''Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy'' is a 1958 book by the philosopher
William Barrett, in which the author explains the philosophical background of
existentialism
Existentialism ( ) is a form of philosophical inquiry that explores the problem of human existence and centers on human thinking, feeling, and acting. Existentialist thinkers frequently explore issues related to the meaning, purpose, and valu ...
and provides a discussion of several major existentialist thinkers, including
Søren Kierkegaard,
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his ...
,
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger (; ; 26 September 188926 May 1976) was a German philosopher who is best known for contributions to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. He is among the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th ce ...
, and
Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (, ; ; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism (and phenomenology), a French playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and lit ...
. ''Irrational Man'' 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
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (; ; 27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a German philosopher. He is one of the most important figures in German idealism and one of the founding figures of modern Western philosophy. His influence extends ...
.
Summary
Barrett discusses existentialism and its background, including the philosophical tradition to which existentialism was a reaction. He outlines the views of philosophers from
Plato
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
to Hegel, tracing the development of ideas about
being,
ontology
In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality.
Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities exi ...
, and
metaphysics
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...
. He also attempts to explain how the study of
science
Science is a systematic endeavor that Scientific method, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of Testability, testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earli ...
,
history
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...
,
modern art, and
religion
Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...
, specifically
Protestantism
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...
, 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
Dada
Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 1920 Dada flourished in Pari ...
movement was "one of the ''valid'' eruptions of the irrational in this century."
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
Karl Jaspers
Karl Theodor Jaspers (, ; 23 February 1883 – 26 February 1969) was a German-Swiss psychiatrist and philosopher who had a strong influence on modern theology, psychiatry, and philosophy. After being trained in and practicing psychiatry, Jaspe ...
,
Nikolai Berdyaev,
Martin Buber
Martin Buber ( he, מרטין בובר; german: Martin Buber; yi, מארטין בובער; February 8, 1878 –
June 13, 1965) was an Austrian Jewish and Israeli philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a form of existentialism ...
,
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo (29 September 1864 – 31 December 1936) was a Spanish essayist, novelist, poet, playwright, philosopher, professor of Greek and Classics, and later rector at the University of Salamanca.
His major philosophical essa ...
,
Gabriel Marcel
Gabriel Honoré Marcel (7 December 1889 – 8 October 1973) was a French philosopher, playwright, music critic and leading Christian existentialist. The author of over a dozen books and at least thirty plays, Marcel's work focused on the mode ...
,
Simone de Beauvoir, and
Albert Camus
Albert Camus ( , ; ; 7 November 1913 – 4 January 1960) was a French philosopher, author, dramatist, and journalist. He was awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature at the age of 44, the second-youngest recipient in history. His work ...
, as well as some artists and writers he considers existentialist, such as the Russian novelist
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (, ; rus, Фёдор Михайлович Достоевский, Fyódor Mikháylovich Dostoyévskiy, p=ˈfʲɵdər mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪdʑ dəstɐˈjefskʲɪj, a=ru-Dostoevsky.ogg, links=yes; 11 November 18219 ...
, whom he compares to Nietzsche, crediting him with anticipating Nietzsche's insights into the
will to power
The will to power (german: der Wille zur Macht) is a concept in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. The will to power describes what Nietzsche may have believed to be the main driving force in humans. However, the concept was never systemati ...
in ''
Crime and Punishment
''Crime and Punishment'' ( pre-reform Russian: ; post-reform rus, Преступление и наказание, Prestupléniye i nakazániye, prʲɪstʊˈplʲenʲɪje ɪ nəkɐˈzanʲɪje) is a novel by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky. ...
'' (1866).
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 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
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
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 it impossible for Christianity to go anywhere but in the direction of some kind of
gnosticism
Gnosticism (from grc, γνωστικός, gnōstikós, , 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems which coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish and early Christian sects. These various groups emphasized pe ...
."
In his discussion of Nietzsche, Barrett writes that, "Nietzsche's fate is one
fthe 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 ''
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
''Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None'' (german: Also sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen), also translated as ''Thus Spake Zarathustra'', is a work of philosophical fiction written by German philosopher Friedrich Niet ...
'' (1883-1891) Nietzsche's "most lyrical book" and "the expression of the loneliest Nietzsche."
Finally, Barrett applies existentialist thought to the world of the late 1950s, during the
Cold War. ''Irrational Man'' 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
analytic philosophy.
Publication history
''Irrational Man'' was first published in 1958 by
Doubleday & Company, Inc. Later editions include those published by
Greenwood Press, Inc. in 1977 and
Anchor Books
Vintage Books is a trade paperback publishing imprint of Penguin Random House originally established by Alfred A. Knopf in 1954. The company was purchased by Random House in April 1960, and a British division was set up in 1990. After Random ...
in 1990.
Reception
''Irrational Man'' received a positive review from Robert Jordan in ''
The Nation
''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper t ...
''. Later discussions of the book include those by Paul Stuewe in ''
Quill & Quire
''Quill & Quire'' is a Canadian magazine about the book and publishing industry. The magazine was launched in 1935 and has an average circulation of 5,000 copies per issue, with a publisher-claimed readership of 25,000. ''Quill & Quire'' reviews ...
'', and Andrew Pulver in ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
''. 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
Woody Allen
Heywood "Woody" Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg; November 30, 1935) is an American film director, writer, actor, and comedian whose career spans more than six decades and multiple Academy Award-winning films. He began his career writing ...
, observing that the title of his film ''
Irrational Man'' (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".
The theologian
John Macquarrie described ''Irrational Man'' as one of the most useful books about existentialism. In ''
The Ominous Parallels
''The Ominous Parallels: The End of Freedom in America'' is a 1982 book by the philosopher Leonard Peikoff, in which the author compares the culture of the United States with the culture of Germany leading up to the Nazis. The book has an introdu ...
'' (1982), the
Objectivist philosopher
Leonard Peikoff
Leonard Sylvan Peikoff (; born October 15, 1933) is a Canadian-American philosopher. He is an Objectivist and was a close associate of Ayn Rand, who designated him heir to her estate. He is a former professor of philosophy and host of a natio ...
presented ''Irrational Man'' as an example of a prominent philosopher endorsing irrationality, citing Barrett's comments about Dada. The philosopher
Jon Stewart accused Barrett of caricaturing, and propagating myths about, Hegel. Stewart deemed Barrett guilty of misrepresenting Hegel as a "cosmic rationalist" who, like the philosopher
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (; 27 January 1775 – 20 August 1854), later (after 1812) von Schelling, was a German philosopher. Standard histories of philosophy make him the midpoint in the development of German idealism, situating him ...
, and some romantics, believed in a metaphysical
world soul.
References
Bibliography
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{{refend
1958 non-fiction books
American non-fiction books
Books about Friedrich Nietzsche
Books by William Barrett
English-language books
Works about existentialism
Works about Martin Heidegger
Works about Søren Kierkegaard