Being and Nothingness Being and Nothingness Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology (), sometimes published with the subtitle A Phenomenological Essay on Ontology, is a 1943 book by the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, in which the author asserts the individual's existence as prior to the individual's essence ("existence precedes essence") and seeks to demonstrate that free will exists. While a prisoner of war in 1940 and 1941, Sartre read Martin Heidegger's "Being and Time" (1927). Heidegger's work, an ontological investigation through the lens and method of Husserlian phenomenology (Edmund Husserl was Heidegger's teacher), initiated Sartre's own philosophical enquiry. Though influenced by Heidegger,
William Wallace (philosopher) Sciences". It was still regarded as "the most masterly and influential of all English translations of Hegel" when it was republished in 1975. The translation was accomplished in a free and creative style accompanied by extensive explanatory notes on the text, drawing parallels between the philosophy of Hegel and classical figures such as Plato and Aristotle. He published "Epicurean Philosophy" in 1880, tracing the origins of Epicureanism and highlighting the links between the life of Epicurus and the philosophy that he espoused. Wallace's "Kant" (1882), part of Blackwood's Philosophical Classics series, portrayed the German philosopher as engaged in a dialogue