The Existentialists: A Critical Study 1952

"THE PREDICAMENT OF CONTEMPORARY MAN"

First edition of this early study of the most prominent Existential thinkers, with a special focus on the thought of Jean-Paul Sartre, Karl Jaspers, Gabriel Marcel, and Martin Heidegger.

With a short Preface (dated, "Saint Louis University / May 15, 1951"), Collins applies a Catholic perspective to the Philosophy of Being in "the critical standpoint...of a philosophical theism and realism" based in Augustine and Aquinas. "Contemporary Thomists—notably, Gilson and Maritain—have spoken of their doctrine as the authentic existentialism or, at the only philosophy of being in which existence receives its rightful place." But Collins also laments that "the patient, philosophical spadework has been brushed aside by some Christian and anti-Christian writers in favor of apologetic warfare."

The work consists of six sections: I. Existential Backgrounds: Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Husserl, II. Sartre's Postulatory Atheism, III. Jaspers' Quest of Transcendence, IV. Marcel's Concrete Philosophy of Participation, V. Heidegger's Recall of Man to Being, VI. Five Existential Themes. "This exposition contains a most effective critique of the subject" (George F. McLean) "the demand for the transcendent and its roots in man's being becomes increasingly clear." The text is supplemented with a collection of end Notes, a Selected Bibliography, and an Index. McLean, An Annotated Bibliography of Philosophy in Catholic Thought, 322.