I love this intro to “Existentialism from Dostoyevsky to Sartre”!
…a bewildered outsider might well conclude that the only thing they have in common is a marked aversion for each other.
!!!
the refusal to belong to any school of thought, the repudiation of the adequacy of any body of beliefs whatever, and especially of systems, and the marked dissatisfaction with the traditional philosophy as superficial, academic, and remote from life – that is the heart of existentialism.
What a potent description.
And group of people! 10 existentialists walk into a bar…
First you should know that my father was an active communist. He was black listed and watched by the FBI. There was no hardship for me in this BTW. My early life was filled with peace marches, the aroma of marijuana, and a considerable criticism of the Christian establishment.
I have only read the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx. The result is a considerable aversion to Marx. The economic theories sounded nonsensical to me and it seemed filled with over the top irrational hatred. There was nothing in it which appealed to me.
As for Das Kapital, I would say, if that is the hypothesis, then all experiments have shown that the hypothesis should be rejected. And the human cost of these experiments was extraordinarily high.