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Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

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Most introductions to Existentialism make either of a couple of mistakes: they either focus on the style rather than the substance of the thinkers subsumed under the label or they focus on the mood evoked. Anyone who has read much about the philosophy knows that it is all too easy to degenerate into a meditation on the angst of human existence. By centering their discussions on moods and attitudes rather than concrete philosophical positions, Existentialism as it emerges from far too many introductions become anything and everything, yet nothing at all. Not so with Flynn.

The book is broken into six (necessarily) short chapters. The first five justify the cost of the book. The last one, on "Existentialism in the 21st Century," is an unhappy addendum. It seeks to hint at ways that Existential thought can engage some of the ongoing philosophical debates that continue into the 21st century. But the various ideas are simply dealt with too briefly and the possibilities of engagement are more gestured at than explained. The intentions were good, but there simply wasn't enough room to produce more than an outline of a chapter. But the first five chapters are all lucid and sharply focused. The first chapter deals with the central tenet of all thinkers who can be considered Existentialists (it is important to remember that most "Existentialists" did not so consider themselves), that philosophy is a practical discipline, dealing with actual lived life, not an inhuman scienticity far removed from concrete human concerns. The second deals with what it means to become an individual and how that is achieved. The third begins with Sartre's famous lecture on humanism and uses this as a springboard to talk of both theistic and atheistic forms of existential thought, but showing how both nonetheless place human beings at the center. The fourth chapter delves into the important ethical concept of authenticity. Finally, the fifth chapter deals with an aspect of Existentialism that many books on it neglect, the social philosophy promulgated by many of the movement's leading thinkers.

Not all those considered Existentialists receive equal attention in this intro. There is a great deal more about Kierkegaard and Sartre than any other thinkers, though there are significant discussions of a host of additional philosophers including Merleau-Ponty, Camus, Heidegger, Nietzsche, de Beauvoir, and Marcel. I have read fairly widely in all of those thinkers except Merleau-Ponty and can attest that his discussions of all these individuals are consistently accurate and fair. I admire how clearly he is able to get to the crux of their central ideas without distorting their thought. I'm especially conversant with Kierkegaard and while I often would have like to seen certain points expanded, I cannot say that he says anything misleading.

I recommend this as an introduction to Existentialism over all other such books with which I am familiar. Though still of value, some of the older intros by people like Walter Kaufman and William Barrett are definitely showing their age. They also suffer from the disadvantage of having been written while Existentialism was still in its hey day and they had less of a sense of what would be deemed of ongoing value in the movement. Flynn has the advantage of hindsight and knowledge of what parts retain interest. I have read several outstanding entries in this series by Oxford and feel that this is one of the best volumes yet.

I am assuming that this would be a great book if you are a philosophy major (or at least a diligent student of philosophy). Otherwise, Flynn's prose is often so dense and complex that it needs further explanation to reach the clarity of an *introductory* text. Flynn also assumes that the reader can quickly grasp certain scholarly ideas, such as structuralism and phenomenology. So to me, this book appears to serve as a reaffirmation for those already initiated into the arguments and counter-arguments of existentialism. Perhaps I will return to it after I've done more reading and studying.

It has been years since I marked up a book as much as I did this one. This is so much more than an introduction to a subset of philosophy. It is a tour of the mind of man wrestling with the questions that inform our lives as we live them. This tour crackles with life at every turn. The intensity and import of the insights revealed simply leap from the page. I can't imagine any true seeker after knowledge and meaning failing to be moved by this book. I can imagine hardened cynics, stoics, and uber-sophisticated postmodernists failing to be moved (and what would move them, anyway?) -- they would probably prefer a treatment other than Flynn's. My takeaway on this book is that Flynn's version of existentialism has the power to serve as an antidote, perhaps as the antidote, to all that has gone wrong with postmodernism.

Thomas Flynn's Existentialism is part of Oxford University Press' "very short introduction" series. "Weighing in" at less than 150 pages, Flynn's volume is both short and incisive, providing an introduction to most of the key existentialist philosophers and an overview of most of the key existentialist themes. As a "non-philosopher", I found the book more than accessible; the only exception is the book's final chapter, "Existentialism in the 21st century," which would likely be of special interest to those with a more extensive background in contemporary trends in philosophy. Beyond that final chapter, my hunch is that Flynn's volume will be of special interest to those with minimal prior exposure to existentialist writing. For anyone in that camp, this small volume comes highly recommended.

You'll do much better reading about existentialism elsewhere. First off, the opening chapter of this book is draining. It's written in philosophical jargon that's takes a lot of energy to decipher. And what's worse is that Flynn seems to know this. Too many times he reels off a vague and ambigious sentence then follows it up with the ever famous: "In other words..." Things do clear up a little in the second chapter but then you face the problem of Flynn not knowing how to structure an argument. He rarely gives examples of what he's talking about and when he does they're not enlightening. By the time he finished with Nietzsche, about 40 pages into the book, I decided to throw it in the trash. $10 wasted. Trust me, there is too much information on the web (Stanford Encyclopedia, the Encyclopedia of Philosophy) to put yourself through this.

The title of my review explains it all. Existentialism as co-opted by philosophers represents a world view that denies that, or perhaps simply rejects, the notion that the universe provides us with a moral compass. A reference is made at one point that existentialism exists in Socrates. I would say that certainly in Plato's "Symposium" Alcibiades represents the authentic "anti-hero" of our modern sensibility. Taken as a style of expression, but neither system of thought nor an "anti-system" of action, existentialism is most often revealed in dramatic or narrative literary forms, not to mention many historical analyses. As Sartre said, and revealed to the world in his dramatic and narrative writings, "We are what we do." Check it out. Skip the philosophers.