Existence and freedom : towards an ontology of human finitude

This book is an excellent secondary source to learn more about Kierkegaard and Heidegger. This text also dispels some of the myths and misconceptions of existentialism. Careful reading among a dozen formidable authors in several languages could scarcely substitue for the unified view which this book offers of a revolution in Western thought -- existentialism. The book is praiseworthy for treating the leading existentialists and their forerunners, not seriatim, but as a "school", with dominant themes and governing concepts. Historically, existence and freedom finds these concepts in the writings of Kant, of the anti-Hegelian Kierkegaard and the anti-hegelian Marx, of the Lebensphilosophie school which included Nietzche, Dilthey, and Bergson, and of course more recently and most explicitly in the writings of Heidegger, Husserl, Berdyaev, Jaspers, Sartre, Marcel, Tillich. Philosophically it develops these themes and concepts toweard an understanding of the human condition -- an understanding which cuts deeper than logic, which comes before beliefs about a higher reality, and which grants man as much freedom as he can earn