Existentialism has come to be identified as a critical, reactionary way of thinking, celebrating the individual, freedom, embodiment, and the limits of rationality and systematic theorizing. For the most part this assessment is true of the early and, by now, classicalworks of existentialism, those that first burst upon the philosophical and cultural scene. Circulating Being centers on the later works of several well-known French existentialists (Camus, Marcel, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty) to trace out the development of their existential thinking about language, communicative life, ethics, and politics. This development from embodiment to incorporationcarries existentialism beyond identification with the mere reactionary and reveals how, while prefiguring postmodernism in important ways, the existential thinkers dealt with here reveal themselves to be reconstructive of the Western tradition. This is apparent in the growing appreciation of difference in their late works along with a reluctance to surrender the ideal of unity, and in their reappropriation of truth and justice while repudiating a totalizing metaphysics.
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About the Author
Thomas Busch is Professor of Philosophy at Villanova University
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent, approachable, scholarly study,
By Billy A. Moore (Bryn Mawr, PA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Circulating Being: From Embodiment to Incorportation (Perspectives in Continental Philosophy) (Hardcover)
Thomas W. Busch's "Circulating Being" provides an insightful critical examination of late French existential writings by Camus, Marcel, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty. While early existentialists viewed traditional Western thought, rationalism and empiricism with disdain, Busch argues that the late existentialists recognized the limits of science and technology by shifting existentialism "from embodiment to incorporation". Existentialism is a "good faith" attempt to make sense of and refigure the world based on individual lived experience and subjectivity. While the universe is indeed an uncertain, ambiguous place, we human beings can find certainty and "deliverance" by developing authentic, loving relationships with each other. No doubt, there are differences in perspectives, yet Bush shows how, for example, Sartre, the "philosopher of psychological difference," (46) was greatly influenced by Decartes, Husserl, and even Freud to a certain extent. For Sartre, "Human reality [is] a being which is what it is not and which is not what it is" (47). Busch's work serves as a readable and invaluable referential keepsake for further study in French existentialism. A great read!
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