ABSTRACT
Later in the book than I had originally expected, we turn from biology, defined in its broadest way, to philosophy and ontology: Existentialism and Phenomenology. These two terms, which apply in ambiguous ways to many 20th century philosophers, involve the study of Being and the Self. The distinction I have come to make is that Phenomenology involves the study of the mechanics of being: The nature of Dasein, of being there, to use Heidegger’s language, its relations to World, and its particular focus on time and the prospects of eventual death. If Phenomenology is about the mechanics of Being then Existentialism is about, again broadly defined, its psychology. What is it like to partake of the human experience of Being and its attendant emotions? Existentialist philosophers are particularly interested in failures in Being and they are as likely to write about them in novels and plays as they are in monographs. Absurdity is a particular kind of failing of being, one in which there is a basic incompatibility between Desire and reality. A single chapter can only offer a small taste of these topics and in writing it has shown me that it is worthy of its own book. I have chosen roughly contemporaneous novels by Camus and Hemingway to illustrate writings about existential failures and the emotional damage that ensues from them.
