Basic Writings of Existentialism

If you have ever wondered about the universal need for us to find meaning in being, this book is a fine start to launching a personal journey. It is a remarkable piece of scholarship wherein Professor Marino superbly accomplishes the three tasks of a master teacher: relevance, erudition, and invitation. Since nothing can be more relevant that the meaning of life, and existentialism posits that such meanings are feats of human alchemy (creating something from nothing), the ideas under review are nothing short of an amazing intellectual asdventure into the worlds of erudition (key passages from esistential writers), biography (tumbnail descriptions of the writers' lives) and an invitation to explore a stream of philosophical thought which includes Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, de Unamundo y Juego, Heidegger, Satre, de Beauvoir, Camus and Ellison. Students and members of the educated public may recognize some of these names, but many may have never engaged these thinkwers in a sustained manner. Here is your chance to discover what is happening in philiosophy departments. If your field is one of the social sciences, the work serves as a vital reference book--a source of insight and an effectivwe way to reflect on one's previous learning experiences. Professor Morino's Introduction, alone, is worth the price of the book because he, like most of us, initially turned to philosophy to seek "answers", but discovered that ideas are powerful and are themselves a way of life. It is a sheer joy to follow his journey in this domain becaue he implicitly shows his enthusiasm for this material through his careful selections. For sociologists, there is a beautiful gem in the unexpected field of research methodology: the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl, which is based on the study of experience itself, permits ethnography (the direct observation of, and participation in, different life-worlds) to be seen as an existential project. That never occurred to me, but it certainly explains why those of us who conduct such research often leave our studied scenes with a fantastic store of experiences and insights that can persist for decades--long after one's fieldnotes have turned yellow. The reason is that when you participate in a life-world that is initially alien to you, one learns to see even the commonplace in ways that are neither expected, nor anticipated: a form of discovery that forever changes and enriches one's life. As such, meanings are imparted that would be otherwise absent, or unknowable. Many cannot, due to lack of training or opportunity, or due to the inherent riasks and time involved, actually conduct ethnographic research. But any reader with the inclination and the curiosity can Explore Professor Marino's journey into a world that they would likely otherwise never know. That is both time well spent, and a risk worth taking, in my view. It may even prove to be meaningful, something that would doubtless delight many of the thinke

I read a good chunk of this text for my German Existentialism class and will absolutely be reading the rest of it on my own. Marino does an excellent job compiling a wide range of existentialist thought and adding short, concise introductions to each philosopher. Even more difficult philosophers like Heidegger and Kierkegaard are made approachable by careful selection from their major works. For people approaching existentialism for the first time I would suggest this book in addition to William Barrett's The Irrational Man, the latter giving a better groundwork for the entire philosophy and Marino's text providing some of the best and most vivid examples of existentialist philosophy. Existentialism is not for the meek. The texts are difficult and many of the questions they raise may result in life altering answers. For those willing to take the plunge this should not be a deterent, but merely a bump in the road. Marino has selected pieces that can at first seem utterly baffling, but with careful readings (Yes, readings. Things get easier the second time!) all of them are accessible and the benefits and real world applications (Existentialism pops up everywhere--movies, tv, music, art, politics, religion, etc. It is, after all, about existence!) of existentialism are impossible to measure.

Perhaps more than any other philosophical movement I studied in college, existentialism forever changed the way I view life. Not surprisingly, Editor Gordon Marino begins this superb anthology with a caveat emptor. "The existentialists are not for people looking to read themselves to sleep" (p. xvi). Simply stated, existentialism is a philosophy emphasizing that because life has no inherent meaning, we must determine life's meaning for ourselves. Existentialist thinkers regard human existence as unexplainable, and stress freedom of choice and responsibility for the consequences of one's acts. Like my college course on the subject, Basic Writings of Existentialism includes essential selections from Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvoir, Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo, and Ralph Ellison. It not only offers an excellent introduction to existentialist philosophy and literature, it also demonstrates that existentialism remains as compelling and relevant as a Bob Dylan song ("I was born here and I'll die here against my will"), an Ingmar Bergman film, or Hollywood movies like The Matrix or Fight Club. This book is more than an anthology. It is a profound adventure. G. Merritt