Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre

✍ Scribed by Walter Arnold Kaufmann

• Publisher: Meridian Books
• Year: 1956
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 161
• Series: Meridian books, M39
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Existentialism is perhaps the most misunderstood of modern philosophic positions-- misunderstood by reason of its broad popularity and general unfamiliarity with its origins, representatives, and principles. Existential thinking did not originate with Jean Paul Sartre. It has prior religious, literary, and philosophic origins. In its narrowest formulation it is a metaphysical doctrine, arguing as it does that any definition of man's essence must follow, not precede, an estimation of his existence. In Heidegger, it affords a view of Being in its totality; in Kierkegaard, an approach to that inwardness indispensable to authentic religious experience; for Dostoevsky, Kafka, and Rilke the existential situation bears the stamp of modern man's alienation, uprootedness, and absurdity; to Sartre it has vast ethical and political implications. This book contains only complete selections or entire works by the major thinkers.--From publisher description. �Read more...

✦ Table of Contents

Content: Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre / Kaufmann --
Notes from underground / Dostoevsky --
On himself / Kierkegaard. On his mission ; On his works ; On his mode of existence ; "That individual" --
"Live Dangerously" / Nietzsche. "The challenge of every great philosophy" ; "The gay science" ; On free death ; The beginning of The will to power ; From Ecce homo --
The notes of Malte Laurids Brigge / Rilke --
Three parables / Kafka. An imperial message ; Before the law ; Couriers --
Existenzphilosophie / Jaspers. On my philosophy ; Kierkegaard and Nietzsche ; The encompassing --
The way back into the ground of metaphysics / Heidegger --
Existentialism / Sartre. The wall ; Self-deception ; Portrait of the antisemite ; Existentialism is a humanism --
The myth of Sisyphus / Camus.
Abstract: Existentialism is perhaps the most misunderstood of modern philosophic positions-- misunderstood by reason of its broad popularity and general unfamiliarity with its origins, representatives, and principles. Existential thinking did not originate with Jean Paul Sartre. It has prior religious, literary, and philosophic origins. In its narrowest formulation it is a metaphysical doctrine, arguing as it does that any definition of man's essence must follow, not precede, an estimation of his existence. In Heidegger, it affords a view of Being in its totality; in Kierkegaard, an approach to that inwardness indispensable to authentic religious experience; for Dostoevsky, Kafka, and Rilke the existential situation bears the stamp of modern man's alienation, uprootedness, and absurdity; to Sartre it has vast ethical and political implications. This book contains only complete selections or entire works by the major thinkers.--From publisher description