Product Description

Existentialism as a movement tries to come to terms with the most personal and ultimate issues that confront human beings: Does life have meaning? Is there any basis for choosing one set of values over another? The author shows that denying the existence of God and His relevance has led modern man into despair. Here he offers hope for the human condition by showing that despair is not the only honest response.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1517567 in Books
• Published on: 1984
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback

About the Author
C. Stephen Evans received his Ph.D. in philosophy at Yale. He currently serves as Associate Professor of Philosophy at St. Olaf College. He is also the curator of the Howard and Edna Hong Kierkegaard library.

Customer Reviews

An Excellent Primer
This was the first book I ever read to begin my exploration of existentialism. Although its been 10 years, it is still a most excellent introduction into existential thought, and while I have read broadly since, I have found C Stephen Evans a most excellent lucid author, whom I will be forever grateful for. He has opened a door for many universes to me in wonderful abounding thought.

This is an excellent primer for those who have wondered about what existentialism means, but were afraid to ask.

I can never keep this one on my shelf.

The sickness unto death
Stephen Evans begins this book by telling the reader of his own experience with death. The concern here is not death as a biological event or the way people feel when they are about to die, but with the existential significance this certain yet-to-come death has for the individual human life. Next the author gives a quick glimpse into the thoughts of such existentialists as Camus, Dostoevsky, Sartre, Marcel, and Kierkegaard-- the book is not meant as a treatment of individual thinkers, but the reader gets the basic gist of what they thought. (and for the interested there is a list of books for further reading in the back)

Evans discuss morality and reasoning focusing on the effect existential despair and alienation can have on the individual person -- the roots of alienation and despair are also covered. There is a positive mood running throughout this entire book, even when Evans is discussing human emptiness and despair there is always a sense of hope. After giving a description of existentialism and its possibilities the final chapter is about the decision all thinking people must make; whether to despair as a way of life or whether to have hope in something more. The author gives some good criteria that should be considered when making your own choice-- and everyone does make a choice, everyone has an ultimate concern or as Camus said: 'one must choose a master'. The book is only 120 pages, still, the message is clear with everything being well presented and thought out. This is definitely a book worth a reading.

The search for objective meaning
The philosophy of existentialism can be summed up as modern man's attempt at coping with the absence of objective meaning in a world that has blithely declared God's demise. The works of the authors surveyed in Stephen Evan's work -- Dostoevsky, Camus, and Sartre -- each explore themes related to post-theistic man's dilemma: can he lead an objectively meaningful existence? Not surprisingly, the answer the authors come up with is identical -- no. For in a godless universe, the only meaning man can give his existence is a subjective meaning. That is, man can find meaning "in" life, but not "of" life. On this view, the saint who devotes his life to curing the sick and clothing the poor is ultimately condemned to meet the same fate as the genocidal despot.

If there is no God, no divine hereafter and life just ends at the grave, then your actions are ultimately unrelated to your final destination; in which case, as Dostoevsky reminds us, "everything is permitted." Moral values become human conventions with no objectivity. For in a world without God, who is to say rape and genocide are really wrong? At best, naturalistic/evolutionary accounts of why human beings are repelled by rape and genocide can be given; but these explanations fail to grant these acts moral objectivity. If the reason people feel repelled towards rape is because it wasn't socially-advantageous during the course of human evolution, then morality's foundation becomes an unconscious process called natural selection. On this basis, man is nothing but a collection of accidentally arranged atoms that become rearranged everytime they get struck by a bomb.

The characters depicted in Albert Camus's novels each grapple with the problem of objective morality and meaning in the absence of God. Consider Camus's Meursault. Meursault, the main protagonist in "The Stranger," treats events most people would normally regard with horror, disdain or reflection with aloofness. He doesn't raise an eyebrow when his neighbor viciously beats his dog, nor does he flinch when he hears the blood-curdling screams of a woman being beaten by a pimp. Moreover, Meursault shows no remorse for murdering a man, and when brought to trial for his crime, shows only annoyance at being separated from his mistress. Evans points out that as a character meant to signify the meaningless of a godless world, Meursault, through a literary sleight of hand, is only half-believable. The characters depicted in Camus's Plague, however, are more plausible, as they wrestle with the question of whether morality can be said to mean anything other than subjective human expressions in the absence of God.

Evans closes by declaring that Christianity provides the answers to the questions posed by existentialism. It is through Christ's atoning sacrfice that man can receive eternal life. It is through Christianity that good will ultimately be rewarded, and evil ultimately punished. Chose the right path.