Average customer rating:
- Not an easy but a worthwhile read
- amazing
- Life's the thing
- A treatise on absurdism.
- The question of suicide and its ethics
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The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays
Albert Camus
Manufacturer: Vintage
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Camus, Albert
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ASIN: 0679733736
Release Date: 1991-05-07 |
Customer Reviews:
Not an easy but a worthwhile read.......2007-09-25
I don't think Camus could have written a bad book if he had tried. In this case, I think it's accurate to say that this is the sort of book that makes you think and enjoy thinking.
amazing.......2007-08-10
i have read this book in hebrew
it is absolutely great
i recommend it to everyone who wants to "think outside of the box" and had wondered about the meaning of life...
Life's the thing.......2006-10-21
The myth of Sisyphus is a model essay to comfort people in those moods of bleak, existential despair that assail us all from time to time. The moral to emerge from this fable is a simple one - life in the post Nietzsche age, with no god, is absurd, there is no overarching meaning outside life itself, but there is still great nobility in fighting the good fight right to the death.
The best part comes for those readers who stick it out through the final appendix: Camus offers a stunning commentary of Kafka's work - the fate of his tragic protagonists in 'The Trial' and 'The Castle', viewed in light of the universal plight of mankind. Very telling is his addendum which acknowledges that he is not precluding aesthetic critiques of Kafka's work. Great art offers so much, yet resolves nothing. Like life.
A treatise on absurdism........2006-07-22
The Myth of Sisyphus is a treatise on absurdism, and while absurdism is an admittedly interesting topic in its own right, Camus never convincingly demonstrates a connection between the absurd and the impulse to suicide.
The average man could care less about the limits of knowledge, the evasions of nature, and all of the other epistemological concerns that Camus manages to exalt to godlike stature in the concept of the absurd. He posits a sort of ethic in which we are expected to ignore the pointless nature of life, and continue to "play the game", because somehow this is in accordance with his absurd valuations:
"It is essential to die unreconciled and not of one's own free will. Suicide is a repudiation. The absurd man can only drain everything to the bitter end, and deplete himself. The absurd is his extreme tension, which he maintains constantly by solitary effort, for he knows that in that consciousness and in that day-to-day revolt he gives proof of his only truth, which is defiance."
As such, his conclusions are not conclusions as much as an attempt by Camus to impose his values on the reader -- I asked for enlightenment and instead Camus does the intellectual equivalent of taking me to the Church of the Absurd (TM).
The question of suicide and its ethics.......2005-07-07
In his many theoretical books, Albert Camus tries to answer a question that has bothered him: Whether a human life is worth taking?
In this particular book, he tries to answer the question for a special case - that of suicide.
'The Absrud dictates suicide' is one sentence that echoes throughout the book in various forms. Camus believes that it is the absurdity and meaninglessness of our lives that drives us to suicide.
He compares the absurdity to the myth of the greek hero Sisyphus who was condemned to roll a huge rock uphill for eternity. Camus proceeds to uncover the entire existential psychology of The Absurd, but concludes that one's own life is not worth taking.
He then proceed to demonstrate through a collection of anecdotal essays, how human beings can construct meaning from life. His other essays in the book do give a hint about how to find meaning in life, but may not be persuasive enough for someone too much in the dumps.
The logical connection between his analysis and conclusion is weak, but the analysis is brilliant. And for that reason alone, it is really worth reading.
Book Description
This brilliant study of the stages in the mind's necessary progress from immediate sense-consciousness to the position of a scientific philosophy includes an introductory essay and a paragraph-by-paragraph analysis of the text to help the reader understand this most difficult and most
influential of Hegel's works.
Customer Reviews:
A Translation which could use more care.......2007-09-24
Unfortunately there is an oft repeated caution when approaching any translated text, but I might argue it is a particularly pernicious problem in the case of Hegel. Much of what Hegel is attempting to accomplish in this piece is break down Kantian categories and give them new dimensionality. In the German, for instance, Hegel uses the word "sein" (being) in various constructions brilliantly woven together to help the reader pick at the different linguistic formulations of what it means "to be". Unfortunately, Miller has given no clues to the reader to get to Hegel's meaning in the German, and instead often come across as bizarre instead of piercing.
Hegeling it up.......2007-09-11
Hegel starts with the scepticism of Hume and the phenomenology of Kant's critique, and then claims that neither went far enough with their probings into knowledge and truth.
A dubious landmark.......2007-09-06
Before you get overawed by his reputation, its worth remembering that a healthy portion of philosophers, especially in the English speaking world, think that Hegel wrote a lot of nonsense, and its historical influence, in my opinion, is not overwhelmingly positive. I've been suspicious of it ever sense I wrote what I thought was a fairly dubious paper on its first section and yet still got an A on it. A lot of the prose reads like some sort of Burroughs-esque prank. Most contemporary analytic philosophy thinks early philosophers were too ambitious in gaining elaborate knowledge through reason alone, but Hegel seems to think they basically weren't ambitious enough. Essentially, if you channeled the rationalists through a megalomaniac, you might get something like this.
Take my pulse, please.......2007-03-15
Phenomenology of Spirit is not a book to be tossed aside lightly; it should be hurled with great force.
Utterly worthless drivel.
Written first but should maybe be read last.......2006-07-04
Okay, so it isn't literally the first thing Hegel wrote, but it is indisputably the work of the young Hegel. I've read this book through twice and have given detailed readings of it in papers, etc. But if I had to do it over again, I would recommend starting with the "mature" Hegel of the encyclopedia - this is a three volume set: the Encyclopedia Logic, i.e. "the little logic", the philosophy of nature, and the philosophy of spirit/mind/geist (not to be confused with the phenomenology). Why start there? For one thing Hegel goes to great lengths to define his method, the dialectic, to situate his work in the history of thought, and to spell it all out in a consistent format. Basically these books resemble legal constitutional writings, with addenda that, in an engaging way, critique "ordinary" thinking on the most basic and enduringly relevant matters. But if you have to start here, savor the preface, it's slow going after that. Also you might want to consider reading Sophocles' Antigone and Rameau's Nephew by Diderot, I was pleasantly surprised the first time I read this by the extent to which he close reads these texts. Someone else mentions Plato's Parminedes, but that is really more relevant to the Logic than to this.
Book Description
Dostoevsky’s most revolutionary novel, Notes from Underground marks the dividing line between nineteenth- and twentieth-century fiction, and between the visions of self each century embodied. One of the most remarkable characters in literature, the unnamed narrator is a former official who has defiantly withdrawn into an underground existence. In full retreat from society, he scrawls a passionate, obsessive, self-contradictory narrative that serves as a devastating attack on social utopianism and an assertion of man’s essentially irrational nature.
Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, whose Dostoevsky translations have become the standard, give us a brilliantly faithful edition of this classic novel, conveying all the tragedy and tormented comedy of the original.
From the Hardcover edition.
Download Description
I am a sick man. ... I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man. I believe my liver is diseased. However, I know nothing at all about my disease, and do not know for certain what ails me. I don't consult a doctor for it, and never have, though I have a respect for medicine and doctors. Besides, I am extremely superstitious, sufficiently so to respect medicine, anyway (I am well-educated enough not to be superstitious, but I am superstitious). No, I refuse to consult a doctor from spite. That you probably will not understand. Well, I understand it, though. Of course, I can't explain who it is precisely that I am mortifying in this case by my spite: I am perfectly well aware that I cannot "pay out" the doctors by not consulting them; I know better than anyone that by all this I am only injuring myself and no one else. But still, if I don't consult a doctor it is from spite. My liver is bad, well - let it get worse! I have been going on like that for a long time - twenty years. Now I am forty. I used to be in the government service, but am no longer. I was a spiteful official. I was rude and took pleasure in being so. I did not take bribes, you see, so I was bound to find a recompense in that, at least. (A poor jest, but I will not scratch it out. I wrote it thinking it would sound very witty; but now that I have seen myself that I only wanted to show off in a despicable way, I will not scratch it out on purpose!)
Customer Reviews:
Not for the faint of heart.......2007-10-06
First, I thought that the translation was very readable and strongly commend it.
Notes from Underground was not a particularly fun or entertaining book, but Dostoevsky is at his best as he takes us inside the mind of his unnamed narrator. The plot is essentially non-existent, or at least non-essential, but the book is not about plot; it is about the narrator. He is loathsome, detestable. However, too often the his harried and contradicting thoughts are alarmingly familiar. Unlike the modern fashion of reveling in the weaknesses or the humanity of our heroes, Notes from Underground will not allow us romanticize the frailty of human beings. His goal is to shock the reader by self-observation. As the narrator reminds us, "...a novel needs a hero, and here there are purposely collected all the features for an anti-hero, and, in the first place, all this will produce a most unpleasant impression, because we've all grown unaccustomed to life, we're all lame, each of us more or less." I recommend reading it with a healthy dose of introspection.
Starts slowly, but finishes strong.......2007-09-24
" . . . it's hardly literature so much as a corrective punishment."
While reading Part I of "Notes from Underground," you'll undoubtedly get the same feeling. The first third of the novel is a practice in rambling conjecture, as the protagonist of the novel, the "Underground Man", espouses his thoughts and beliefs on his miserable and embittered life. However, Part II picks up interest as Dostoyevsky presents a short, yet powerful, story of this castaway and how he become so alienated from "real" life.
Without a doubt, the protagonist is a haughty, arrogant erudite who feels himself superior to others. Set in 1860s St. Petersburg, the protagonist immerses himself in Romantic literature and comes to view the world through these unrealistic novels. Yet, in practice he fails to act upon any of the noble ideals set forth in the novels and comes to despise himself. His self-loathing and self-pity manifests itself into a vile existence, where self-delusion and an active imagination takes the place of real social interaction in the outside world. Although the protagonist later derides a prostitute on her doomed existence, it is he who is doomed to an early death with no mourners at his funeral.
While the first part of the novel is a droll treatise on his twisted philosophy, the second part details the protagonist's pitiful attempts at maintain dignity and self-worth. Although he thinks highly of himself, his delusions of grandeur are quickly squashed by those who do not care about his existence, such as an officer who barely notices him as he pushes him out of the way everyday.
Perhaps most disturbing is the protagonist's stance on love. To him, love is not about a mutual respect and caring for each other, but is merely a sadomasochistic game of power and domination. To him, being loved means allowing another to tyrannize and control yourself. The loving relationship must include a domineering partner and a submissive partner. Indeed, the protagonist is incapable of real love and quickly repels any hope of love.
Overall, "Notes From Underground" delivers a poignant psychological case study of an individual far removed from society, who despises everyone and thinks there is a cabal of conspirators to subjugate him to his poverty-stricken existence. Written almost 150 years ago, this novel is still relevant today. Most of us, myself included, have certain qualities of the "Underground Man" espoused in this novel, as it is hard not to become alienated and hardened in modern society. Once again, if you can slug your way through the tedious Part I, you are rewarded in the end.
The more times you read this the more you will see..........2007-04-06
This is one of those books that would be suitable for multiple readings, each time coming away with more than you had the last.
Fabulous book. The first part had me very frustrated. It's stream of consciousness writing, and frankly I can't always follow my own stream of consciousness so Dostoyevsky's lost me a bit. But that is only the first 28 pages (in the edition I have).
In the second part "A propos of wet snow" it really picks up. The underground man is very much the anti-hero. He is just not a good person, the kind we all hope we aren't. Whats funny though is that in an overexaggerated sense he could be all of us. I don't want to give too much away here.....
Near the end of the book, when he meets Liza is the most interesting part in my opinion. Through out the entire book he claims to be honest with himself, but it seems like his conversation with Liza is the only time in which he actually is honest. This is short lived however, as he leaves in a hurry and draws back...
I am not going to tell you much more...I believe that is what the editor's review is for....Great book...you will understand why Dostoyevsky is one of the greats!
Check Out OtherTranslations First..........2007-03-29
This edition of "Notes from Underground" is lauded by various publications as masterful, definitve, and a great restoration, but I'm not sure I agree. I bought this edition because I'd lost a version I'd owned years earlier. Before I bought this one, I should have sought out the version I'd owned (which I think was a Penguin Classic edition).
In the first paragraph of the editon I'd owned, the "liver" sentence was translated as, "I think there is something wrong with my liver."
Here, it's translated as "I think my liver hurts."
It seems to me that the former translation of this sentence is superior, because it conveys a kind of mental illness (hypochondriasis) that I think Dostoevsky intended. The matter of whether there's something wrong with the protagonist's liver is left in the shadows.
Whereas, if the sentence is translated, "I think my liver hurts," it leaves the matter in doubt as to whether something really is wrong with his liver, doesn't it?
It's unfortunate that this translation occurs in the first paragraph. For me, the first paragraph of a novel is second in importance only to the first sentence.
I regret to say that I lost interest in reading this translation immediately after reading the "I think my liver hurts," sentence.
Notes.......2007-03-03
Dostoevsky uses Notes From Underground to criticise the idea that reason will produce a perfect society. He believes man to be an imperfect fallen being capable of irrational acts as well as noble ones. He uses symbols like a piano key to argue against determinism, an anthill to plead for individuality, and mathematical tables to cry against the notion that everything about humans can be precisely answered. The Underground Man of this novel has many contradictory impulses and he lives in a fog of self contempt. This sounds kind of bleak but this is the funniest novel Dostoevsky ever penned. The UM rather than submit to the "law of reason" that dictates that only doctors and dentists can cure liver disease and toothaches prefers to suffer his ailments. He is incredibly impulsive and can't make up his mind because as he says he is too conscious. The UM is able to imagine the plethora of consequences that every action might have, and he is conscious of the different motives that inform every decision he tries to make. At the beginning of a really funny segment the UM says "One night as I was passing a tavern I saw through a lighted window some gentlemen fighting with billiard cues, and saw one of them thrown out of the window. At other times I should have felt very much disgusted, but I was in such a mood at the time, that I actually envied the gentleman thrown out of the window -- and I envied him so much that I even went into the tavern and into the billiard-room. "Perhaps," I thought, "I'll have a fight, too, and they'll throw me out of the window." You will probably notice that it seems to be always snowing in the UM's world. This snow serves to set the dark alienated atmosphere of underground life and links the two main sections of the novel together. The wet falling snow at the end of the first section triggers a memory of an incident in the UM's past and we take a look at his past in the second section. Near the close of the novel the UM tells us "for we are all divorced from life... Look into it more carefully! Why, we don't even know what living means now... Leave us alone without books and we shall be lost and in confusion at once." In the end it seems the real underground is in a mind incessantly clinging to thoughts and opinions. The thoughts of this paradoxalist reviewer do not end here, however. I cannot refrain from going on with them, but it seems to me that you may stop here.
Customer Reviews:
The Best Introduction to Existentialism.......2007-05-09
This anthology of Existentialist texts is the best introduction to Existentialism currently available in English. Walter Kaufmann (best known to philosophy readers as the twentieth century's most important translator of Nietzsche) presents a selection of key texts from Kierkegaard, Dostoyevski, Nietzsche of course, Heidegger, Sartre and others, and Kaufmann prefaces the anthology with a magisterial intro. The most important piece included is the complete text of Sartre's early lecture "Existentialism is a Humanism," the most accessible and clearest exposition of the most influential phase of his thought. If you want to know what Existentialism is all about (or if you already know but want to own a great reference book of essential texts), this is the book to buy.
i disagree with the previous review........2006-12-09
I believe this book is fantastic, especially as a beginning point for understanding what existentialism is. The book has a well written preface that explains that existentialism is not really well defined, but encompasses certain themes. This book does a good job of taking a selection of those who share those themes, and introducing them here. I think it gives one a good representation and idea of existentialism, that can be studied more in depth later, by reading the full text of what is represented here. Very well translated by WK.
Watch your Step.......2005-05-21
This book is most useful if one wishes to study Walter Kaufmann. This book is a waste of time if you wish to study the writers Kaufmann presents to us. Kaufmann warps the texts to suit his own agenda. If you share his agenda you will likely not even notice that he has an agenda.
"If you make people think they are thinking they will love you, but if you really make them think they will kill you. " - Albert Einstein
the Realm of Existentialism.......2005-04-13
"The stone is given its existence; it need not fight for being what it is---a stone in the field. Man has to be himself in spite of unfavorable circumstances; that means he has to make his own existence at every single moment. He is given the abstract possibility of existing, but not the reality. This he has to conquer hour after hour. Man must earn his life, not only economically but metaphysically." --Ortega
Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre, by Walter Kaufmann is a must have for anyone seriously undertaking a jaunt into the Realm of Existentialism and Phenomenology.
Although a small book, the paperback edition weighing in at a mere 384 pages, one will find that Kaufmann has packed it to the gills with usable, and reliable, information. Whole chapters are devoted to Existentialist giants like: Dostoevsky: Notes from Underground, Kierkegaard: The First Existentialist, Nietzsche: "Live Dangerously", Rilke: The Notes of Malte Laurids Brigge, Kafka: Three Parables, Ortega: "Man Has No Nature", Jaspers: Existenzphilosophie, Heidegger: The Quest for Being, Sartre: Existentialism, and Camus: The Myth of Sisyphus.
One should be aware that there are a lot of different writing styles, because of all the different authors, being introduced in one book. So, in some ways, to the casual reader Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre may seem a bit choppy and academic, intimidating and complex. --Katharena Eiermann, 2005, the Realm of Existentialism -- Presidential Hopeful
A thought- provoking anthology .......2004-11-10
Literature, Philosophy and Religion all have their parts in this anthology compiled by Walter Kaufmann. Kaufman was of course more expert on certain matters ( Neitzsche ) than on others(Kierkegaard) but he here provides a variety of texts that enable the reader to know and think for himself about the major ' existensial writers and thinkers'.
Customer Reviews:
Abridged, with no warning on the front.......2007-07-06
I mistakenly purchased this without noticing it was abridged. It seems dishonest to only mark this on the back but not the front of the text.
Very Good.......2007-03-12
I must admit that I have not completed this book yet. But, what I have read is the most wonderful work of all time. It is philosophy that reads as fiction and fiction that reads as genius.
An undergrad like me cannot do it justice in a review. So, I will let it speak for itself, but buy it. It is wondrous.
In the beginning there was either/or .......2005-02-02
This is Kierkegaard's first work, and contains already major themes which will be part of his oeuvre throughout. The choice between the aesthetic life represented in the first part and the moral life defended in the second is one such theme. So is the masking of his own identity, the division of himself into a multiplicity of names and identities behind which the true identity is a question. The story of the seduction, however ironically transmitted here is some variety of that fundamental story of Kierkegaard's life his engagement to Regina Olson which he broke because as he later said ' he lacked true faith'. And this perhaps also a cover for the ' thorn in the flesh' that limitation which is central to Kierkegaard' life of abstinence, and perhaps relates to his physical condition , or perhaps to his relation to his father. The aesthetic, the moral phases and what for Kierkegaard is beyond either/or the transcendent phase of the religious is also in this work in the question of who is the ' true Christian'. All of these themes are presented in the multipled- voice ironic humorous suggestive prose of a great imaginative writer and thinker . This is the first masterpiece of many to come, and the opening of the career of the one who would be the ' only Christian in Christendom'.
For the religious Jewish reader like myself aside from the difficulty and pleasure in trying to make something of the depth of Kierkegaard's thought there is the message of the lone creative individual more individual than other individuals in realizing himself in a kind of philosophical literature only Kafka and Neitzche and Pascal are perhaps the true equals of.
lighter translation.......2002-10-03
there is a countervailing advantage this edition offers against the princeton volumes even though its abridged... this is a lighter and smoother English translation. English is not my native language, but I believe many American readers would find the Hong translations as tough-going as I did (even if meticulous). Kierkegaard is already very wordy so this translation is a pain reducer.
ABRIDGED (abridged).......2001-04-27
K./Eremita/... is certainly an amazing and entertaining philosopher, and one should either read everything of his or nothing, I was surprised that the book is not listed as ABRIDGED. The first (and most popular) book is less badly cut, and I'm sure all of the excisions improve the book, if you're serious about K., you might find this a problem. E/O is a two volume work-- good luck finding them, though.
Amazon.com
Jean-Paul Sartre, the seminal smarty-pants of mid-century thinking, launched the existentialist fleet with the publication of Being and Nothingness in 1943. Though the book is thick, dense, and unfriendly to careless readers, it is indispensable to those interested in the philosophy of consciousness and free will. Some of his arguments are fallacious, others are unclear, but for the most part Sartre's thoughts penetrate deeply into fundamental philosophical territory. Basing his conception of self-consciousness loosely on Heidegger's "being," Sartre proceeds to sharply delineate between conscious actions ("for themselves") and unconscious ("in themselves"). It is a conscious choice, he claims, to live one's life "authentically" and in a unified fashion, or not--this is the fundamental freedom of our lives.
Drawing on history and his own rich imagination for examples, Sartre offers compelling supplements to his more formal arguments. The waiter who detaches himself from his job-role sticks in the reader's memory with greater tenacity than the lengthy discussion of inauthentic life and serves to bring the full force of the argument to life. Even if you're not an angst-addicted poet from North Beach, Being and Nothingness offers you a deep conversation with a brilliant mind--unfortunately, a rare find these days. --Rob Lightner
Customer Reviews:
Being and Nothingness.......2007-09-18
I began reading this book for a course in college. I keep coming back to it and read tidbits. I think this book was banned by the Catholic Church because Jean-Paul is in my opinion the boldest man to ever live. Very sharp book--some of the sentences make me think over and over and over again. This book is not to be strived at.
Excellent service........2007-06-14
Haven't read book yet. Quality as expected and described.
Being and Nothingness.......2007-03-09
First of all, to read this book one needs a thorough grounding in modern western philosophy. Without that, don't even bother buying it. Seriously, the amount of esoteric jargon, while justified, as the ideas communicated are complex, is something that needs to be fully understood BEFORE opening this book. That means you need to read Heidegger, Husserl, Kant, Hegel, etc... before this. This is recent stuff and draws on a lot of material.
That small warning out of the way, Sartre's metaphysics suck. I mean like first-rate Hoover action. He's just wrong. Quite simply, he makes Neo-Cartesian (or Neo-Kantian, if you want to be generous, which I don't) errors that nobody who's taken an intro to philosophy course should be taken in by. Sartre has volitionalist ideas and the most radical concept of human liberty ever, then builds a metaphysics around them. His phenomenology is suspect, with the descriptions he gives being too vague. The idea of human consciousness being a sort of "nothingness" which is pure function is totally incoherent and falls into the aforementioned Cartesian metaphysical dualism. He just didn't know his stuff.
That being said, Sartre makes some very insightful comments about existential authenticity and self-deception. The book is worth reading simply for those insights.
In conclusion, if you want to read a really good treatment of phenomenology and the question of Being itself, I suggest you read Being and Time by Martin Heidegger. Very difficult to read, let alone to understand, but well worth it when you're through. B&N is good psychology, but really bad metaphysics, good for those who want to hang around in cafes smoking too many cigarettes and trying to impress the ladies, but a bit of a joke for anyone interested in really good philosophy.
difficult? yes. worthwhile? possibly........2006-02-11
With so much inauthenticity inherent in modern societies, difficult a read as this is, it is worth the plowing. And plowing we must. There are many paths to the mountaintop of self-actualization. The renowned philosopher points a studied finger. I would contrast this classic with his lesser known autobiography, "The Words"...unimaginably poignant poetry guised in the cloak of prose.
The Bible Of Existentialism !.......2005-11-18
"Being And Nothingness" is definitely an old time classic. It is Sartre's Chef D'oeuvre. This book belongs in every library and on every book shelf. I would highly recommend it for every person that harbors an interest and passion for stimulating thoughts and philosophy.
Book Description
This is the most comprehensive anthology of Søren Kierkegaard's works ever assembled in English. Drawn from the volumes of Princeton's authoritative Kierkegaard's Writings series by editors Howard and Edna Hong, the selections represent every major aspect of Kierkegaard's extraordinary career. They reveal the powerful mix of philosophy, psychology, theology, and literary criticism that made Kierkegaard one of the most compelling writers of the nineteenth century and a shaping force in the twentieth. With an introduction to Kierkegaard's writings as a whole and explanatory notes for each selection, this is the essential one-volume guide to a thinker who changed the course of modern intellectual history.
The anthology begins with Kierkegaard's early journal entries and traces the development of his work chronologically to the final The Changelessness of God. The book presents generous selections from all of Kierkegaard's landmark works, including Either/Or, Fear and Trembling, Works of Love, and The Sickness unto Death, and draws new attention to a host of such lesser-known writings as Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions and The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air. The selections are carefully chosen to reflect the unique character of Kierkegaard's work, with its shifting pseudonyms, its complex dialogues, and its potent combination of irony, satire, sermon, polemic, humor, and fiction. We see the esthetic, ethical, and ethical-religious ways of life initially presented as dialogue in two parallel series of pseudonymous and signed works and later in the "second authorship" as direct address. And we see the themes that bind the whole together, in particular Kierkegaard's overarching concern with, in his own words, "What it means to exist; . . . what it means to be a human being."
Together, the selections provide the best available introduction to Kierkegaard's writings and show more completely than any other book why his work, in all its creativity, variety, and power, continues to speak so directly today to so many readers around the world.
Customer Reviews:
May the laughter by on your side.......2003-10-03
With a dizzying series of pseudonyms, from Climaticus to Anticlimaticus, this book selects from the Hong's expansive translation of all of Kierkegaard's writings. The introductions place each piece in context, but don't over interpret as some other books. Reading from the complete work presents a view of Kierkegaard's total plan ("The Authorship") and his voices of the religious, esthetic, and ethical. In light of the whole body, "Concluding Unscientific postscript" seems to have a pivotal role. Existentialists may like to claim him as he speaks of the individual about despair, fear and trembling, and anxiety, but make no mistake his work is to be a Christian (" Once and for all I must urgently request the kindly disposed reader continually to bear in mente [in mind] that the total thought in the entire work as an author is this" becoming a Christian"). He is a self appointed critic of the established church and the inclusion of the lesser known "The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air' shows the religious side. Present are all of Kierkegaard's "Knights": the Knight of Faith, the Knight of Infinite Resignation, and the Knight of Hidden Awareness. Humor and irony abound. Come leap in, and have a good read!
haven't read this particular edition of Kierkegard.......2002-01-17
nevertheleee... introduced to man as on of
the four main existentialist.., nietsche,
camus sartre... maybe fifth antoine de
st. exupery's flight to arras
however.. suffice to comment.. kierkegard
is mellow man
the triumvirate brace of christianic
philosophy is soren kierkegard, and
the psychologists, bruto bettleheim,
harry stack sullivan, and karen horney
best wishes,
enjoy one's own bibliophilic bent
spotter3
coastwatch quadrant 8,
truk atoll, caroline islands,south pacific
"Best of Soren Kierkegaard".......2001-10-22
I am of Danish descent, so I is nice to hear from the motherland. However, I am not of K's tradition, so this is an outsider's look at Mr. K's philosophy.
I am quite impressed with what Mr. K has to say. It took me a while to get into his style of speaking and writing, but one I picked up his dialect, I was awestruck! Sometimes titles not only grab you, but mesmerize you. His essay "Sickness unto Death," which I had heard of in passing, was one of these titles that I just could not get out of my head.
The advantage of this compilation is that it is done by the General Editors of the "Collected Works of S. K.," so the translation, pagination and diction are all the same in the individual books and this small hors d'oeuvre plate. Having used various translations of Machiaveli, or different editions of Plato, it is nice to have one standard translation.
I recommend book as a being like a "Best of Kierkegaard," much like a "Best of" CD from an unknown band. You get the good stuff, eliminate all the filler material, and can buy the individual books if you so choose.
As I said, I am not of K's faith, but I appreciate his faithfulness in search for truth!
Excellent Anthology.......2001-07-02
A wonderful, chronologically arranged anthology from the immensely prodigious output of Soren Kierkegaard, complete with excellent introductory notes.
My only criticism? The typography is a bit dense, and in particular the font size for the running text is small. I would appeal to the publisher to reformat this book using a larger text size (e.g., 10 point) -- even at the expense of adding additional pages to the overall book size.
The Master of Irony.......2001-05-12
Søren Kierkegaard is undoubtedly the comedian's philosopher. And his humor is fundamentally reassuring - hilarious, even biting, but never bitter or nihilistic. He is one of the major influences on the films and writings of Woody Allen. Often Kierkegaard is rumored to be bleak, hopeless and terrifying. There are elements of despair, yes, but I've always found him good for a laugh even at his darkest. His humor is similar to Woody Allen's in that it is simultaneously cathartic, sobering and very funny. I flip around this excellent anthology and re-read passages in my spare time for encouragement.
Book Description
'Your Jacques is a tasteless mishmash of things that happen, some of them true, others made up, written without style and served up like a dog's breakfast.' Jacques the Fatalist is Diderot's answer to the problem of existence. If human beings are determined by their genes and their environment, how can they claim to be free to want or do anything? Where are Jacques and his Master going? Are they simply occupying space, living mechanically until they die, believing erroneously that they are in charge of their Destiny? Diderot intervenes to cheat our expectations of what fiction should be and do, and behaves like a provocative, ironic and unfailingly entertaining master of revels who finally show why Fate is not to be equated with doom. In the introduction to this brilliant new translation, David Coward explains the philosophical basis of Diderot's fascination with Fate and shows why Jacques the Fatalist pioneers techniques of fiction which, two centuries on, novelists still regard as experimental.
Customer Reviews:
very entertaining.......2007-07-31
THis book is awesome mix of "Don Quixote," "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy," and the "Colloquies of Erasmus." ... With a dash of Rabelais and Boccaccio for good measure.
In other words: playful bawdy post modern meta narrative where carnivalesque stories weave in and out of each other. Ive read a few things by Diderot and this is my fav so far.
I'm a big fan of The Manuscript Found in Saragossa - so its shocking to learn that it leans so heavily on Jacques. I found Jacques to be more entertaining than Sterne's work.
It's written on high.......2007-03-21
It may be your destiny to read and adore the pithy wit of Diderot. At a time when the novel was new as a genre as a contemporary of Sterne and Richardson, Diderot confronts the religion and philosophy of his day entrenched in the idea that man's fate was written on a scroll on high and that man only acted out a bit part devoid of real choice in his slavery to destiny. Pre-destination did not sit well with Diderot and Jacques is the novelist in this "dog's breakfast" he has served up railing aginst his own genre to assert his humanity and freedom on his picaresque journey to nowhere. "Does anyone know where they're going?" certainly sounds like Beckett who lived in France and may well have read Diderot. Jacques is forced to conclude that people think they are in charge of their destiny when their destiny is in charge of them. What choice does the fatalist really have except to resign to his fate? Because life is a series of endless misunderstandings, it isn't easy to be captain of one's own soul. The epigrams are deliciously well phrased: "Virtue is an excellent thing. Both good people and wicked people speak highly of it." Or this: "I think there are some very odd things written up there on high." The wicked fable of the Sheath and the Knife is certainly memorable. Jacques is genuinely hilarious in many places and despite Diderot's scathing complaints of the early novel, he wrote wrote an enduring classic beloved because of its pure wit, audacity, irony and uncanny phrasing. I urge you to read this great early novel destined to foretell the promise bound to follow for the genre.
An interactive literary device.......2003-01-07
Two centuries or so before "modern" writers began writing experimental novels, Denis Diderot, the force behind the Encyclopaedia effort, wrote this strange and indeed very "modern" novel in which the author leads a conversation with the reader, asking him where he (or she, of course) would want to go and what to do with the characters and the story. Here we see the author in the very process of creation, exposing his doubts, exploring his options, and playing with the story.
There is really no plot as such. Jacques, a man who seems to believe everything that happens is already written "up on high", but who nonetheless keeps making decisions for himself, is riding through France with his unnamed master, a man who is skeptic of Jacques's determinism but who remains rather passive throughout the book. Fate and the creator-author will put repeatedly to test Jacques's theory, through a series of more or less fortunate accidents and situations, as well as by way of numerous asides in the form of subplots or stories.
The novel is totally disjointed and these asides and subplots blurb all over the place, always interrupted themselves by other happenings. The most interesting of them is the story of Madame de Pommeroy and her bitter but ultimately ineffectual revenge on her ex-lover.
Diderot confesses to having taken much from Sterne's "Tristram Shandy" and Cervantes's "Don Quixote". This last novel's influence seems obvious at two levels: Cervantes also talks to the reader, especially in Part Two, and also reflects abundantly on the creative process. Moreover, the tone and environment of the book is very similar to the Quixote: two people engaged in an endless philosophical conversations while roaming around the countryside and facing several adventures which serve to illustrate one or antoher point of view.
Diderot's humour is bawdy and practical and the book is fun to read. The exact philosophical point is not clearcut, but it will leave the reader wondering about Destiny, Fate, and Free Will.
Buried Treasure.......2002-05-28
Yeah. Believe all the reviews below. This book really is amazing. It would feel like it was written yesterday, if it was more derivative -- but it's fresh! The language is incisive, no waste, and the pacing and structure are brilliantly fluid. It's smart and funny, too, and completely unpredictable, filled with weird offhand bursts of bewildering narrativity. And yet balanced, apparently sane. I truly enjoyed reading it. It's great.
Burning Read.......2001-12-29
This book is amazing. It will make many of your conceptions of where things belong in the history of the novel fall apart. Not coincidentally, that is one of the points of this book, being an exercise more than a message: that all apparent armatures of order are one more perspective away from disintegration. This book is really quite sneaky as well. In the beginning, the constant references to the inscriptive certainties in the heavens seem silly. But then little explanations come along (like the geneology of Jacques' crazy horse), and the novel heads down a dark, yet very enchanting road, into a fuzz that's every bit as modern as any you've read. This thing alternately looks like Bunuel, Zola, Stendhal, Faulkner, Kerouac. The picaresque, the uncertain narrator, the structuralists, all seem to be swimming around in this amazing book.
Surely many writers and artists from this era (like Goya) depicted the nobles as effete and incapable of carrying out the governance of the most basic requirements of existence, but here, they also appear (in the image of the 'master') as so withdrawn from the world as to be blind. If you take away all the stories that are told, the only thing that's left of a plot here is the master having his horse stolen right from under his nose while Jacques was gone and then Jacques finding it for him at the end in a beautiful, mock sort of deus ex machina.
Amazon.com
Iris Murdoch is a poet, philosopher, novelist, and playwright, and in this collection of her most careful thinking and writing on the relationship between art and philosophy, we are treated to the fruits of decades of good work. Murdoch's changing ideas about the search for meaning in literature and life lead us down a richly rewarding path. Along the way she discusses T. S. Eliot, Dante Alighieri, Matthew Arnold, and many other major literary figures. For cognitive power, a sweeping overview of Western thought and art, and a respectful engagement with the reader, put it on the shelf beside the collected works of Kenneth Burke.
Book Description
Best known as the author of twenty-six novels, Iris Murdoch has also made significant contributions to the fields of ethics and aesthetics. Collected here for the first time in one volume are her most influential literary and philosophical essays. Tracing Murdoch's journey to a modern Platonism, this volume includes incisive evaluations of the thought and writings of T. S. Eliot, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvior, and Elias Canetti, as well as key texts on the continuing importance of the sublime, on the concept of love, and the role great literature can play in curing the ills of philosophy.
Existentialists and Mystics not only illuminates the mysticism and intellectual underpinnings of Murdoch's novels, but confirms her major contributions to twentieth-century thought.
"These essays, even more than the novels, changed me and the way I looked at the world." --A. S. Byatt
"At a time when much academic philosophy is hopelessly arcane, morally bankrupt, and barbarously written . . . Murdoch has provided a lucid and compelling counterexample." --The Wall Street Journal
"One of Murdoch's most valuable books." --San Francisco Chronicle
Customer Reviews:
Almost all of Murdoch's philosophizing in a single package.......2000-07-05
Except for Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals, which is disorganized and verges on the incoherent, almost all of Murdoch's explicitly philosophical writing is here. So if you are going to be working on Murdoch's philosophy, this is a resource you need to have. However, if you're new to Murdoch's philosophical writing, you might do better taking a look at The Sovereignty of Good; it's got three of her best four essays, and it's a whole lot shorter and easier to find your way around in.
Re-Affirming a Canon.......2000-04-28
Murdoch's essays each shine on their own, but collected here you get the full, accumulated brilliance in one volume. She is a needed voice in the post-modernist wilderness --- assuring the careful reader that there are works, though they may be formalist or outmoded or dated, that are worthy of the veneration and study of future generations. And, just as there are works of art that are "good" and that are superior to others, there are also actions and thoughts and moralities that are better than others. Her style is lucid and affecting and is never pedantic --- you are enthralled and rapt while you are being educated. Literature, like the other arts, is a form of communication that never ends. Art speaks to each generation; but some specific works of art transcend time and are contemplated anew by different human minds. Murdoch takes your chin and points your eyes towards these works, and you can see the eternal verities and the truths that shine out from them.
Amazon.com
A collection of Walter Kauffman's masterful translations of five of Nietzsche's greatest works:
The Birth of Tragedy, which forever changed assumptions about Greek culture and the nature of tragedy;
Beyond Good and Evil, as comprehensive an overview of Nietzsche's thought as the delightfully aphoristic Thus Spake Zarathustra, but stated with considerably greater clarity;
On the Geneaology of Morals, his major work on ethics;
The Case of Wagner, a surprisingly witty piece written after Nietzsche's break with Richard Wagner; and
Ecce Homo, Nietzsche's passionate and beautiful analysis of his life and work.
Book Description
One hundred years after his death, Friedrich Nietzsche remains the most influential philosopher of the modern era. Basic Writings of Nietzsche gathers the complete texts of five of Nietzsche's most important works, from his first book to his last: The Birth of Tragedy; Beyond Good and Evil; On the Genealogy of Morals; The Case of Wagner; and Ecce Homo. Edited and translated by the great Nietzsche scholar Walter Kaufmann, this volume provides a definitive guide to the full range of Nietzsche's thought.
Included also are seventy-five aphorisms, selections from Nietzsche's correspondence, and variants from drafts for Ecce Homo.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
Customer Reviews:
Not for the faint of heart, but good reference material.......2007-08-14
I think you have to be highly intelligent or very bored to read Nietzsche, and understand him. It seems you have to live with his books for a long time to really get it. While I love to read, I have taken a few stabs at this one, and I find I don't have the dedication to finish just yet, and will reserve full judgment until I do. In the meantime, I see Nietzsche being quoted in almost everything else I read, so maybe over time I'll pick up enough in passing that I will be spared having to read him first hand. From what I've gathered so far he is tedious, depressing and often insightful. When Nietzsche says "I am not a man, I am dynamite" he means to explode all preconceptions of morals, or the concept of good and evil. He questions everything, while enjoying nothing. I think he was one miserable wretch, but that is his loss and our gain. It could take years to crack his code...don't know how necessary that is, so I choose to keep him around as reference material instead. He is easier to digest that way, on your own terms, in small chunks rather than as an elephant, although you are likely to get indigestion either way.
This is what you've been waiting for. .......2006-12-28
Nietzsche IS the greatest philosopher of modern times, and this anthology is the perfect place to start if you're a student or new to Nietzsche. It's also a great bargain and collects several works together that one would be spending extra money on to get separately. I strongly reccomend this, as the works in here ( especially the Geneology of Morals, and Beyond Good and Evil) are key. I have been highly satisfied with this purchase and I recommen buying this along with Viking's Portable Nietzsche.
Flashes of Genius.......2006-10-22
I picked up this book to get a feel for Nietzsche and have reviewed several commentaries on the other works available on or translated from Nietzsche. For those of you who are not intimately familiar with his work, let me summarize what I've learned:
From a modern point of view, Nietzsche is racist, sexist, anti-religious (including Jews, Christians/Catholics, etc.), and sometimes even anti-German. Given this concise but inflammatory list, you can imagine why very few people get over their critical anger and stop to figure out if there's anything worthwhile left in his work. If you can come to terms with the fact that much of this attitude is a relic of his times (pre WWII Germany) and skim by this material without getting hostile to his body of work as a whole, there is a lot of valuable insight in his works.
To this book specifically, Kaufmann is well regarded as one of the best translators of Nietzsche's work, derived particularly from his fluency in both German and English. As a native German speaker, he understands all the subtle aspects of Nietzsche's artistic writing style. When Kaufmann translates this into English, he remains extremely fluent but is willing to translate the subtexts plainly, to the benefit of readers who might not otherwise understand those subtexts.
To be fair Kaufmann is also criticized (by some) as a mediocre philosopher who showed unrestrained favor to Nietzsche, going so far as to attack Nietzsche's critics both with his reviews and his power in the philosophical community. While this opinion of Kaufmann may or may not be true, this book relies primarily on Kaufmann's translation and not his commentary, making the concern largely moot.
With a fair mind, Nietzsche's writings make a few major philosophical contributions:
-The greatest is certainly his master-slave framework of morality including the philosophical term/concept ressentiment. See wikipedia for an overview.
-Nietzsche offers an interesting commentary on art and decadence which I believe is enlightening though poorly communicated.
-He also makes some characterizations of "the masses," their desires, and their leaders (embodied in priests of the church). Especially when generalized/taken out of its anti-Christian framework, this discussion is an interesting perspective on what "the masses" really want and how their leaders operate. When we replace "the priest" with any modern populist, I found the comments especially relevant even today.
-No doubt there are others, but these have struck me particularly.
In summary, Nietzsche's work contains a number of very powerful ideas, often lost in the soup of controversial and inaccurate comments. If you try to analyze Nietzsche's concepts as complete units, they will come out as dated and consequently of little modern value. If you are willing **and able** to read Nietzsche for his flashes of genius, many of the elements of his work are timeless and should be integrated into your understanding of philosophy and "truth" -- and if you read Nietzsche, you'll realize that this is put in quotes for a very specific reason.
Oh How I Love this Book!!!!.......2006-06-16
The Basic Writings of Nietzsche, ah one of my dear, dear friends, this book contains, in their entirety, The Birth of Tragedy (1872, 1886), Beyond Good and Evil (1886), Genealogy of Morals (1887), The Case of Wagner, and my personal favorite, Ecce Homo, (both 1888). It also contains selected aphorisms from Nietzsche's transitional period (1878-1882), that is aphorisms from the book Human, All-Too Human (1878), its two sequels - Mixed Opinions and Maxims (1879) and The Wanderer and his Shadow (1880), The Dawn, or Daybreak (1881) and, of course, The Gay Science (1882), the book in which Nietzsche first coined his "God is Dead" fraise for which he is so famous (and infamous).
Also, there is priceless commentary by not only the editor of the book, the great Professor Walter Arnold Kaufmann, but modern philosophers such as Martin Heideggar, Albert Camus (probably my favorite philosopher besides Dostoevsky), and Gilles Deleuze.
I would advise the newcomer to Nietzsche not to start with this volume though. The best and most compact edition with selections from all of those books and others (including Thus Spoke Zarathustra) in their entirety is Kaufmann's The Portable Nietzsche. The latter volume also contains Nietzsche's priceless letters he wrote to his friends after he went insane in 1889.
A Near-Flawless Compendium of Nietzsche's Work.......2006-05-23
Nietzsche is really more than a philosopher. His writings blend concise poetry, historical exploration, powerful philosophy and skeptical analysis. All these elements are linked together into vigorous rants, just focused enough to be academic while free-flowing enough to be enjoyable. In a mere 100 pages, he can change the way you think about the history of man, while squeezing in wit along the way. Nietzsche wasn't a perfect writer; he was sometimes too grandiose, with recurrent tones of mysogyny. But I'd nonetheless recommend Nietzsche to almost anyone, and I'd recommend this book as a starting point.
Of the included works, Beyond Good and Evil and it's companion, On the Genealogy of Morals, are the centerpiece. They contain his basic world view. Ecce Homo is another good inclusion; though it's rather cryptic, it represents his parting words. Decoding some of the symbolism may be difficult (and prone to interpretation), but you'll be rewarded with a cemented viewpoint from all angles on who Nietzsche was- and more importantly, what he wasn't.
The Birth of Tragedy and The Case of Wagner are somewhat peripheral to the philosophy Nietzsche is known for. But since Nietzsche's writings are varied, inclusion of some of his "side-interest" writing helps new readers form a complete picture. This edition of the book is well translated, and the marginal notes throughout make it relatively accessable to those unfamiliar with German philosophy. Also, Peter Gay immediately takes on the inevitable accusations of racism, shedding light on why average people should allow themselves to enjoy Nietzsche books.
All this book is missing, as an essential primer, is "Thus Spake Zarathustra". Zarathustra has some conceptual crossover with Beyond Good and Evil, but it's simply the perfect starting point for his work- certainly far superior to "The Birth of Tragedy" in that respect. Between this book and Zarathustra, you'd have enough Nietzsche to keep you thinking for a very, very long time.
Books:
- The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume 1: The Middle Ages through the Restoration and the Eighteenth Century (Norton Anthology of English Literature)
- The Other Side of You: A Novel
- The Portland Cement Association's Guide to Concrete Homebuilding Systems
- The Red and the Black (Penguin Classics)
- The Republic (Penguin Classics)
- The Revival Slim and Beautiful Diet: For Total Body Wellness
- The River Knows
- The Search for Life in the Universe (Third Edition)
- The Shepherd And Other Christmas Stories: The Gift Of The Magi, The Cricket On The Hearth, Yes, Virginia There Is A Santa Claus, Hoodoo Mcgiggin And Christmas Cake Recipe
- The Three Theban Plays (Penguin Classics)
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