Existentialism

Monday, April 13, 2026

PHIL 4200 – Existentialism (3 credit hours)-"The nature, significance, and application of the teachings of several outstanding existential thinkers." Tue/Thur 4:20 PM, HONORS BUILDING #117, beginning August 25.

TEXTS

Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails with Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir,Albert Camus, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Others
Mariana Allesandri, Night Vision: Seeing Ourselves through Dark Moods
Irvin Yalom, When Nietzsche Wept
Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and other essays
Jean-Paul Sartre, "Existentialism is a Humanism" and other essays
Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex & tba

RECOMMENDED (& on library reserve):

Walter Kaufman, Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre
Todd May, A Significant Life: Human Meaning in a Silent Universe
Susan Wolf, Meaning in Life and Why It Matters... Samuel Scheffler, Death and the Afterlife...
William James, What Makes a Life Significant; Is Life Worth Living; On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings; & tba
Soren Kierkegaard, tba...
More tba

For more info:

phil.oliver@mtsu.edu

and

https://existjpo.blogspot.com/

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Texts Fall '26

Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails with Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir,Albert Camus, Martin Heidegger,... Mariana Allesandri, Night Vision: Seeing Ourselves through Dark Moods... Irvin Yalom, When Nietzsche Wept...Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction... The Meaning of Life: A Very Short Introduction... RECOMMENDED (& on library reserve): Todd May, A Significant Life: Human Meaning in a Silent Universe... Susan Wolf, Meaning in Life and Why It Matters... Samuel Scheffler, Death and the Afterlife... Soren Kierkegaard, tba... William James, What Makes a Life Significant; Is Life Worth Living; On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings; tba...

Existentialism is a Humanism (1946)

My purpose here is to offer a defence of existentialism against several reproaches that have been laid against it. First, it has been reproached as an invitation to people to dwell in quietism of despair. For if every way to a solution is barred, one would have to regard any action in this world as entirely ineffective, and one would arrive finally at a contemplative philosophy. Moreover, since contemplation is a luxury, this would be only another bourgeois philosophy. This is, especially, the reproach made by the Communists... J-P Sartre, continues: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exist/sartre.htm

The Essence of Humanism (1905)

Humanism is a ferment that has ’come to stay.’ It is not a single hypothesis or theorem, and it dwells on no new facts. It is rather a slow shifting in the philosophic perspective, making things appear as from a new centre of interest or point of sight. Some writers are strongly conscious of the shifting, others half unconscious, even though their own vision may have undergone much change. The result is no small confusion in debate, the half-conscious humanists often taking part against the radical ones, as if they wished to count upon the other side... William James, continues: https://www.authorama.com/meaning-of-truth-6.html

Existentialism

Monday, April 13, 2026

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