Customer Reviews

How to Be an Existentialist: or How to Get Real, Get a Grip and Stop Making Excuses

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When I first saw this book on the shelf at my local bookstore, my initial reaction was: Great, just what we need, another silly introduction to Existentialism. But when I didn't find the book I had been looking for, I decided to leaf through it after all, and was shocked to find myself laughing aloud. Yes, that's right: laughing.

When was the last time you saw someone laughing in the Philosophy aisle?

Strange but true, this has got to be one of the most delightful, most intelligent, and most outrageously funny books I have read in a long time. But it is funny in a way that is clever and sometimes so subtle that it is shocking, which is why this book should appeal not only to novices, but also to experts in the field, those who will get not only the allusions, but also the puns and the irony.

That said, in terms of substance, the book is no joke; it's actually very serious.

Cox's forte is Sartre, so much of what you are told about Existentialism is Sartrean, though the usual suspects are also discussed. At the center of Cox's examination is the existential question: How does one live Authentically and avoid Bad Faith?

The terms were not new to me, and the question is one I had thought through before, but mostly in a detached, academic way. As theory. Instead, Cox's style is so personal, and he writes with such verve, that this silly little book was, for me, a not-so-silly revelation. Having read it I feel reinvigorated and recommitted to living authentically: to realizing my "being-in-situation without regret" and assuming responsibility by "throwing [myself] into the spirit of things." Indeed, this is the closest thing to philosophical self-help since Nietzsche and the Stoics, but with more laughs. But that's not all it is.

Sometimes the best test of a book, especially an introduction or guidebook, is its ability to inspire you to read the original sources. Cox succeeds here, too. For example, he cites Sartre's "War Diaries" often enough that he has piqued what had been my flagging interest in Sartre, and motivated me to get the book.

Would that more philosophy was like this! This book should appeal to undergraduates, grad students, black-shirted existentialist smokers in cafes, and any intelligent reader.

Just what I had hoped it would be. A concise explanation of the history, development and application of existentialism. (hard to do on such a subject) Delightfully, it was also witty and amusing. I came away feeling wonderfully positive about living in an absurd and meaningless world, something I had been trying to reconcile for some time.

Sense of humor combined with well researched (albeit condensed) history of Existentialism helps make this tiny book an exciting manifesto on following your own path.

i always wondered what existentialism was - it's a much used word and i hear it everywhere - but until i read this, i hadn't a clue.
this book explains the difficult and sometimes obscure concepts of existentialism in a clear and easily accessible manner, using lots of examples from everyday life - there are no head in the clouds, ivory towers here.
'how to be an existentialist' is written in such a way that it is accessible to virtually ANYBODY. that doesn't mean it is dumbed-down or over-simplified - some of the ideas it explores are very complex indeed, but what cox manages to do here is something that other writers often fail to do, he successfully conveys very difficult ideas in a way that even a relatively inexperienced philosopher like me can understand.
this book has inspired me and i've since gone on to read and enjoy his other books too. he obviously really knows what he is talking about as it takes a real expert to explain such difficult material so clearly.
read it and see!!!

Simply put, I would suggest that if you are looking for a book which introduces you to existentialism you should look somewhere else.

How some say this book is funny I do not know. The author, trying to be hip and clever, comes across as boring an annoying. Not only is the writing a distraction from the reader, but it appears it was a distraction for the writer while he wrote the book. I have no problem with a book that uses humor to make a point but generally in this work it is forced and unneeded. If you take out all of his useless comments so you have just the meat of the text the book would be very small indeed.

This book is less "existentialism for dummies" and more "existentialism dumbed-down." As it is presented in the book - existentialism is rather shallow as a philosophy or the writer just presents it with such a broad brush with overloaded assumptions and no detail that the book does nothing to clarify the philosophical system which appears now to have little foundation as a system in-of-itself.

A brilliant book. Highly recommended for anyone who always wanted to know what existentialism is but didn't know who to ask. Brilliant.

This book does a good job in explaining a few concepts in Being and Nothingness. In particular, Cox's explanation of Sartre's theory of ętre-pour-autrui (pages 36-44) is incisive and useful. However, the lack of an evaluative discussion of the concepts, once introduced, renders this pamphlet of limited use to philosophy students, at first-year undergraduate level or above (see, for example, his failure to even reference Kant's transcendental intuitions in his introduction to Sartrean time, pages 33-36).

Similarly, for the adult reader, the text is frequently marred by Cox's attempts to write like a columnist in CosmoGirl magazine. The text is evidently marketed at, and unexistentially panders to, its target age group. Like a desperate school-teacher attempting to be "down with the youth", Cook litters his prose with girlish chit-chat, and affects a self-conscious, simpering style of humour which manifestly belies his arguments about authenticity. The combination of humour and philosophy is always welcome, unfortunately Cox is no Woody Allen.

Two other problems. Cox presents the subject in an irritatingly preachy way. He discusses existentialism as if - despite his occasional disclaimers to the contrary - it were a religion, when in fact 'existentialism' is merely a label applied to a loose grouping of mid-20th century philosophers, who disagreed with each other more than anything. Misleadingly, Cox's understanding is confined mainly to the philosophy of Sartre, while claiming to speak on behalf of existentialism tout court (e.g. even his introduction of some basic ideas of Kierkgaard and Heidegger in the penultimate chapter are introduced only as Sartre would have understood them). Yet, famous existentialist philosophers, such as Jaspers, Marcel, Shestov and Unamuno, each came to radically different conclusions, and are thus collectively irreducible to doctrines and self-help guides. The title of this book would more accurately be "How to be a Sartrean" - although the title itself, with its notion of philosophy as if it is some kind of diet one can follow, is radically anti-philosophical. There's also a historical illiteracy in describing Nietzsche, Kierkgaard and Dostoevsky as existentialists, as Cox embarrassingly does. These writers were influences on the existentialist philosophers (as they were on psychoanalysis and many other 20th century groupings); this is very different to being part of that grouping. We can be sure Dostoevsky (that Pan-Slavic nationalist and Christian-fundamentalist), in particular, would object to an association with any mainstream existentialist ideas.

There is also a slight degree of vulgarisation in Cox's application of Sartre's concepts to everyday life. The concepts are watered down to such an extent that, in the end, they become indistinguishable from the sub-Nietzschean ideology of Ayn Rand. On the other hand, the message is still a lot more intelligent than what you'd get from the average self-help book.

Cox is both passionate about Sartre and, when he sticks to the topic, has the ability to make some of Sartre's more obscure ideas easily understandable. The saving grace of the book is that Cox's passion may encourage more people to read the great works of philosophy. I'd imagine that Cox's dictionary (The Sartre Dictionary, Gary Cox) is then a worthwhile buy before tackling Being and Nothingness.

This book is a good intro to existentialism. Most books on the subject put you to sleep fast. This one is pithy and humorous. A great read.