Overview
Suggests how we can have a philosophy of human existence without the humanist subject
Offers new and distinctive interpretations of Sartre and Nietzsche
Provides a starting point for a revitalised and philosophically compelling existentialism
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Table of contents (6 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
This book argues that existentialism’s concern with human existence does not simply make it another form of humanism. Influenced by Heidegger’s 1947 ‘Letter on Humanism’, structuralist and post-structuralist critics have both argued that existentialism is synonymous with a naïve ‘humanist’ idea of the subject. Such identification has led to the movement’s dismissal as a credible philosophy; this book aims to challenge such a view.
Through a lucid and thought-provoking exploration of the concept of perversity in Sartre and Nietzsche, Mitchell argues that understanding the human as a ‘perversion’ of something other than itself allows us to have a philosophy of the human without the humanist subject. In short, through perversion, we can talk about the human as not merely having a relation to the world, but of being that relation. With an explicit defence of Sartre against the charge of humanism, accompanied by a novel and distinctive reinterpretation of Nietzsche, Mitchell recovers an existentialism that is at once both radical and philosophically relevant.
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Dr David Mitchell received his PhD from the University of Liverpool, UK. Since 2015 he has been working as a lecturer and researcher at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Sartre, Nietzsche and Non-Humanist Existentialism
Authors: David Mitchell
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43108-2
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Religion and Philosophy, Philosophy and Religion (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-43107-5Published: 12 April 2020
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-43110-5Published: 12 April 2021
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-43108-2Published: 11 April 2020
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: IX, 192
Topics: Existentialism, Humanism