Introducing Existentialism: A Graphic Guide

This little book is akin to a collection of cheat sheets explaining the conceptualisation of the existentialist subject. It samples many different philosophers as it examines and explains the theory at hand. This is Albert Camus (1913-1960) on a journey of discovery where he explained how different philosophers had understood the concept of Existentialism.P.30 - Technology is a metaphysics at its end. But now, with the "Death of Death," there is no need for meaning at all...

I've bought 7 of these Introducing books and were always amazed how awesome they are, but this one is WAY too hard, too personal and not focused enough.By the way, I'm graduated in Philosophy and litterally didn't understand a single page, so imagine if you are not.You can go ahead with the article about Existentialism on Wikipedia instead, it's much more explanatory.

I am a big fan of the "Intrudicing..." series. I think that Appignanesi has done a marvelous job in editing this series, and in fact has done something socially and intellectually important by bringing these books into the world. Furthermore, his Intruducing Freud was great.However, this book was stunningly bad. Rather than share with us the major tenants and concepts of the major thinkers of Existential Philosophy, Appignanesi chose to take us on a "personal journey" of his, wherein he confronts with us the contradictions, paradoxes and impasses that make up existentialism's concerns. Which ended up being the author sharing his many personal thoughts on the subject, in the most confusing and convoluted manner possible.Let me give you a quotation from the book, as an example: "What is freedom grounded on? Satre replies: on the nothingness of consciousness which effects a "psychic gap" - and imaginitive distance - between myself and the world of non-conscious reality. Out there is only an undifferentiated plenitude of Being-in-itself whose material resistence to me gains form and significance by my activity of consciousness. The person is solely this act of Being-for-itself, hence its terrifying freedom."Yes, that is Appignanesi talking, not Sartre. And no, context does nothing to improve upon its needless opacity. The entire book is like that, throwing in complex concepts like "Being-in-itself" vs. "Being-for-itself" without explainging them at all, and then throwing in something like "freedom" on top of it out of nowhere.Clearly he is a very learned man, with tremendous depth of knowledge, and many talents in thinking and writing. However, he seemed to take this book as an opportunity to show us how god-awful deep and serious he is, and the tremendously overwrought gravity of his own reflections. As well as to show us all how tricky he can be with language, and how he is at least as smart as Sartre, and possibly smater than Husserl too. A shocking amount of the book discusses Appignanesi's own opinions about the nature of existenced, rather than elucidating the fundamental concepts of existentialism. Not to mention (and yes, this part is perhaps the most astonishing) a photo of Richard Appignanesi's face appears on nearly every single page! (Looking quite deep and troubled, I must say.)I just have to say, Richard, hey man, guess what: yes, many of us have gone through depressions and dark periods in which we have deeply questioned the very nature of reality, and the value of continuing to live. But that doesn't mean that your every rumination on the subject is of interest to the rest of us. If it helps, picture me picking my nose. This activity and the results it yeilds are usually of great interest to me. But this does not mean it is interesting to everyone else! If you want to write a book about the deep thoughts of Richard Appignanesi, that sounds great. However, the title of the book should then be Introducing the Deep Thoughts of Richard Appignanesi, and not Introducing Existentialism. Unfortunately, in that you yourself are the editor of the series, there was no one to tell you this. Perhaps we will both get lucky, and someone will direct your attention to this review. I invite you to take the book out of the series, and either re-write it, according to the advise you probably give to all of the other authors in the series, or, better yet, have someone else write it. There would be no shame in this act. The presence of this book in the series diminishes the efforts of the other authors whom you have edited, and cheapens their work. It would be the honorable thing to do. (Perhaps even Sartre would agree.)

A good introduction, but I would dare to venture that some of the writing may come off as obscurantist towards the end. A little background knowledge in the subject helps but also undermines the idea this is an introductory text.

A very helpful book for the beginning philosophy student. It outlined complicated concepts taught by the existential philosophers including Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre and Camus. The authors used cartoons to express the abstract philosophical concepts brilliantly. If you are writing a paper on any of these philosophers where you have to compare and contrast their ideas, I recommend this book. It helped me understand the subtle differences between Husserl and Heidegger's philosophy more clearly so that I could write a comprehensive paper on them with confidence. It also explained German terms such as "Gleichschaltung" through pictures and captions.

In hoping for a canoe, I received a battleship; (with no boarding ramp OR ladder). As a non-academic, I found this rather murky reading. It could be that the series title: 'Introducing' did not actually intend the material to be "introductory", but I certainly took it as such. Thus the lower rating; (2 1/2), if I were able.The general character of the book, especially in the art style, (I felt), focused so very much on and of 'despair', that I couldn't help but think that, despite (likely) being MILES ahead of myself at the level of intellect and analysis, I daresay the author himself, (Richard Appignanesi) may have missed the 'point' of existentialist thought, which (I) take to be:* " 'Who we are' is based on the choices we make; that 'who we are' is 'up to US'; overcoming ourselves." *Again, perhaps too basic for his seemingly (to me), hyper-complex palate.Having said that, I did not come away from the book without gleaning some "knowledge", and despite the aforementioned "murkiness", I DID find it quite interesting; more however as a personal existentialist journey than an introduction to the concepts of existentialism. Perhaps I'll return to it at a later date... when I "feel smarter".

Incoherent. Unhelpful. Nothing like the others in the series that I’ve read.

I liked the idea and the conception behind this book, and I enjoyed the first quarter of it or so, but then it dissolved into endless analysis of abstruse language devoid of meaning, chasing its own tail in a mirror maze (to mix some metaphors).