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
Karl Joel (philosopher) Karl Joel (philosopher) Karl Joel (27 March 1864 – 23 July 1934) was a German philosopher and professor. Joel was born in Hirschberg, Silesia, and died in Walenstadt, Switzerland. His father was a rabbi who studied under Schelling. Joel was a professor at the University of Basel from 1902. His father R. Herman Joel, had been a pupil of Schelling and apparently had a great influence on his son's attitude toward philosophy. He was born in Hirschberg, studied in Leipzig, and spent some time in Berlin (1887–92), where he became a friend of Georg *Simmel. In 1897 he was appointed