**A powerful new anthology that redefines our understanding of existentialism and argues for its contemporary relevance.'Superb ... I can't imagine a better way of meeting the existentialists in all their variety'** - Sarah Bakewell, author of At the Existentialist Café'Existentialist thought [...] is an effort to reconcile the objective and the subjective, the absolute and the relative, the timeless and the historical.' Simone de BeauvoirIn the af...

In Rethinking Existentialism, Jonathan Webber articulates an original interpretation of existentialism as the ethical theory that human freedom is the foundation of all other values. Offering an original analysis of classic literary and philosophical works published by Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Frantz Fanon up until 1952, Webber's conception of existentialism is developed in critical contrast with central works by Albert Camus, Sigmund Freud, and M...

Character plays a central role in our everyday understanding and evaluation of ourselves and one another. It informs the expectations that ground our plans and projects, our moral responses to other people's behaviour and to opportunities we ourselves face, and our political decisions concerning formal education, criminal punishment, and other aspects of social organisation. The very idea that people have persisting character traits that explain their behaviour is woven throughout the fabr...

Webber argues for a new interpretation of Sartrean existentialism. On this reading, Sartre is arguing that each person’s character consists in the projects they choose to pursue and that we are all already aware of this but prefer not to face it. Careful consideration of his existentialist writings shows this to be the unifying theme of his theories of consciousness, freedom, the self, bad faith, personal relationships, existential psychoanalysis, and the possibility of authenticity. Devel...

First published in 1940, Sartre's The Imaginary is a cornerstone of his philosophy. Sartre had become acquainted with the philosophy of Edmund Husserl in Berlin and was fascinated by his idea of the intentionality of consciousness as a key to the puzzle of existence.Against this background, The Imaginary crystallized Sartre's worldview and artistic vision. Here he presented the first extended examination of the concepts of nothingness and freedom, both of which are...

Jean-Paul Sartre was one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century. The fourteen original essays in this volume focus on the phenomenological and existentialist writings of the first major phase of his published career, arguing with scholarly precision for their continuing importance to philosophical debate.Aspects of Sartre’s philosophy under discussion in this volume include:consciousness and self-consciousnessimagination and ...

While ostensibly commenting on the work of a contemporary novelist, Kierkegaard used this review as a critique of his society and age. The influence of this short piece has been far-reaching. The apocalyptic final sections are the source for central notions in Heidegger's Being and Time. Later readers have seized on the essay as a prophetic analysis of our own time. Its concepts have been drawn into current debates on identity, addiction, and social conformity.

A Nobel Prize-winning author delivers one of the most influential works of the twentieth century, showing a way out of despair and reaffirming the value of existence.Influenced by works such as Don Juan and the novels of Kafka, these essays begin with a meditation on suicide—the question of living or not living in a universe devoid of order or meaning. With lyric eloquence, Albert Camus brilliantly presents a crucial exposition of existentialist thought.

"This volume is especially useful in demonstrating the effects of placing social discourses at the center of therapy. It gores many sacred cows of the larger modernist therapeutic community, but in doing so it offers new ideas for mental health professionals attempting to help their clients with common and serious life problems." —PSYCRITIQUES"This compilation is an insightful read for practitioners who have not taken the opportunity to use narrative t...

The Knowledge Deficit illuminates the real issue in education today -- without an effective curriculum, American students are losing the global education race. In this persuasive book, the esteemed education critic, activist, and best-selling author E.D. Hirsch, Jr., shows that although schools are teaching the mechanics of reading, they fail to convey the knowledge needed for the more complex and essential skill of reading comprehension. Hirsch corrects popular misconceptions about hot is...

From the groundbreaking author of The Second Sex comes a radical argument for ethical responsibility and freedom.In this classic introduction to existentialist thought, French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir's The Ethics of Ambiguity simultaneously pays homage to and grapples with her French contemporaries, philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, by arguing that the freedoms in existentialism car...

Existentialisms arise when the foundations of being, such as meaning, morals, and purpose come under assault. In the first-wave of existentialism, writings typified by Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, and Nietzsche concerned the increasingly apparent inability of religion, and religious tradition, to support a foundation of being. Second-wave existentialism, personified philosophically by Sartre, Camus, and de Beauvoir, developed in response to similar realizations about the overly optimistic Enli...