Customer Reviews

Introducing Existentialism

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I am a big fan of the "Intrudicing..." series. I think that Appignanesi has done a marvelous job in editing this series, and in fact has done something socially and intellectually important by bringing these books into the world. Furthermore, his Intruducing Freud was great.

However, this book was stunningly bad. Rather than share with us the major tenants and concepts of the major thinkers of Existential Philosophy, Appignanesi chose to take us on a "personal journey" of his, wherein he confronts with us the contradictions, paradoxes and impasses that make up existentialism's concerns. Which ended up being the author sharing his many personal thoughts on the subject, in the most confusing and convoluted manner possible.

Let me give you a quotation from the book, as an example: "What is freedom grounded on? Satre replies: on the nothingness of consciousness which effects a "psychic gap" - and imaginitive distance - between myself and the world of non-conscious reality. Out there is only an undifferentiated plenitude of Being-in-itself whose material resistence to me gains form and significance by my activity of consciousness. The person is solely this act of Being-for-itself, hence its terrifying freedom."

Yes, that is Appignanesi talking, not Sartre. And no, context does nothing to improve upon its needless opacity. The entire book is like that, throwing in complex concepts like "Being-in-itself" vs. "Being-for-itself" without explainging them at all, and then throwing in something like "freedom" on top of it out of nowhere.

Clearly he is a very learned man, with tremendous depth of knowledge, and many talents in thinking and writing. However, he seemed to take this book as an opportunity to show us how god-awful deep and serious he is, and the tremendously overwrought gravity of his own reflections. As well as to show us all how tricky he can be with language, and how he is at least as smart as Sartre, and possibly smater than Husserl too. A shocking amount of the book discusses Appignanesi's own opinions about the nature of existenced, rather than elucidating the fundamental concepts of existentialism. Not to mention (and yes, this part is perhaps the most astonishing) a photo of Richard Appignanesi's face appears on nearly every single page! (Looking quite deep and troubled, I must say.)

I just have to say, Richard, hey man, guess what: yes, many of us have gone through depressions and dark periods in which we have deeply questioned the very nature of reality, and the value of continuing to live. But that doesn't mean that your every rumination on the subject is of interest to the rest of us. If it helps, picture me picking my nose. This activity and the results it yeilds are usually of great interest to me. But this does not mean it is interesting to everyone else! If you want to write a book about the deep thoughts of Richard Appignanesi, that sounds great. However, the title of the book should then be Introducing the Deep Thoughts of Richard Appignanesi, and not Introducing Existentialism. Unfortunately, in that you yourself are the editor of the series, there was no one to tell you this. Perhaps we will both get lucky, and someone will direct your attention to this review. I invite you to take the book out of the series, and either re-write it, according to the advise you probably give to all of the other authors in the series, or, better yet, have someone else write it. There would be no shame in this act. The presence of this book in the series diminishes the efforts of the other authors whom you have edited, and cheapens their work. It would be the honorable thing to do. (Perhaps even Sartre would agree.)

First, of all, I agree with just about everything that READER "READER" had to say about this book (except the part about the nose-picking - that's a word-picture that I just didn't need).
When I picked up the book, I immediately thought, "Who is this guy on the cover, and why does it look like he's trying to do a really bad imitation of Johnny Cash (ie, the Man in Black)?" I had to go to the reviews at Amazon to find out! Once I found out, the question shifted to "What does this guy have to do with anything?" The answer, as I found, was nothing much. Although obviously an intelligent man (with the long-suffering face of a constipated bloodhound), Appignanesi really should stick to editing. I wanted/needed a book that would explain the finer points of Existentialism to me. I ended up with a book that led me meanderingly through one man's personal diary of angst and philosophical confusion. I closed the book feeling as if my brain had been pounded with a flannel-wrapped sledgehammer. Blech!
To be fair, Zarate's illustrations are top-notch. I got quite a chuckle out of seeing Sartre with his pants down. (As I turned the page, I prayed Appignanesi wouldn't follow suit....)
Do yourself a favor, bypass this book totally. Pick up 101 Key Ideas: Existentialism (Teach Yourself series) instead. Cheaper, and much, much more bang for the buck.
Oh, and by the way, wanna find out more about despair and ennui for real? Go listen to Johnny Cash sing "Folsom Prison Blues"; now there's a man who knew how to get his point across...

I wouldn't reccomend this Introduction to beginners. While it does offer an interesting comic book style history lesson into the arguments of/between existential phenomenology and phenomenology, it moves so quickly that the subtle differences between them seem blurred as the subject changes from page to page. If this book is used, I'd reccomend supplementing it with some other introductions into both existentialism and phenomenology. I'd reccomend Existentialism: From Dostoevsky to Sartre for an Existentialism only introduction. I'd then reccomend further reading into phenomenology, the main difference being that phenomenology tends to believe that all concepts, not only objects, can be proved indefinately. Although, Husserl differed from this, leading into existential thought. (bah!!! confusing).......

While the comic-strip style of the "Introducing..." series can be entertaining and beneficial when it comes to breaking up the monotony of dense philosophy, it also tends to be rather distracting and can make the survey of existentialism (which is complicated enough) even more difficult to understand.

I found this volume to be interesting, but it is also not the most clear of the "Introducing..." series. If someone would like a quick read that provides the basics of the development of existentialism, I would suggest picking up a copy of this book. It can be read in a matter of a few hours and will provide a sufficient taste of the material which can lead to further research.

A very helpful book for the beginning philosophy student. It outlined complicated concepts taught by the existential philosophers including Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre and Camus. The authors used cartoons to express the abstract philosophical concepts brilliantly. If you are writing a paper on any of these philosophers where you have to compare and contrast their ideas, I recommend this book. It helped me understand the subtle differences between Husserl and Heidegger's philosophy more clearly so that I could write a comprehensive paper on them with confidence. It also explained German terms such as "Gleichschaltung" through pictures and captions.

Please, please if you're considering reading this book.......go to your cupboard and pull out every box of cereal you can find and simply sit down and read the nutritional info for each: the reading will be much more interesting. This book is so incredibly unfocused, rambly and banal that at times I actually thought I might die while reading it!!! Please, someone tell me who edited this book, because he/she deserves to lose their job. This is the first time in my life where I read about a topic and actually felt like, after having read the book, that I knew less about the topic than I did before I ever opened the book. Really, honestly, don't bother.