Understanding Existentialism

Jack Reynolds examines the majors texts of existentialism: Heideggerbs Being and Time, Sartre's Being and Nothingness, Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception, and de Beauvoir's The Ethics of Ambiguity and The Second Sex. He explores the notions of freedom, death, finitude, and mortality; phenomenological experiences and anguish, angst, nausea, boredom, and fear; authenticity and responsibility; pessimism about human relations; and rejection of any external determination of morality or value. Understanding Existentialism begins with a discussion of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Husserl, Jaspers, and Marcel - existentialism's antecedents - and ends with an assessment of the movement's effect, particularly its influence on poststructuralism.