Liberty and Meaning
Exposing the works of Albert Camus, Søren Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger and Sartre, this course deals with the main ideas of existentialism. Robert C. Solomon’s exposition is clear. The course’s text points the main concepts developed by the thinkers and relates one with the other. The idea of freedom and responsibility and the concept of the individual are particularly examined. This is a good introduction to the authors that shape the movement we called existentialism. ( )

A very good introduction matched up well with my background in political philosophy and Camus. ( )

If you want a broad overview of existentialism then this is the course for you. ( )

This is a decent introduction to the philosophy of existentialism, but I would not go so far as to call it a "great" lecture series.

Solomon begins with Camus, as a good entry point into existentialist thought. Then he goes back to Kierkegaard (often considered the first existentialist thinker) and proceeds chronologically from there, covering Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Sartre. He briefly discusses a few other figures in relation to these, such as Husserl's influence on Heidegger, and mentions in passing philosophers such as Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, etc. There is also one interesting lecture on the contributions to existentialism of a few figures who were not known primarily as philosophers but as novelists: Dostoevsky, Kafka, and Hesse. So Solomon does cover a lot of ground, and this is a good survey of the subject matter.

While among these figures only Sartre actually identified himself as an "existentialist", the one who seems most out of place is perhaps Nietzsche---but it is interesting how Nietzsche's emphasis on feeling or "the passions" over rational thought bridged the gap between Hegel as well as the German Romantic philosophers such as Schelling and the existentialists on the one hand, and on the other how his proto-phenomenology bridged the gap between Kant and not only the existentialists but also the pragmatists.

Still, Solomon's interpretation of Nietzsche (which is supposed to be his area of greatest expertise) is a bit questionable in places. For instance, he makes a lot out of Nietzsche's rejection of Plato and Schopenhauer, and of metaphysics in general, but interpreting his "will to power" as a merely psychological phenomenon (even a universal one) is a bit of a stretch, when he largely took the idea from Schopenhauer's "Will" or "Will to Live" and when its place in Nietzsche's philosophy is similar in form and function (if not in content) to Plato's Form of the Good. But to be fair, interpreting Nietzsche is not exactly a clear-cut undertaking, considering the unsystematic nature of his writings.

But Solomon gets some other things definitely wrong, such as placing Nietzsche in the virtue ethics tradition of Aristotle as against Ayn Rand, when in fact Rand is much more of an Aristotelian virtue ethicist than Nietzsche. There are similar problems with his discussion of Charles Darwin in relation to Nietzsche's thought. Even though he only mentions these figures in passing, it's clear that Solomon does not have a very good understanding of Aristotle, Darwin, or Rand.

And Solomon's lecturing style just isn't that great. I imagine that beginners without any previous exposure to these thinkers might have a hard time following his presentation and find it unclear in places.

And his conclusion that existentialism is a vital, invigorating, life-affirming philosophy just isn't that convincing...it doesn't follow clearly from the material he has presented in the course, though Sartre's notion of "no excuses" or taking personal responsibility from which he took the course title is in some ways liberating (though Sartre was inconsistent in that he was an apologist for Stalinist regimes, over which Camus broke with him, though for some reason this doesn't seem to be held against him to nearly the extent that Heidegger's support of the Nazis is against him, though it ought to be).

But on the whole, the course's weaknesses and flaws are relatively minor compared to its strengths and virtues. It is definitely a pretty good introduction to existentialist thought, so if that is what you're looking for Solomon's course definitely fits the bill, even if it could have been better in some ways. ( )