At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails with Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Others

I have just finished reading ‘At The Existentialist Cafe,’ by Sarah Bakewell. It allowed me to assess and understand the minds of some of the greatest thinkers of the last century in the field of philosophy. Even the progenitors of the movement that became Phenomenology and later Existentialism, like Husserl and Brentano, failed to engage me as much as that of those caught up in the war years and after, like Sartre and Heidegger and whose relationship with that world was just as strained as the battlefield and ideology of Naziism and Communism. In other words politics could not be as clearly separated from philosophy as some would like or hope it could be.I think Heidegger and Sartre didn't get on because the former's philosophy was about doing and will, hence Nazi party connection and the latter was on about being. This breaks down further into individual freedom and creative thought as opposed to group conformity and idealism (conscience and the eye/I of the intellect, found in stillness versus the emotional wave of the ego that carries you away in self righteousness motion (the hammer of action)).Sartre emptied his mind all the time but like a bath where the tap cannot be turned off, it soon filled again with new ideas. Heidegger however emptied his mind and slammed the door on any other further experiences – pouring himself out into the world but never allowing that world to pour back into his world, in a reciprocal action.This is separatism (individuality / freedom to be yourself) versus conformism (forcing things to stick together / tyranny): spiritual revolution, not physical rebellion - ideas not actions, peaceful change not violent attacks upon others. When Sartre had problems with communism, it was because despite the idealistic goals, the methods employed by Stalinists were no different than those employed by the fascists under Hitler.As for the excuse used by people nowadays that nobody is responsible for anything, based on Existentialist thought. This is obviously not true as this implies no choice in our actions (no control, no morals, no ‘off’ as well as an ‘on’ switch). Age I think is our growing ‘off’ switch as birth is it turning ‘on.’ This is because at birth we have no self image, no introspective thought, just experience and the urge to add to it (explore the world we find ourselves in). Only with time do we become aware of the other and the rights of the other to exist, apart from ourselves as the arbiter of all things. This is when morality hits us as an entity, when death approaches us and we stop thinking of ourselves as immortal beings.

As described. Great condition. No complaints.

really loved this book - philosophy and society and culture and history, combined in a very well written story! highly recommend!

I'm about a quarter into this and love it. It just works for me. It has rekindled my interest in Existentialism and its philosophers. I shall be sad to finish it.

I'll read anything by Sarah Bakewell.

Good read!