Summary of Sarah Bakewell's At the Existentialist Café

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

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#1 Existentialism is a mood, not a philosophy. It can be traced back to anguished novelists of the nineteenth century, and beyond that to Blaise Pascal, who was terrified by the silence of infinite spaces.

#2 The phenomenologists’ leading thinker, Edmund Husserl, provided a rallying cry, To the things themselves! It meant: don’t waste time on the interpretations that accrue upon things, and don’t wonder whether the things are real. Just look at this that’s presenting itself to you, and describe it as precisely as possible.

#3 Sartre was extremely excited about the prospect of studying with Husserl’s student Emmanuel Levinas. He had barely developed any philosophical ideas of his own, but he was ready to absorb the philosophical energy of others.

#4 Sartre's philosophy is based on the idea that humans are their own freedom. We create ourselves through action, and this is so fundamental to our human condition that it is the human condition from the moment of first consciousness to the moment of death.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Apr 2, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669381457

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Insights on Sarah Bakewell's At the Existentialist Café

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 11

Insights from Chapter 12

Insights from Chapter 13

Insights from Chapter 14

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

Existentialism is a mood, not a philosophy. It can be traced back to anguished novelists of the nineteenth century, and beyond that to Blaise Pascal, who was terrified by the silence of infinite spaces.

#2

The phenomenologists’ leading thinker, Edmund Husserl, provided a rallying cry, To the things themselves! It meant: don’t waste time on the interpretations that accrue upon things, and don’t wonder whether the things are real. Just look at this that’s presenting itself to you, and describe it as precisely as possible.

#3

Sartre was extremely excited about the prospect of studying with Husserl’s student Emmanuel Levinas. He had barely developed any philosophical ideas of his own, but he was ready to absorb the philosophical energy of others.

#4

Sartre's philosophy is based on the idea that humans are their own freedom. We create ourselves through action, and this is so fundamental to our human condition that it is the human condition from the moment of first consciousness to the moment of death.

#5

Sartre was a celebrity by the end of the Second World War. He was feted, courted, interviewed, and photographed. He wrote articles and forewords, and was often asked to pronounce on subjects outside his expertise.

#6

The student thought about going to a priest or a philosopher, but they could not help him. He then thought about turning to his inner voice, but he heard only a clamor of voices saying different things. Ultimately, he was left with no choice but to choose himself.

#7

Sartre’s existentialism is a philosophy that questions what it means to be human. It says that we are free and responsible for our actions, and that we must make decisions as though we were choosing on behalf of the entire human race.

#8

Sartre’s big question in the mid-1940s was: given that we are free, how can we use our freedom well in such challenging times. He offered a philosophy designed for a species that had just scared the hell out of itself, but that finally felt ready to grow up and take responsibility.

#9

The existentialist subculture that arose in the 1940s found its home in the environs of the Saint-Germain-des-Prés church on the Left Bank of Paris. Sartre and Beauvoir spent many years living in cheap Saint-Germain hotels and writing all day in cafés, because these were warmer places than the unheated hotel rooms.

#10

Existentialists were a group of French intellectuals who grew their hair long and wore black woollen