Being and Nothingness was "a pretentious metaphysical thesis" and "principally an exercise in misusing the verb 'to be'." The philosopher William Barrett, writing in "Irrational Man" (1958), described "Being and Nothingness" as "a great, uneven, brilliant and verbose tome". He noted Sartre's debts to Heidegger, but nevertheless credited him with originality. He criticized Sartre for neglecting Heidegger's "notion of the truth of Being", his understanding of what it means for a subject or object to be. In his view, Sartre failed to "deal with the problem of truth in a radical and existential way", instead viewing truth in "the ordinary intellectualistic sense that
The Art of Being Right the 38 stratagems described by Schopenhauer, in the order of their appearance in the book: The Art of Being Right The Art of Being Right: 38 Ways to Win an Argument (also Eristic Dialectic: The Art of Winning an Argument; German: "Eristische Dialektik: Die Kunst, Recht zu behalten"; 1831) is an acidulous and sarcastic treatise written by the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer in sardonic deadpan. In it, Schopenhauer examines a total of thirty-eight methods of showing up one's opponent in a debate. He introduces his essay with the idea that philosophers have concentrated in ample measure on the rules of