An Essay On The New Existentialism

Colin Wilsonâ (TM)s first book The Outsider was published to great critical acclaim in May 1956. It was the first of six philosophical books, known collectively as â ~The Outsider Cycleâ (TM), compiled by Wilson during the following decade. A summary volume, Introduction to the New Existentialism, appeared in 1966. During the 1970s, however, Wilsonâ (TM)s interests became, on the surface, more varied, publishing books on criminology, psychology and the occult. But he always maintained a philosophical stance, irrespective of subject matter, and continued to write purely philosophical essays for journals, magazines, and symposia. This volume brings together, for the first time, his essays on seventeen philosophers, including some of those he met personally to discuss their ideas. In his essay on Spinoza he wrote: â oePhilosophers are never so entertaining â " or so instructive â " as when they are beating one another over the head.â It is that statement, applied to this particular volume, that makes these essays, from Englandâ (TM)s only home-grown existential philosopher, so eminently readable, entertaining, instructive and, sometimes, controversial.

This book, first published in 1951, discusses the fundamental concepts which have crystallized around the fatal ‘crisis’. It proceeds by critically examining the theories which, from Kierkegaard to Heidegger, Sartre and their associates, have placed Existentialism in the focus of philosophical thought.

Colin Wilson revitalised existentialism with a completely new approach to the philosophy. The six volumes of his ‘Outsider’ series created an existentialism that is not paralysed by its own nihilism. This book, first published in 1966, is a clear summary of the ideas of the ‘Outsider’ cycle, and also develops them to a new stage. Wilson’s ‘new existentialism’ sees philosophy as an intellectual adventure that aims at a real command and control of human existence, and this book is its clearest exponent.

In a substantial philosophical work, Jacques Maritain designated Christianity as the sole full humanism. Defender of Catholic orthodoxy, he contributed to the renaissance of Thomism, which had a great influence on the philosophical renewal that took place between the two wars.

Benjamin Fondane—who was born and educated in Romania, moved as an adult to Paris, lived for a time in Buenos Aires, where he was close to Victoria Ocampo, Jorge Luis Borges’s friend and publisher, and died in Auschwitz—was an artist and thinker who found in every limit, in every border, “a torture and a spur.” Poet, critic, man of the theater, movie director, Fondane was the most daring of the existentialists, a metaphysical anarchist, affirming individual against those great abstractions that limit human freedom—the State, History, the Law, the Idea. Existential Monday, the first selection of his philosophical work to appear in English, includes four of Fondane's most thought-provoking and important texts, "Existential Monday and the Sunday of History," "Preface for the Present Moment," "Man Before History" (co-translated by Andrew Rubens), and "Boredom." Here Fondane, until now little-known except to specialists, emerges as one of the enduring French philosophers of the twentieth century.

Writing in the late 1990s about the tendency of encyclopedists to designate existentialism a finished project, Thomas W. Busch cautions that such hasty periodization risks distorting our understanding of the contemporary philosophical scene and of depriving ourselves of vital resources for critiquing contemporary forms of oppression, what Garbriel Marcel referred to as processes of dehumanization. We should recall that "existentialism made possible present forms of Continental philosophy, all of which assume the existentialist critique of dualism, essentialism, and totality in modern philosophy," and we should acknowledge that "existentialism remains capable of haunting today's scene as an important and relevant critic." Offered in honor of Thomas W. Busch after his more than fifty years of work in philosophy, the essays in this volume attest to existentialism as a living project. The essays are written by scholars who championed existentialism in America and by scholars who now seek to extend existentialist insights into new territory, including into research in cognitive science. The essays range from studies of key figures and texts to explorations of urgent topics such as the nature of freedom and the possibility of what Busch calls "incorporation," a sense of communicative solidarity that respects difference and disagreement.

These three essays—originally written in the 1960s as lectures—show how novels, poems, and plays confront thephilosophicalcomplexities of humanity’s existence. Our self-awareness—the very thing that makes us human—also makes us realize our powerlessness and the limitations of our existence. This concept is explored in this thought-provoking guide and provides a jumping off point for this treatise on existentialism and literature. Davis D. McElroy examines how modern art—the unharmonious, corrupt, dismal, and shattering effect of much of humanity’s painting, music, and literature—can be traced to the existentialist view of existence. McElroy uses the works of such American authors as John Steinbeck, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, and William Faulkner—as well of those of Kafka and Ibsen—to show that literature is the work of desperate men, whose anguish and despair have driven them to see further and more clearly than is possible for most, and their warnings must be heeded. To be able to live in the chaos of the modern world, many authors have turned to existentialism as a guide, according to McElroy. Using T. S. Eliot’s The Wasteland and his plays The Confidential Clerk and The Cocktail Party as examples, McElroy posits that these authors are ultimately teaching us that we must learn to live authentically, or we will not live at all; we must choose the good that is in us, or be engulfed in the evils that surround us. This is the simple message which modern writers—as well as the philosophers of existentialism—are trying so desperately to bring to our attention.

A new trade edition of Sartre's magnum opus. First published in 1943, this masterpiece defines the modern condition and still holds relevance for today's readers.