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Existentialism: An Introduction, Guide, and Assessment (Penguin Philosophy)

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Existentialism is such a wide and diverse philosophy and has had so many different contributors with differing views that the term `existentialism' has come to be nearly meaningless. John Macquarrie shows that while there are very few things that `existentialists' will agree on there are still recurrent subjects throughout their writing - such as freedom, decision, responsibility etc. Along with the themes that are common amongst existentialists there is also the common methodology of phenomenology that they share - at the beginning of the book there is a small section that briefly outlines the historical development of phenomenology as well as a description of Husserl's phenomenology - it is in no way detailed, but it's enough to give the reader a rough understanding.

The second chapter of this book traces the existentialist style of philosophizing through the history of philosophy - From the pre-Hellenistic age up until modern times. Macquarrie shows that the existentialist style of thought commonly emerges in a society when people find that their securities are threatened, when social structures and values begin to decay, and when the ambiguities of the world become more obvious.

This book is laid out so that every chapter discusses a separate topic common among existentialist philosophers. The book covers everything form thought and language (chapter 7), Finitude and guilt (chapter 10), authentic existence (chapter 11) and metaphysics (chapter 13). In the final two chapters Macquarrie evaluates the strengths and weakness of existeialism and outlines some of the contributions the philosophy has made in other areas - psychology, ethics, literature, education etc. if you're looking to learn about existentialism this is an excellent introduction.

John Macquarrie
Existentialism

(Philadelphia, PA: Westminster, 1972 and later reprints) 252 pages

The best book in English on existentialism.
Each chapter explores one theme rather than one thinker.
The chapter on Authenticity is called "In Quest of Authentic Existence".
Some other major themes are:
human existence, freedom of action, language, feelings.

This organization of the book
allows the reader who is new to existentialism
to begin reading on whatever theme is most interesting.

If you would like to read other books on existentialism,
search the Internet for: "Authenticity Bibliography".

James Leonard Park, existential philosopher