Rethinking Existentialism

Abstract

Rethinking Existentialism argues that the core of existentialism is the theory that Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre described when they popularized the term in 1945: the ethical theory that we ought to treat human freedom as intrinsically valuable and the foundation of all other value. The book argues that Beauvoir and Sartre disagreed over the structure of this freedom in 1943 but that Sartre came to accept Beauvoir’s view by 1952, that Frantz Fanon’s first book should also be classified as a canonical work of existentialism, and that Beauvoir’s argument for a moral imperative of authenticity is a firmer ground for existentialism’s ethical claim than any of the eudaimonist arguments offered by Fanon and Sartre. It develops its arguments through critical contrasts with Albert Camus, Sigmund Freud, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. The book concludes by sketching contributions that this analysis of existentialism can make to contemporary philosophy, psychology, and psychotherapy.

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