221:, highlighted the background growth of existentialism. He argues that the modern world is becoming increasingly secularized and that faith has become "attenuated". He maintains that during the modern period, a questionable new "image of man" has emerged. Surveying trends in art, Barrett writes that the
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so nakedly, made it turn so decisively about the individual and his quest for his own eternal happiness, that all religious writers after him seem by comparison to be symbolical, institutional, or metaphorical - in a word, gnostic. Perhaps the very nakedness of
Kierkegaard's statement of faith makes
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Discussing
Kierkegaard, Barrett maintains that the Danish philosopher is relevant even to non-Christians because of his "appeal to their own existence." Barrett writes that, "Being a Christian, after all, is one way of being a man - for Kierkegaard personally it was the only way - and to have this
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helped to introduce existentialism to the
English-speaking world and has been identified as one of the most useful books that discuss the subject, but Barrett has also been criticized for endorsing irrationality and for giving a distorted and misleading account of
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Four existentialist thinkers - Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Sartre - receive extended discussion from
Barrett, who explains their main ideas and philosophical terminology. Barrett more briefly discusses other existentialist thinkers such as
366:. Jordan described the book as a "spirited defense" of the methods and conclusions of existentialist philosophy. Stuewe described the book as "perhaps the best popular book on existentialism". Pulver identified the book as an influence on filmmaker
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In his discussion of
Nietzsche, Barrett writes that, "Nietzsche's fate is one the great episodes in man's historic effect to know himself. After him, the problem of man could never quite return to its pre-Nietzschean level." Barrett calls
309:
includes two appendices, "Negation, Finitude, and the Nature of Man", which reprints a 1957 paper by
Barrett, and "Existence and Analytic Philosophers", a highly technical discussion of existentialism in relation to
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way illumined, to be summoned to its tasks, is also to be called on to be a man, however divergent our own choice of a way may be." Barrett adds that, "Kierkegaard stated the question of
409:
accused
Barrett of caricaturing, and propagating myths about, Hegel. Stewart deemed Barrett guilty of misrepresenting Hegel as a "cosmic rationalist" who, like the philosopher
185:
Barrett discusses existentialism and its background, including the philosophical tradition to which existentialism was a reaction. He outlines the views of philosophers from
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376:(2015) is clearly inspired by Barrett's book, which "no doubt formed part of Allen’s self-taught intellectual life in the late 50s and early 60s".
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as an example of a prominent philosopher endorsing irrationality, citing
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Finally, Barrett applies existentialist thought to the world of the late 1950s, during the
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This article is about the book by
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and provides a discussion of several major existentialist thinkers, including
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Stewart, Jon (1996). "Hegel and the Myth of Reason". In Stewart, Jon (ed.).
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as one of the most useful books about existentialism. In
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Stuewe, Paul (1986). "Death of the soul (Book Review)".
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The Ominous Parallels: The End of Freedom in America
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413:, and some romantics, believed in a metaphysical
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327:Doubleday & Company, Inc.
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225:movement was "one of the
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109:Paperback
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275:(1866).
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