of the book revolves around the notion of "authenticity", a notion the author has drawn especially from Sartre and De Beauvoir. Now, authenticity really is an important aspect of life, of the relation with others and above all with yourself. In this sense you can translate it best as 'being faithfull to yourself and to the realities of life'. I guess you can see this is not very illuminating.
That's why in existentialism there is a lot more to find about the notion of freedom, and this, in the eyes of existentialists, is fundamentally interconnected with that of responsibility. Now that is something you can work with! Some of this is explored in the work of Sartre, but much more in that of Heidegger, Camus, Merleau-Ponty. And to me, this is much more interesting than the (rather narcissistic) notion of authenticity. Alas, in this book this is only developed very limitedly. And that's a pity.
A beautiful book that shares the fundamental ideas of Existentialism and teaches us how to be one. Very enjoyable read, Gary Cox is a witty writer indeed! Highly recommended for those interested in Existentialism or what to get real in life.
This book was recommended by a friend. I went into it with a very limited background in philosophy, but always assumed I aligned with a worldview that was at least existentialist adjacent. Boy did this book prove me wrong! On some level this negative review may be a little harsh, because it's a review of Sarte-aligned existentialism itself; But on another level, this book is directed at a lay audience and was negatively persuasive. The author does a passable job conveying philosophical concepts in a digestible manner, it's just that those ideas are sorely lacking. On top of that, the author can't seem to help himself from some, frankly insane, asides. An example: "Anyways, it was Simone de Beauvoir herself who said, "Man's nature is to have no nature," and she practically invented feminism, even if she did allow Sarte to slap her around a bit!". WTF is that? Did Sarte commit DV against Simone de Beauvior? Why is it framed with an exclamation point, is it intended as a joke? There's no other context! I only knew these peoples names and nothing more going in, and this book is intended for a lay audience. Bizarre stuff like this is peppered in across the book and it makes the author come across as insufferable. Beyond that, the writing is functional.
The only wisdom I gained from reading this book was that it caused me to do a little bit of research to figure out if there's a school of philosophical thought that aligns with my views. Turns out I'm a naturalist, or something like that. I'm fully onboard with the core concept of existentialism: that everyone must define meaning for themselves. Existentialist concepts beyond that though are either trivially true or can't be applied in a coherent way. Concepts like authenticity and bad faith are fine, and you can use them as a framework for your own life if you want to, but if you accept existentialism's core concept that individuals define their own meaning, it's impossible to apply them to externally. How can you know that someone else is acting in bad faith if they're the one who defines their own meaning? This question is obvious but never wrestled with. I did a minimal amount of research after finishing the book, and never found a source from an existentialist POV that addresses it in an satisfying way. Additionally, for a philosophy so founded in the nature of time and objects and their relationships, there's essentially no curiosity as to what physics has to say about those topics. This book made me dislike Sarte, Nietzsche, and a good deal of other philosophers from that era on both a personal and philosophical level.
Es mi primer acercamiento al existencialismo, y al ser un libro introductorio, toca de manera somera las principales "doctrinas" de esta corriente filosófica y (según lo veo) psicológica.
Estoy de acuerdo con gran parte de lo que el libro menciona y me gusta el mensaje de fondo:
Tú eres responsable de las decisiones que tomas, que se reflejan mediante acciones.
Por su naturaleza, el libro deja muchas cosas para investigación y lectura posterior que si se quiere seguir aprendiendo de el existencialismo hay que leer, deja claro que esto no es más que la desmitificación acerca de lo que muchas personas entienden sobre existencialismo.
Me gustaron las aclaraciones que logras comprender mediente la explicación del conocimiento básico existencialista, como, por ejemplo, que se existencialista no significa ser pesimista y mucho menos tiene que ver algo con el nihilismo.
Me sorprendió también leer la explicación que dan los existencialistas del libre albedrío, es la primera vez que lo veo justificado (aunque no concuerdo con lo que leí porque tampoco lo entiendo del todo) en personas ateas.
Por supuesto, es un tipo pensamiento difícil de aceptar y del que hace falta más estudio, pero a continuación listo las principales enseñanzas que este libro introductorio me dejó, y con las que concuerdo:
- La vida no tiene sentido en sí misma, es "contingente", es decir, accidental y aceptar este ello nos llevará a vivir de mejor forma los años que tengamos. - Eligimos lo que somos mediante nuestras acciones. "Ser es hacer". - Para vivir bien tenemos que ser "auténticos". Esto significa evitar actitudes y acciones que demuestren que no aceptamos que tenemos libertas sobre nuestras elecciones y acciones. - Aceptar las verdades duras de las vida nos hace más felices.
Hay muchas otras lecciones valiosas. Lo recomendaría sólamente a aquellos que, como yo, no tengan idea de lo que es el existencialismo o quieran un índice para aprener más
A fun and informative introduction to Existentialism, with an emphasis on Satre (and nothing on religious existentialism, alas, except an acknowledgment that it exists). It would be even better without some ugly sneering--the author seems to have a toxic dislike of certain groups of people, such as those who are overweight. Still worth a read, though.
How To Be An Existentialist is a zippy, accurate account of on one of the 20th century's most famous and influential philosophical movements. Having read Sartre and Heidegger among others, it's difficult for me to really gauge how accessible this is - but with that caveat I believe this would be a great introduction to the field for a keen newcomer.
The fundamental tenets, in particular how existence precedes essence and the notion of bad faith, are well covered in this book. Gary Cox offers a little of the necessary background but mostly gets on with discussing the ideas themselves; no tedious historical survey here. He focusses on the ideas of freedom and how we are at liberty to make whatever choices we like - even if we pretend we can't sometimes (bad faith) in order to avoid confronting the terrifying reality that is free choice ('man is condemned to be free').
So far so strong: I can't fault Cox's treatment of this subject and it's certainly the facet of Sartre that I most often return to: I make my choices - I don't expect anyone else or the world to answer for my mistakes. Cox is similarly sharp on the ideas of ressentiment - how your 'being for others' drives you mad because you can't control what they think of you (you are an object to others); and anxiety - the feeling generated by our ability to do anything at any moment in time (a feeling we often repress).
My take on these ideas is that they are useful counters to excuse making. For example, I am sick of my life and blame my career, acting like I am a victim of my circumstances. I may well be unfairly treated or unfortunate in some external sense, but I equally have chosen to turn up, day in day out, and I chose to accept the role and so on. Either I must actively choose this choice (to be clear, it's always a choice to remain doing something but I must strive to own the choice continuously), or else I must choose to do something different (find a new job). Similarly, the ideas around bad faith are helpful checks to our general liability to fall into the trap of assuming who we are is set in stone. I am an accountant and forever will be; I am this type of father and always will be - this is my essence.
I generally agree with Cox that a good dose of Sartrean medicine can help shake up such thinking and places the onus on us to own our lives a bit more. But I don't think Cox spends enough time exploring the many challenges to this stance. In particular, I think there is a really interesting nuance here between the micro and the macro sense of freedom. At the microscale, I think Sartrean freedom is a very accurate description of my experience: I can jump out the window, punch a stranger, choose to quit my job today and so on. There is, for me at least, something quite vertigo-inducing about this.
But then there is the macroscale freedom issue – things like how much freedom I have to alter big-picture things in my life. I like to believe all my little freedom steps can add up to getting me where I want to go – but in 2023 that seems like a very privileged thing to say. Statistically, we know that your race or gender or family income level massively determine your outcomes. It is, I think, possible to reconcile Sartrean micro-freedom (as I’ve called it) with a picture of individuals striving to change their situation and accepting that they may not succeed.
But this is a tricky argument to make and one I don’t think Cox tackles adequately. Which is a problem, because to modern readers coming at this material for the first time, I think the natural challenge is – well it’s easy for a privileged, middle-class white man to say all this about freedom and choice but how about you try making these claims from a position of abject poverty, racial discrimination or domestic abuse. To be clear, I think Sartre has important messages for everyone but how his rather harsh, libertarian-seeming view of our freedom integrates with the very real limitations the world imposes on us is not at all clear from this book.
This issue is made more problematic by Cox’s occasional right-wing blustering. Like a random dig at feminists for not being able to use the word ‘man’ in place of ‘humans’ (just say people) or comments about living in a blame culture – that sort of thing. I chose to read past this because the rest of the content is very good but others will understandably be put off. Which is a pity because these little interjections simply don’t need to be there and make the book come off as a bit mean-spirited at times. Furthermore, it highlights how Cox does not tackle the really interesting challenges of reconciling one’s ‘thrownness’ – to borrow from Heidegger – with our micro-sense of freedom.
Perhaps I’m asking too much? This is a short book mostly summarising Sartre’s thoughts and probably does not intend to tackle the challenges in his system of thought. An extra chapter pushing into how to resolve this issues, as well as a better exploration of the impact of emotion and mental health on our microscale freedom (plus getting rid of the petty asides), would have pushed this to a five-star rating. As it is, this is a very good primer for new and old readers alike but one that doesn’t add much new to the 21st century existentialist discourse.
Note to myself: I was lost and sad, this help me A LOT, It open my eyes and told me good truths. Remember is okay and normal to feel a lack of something, is the price we pay for being conscious entities ( a gift). We are being and inventing our selves with every decision we make.
this reads like a philosophy teacher trying to "vibe with the kids". at several points I wanted him to just stop trying to be witty and inauthentic and just be authentic.
From my blog: So I'm reading this book, How to be an Existentialist by Gary Cox. It's one of the two books about Existentialism I borrowed from the library. This one is the hipper, friendly version, while the other book is more scholarly. Starting with this because I needed to ease myself in with these huge concepts first.
SO FAR some of the takeaways I gleaned:
Everyone is free, we are solely responsible for our lives. Ie. if you are not free it's because you chose not to be free. Okay let me quote verbatim because the guy puts it better: A person can never surrender his freedom. He can never make himself an object causally determined by the physical world because the very project of surrender, the very attempt to render himself causally determined, must be a free choice of himself. A person can never not choose, because as as Sartre says, 'Not to choose is , in fact, to choose not to choose'.
The concept of consciousness, the terms future-past and past-future. Every past used to be a future, and my future has now become my past. Lol damn a little mind boggling no?
That time, and consciousness is what gives life meaning, or the sense of the past and future. Without consciousness/awareness, - an acorn is just an acorn. But as a human with consciousness you know that this acorn has the possibility of being an oak tree. Or like a fire is just a fire but without consciousness nobody ever knows that this fire can go burn things down.
Also consciousness means that we will always feel lack. What we lack, is in fact the future. We will always lack the future.
Existentialism recognises that once you are born, you are condemned to death. There is no real meaning in life, but this way of thinking recommends you to bravely accept that this is the way of life, and you can create your own purpose in life and enjoy it.
'The Other'- every human is a being itself, when not in contact with others he is his own God. But when he meets 'The Other' , his behaviour and thoughts changed, they are circumvented - this is where my sociology training kicks in- we are governed by social constructs and laws- we are not always fully ourselves.
All is vanity. Yes. I agree.
Okay lol that's what I got from 49 pages so far! More to come.
Thoughts so far:
I may have come across some of what the book said earlier in life and this gave me a lot of perspective in response to life events. I think I always say this but the passing of my granddad, then my grandmother were turning points in my life. Once you see death everything else is really trivialised and you know that life is short. Other things in this book- I can see myself resisting social pressure so that I can be free to do what I enjoy. I will take responsibility for myself and not blame anybody or society for offering too many possibilities and choices.
Since life is short I just would like to do three things.
Learn. I find myself happiest when I am learning. Company. I love the company I have, all my family and friends. Lastly, this is more of like an aim but I would like to bring more positivity in the world. In a more 'elitist' sense I want to 'awaken the consciousness' in the 'oppressed' (lol Marx student for life). Basically just want to tell people that they don't have to be stuck in misery while in the pursuit of happiness. Because they can be happy, now. Yup.
/edit: I finished the book. It's a rather short book haha.
More thoughts: If existentialism requires people to take responsibility for all their actions, then let us question Christianity and other faiths, where all responsibility of life seems to rest on the divine beings. Either 1. this is bad faith because you think god is making a choice for you, when in all technicality you are making your own choices, or maybe, 2. you just don't want to think so much about life maybe and hence you pray for someone , something else to help solve your troubles (things I come across in Sociology & Religion.) Much to think about.
//also there is this part about the ultimate moral acid test:
What would your response be if the devil said you were to live your life, with each and every single event were to repeat again? An eternal recurrence if you may, but hey. Just goes to show that you shouldn't have to go through life with so many regrets.
So it's really hard right now to not beat you about the head with a hundred zillion quotes from this book. I mean there are so many important terms, there are so many insightful statements. the section on bad faith was one of the best I've ever read, the section drawing parallels between nietzsche and sartre... swoon.
So there is this thing about philosophers... no joke... a philosopher is not an expert on a school they are an expert on a guy (except simon critchely who is an expert on everything. just kidding I'm reasonably sure kant is his thing). My advisor in college was a Phd in political philosophy but really he was a dewey scholar. My existentialism professor, was a phd in existentialism but in reality in Heidegger, she knew little enough about nietzsche that I would have to correct her on misreadings (she was one of those teachers who would assign 10 pages but miss the 10 page introduction to the concept before the assigned piece if you know what I'm talking about). This guy is a Sartre scholar, yeah he knows existentialists but he KNOWS Sartre. so this book is first about Sartre and second about existentialism.
I would say if you want to learn existentialism read "existentialism is a humanism" and this.
"How many existentialists does it take to change a light bulb?
Just one but both the existentialist and the light bulb have to want to change."
There were parts of this book I definitely enjoyed and found interesting, but I'd never recommend it to anyone. There are some interesting concepts brought up by existentialist philosophers like Satre and Nietzche, but I felt he was a bit too heavily focused on Satre (but it makes sense when you see the other books he's published), but that's just because I find Satre to be a bit too extreme with his claims, especially when you compare them to what when know now about the psychology of choice and willpower. Though I've bought one of his books because this was my introduction to him and I've got to check he wasn't misrepresented. There are about four good points in the book when the author aligns the title to the content, and I genuinely did take away some good advice from this but I'd never give it anyone.
Chatty, trite, and pretentious. ("Young people are stupid", "disabled people should stop moping".) It is at least trying to process the philosophy's thick and styleless abstractions into an accessible intro, but ends up being childish, macho, and uncritical.
He's a tenured academic, too! Taken as systematic description of the real world, Existentialism is a fruitless neo-Kantian mess. Taken as extreme postwar poetry or stoic-fictionalist cognitive stance, it is perhaps beautiful in a way.
A great little book which outlines the very basics of existentialism without falling into a wormhole of philoso-speak that leaves you feeling like a total idiot. I think it serves as a good entry point into this domain and does a good job of highlighting the points where existentialist philosophers disagree. The authour wrote his PHD and several books on Sartre, so he uses a lot of examples from Sartre's works, but still does an ok job of introducing other key existentialist thinkers.
I would not recommend the book to anyone who has a chance of reading another book instead. Over-simplification and pretentious arrogance are the key-words of this book. But if you want to get a feeling of belonging to a superior class of philosophers with inflated senses of their worth, go ahead.
قرأت الكتاب بترجمة "إبراهيم قيس جركس"، لطالما ادعيت بأني مهتمة بالفلسفة وحضرت ندوات فلسفية كثيرة واستمعت للكثير من المحاضرات ولكني دائمًا أفعل ذلك وفي داخلي شخص ناقد، يستمع لكل ما يقال بنصف عين. على الرغم من أن حب الكتابة داخلي والأدب والفن عمومًا يجعلني أقدر الحالة المسرحية التي يمر بها الإنسان في المواقف العابرة والبسيطة ورغبته في المبالغة التي تجعله يشعر بأنه أكثر حضورًا وأنه معني أكثر، إلا أني في المقابل ولسبب ما أشعر بأن الفلسفة غالبًا تعقيد بلا جمال.
لم أقرأ الكتاب لأني كنت مهتمة بالفلسفة الوجودية، ولكن لأن العنوان بحد ذاته جذبني: كيف تصبح وجوديًا؟
لطالما شعرت بأني أحتاج لأن أكون شخصًا ما!
في بعض الأحيان أشعر بأني وصلت إلى ذلك ولكن الثبات على المواقف مستحيل، أنا الشخص الذي أختار أن أكونه كل مرة.
لا أعلم إن كان الذي فهمته صحيحًا تمامًا ولكن الفلسفة الوجودية لا تحاول الإجابة على الأسئلة بقدر ما تحاول التأكيد على فكرة: أنا موجود لذا علي أن أتصرف، أو شيء من هذا القبيل، لهذا تتوقف السببية في سلسلة المواقف عند الإنسان، لا عند احتمال وجود حكمة لم يخترعها الإنسان. رغم أن قصة فولبير مؤلف رواية "مدام بوفاري" في نهاية الكتاب جعلتني أتساءل إذا كان التغيير في حياته سببه فعلاً أنه قرر التغيير أم لأن الحادثة التي حصلت له كانت وراء ذلك، أي جعلتني أشكك فيما يحاول طرحه الكتاب. وإذا كان فولبير تغير لأن شيئًا لم يختره حدث له، لماذا يصبح ما اختاره نتيجة ذلك محط التقدير الوحيد؟ أعلم بأن بعض الأشخاص كان سيختار موقفًا مخالفًا، ولكن الشيء "العرضي" و"الطارئ" كان هو اليد الخارجية المساعدة وكان سببًا لإحداث تغيير وهذا ما أشعر بأن الفلسفة الوجودية تهمله أو تسطحه.. اليد الخارجية التي لا أستطيع أن أؤمن بأنها يد القرد على الآلة الكاتبة.
الكتاب ذكر بأن هناك وجودية دينية ولكن لم يذكر لنا كيف. كنت أتمنى لو طرح بعض الأفكار عن كيف يمكن لشخص ديني أن يكون وجوديًا.
بشكل عام بُعتبر هذا الكتاب مدخل بسيط وفيه الكثير من الأفكار المكررة ولكن قد يكون ذلك نتيجة حقيقة أنه لا يوجد منهج واضح وثابت يتبعه أصحاب هذه الفلسفة. لكني وجدت فيه ما أستطيع استخدامه بطريقة تناسبني. ولربما وجدت فيه ما أستطيع استخدامه أكثر بالمستقبل حين أختار أن أكون "شخصًا آخر".
I have long held the existentialist view that life is inherently absurd and therefore a clean slate onto which we create our own purpose. While nihilism lends one to crises of the soul, existentialism lends one to read books and go on dates, run marathons and call your mother. To me there is no greater life affirming, positive philosophy, so I was highly intrigued by the 'user's guide' concept.
The interesting thought I gleaned from this short book was the connection of consciousness and the temporal dimension. After establishing that consciousness is the organ of time (without the mind to link acorn to oak tree, the acorn exists without past or future) he made a very salient remark: "Only a temporal being can be free because to be free is to have possibilities and genuine alternatives in the future."
However, that was about the end of what I got from this. The rest, in my opinion, somehow managed to suck the life out of the topic. Not that it was boring, just that the only application suggested was "take responsibility", and - as this is fairly self evident by the definition of existentialism - that wasn't worth the pages it took to say so.