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Circulating Being: From Embodiment to Incorportation (Perspectives in Continental Philosophy)

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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!