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What is human life about? What does it mean to be an authentic human individual?  Am I trapped by the circumstances of my birth, or can I genuinely transcend them? How do I understand and cope with the hopes, fears and anxieties that shape my personal life?

 

These are existential questions. They do not require some overall explanation about the nature of reality, nor are they answerable in terms of scientific evidence. Rather, they all start with the fact that human individuals have to live in relation to the world around them. People have projects that they seek to fulfil, and their choices are based on hopes for the future. Yet life is limited and we face the inevitability of death. What, if anything, is worthwhile?

 

These questions have long been explored through art, literature and religion, but they are also central to one particular tradition in philosophy: existentialism. It considers the meaning of human life: its goals, significance and the experience of responsibility – shaping the future and living in an authentic way. In other words, it is about what it means to be a human being living in the world. The general view of existentialist philosophers is that life is not presented to us already packaged with meaning and purpose, but it is what we make of it.

 

Existentialism  in post-war Paris, centred on the work of Jean-Paul Sartre, became probably the most fashionable philosophy known. With it came a belief in freedom and self-determination and the rejection of convention. But the philosophical questions upon which is it based had first been raised in the 19^th century by Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. Such questions built on the work of Husserl and Heidegger earlier in the 20^th century. Existentialism  became hugely popular in Europe in the years following the Second World War, when people were all too aware of the fragility of life and wanted a philosophy that was positive, self-affirming but not escapist.

 

Existentialism is above all a philosophy for the streets rather than the academic cloister. In addressing the fundamental questions about how we understand, direct and give meaning to our lives, it remains relevant at the end of the first decade of the 21^st century, when economic, political, social and environmental issues continue to confront people with an uncertain future.  

 

Contents

 

Introduction

Chapter 1: Living Dangerously                                  

Chapter 2:  Between Birth and Death                         

Chapter 3: Existence precedes Essence                     

Chapter 4: The Authentic Life                        

Chapter 5: Freedom, Choice and Responsibility        

Chapter 6: The Individual, Art and Society                

Chapter 7:  Existentialism  and Religion                    

Chapter 8 Authenticity and the Absurd: the fiction of Sartre and Camus                    

Postscript: What Happened to Existentialism ?          

Appendix: Who’s who                                               

Further Reading                                                          

Glossary

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Understand Existentialism has be co-authored with Nigel Rodgers

 

for more information about Nigel's work

click here

 

Understand Existentialism

is to be published by Teach Yourself Books in September 2010

but is already available for pre-order on Amazon