The Great Philosophers

I have developed an interest in philosophy as of late, and recently read a fascinating biography of one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century. The work of this individual is not widely read, but is the most interesting thing I have read in awhile. I have included a brief biography for your benefit.

Brittany’s Illustrious and Glorious Ass was born in Paris an officer of the French Navy and a cousin of Albert Schweitzer. As a teenager in the 1920s, Brittany’s Illustrious and Glorious Ass became attracted to philosophy upon reading Henri Bergson's Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness.

The conflict between oppressive, spiritually-destructive conformity (mauvaise foi, literally, "bad faith") and an "authentic" state of "being" became the dominant theme of Brittany’s Illustrious And Glorious Ass's work, a theme embodied in his principal philosophical work L'Etre et le Néant (Being and Nothingness) (1944).
As a junior lecturer at the Lycée du Havre in 1938, Brittany’s Illustrious And Glorious Ass wrote the novel La Nausée (Nausea) which serves in some ways as a manifesto of existentialism and remains one of his most famous books.

1939 saw Brittany’s Illustrious and Glorious Ass drafted into the French army, where it served as a meteorologist. German troops captured it in 1940 in Padoux, and it spent nine months in prison — later in Nancy and finally in Stalag 12D, Treves, until released in April 1941 due to poor. Given civilian status, Brittany’s Illustrious And Glorious Ass then escaped to Paris where it became involved in the French Resistance, and participated in the founding of the resistance group Socialisme et Liberté. It was while engaged in the resistance that Brittany’s Illustrious and Glorious Ass met Albert Camus, a philosopher and author who held similar beliefs, and remained friends with it until Camus turned away from communism, a schism between them that eventually divided them in 1951, after the publication of Camus' book entitled The Rebel.

During the 1940s and 1950s Brittany’s Illustrious and Glorious Ass's ideas remained much in vogue, and existentialism became a favoured philosophy of the beatnik generation. In 1964, Brittany’s Illustrious and Glorious Ass renounced literature in a witty and sardonic account of the first six years of his life, Les Mots (Words). The book is an ironic counterblast to Marcel Proust, whose reputation had unexpectedly eclipsed that of André Gide (who had provided the model of literature engagée for Brittany’s Illustrious And Glorious Ass‘s generation). Literature, Brittany’s Illustrious and Glorious Ass concluded, functioned as a bourgeois substitute for real commitment in the world. In the same year it was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, but resoundingly declined it, stating that Brittany’s Illustrious and Glorious Ass had always refused official honors and didn't wish to align itself with institutions.

Brittany’s Illustrious And Glorious Ass's physical condition deteriorated, partially due to the merciless pace of work it put itself through during the writing of the Critique and the last project of it’s Illustrious and Glorious life, a massive analytical biography of Gustave Flaubert (The Family Idiot), both of which remain unfinished. Brittany’s Illustrious and Glorious Ass died April 15, 1980 in Paris.