Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy

Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy

by William Barrett
Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy

Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy

by William Barrett

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Overview

Widely recognized as the finest definition of existentialist philosophy ever written, this book introduced existentialism to America in 1958. Barrett speaks eloquently and directly to concerns of the 1990s: a period when the irrational and the absurd are no better integrated than before and when humankind is in even greater danger of destroying its existence without ever understanding the meaning of its existence.

Irrational Man begins by discussing the roots of existentialism in the art and thinking of Augustine, Aquinas, Pascal, Baudelaire, Blake, Dostoevski, Tolstoy, Hemingway, Picasso, Joyce, and Beckett. The heart of the book explains the views of the foremost existentialists—Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Sartre. The result is a marvelously lucid definition of existentialism and a brilliant interpretation of its impact.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780385031387
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date: 07/01/1962
Pages: 320
Sales rank: 258,811
Product dimensions: 5.24(w) x 7.94(h) x 0.69(d)

About the Author

William Barrett is widely known as one of the first philosophers to introduce existentialism to America. Besides a long and distinguished career as a professor of philosophy, he was editor of Partisan Review and the literary critic for Atlantic Monthly. Barrett authored The Illusion of Technique and The Truants, among other books. He died in 1992, at the age of 78.

Table of Contents

I"The Present Age"
1The Advent of Existentialism3
2The Encounter with Nothingness23
3The Testimony of Modern Art42
IIThe Sources of Existentialism in the Western Tradition
4Hebraism and Hellenism69
5Christian Sources92
6The Flight from Laputa120
IIIThe Existentialists
7Kierkegaard149
8Nietzsche177
9Heidegger206
10Sartre239
IVIntegral VS. Rational Man
11The Place of the Furies267
Appendices
Negation, Finitude, and the Nature of Man283
Existence and Analytic Philosophers295
Index307
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