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Introduction to Existentialism (Midway Reprint)

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This book's title is somewhat misleading. Rather than an introduction to existentialism it is a "critical guide" to some of the leading existentialist philosophers. This is not a book for beginners or those without an extensive background in modern philosophy. Grene is engaged in a sophisticated and critical encounter, based on a thorough grounding in philosophy, with the leading existentialists. Grene spent years in Europe, studied Kierkegaard in Denmark, and spent time with Heidegger, so she is highly qualified to write about existentialism. I appreciated the clarity of her exposition. She avoids, for the most part, the murky pseudo-technical jargon and meaningless verbiage of so much Continental philosophy.

In this book Grene intelligently and critically discusses the ideas of Soren Kierkegaard, Martin Heidegger, Karl Jaspers, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Gabriel Marcel. Grene is no simpering acolyte. She is sharply critical of each of the philosophers. I particularly appreciated Grene's scathing assessments of Jaspers and Marcel. She describes Marcel's religious existentialism as "unctuous sentimentality." In my judgment, despite the harshness of her assessments, she gives a fair and balanced account. Her "Postscript" is a brilliant concise statement about existentialism. If you do not have chance to read anything else on existentialism, read that. She ends by describing existentialism as "a new expression of an old despair."

The reader should be aware that this is a very early work, originally published in 1947. I believe that it is the first work in English on the existentialists. Many of the key works of existentialism had not been translated into English at that time and were not well known in North America. Thus in its time Grene's book was exciting and pioneering but is much less so now. Also since her book was published Sartre wrote and published a great deal, as did Heidegger, Marcel, and Jaspers. Merleau-Ponty voiced many of the same objections to Sartre as Grene does, but he argued them more technically and in more detail. Sartre tried in his later writings to answer the sorts of objections that Grene was pushing (not successfully IMO). Among English speaking philosophers as well, there has been a great deal of discussion and development of the understanding and criticism of existentialism since 1947. Nevertheless, since the main works of existentialism had been published by 1947, Grene's book is still useful.

Another limitation of Grene's book is that she does not discuss phenomenology. Coming from Husserl, phenomenology is an important, vital even, background and source for existentialism. Husserl's phenomenology and Heidegger's development of it is as important for existentialism as are the philosophies of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche.

I recommend this book to those who are well grounded in philosophy but want a good clear and critical tour through the basic ideas of the existentialists, as long as they realize the limitations of this book. Such a reader would want also to access a more recent guide to existentialism and phenomenology. Search "phenomenology and existentialism" at Amazon books.

This book by Marjorie Grene, available under another title of 'Dreadful Freedom', provides in a very short space an excellent introduction to the basic thinking of existentialism, a philosophy that has its beginnings in the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, and may be considered one of the greatest schools of philosophy for the twentieth century.

Grene traces the basics of existentialism by highlighting five key thinkers in the field - Sartre, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, Marcel and Jaspers. Grene states in her introduction to the 1959 edition that she probably needs a chapter on Tillich as well; her conclusion in the text about the incompatibilities of existentialism and Christianity need to be modified in light of his work.

'Existentialism is the philosophy which declares as its first principle that existence is prior to essence.' Kierkegaard and Heidegger both construct a metaphysics along these lines; for many of the existentialist, it leads to a bleak knowledge of the world devoid of values, that some find differents ways to escape - Kierkegaard and Marcel go back to concepts of God, whereas others like Sartre carry the despair itself as a primary motif.

Grene looks at the political, social, metaphysical, epistemological and ethical implications of existentialism, as well as the main areas of overlap between the major thinkers. This is an introductory text, so Grene does not explore the areas of difficulty as much as could be done, but for an introduction, such considerations can be left for later research. This book does assume some familiarity with philosophy generally - Grene uses terminology without providing a glossary that the reader unfamiliar with philosophy might find difficult.

As the twenty-first century dawns, existentialism has fallen somewhat out of favour, but it has yet to be replaced by any particular school of thought. Philosophy in the present and future will have to take into account the ideas and developments of the existentialists regardless of whether or not they agree. This is a good text for those beginning to explore existentialism, even after fifty years since it was written.

It's hard to believe that at one time philosophy was in vogue in the United States and the particular brand of philosophy was existentialism. During the fifties and sixties if one did not speak the prose of existentialism one could not consider oneself 'hip' - in an academic way that is. As a result scads of books were published concerning existentialism; these were either translations of European writers or commentaries on the work created by these writers. Scan any philosophy section at your local used bookstore and you will likely find some of these books repleat with funky cover art and publishing dates that most likely range from 1955 - 1970. This is precisely how I came across this book.

Marjorie Grene, once a seminal figure in the study of continental philosophy, has accomplished in this book exactly what its title suggests - an introduction to existentialism. (Actually its original title was something like Condemned Freedom) Useful for the Existential initiate this introduction is short and concise. However, compared with many other introductions of similar topic, Grene's is relatively narrow in scope, focusing primarily on Kierkegaard, Heidegger and Sartre. This is certainly made up for by the content of what is included. The Kierkegaard section is a fairly thourough but general explication yet the Heidegger and Sartre Sections justifies the purchase of the book. It offers the reader a solid explication of both of these thinkers plus a comparative component that allows one to trace the development of existentialism from Heidegger to Sartre and back again.

Granted, with all the books written then and recently covering existentialism this little book is perhaps more valuable for its history then content. However, a used copy will undoubtedly be inexpensive and, for my purposes, it was well worth the two bucks that I paid.