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,
John O'Neill (philosopher) John O'Neill (philosopher) John O'Neill is a philosopher. He is professor of Political Economy at the University of Manchester. John O'Neill held the post of professor of philosophy at Lancaster University. Previously, he was on the faculty of the University of Sussex and the University of Wales. Books Journal articles Mark Peacock wrote that in "The Market: Ethics, Knowledge and Politics" "O'Neill defends an Aristotelian perfectionism which allows for a plurality of goods pursued for their own sake...The argument is sound, but does not answer the liberal objection to Aristotle that individuals must be allowed to pursue "what they believe