Being and Nothingness that among them the work usually went unread. 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
Francisco Romero (philosopher) in 1946, not returning until 1955. Romero began to publish on literary subjects during the First World War. Known as the "dean of Ibero-American philosophers," he became an influential critic, philosopher, and translator. Romero is interested in examining the space of human culture, especially with respect to creativity and social responsibility. A strongly anti-ideological humanist, he argues against Humean rationalism and all deterministic conceptions of the universe. True being is identified by Romero with transcendence, spiritual and moral aspiration, and intentionality. His writing is marked by a balance between philosophical rigor and literary sophistication, and "Theory of Man" (1952; English