The Cambridge Companion to Existentialism

by Steven Galt Crowell (Editor)

Existentialism exerts a continuing fascination on students of philosophy and general readers. As a philosophical phenomenon, though, it is often poorly understood, as a form of radical subjectivism that turns its back on reason and argumentation and possesses all the liabilities of philosophical idealism but without any idealistic conceptual clarity. In this volume of original essays, the first to be devoted exclusively to existentialism in over forty years, a team of distinguished commentators discuss the ideas of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty and Beauvoir and show how their focus on existence provides a compelling perspective on contemporary issues in moral psychology and philosophy of mind, language and history. A further sequence of chapters examines the influence of existential ideas beyond philosophy, in literature, religion, politics and psychiatry. The volume offers a rich and comprehensive assessment of the continuing vitality of existentialism as a philosophical movement and a cultural phenomenon.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction

428 pages, Paperback

First published February 16, 2012

Reviews

[Renxiang Liu · Rating 5 out of 5]

As another collection of critical engagement with existentialism from various perspectives, this book goes a bit deeper than most others such as A Companion to Phenomenology and Existentialism (Blackwell). The main part of the book comprises articles on Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, de Beauvoir and Merleau-Ponty. They are generally helpful in that both the common ground of these philosophers and the loci of their disagreement are marked out.

Specifically, I find the following chapters comparatively more helpful:

Steven Crowell's "Existentialism and its legacy" is a proper introduction, as it brilliantly sketches out the span of existentialism as a philosophical movement, makes necessary distinctions (so that the volume does not appear too broad to stay in focus). Crowell is also effective in fending existentialism from popular understandings, especially its images as solitary, anti-social frenzy.

Richard Schacht's and Lawrence Hatab's articles on Nietzsche are disclosive of Nietzsche's distance from the mainstream of existential philosophy (especially with regard to his "naturalism") as well as of the interconnection between the concepts Nietzsche employs, such as nihilism, the will to power, perspectivism, amor fati, and eternal recurrence. Hatab's article is especially well composed to fulfill the second point.

Karsten Harries' "The antimony of Being: Heidegger's critique of humanism" is an interesting study on the discrepancy, mainly in terms of philosophical orientation, between Heidegger and Sartre. Harries is sensitive enough to discover that, although Heidegger downplays humanism, he nevertheless has a clear and enduring conception - one may even say ideal - of humanity; it is just the acceptance of Nietzsche's claim "God is dead" that distances him from any version of humanism that is essentially metaphysical. Harries also brings to the fore the relevance of Heidegger's Kehre to the topic here. But, in following Heidegger's judgment, he might be simplifying Sartre by identifying him with enlightenment humanists.

In contrast, Crowell's "Sartre's existentialism and the nature of consciousness" does justice to the phenomenological element in Sartre, instead of simply dismissing him as neo-Cartesian. The anti-Cartesian nature of Sartre's thought is preeminently exemplified by what Crowell calls "non-positional self-awareness". The problem with Sartre lies rather in his Hegelian use of negation in order to accommodate an insight - the temporal nullity of the self - that the concept "negation" is incapable of on its own.

Taylor Carman's "Merleau-Ponty on body, flesh and visibility" amounts to a clear introduction to later Merleau-Ponty's ontology of the flesh. By emphasizing that one is "of the same flesh as the world one inhabits and perceives" (p. 280), Carman makes Merleau-Ponty's essential breakthrough evident enough.

Robert Bernasconi's "Racism is a system: how existentialism became dialectical in Fanon and Sartre" engages with a productive dialogue between the two philosophers. It is especially helpful in excavating the less-renowned notions of inorganic inertia, being-outside-themselves-in-the-other, and the serial flight of alterity in Sartre's Critique of Dialectical Reason. Bernasconi is also successful to show how racism can exist as a system even nobody really holds its ideas, and how Fanon's and Sartre's proposed solutions differ from each other.

Generally, the whole volume is arranged with a properly "existentialist" taste, instead of pointedly (and meanwhile pointlessly) attempting to dialogue with "analytic" philosophers. The only chapter that shows the tendency is Ratcliffe and Broome's "Existential phenomenology, psychiatric illness, and the death of possibilities", but that is a decent work at least. An existential philosopher would not end up with nausea in reading the book through.

[Joel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written with the armchair philosopher in mind. Great read!

[Cyrus Lloyd · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some essays were more interesting to me than others, but the good ones provided excellent insights into the main thinkers and larger context of the existenialist movement. Very thought provoking if you're interested in that sort of thing.