Circulating Being: From Embodiment to Incorportation

by Thomas Busch

Overview

Existentialism has come to be identified as a critical, reactionary way of thinking, celebrating the individual, freedom, embodiment, and the limits of rationality and systematic theorizing. For the most part this assessment is true of the early and, by now, classicalworks of existentialism, those that first burst upon the philosophical and cultural scene. Circulating Being centers on the later works of several well-known French existentialists (Camus, Marcel, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty) to trace out the development of their existential thinking about language, communicative life, ethics, and politics. This development from embodiment to incorporationcarries existentialism beyond identification with the mere reactionary and reveals how, while prefiguring postmodernism in important ways, the existential thinkers dealt with here reveal themselves to be reconstructive of the Western tradition. This is apparent in the growing appreciation of difference in their late works along with a reluctance to surrender the ideal of unity, and in their reappropriation of truth and justice while repudiating a totalizing metaphysics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780823219285
Publisher:	Fordham University Press
Publication date:	01/01/1999
Series:	Perspectives in Continental Philosophy
Edition description:	2
Pages:	220
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Thomas Busch is Professor of Philosophy at Villanova University

Editorial Reviews

Busch (philosophy, Villanova U.) concentrates on the later works of several well-known French existentialists, including Camus, Marcel, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty, to trace out the development of their thinking about language, communicative life, ethics, and politics. He finds that they moved beyond identifying with the mere reactionary to reconstructing the western tradition, though prefiguring postmodernism in important ways. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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