OUR EXISTENTIAL PREDICAMENT BIBLIOGRAPHY

copyright ©2001 by James Park

(For books that both describe the problem and point toward release,
click here: Existential Spirituality Bibliography.)

1. Paul Tillich
The Courage to Be

(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1952 and later reprints)

    Existentialist theologian, Paul Tillich,
divides our Existential Predicament into three types of anxiety:
(1) the anxiety of fate and death,
(2) the anxiety of emptiness and meaninglessness,
(3) the anxiety of guilt and condemnation.
He also discusses existential despair.
Different cultures of human history have emphasized
different dimensions of this Predicament.

    Tillich is difficult to understand,

but he seems to be saying that existential courage

empowers us to take anxiety or "nonbeing" into ourselves.

We can become more Authentic by self-affirmation in the face of death.

Tillich uses the Christian symbols as 'visual aids'

to help us to become more integrated, whole, & resolute.

But there seems to be no release from our Existential Malaise.

---

2. Rollo May
The Meaning of Anxiety

(New York: Ronald Press, 1950)
(New York: Norton, 1977, revised edition)

     This is a helpful book by an American psychotherapist.
May was looking for causes of anxiety when he wrote this,
but it still has some good insights into existential anxiety.

---

3. Martin Heidegger
Being and Time

(first German edition 1927)
Two translations into English:

John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson
(New York: Harper & Row, 1962)        589 pages
(ISBN:
(Library of Congress call number: B3279.H48 S43 1962a)

Joan Stambaugh
(Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1996)       487 pages
(ISBN: 0-7914-2677-7; hardcover)
(ISBN: 0-7914-2678-5; paperback)
(Library of Congress call number: B3279.H48S43 1996)

     For many years, this book was said to be "untranslatable"
because of the extreme difficulty of Heidegger's language,
including the number of new expressions
and new uses of old words that he introduces.
The careful reader will benefit from reading both of these translations.
But if you must choose only one,
use the Macquarrie and Robinson version.

     The most important perspectives on our Existential Predicament
explored in Being & Time are:
existential anxiety as distinct from ordinary fears,
existential guilt as distinct from moral conscience,
being-towards-death or ontological anxiety
as distinct from the fact of biological death
and our fear of ceasing-to-be.

     The beginning reader of Heidegger
should probably not try to read this book
by beginning at page one and attempting to read thru to the end.
Such an approach will probably cause you to give up too soon.
Read first the parts that seem most interesting to you.
These best parts are worth many readings in any case.
Then go back to pick up the parts your skipped
if you are still interested.

     If you can't understand Heidegger by reading him directly,
read some other books about Heidegger first.
Once you have the proper orientation and conceptual framework,
you may find Heidegger a rich mine
of new insights into human existence.

     Heidegger will be studied and studied
as long as there are humans who can think.

     This is a difficult book,
but the dedicated reader will find many things to ponder here.
Heidegger gives a careful phenomenological description of existential anxiety.
Being and Time is also the main source
for Heidegger's discussion of being-towards-death
or what Our Existential Predicament calls "ontological anxiety".

    If you would like to read a slightly longer review of Being & Time,
especially focusing on the differences between the two translations,
go to Original Books of Existential Philosophy.

---

4. Ludwig Binswanger
Being-in-the-World:
Selected Papers of Ludwig Binswanger

Introduced by Jacob Needleman
(New York: Harper & Row, 1967)

     Binswanger was a psychotherapist with existential leanings.
Two of his cases are quoted at length in the chapter on anxiety
in Our Existential Predicament.
But much more will be found in this comprehensive volume.

     Another Binswanger case of angst quoted in the anxiety chapter
is drawn from Existence: A New Dimension in Psychiatry and Psychology
edited by Rollo May et al.  (New York: Basic Books, 1958)
 

---

WHAT OTHER BOOKS SHOULD BE INCLUDED

IN THIS BIBLIOGRAPHY?

    Please send additional suggestions

of books that describe our Existential Malaise to:

James Park at the following e-mail address:

PARKx032@TC.UMN.EDU