Existentialism Books

After reading the three 5 stars reviews about this book I expected a lot and was disapponted. The subject matter is an important and extremely difficult one. Experience of life with it preconceptionel depth will have to be granted its importance if we want to become healthier beeings. Eugene Gendlin tries to bring a better balance between the lived and the thought : "Meaning is formed in the interaction of experiencing and something that functions as a symbol. Feeling without symbolization is blind; symbolisation without feeling is empty." And there are other coragious thoughts in there. But as a whole to me her approach lacks clarity and elegance.

Gene Gendlin is best known as a psychologist, especially for his book,Focusing, which has achieved near-cult status. Focusing & Gene, a student of Carl Rogers, have also received broad respect within the psychology/psychotherapy community, too -- for many years he edited "Psychotherapy: Theory, Research & Practice", and he received numerous awards, starting with the first Distinguished Psychologist award from the American Psychological Association to, most recently, the Viktor Frankl award. I came to this book, his first full statement of his philosophy, through Focusing, as my wife & I were trainers in Gene's Focusing workshops through the 1980's.

Gene, however, thinks of himself, first & foremost, as a philosopher, and with good reason. Yes, "Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning" came, in part, from his many years of training and work with Carl Rogers. But even more, it came from his philosophy studies. Indeed, Focusing, itself, is an outgrowth of this philosophy. Anyone who knows Focusing can see, in this book, that his philosophy implies Focusing.

And therein lies the rub. What makes this book tough is that understanding it so often needs an ability to touch in with your own, everyday and personal experience of "the implicit" -- that rich source of bodily-felt meaning always within us. Rejecting a dichotomy of logical & illogical or chaos, Gene talks of an implicit dimension, which he calls "experiencing", and which is "more than logical" -- vague in the sense of not-yet-formed, yet capable of transcending all logics, while it also implies them, while it includes them implicitly. For all its being vague, felt meaning, "experiencing", is actually more precise than standard meanings. The interaction words/logic and "experiencing" or the felt sense creates all new & fresh meanings.

"Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning" isn't just a philosophy. It's about where philosophies come from.

To give you a brief taste of simple experiencing: Remember a time when you knew you'd forgotten something. Well, logically, how can you know what you've forgotten? But this feeling, this "experiencing of knowing" is very definite and very precise. While trying to remember, for example, you might recall something you've forgotten. But your bodily feel, your implicit experiencing, or as Gene calls it later, your felt sense (different from an emotion), can agree that, yes, you had forgotten that. But your felt sense lets you know that what you just remembered isn't the right "what I've forgoten".

"Experiencing" is not only "where" philosophers philosophize from. It's also where poets, composers and musicians create from. (I know, because I used to be a conductor & composer; I'm now a psychotherapist.) This is "where" all creativity and many other good things, such as the healing of psychotherapy, "come" or create from.

While "Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning" does have many practical examples, it's an enormous help to be able to Focus. So you may want to read and do Focusing, even if you're a philosopher. (I've worked with philosophers who couldn't "get" what Gene was saying until they had done some Focusing.) Other lead-in introductions, making understanding this book easier, are some of his short on-line articles, freely available in the Gendlin Online Library at www.focusing.org. In particular, read, "The Primacy of the Body, Not the Primacy of Perception," "The Responsive Order" and "Crossing and Dipping". There, too, is Gene's new "Introduction" to the 1997 edition of Experiencing -- well worth the read, and a much better introduction to his book than my review.

I don't invite, I don't even urge you to read this book and learn to Focus: I beg you. It takes work, even hard work. But you'll always be glad that you did.

This is a profound and important book. It reveals the basis of all philosphical thinking. I don't understand why it is not more widely acclaimed.

I first read this book in 1974 (approximatly). I have reread it several times and continue to marvel and dispair at how little circulation or acknowledgement it has been given. Current work in areas of the philosophy of language, and philosophy and cognitive science, especially in their emphasis on metaphor, are anticipated by this work. I have been told by one of the leading authors in the above areas, that he was familiar with this book but could not reference it as it from a phenomenological line of thought and his audience would reject it (paraphrased). There are methods for the productive conduct of discourse, on any subject, contained in this work that are still not utilized anywhere execept for a small number of people. A pity if we really want to arrive at living truths rather than the sterile shells rendered buy logic or empiricism. This book is not an easy read for most (I'm guessing), as the ideas -- the point of viewing it explicates is so uncommon. So If you read it, it may take some work. And still I cannot recommend it highly enough. Thank you.

This book brillantly includes all of Post-Modernisms necessary insights while correcting its shortsights and transcending its possibilities.

Dillon puts Merleau-Ponty in an historical persepctive and his thesis is that Merleau-Ponty's ontology is the first non-dualistic in western philosophy. Were Husserl failed becuse of his cartesian constraints Merelau-Ponty succedes. Dillon's masterful understanding of western philosophy and its limitations leads him to see Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology as the only true alternative to traditional thought. He now want us to understand this, and when we do continue in Merleau-Pontys direction and evolve philosophy from the constraints av tradtional dualistic thought.

Dillon gives an illuminating discussion of the 'philosophical dualism' - e.g. in Descartes, Hume, Kant and Sartre - against which Merleau-Ponty is arguing. Dillon's treatment of Merleau-Ponty's central concepts is at once lucid and fair. I think this book would be ideal either as an introduction or as a supplement to MP's thought (Dillon offers some persuasive criticisms of MP as well). My only criticism is that Dillon's picture of 'poststructualism', of which Derrida is taken to be the 'whipping boy', is perhaps a bit unfair -- but the few oversimplifications are just as informative as Dillon's many accute insights into the "postmodern fervor." Anyone interested in MP should certainly check this mama out.

I had the priviledge of hearing Martin Dillon lecture on Merleau-Ponty a few years ago in a Philosophy of Consciousness Master Class. Not only was he completely charismatic and a fascinating speaker but his work is a very interesting journey in discovering a profound flaw in the basis of the historical model for epistemology. This is exactly what Merleau-Ponty was dialectically pointing out in all his works. Perhaps as some have noted, Dillon tends to oversimplify by flat out tackling the problem of reduction and the cartesian separation of mind and matter. . . the point of the Merleau-Ponty's work is usually hidden to most because of it's dialectical nature... Dillon is merely trying to put this right out on the table and tackle the logistics of our finite nature we have overlooked. The infinite form of the good is something man can never achieve simply because he is not divine - therefore, why should we base all our models of thought and learning on the idea that the only way to know something is to transcend the body into the Mind? Our ultimate knowledge lies in our bodily interaction with the world. The fact that we will end gives us the ultimate meaning. Our divinity is our finite nature. Martin Dillon's work is a must read for anyone who is interested in phenomenology. He is blunt but do not mistake this as a flaw... it is simply his style.

Sure, Dillon's book is probably the most popular thing on Merleau-Ponty in English, but is that really justified? Throughout the book, Dillon claims to elucidate Merleau-Ponty's position by contrasting his work with a completely unrecognizeable caricature of Husserl. Not only does Dillon show no real understanding of Husserl, but he also ignores the fact that Merleau-Ponty consistently praises Husserl, from the beginning to the end of his career (see the new Merleau-Ponty, _Husserl at the Limits of Phenomenology_). The postmodernism-bashing is also very tired and shows no real understanding of the positions under discussion.

Simply put, to believe Dillon's presentation of Merleau-Ponty, you'd have to believe he just fell from the sky one day to solve all of our philosophical problems--no relation to his predecessors nor to his successors. Not only is this bad history of philosophy, but it ignores Merleau-Ponty's own far more subtle and penetrating method of reading those who preceded him in the history of philosophy. If it's all such a simple little problem of overcoming the evils of Cartesianism, why is Merleau-Ponty's reading of Descartes (see the 1960-1961 course in _Notes de cours, 1959-1961_) so much more complex and interesting than Dillon's?

Perhaps the biggest advantage of Dillon's book is that it makes everything so neat and tidy, the good guys and the bad guys. Some people need this kind of orderly arrangement in their lives. If that's you, go for it. But if good philosophy is what you want, it's rarely so bipolar.

Pay no heed to the pretentiousness of what one reviewer decried as "bipolar" (good guys vs. bad guys) philosophy, this is the greatest secondary philosophical text I have ever read, and perhaps what really irritated the previous reviewer wasn't Dillon's "no real understanding of Husserl," or the "[tired] postmodernism-bashing [that] shows no real understanding of the positions under discussion", but rather was Dillon's own palatable disdain for such intellectual pretentiousness reverberating throughout his text. Rather than writing in ego-gratifying but incomprehensible prose, Dillon authors a wonderfully open and accessible philosophical text that clearly and cogently explains the complex issues under discussion, a feat that is ultimately more difficult than the all to common obscure and esoteric ramblings of modern philosophy.

Far from being a "bipolar" text, this book offers an intricate examination of the historical progression and ultimate failure of bipolar/reductionist thought in the western tradition, be it mind vs. body dualism, immanence vs. transcendence, or linguistic realism vs. conventionalism. Dillon demonstrates convincingly how polarizing (and ultimately second-order) constructions of reality ultimately betray the underlying ontological reality which they were designed to explain by rendering truth and judgment valuation impossible. He then goes on to explain why he believes that the thought of Merleau-Ponty, grounded on the ontological primacy of the phenomena, avoids this reifying of second-order abstractions that create ontological polarization and collapse reality into exclusive spheres of immanence or transcendence.

Moreover, contrary to what was said in the past review, Merleau-Ponty is never deified in the book as someone who "fell from the sky one day to solve all of our philosophical problems". Dillon has obvious disagreements with aspects of Merleau-Ponty's philosophy (read "The Body In Its Sexual Being" from M-P's Phenomenology of Perception and then Dillon's Beyond Romance for one example) that are not presented in this work due to its nature as a secondary text on Merleau-Ponty's ontology, published at a time when such a topic was rarely discussed. Still, this book never even approaches presenting Merleau-Ponty in such a god-like portrait; rather Dillon simply but methodically presents the case that Merleau-Ponty, unlike Sartre among others, offers a true phenomenological ontology grounded on the primacy of the phenomena that (if considered seriously) presents a real and unavoidable challenge to polarizing/reductionist ontological theories, including those that came to the fore after Merleau-Ponty's death in the "linguistic turn".

As the reviewer from the Moon says: "if good philosophy is what you want, it's rarely so bipolar."

It's not a very difficult thing to imagine what the response to a book such as Demons of the Modern World will be like. If you're a skeptic demanding scientific answers to everything in this world - then you'll probably love it, but if you're more of a spiritual nature with the attitude that there are things in this world (and beyond) that science cannot reach - then you'll hate it from the very first page to the last. Or at least the sections demystifying the mysterious. And those sections come in abundance, so things don't look very good for the spiritual reader.

Not to wonder, though, since Malcolm McGrath, a political philosopher at Oxford University, is 100% focused on the fact that there is NOTHING that can be called paranormal, magical, or occult. EVERYTHING can be explained using the tools of science, and magic and religion and more are nothing but delusions that were only acceptable before the Western world and its science was able to reject everything related to the paranormal.

Still, people refuse to stop believing. And why is that? McGrath offers an interesting theory. In short, he explains how people, who all have gone through a childhood, all experience a period in their lives when demons, ghosts, and other supernatural beings and phenomena are very real. This period is later replaced, with he aid of education and experience, with a notion that whatever bogeymen one believed in as a child simply do not exist in the real world. But, and on this he focuses throughout the book, since one HAS believed in the supernatural, the memories remain, and since the memories remain, sometimes - for instance during stress or demanding situations - one cannot help but to unconsciously suspect, and fear, that the demons from one's childhood perhaps are not illusions at all.

By using this theory (and in this review the theory is, obviously, extremely shortened), McGrath explains, among other things, man's fascination with horror movies, the tragic witch hunts that caused the death of tens of thousands, different "satanic panics" that have hit America over the years, and even the contemporary notion of evil extraterrestrials that regularly abduct people and subject them to painful medical procedures.

We all live in an era when science "should" have replaced faith and illusions, but as we all know, that's not the case. And even though McGrath fails to fully explain why people believe what they believe, and not believe in what they not believe in, his theory still manages to be very fascinating and definitely worth considering. I mean, even the most devoted of skeptics has perhaps sometime wondered what would happen "if...", and McGrath demonstrates that that's simply part of being human.

Demons of the Modern World is a rare thing: it's a hardcore skeptic's book, yet at the same time it has lots of empathy and understanding, and that alone makes it worth buying. And it doesn't get worse when one considers that it's both well-written and fascinating, too.

Buy it. It'll give you something to think about. In a positive sense.

Demons of the Mordern World should be required reading for all religous people. Having a graduate degree in theology I have seen more lifes ruined and redirected to the therapist's chair then I would like to remember. Belief is a strange thing and can be hindered by popular thought, suspicions, and control. The book kindly reminds us that belief is personal and is scientific in nature. Sadly it can be a bit of a fairy tale as well. It is this fairy tale that is carried between generation to generation, family to family, church to church, religion to religion that causes problems and generates a perceived truth that is not truthful.

Religion if there is such a thing, God if he does exist, must be based on known laws that apply to the supernatural as well as the phyiscal universe in which we live. This book is one of the most brillant books I have read on a theological subject without the label of religion or theology. It is truely a must read for anyone who wishes to express their religous fairy tales, or should I say beliefs.

There have been plenty of titles on witchcraft and spirituality but relatively few on modern demonology: Demons Of The Modern World examines the spiritual and psychological ramifications of demonology, considering interplays between belief systems and psychology and considering the history and culture of beliefs in supernatural forces. Chapters focus on Western civilization as they reveal the roots of Satanism and its practices.

It's not a very difficult thing to imagine what the response to a book such as Demons of the Modern World will be like. If you're a skeptic demanding scientific answers to everything in this world - then you'll probably love it, but if you're more of a spiritual nature with the attitude that there are things in this world (and beyond) that science cannot reach - then you'll hate it from the very first page to the last. Or at least the sections demystifying the mysterious. And those sections come in abundance, so things don't look very good for the spiritual reader.

Not to wonder, though, since Malcolm McGrath, a political philosopher at Oxford University, is 100% focused on the fact that there is NOTHING that can be called paranormal, magical, or occult. EVERYTHING can be explained using the tools of science, and magic and religion and more are nothing but delusions that were only acceptable before the Western world and its science was able to reject everything related to the paranormal.

Still, people refuse to stop believing. And why is that? McGrath offers an interesting theory. In short, he explains how people, who all have gone through a childhood, all experience a period in their lives when demons, ghosts, and other supernatural beings and phenomena are very real. This period is later replaced, with he aid of education and experience, with a notion that whatever bogeymen one believed in as a child simply do not exist in the real world. But, and on this he focuses throughout the book, since one HAS believed in the supernatural, the memories remain, and since the memories remain, sometimes - for instance during stress or demanding situations - one cannot help but to unconsciously suspect, and fear, that the demons from one's childhood perhaps are not illusions at all.

By using this theory (and in this review the theory is, obviously, extremely shortened), McGrath explains, among other things, man's fascination with horror movies, the tragic witch hunts that caused the death of tens of thousands, different "satanic panics" that have hit America over the years, and even the contemporary notion of evil extraterrestrials that regularly abduct people and subject them to painful medical procedures.

We all live in an era when science "should" have replaced faith and illusions, but as we all know, that's not the case. And even though McGrath fails to fully explain why people believe what they believe, and not believe in what they not believe in, his theory still manages to be very fascinating and definitely worth considering. I mean, even the most devoted of skeptics has perhaps sometime wondered what would happen "if...", and McGrath demonstrates that that's simply part of being human.

Demons of the Modern World is a rare thing: it's a hardcore skeptic's book, yet at the same time it has lots of empathy and understanding, and that alone makes it worth buying. And it doesn't get worse when one considers that it's both well-written and fascinating, too.

Buy it. It'll give you something to think about. In a positive sense.

I enjoyed the well-written book (and I came as a sceptic). Cooper not only synthesizes the different strands of existentialism, but nicely fills in weaknesses before showing how the existentialistic argument can deliver a reasonable philosophy to live by. To help you judge where I am coming from, consider two other books of practical philosophy that I liked: Peter Singer's "Essential Singer: Writings on an ethical life" and Stephen Batchelor's "Buddhism Without Beliefs".

This is the best of all exisiting introductions to Existentialism in English, and perhaps any language. The clarity is not bogus. It is exemplary in the number of confusions it clears up. Existentialism is far from a passing post-war fad, and Cooper shows why, chapter after chapter. This is a book that should be on every philosophy student's reading list.

This is a detailed and interesting analysis of the underrated philosophy, existentialism. Dr. Cooper builds a coherent and useful philosophy from the writings of several diverse, and thoroughly vague, philosophers (focusing on the works of Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Nietzsche, and Sartre). Dr. Cooper does much to dissolve the common conception of existentialism as merely a cultural movement. Although somewhat awkwardly worded in places, it is a wonderful book that will most certainly not leave the reader unchanged (if nothing else it will change the readers opinion of the importance of existentialism in the overall history of philosophy).

David E. Cooper shows how many of the popular views on existentialism are actually misconceptions about the philosophy - this book is very helpful in dispelling the dictionary definition of existentialism. The idea that Existentialism is irrational or an anti-rational form of philosophy is shown to be an incorrect interpretation of what existential thought is about. Cooper shows that the existentialists where not against reason or rational thought but where really against a narrow form of rationalism -also empiricism- which attempted, through non-involvement in the human world, to gain a god-like perspective; a detached and impersonal view from nowhere within the world. Against this the existentialists wanted to show that we are all participants in human affairs and not mere spectators. Other misconceptions mentioned in the book were; that existentialism is just a phenomena born out of post-war Europe; that existentialism is a form of subjectivist philosophy; and that there was a large gulf between Sartre and Heidegger, Sartre -it is often claimed- was a Cartesian while Heidegger was Anti-Cartesian etc.. Some other misconceptions are also mentioned.

I thought the book was missing many of the insights from literature into existentialist thought -although some people will think that is a positive thing. Dostoevsky was not mentioned; I don't remember Kafkas great existential novels (the Trial or the Castle) coming up; and Camus is only mentioned long enough for us to see that he was neither philosophical or systematic and therefore not included. Cooper is not as hostile towards Camus as Sartre was in his review of the Rebel in Les Temps Modenes, but if you are a Camus fan you might want to look away. Of course every book has to make some cuts and Cooper does give reasons for his omissions.

I found the book very helpful and enjoyable, it would probably make a good introduction, but I wouldn't base all my opinions of the philosophy on it.

I bought it for a class, and I enjoyed a good deal of the exerpts in the text. The Nietzsche selections are great, as are most of the Kierkegaard (I prefer the shorter exerpts and could have done without Fear and Trembling).

I never read much of the other sections, but the book has been invaluable to me for the introductions and any part of the Nietsche in this text alone. Kierkegaard has some great moments too. Considering how accessable and small and how much more I could get from this book, I will be looking to this book for years to come, although once you find something interesting you had best go find out where the exerpt is from in case it is not the complete picture (they chose which parts of the writings to give you, which I value highly, but it means you should not think you can speak for Nietzsche or Kierkegaard by this text alone).

We used three texts for our course and this was the only one that was important. The introductions are pleasant and interesting on their own. There's lots of good to choose from in this comfortably "small" sized collection.

Unless you already own and know well some of these philosophers or you can't stand to read the introductions in this text, I think you would find this book useful.

This text would certainly be of some use to readers who aren't overly familiar with the writings of Sartre, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche, but it falls flat at times. The introductions into each philosopher are well done, but the authors mention many works that they include no excerpts from. The section on Kierkegaard is too long (especially the excerpts from _Fear and Trembling_), and Heidegger's section could be lengthened (including excerpts from works other than _Being and Time_), but, then again, Heidegger, several times, publically refuted that he was an existentialist. Another complaint is that the excerpts from Nietzsche are too random and disjointed and there are no excerpts from _Thus Spoke Zarathustra_: leaving out a great deal of insight into the Overman and the will to power. Overall, this book is more than adequate... for an introduction.

This is a very helpful, useful collection. Nowhere else will you find such generous selections from these four major contributors to the existentialist tradition. (Even though Sartre is the only one who adopted the label "existentialist," there is no doubt that all four thinkers are concerned with some similar problems and take some similar approaches.) Of course, a different editor might have made somewhat different selections, but anyone who reads the introductions and texts in this volume carefully will come away with a solid understanding of many major ideas of these philosophers -- and maybe a deeper understanding of his or her own life.

An excellent work. The wide selection of readings alone would cost quite a bit of money to assemble seperately. Major contributions by each philospher are summarized in a non-technical manner that is accesible by readers from all walks of life. One of the few books that approaches several major themes under one cover and manages to leave the reader with the seeds of interest rather than confusion and massive generalization. I first ran across the work in class and it has remained a springboard for all manner of reading and writing. All in all an excellent grounding for further study.

Martin Heidegger's special intellectual relationship with the Presocratics is often discussed as if the German philosopher was some sort of romantic originalist or nostalgist. But Heidegger always insisted that the point about going back to Heraclitus, Parmenides and rest was not to recover the specific contents of their thought (or, worse, to wallow in their supposed primitive "purity"), but to recapture the spirit of their efforts to "think the question of Being." You won't find a better presentation of this - or a more candid glimpse of Heidegger as a working philosopher - than in this text. It presents the record of a seminar on Heraclitus conducted by Heidegger and the German scholar Eugen Fink in the late 1960s. Heidegger's discussion of specific Heraclitian texts makes for difficult reading but is, generally speaking, quite lucid. And the dialog with Fink and student participants is eye-opening. (Heidegger's pronouncements are by no means always taken as Gospel!) Most important, in spite of their rather recondite subject matter, these seminar records wonderfully illuminate Heidegger's own philosophical development in the last two decades of his life. Although this book does require familiarity with Heidegger's work and somewhat unique philosophical terminology, as well as familiarity with the history of philosophy generally, I wouldn't call it a text "for specialists only." Unless, of course, all readers of philosophy are specialists! And it does provide a welcome corrective to current "New Age" tendencies to view Heraclitus and the other Presocratics as authors of quasi-religious wisdom manuals. No dumbing-down here; just a tough confrontation with difficult material!

I would like to suggest that the widest stance that I have encountered reading philosophy shows up in Greek on page 18 of HERACLITUS SEMINAR: Martin Heidegger and Eugen Fink, translated by Charles H. Seibert (Northwestern University Press, 1993). The English translation was copyright 1979 by The University of Alabama Press. First published in German as HERACLIT. I have the second paperbound printing, 1994. The hermeneutical circle is correlated to fragment 7, translated in Note 4 on page 163, but the discussion of the Greek terms involving a moving relatedness of things that actually exist which elucidates an indeterminate number of things of a quintessential kind. "In smoke, to be sure, things become elusive, but it does not eliminate those distinctions which become evident . . ." (Fink, p. 18). Heidegger becomes interested in the gnosis of "grasping humans" on page 19.

This book does not have an index. The page guide on page 171 shows that every ten pages in English is 16, 15, 14, or 17 pages in the German. Heraclitus wrote a book which was familiar to many thinkers in the ancient world, but all we can do now is "cast light on an inner coherence of the fragments' meaning, but without pretending to reconstruct the original form of Heraclitus' lost writing, [On Nature]. We shall attempt to trace a thread throughout the multiplicity of his sayings in the hope that a certain track can thereby show itself. Whether our arrangement of the fragments is better than that adopted by Diels is a question that should remain unsettled." (Fink, p. 4).

I believe the Fr. 1 mentioned by Heidegger on page 7 is the beginning of Heraclitus' book. In the discussion, we have the exchange of ideas:

Heidegger: Since when do we have concepts at all?
Participant: Only since Plato and Aristotle. We even have the first philosophical dictionary with Aristotle.
Heidegger: While Plato manages to deal with concepts only with difficulty, we see that Aristotle deals with them more easily. (p. 7).

One of the problems with concepts is how they are applied:

Heidegger: Thus, you mean the transformation of things with respect to one ground.
Fink: The ground meant here is not some substance or the absolute, but light and time. (p. 10).

Fink: . . . The transformations of fire then imply that everything goes over into everything; so that nothing retains the definiteness of its character but, following an indiscernable wisdom, moves itself throughout by opposites.
Heidegger: But why does Heraclitus then speak of steering?
Fink: The transformations of fire are in some measure a circular movement that gets steered by lightning, . . . The movement, in which everything moves throughout everything through opposites, gets guided.
Heidegger: But may we speak of opposites or of dialectic here at all? Heraclitus knows neither something of opposites nor of dialectic.
Fink: True, opposites are not thematic with Heraclitus. . . . (p. 11).

The set-up is basically a dialog, and considers topics like:

Fink: The problem of constitution in Husserl's phenomenology . . . (p. 84).

Heidegger: From this it follows once again that we may not interpret Heraclitus from a later time. (p. 85).
Fink: All the concepts that arise in the dispute over idealism and realism are insufficient to characterize the shining-forth, the coming-forth-to-appearance, of what is. It seems to me more propitious to speak of shining-forth than of shining-up. . . . (p. 85).

The poem "Hyperion" mentions Heraclitus and Heidegger discusses being as beauty in Hegel along with "The one that in itself distinguishes itself." (p. 113).

Participant: "There is no sentence of Heraclitus' that I have not taken up in my LOGIC."
Heidegger: What does this sentence mean? (p. 113).

Fr. 88 of Heraclitus, as Diels translates, "And it is always one and the same, what dwells (?) within us: living and dead and waking and sleeping and young and old. For this is changed over to that and that changed back over to this." (p. 118).

Heidegger then has to correct himself on Hegel by reading some lecture:

"The true deficiency of the Greek religion as opposed to the Christian is that in it appearance constitutes the highest form, in general, the whole of the divine, while in the Christian religion appearing obtains only as a moment of the divine." (p. 122).

But he can also complain about being translated into French:

Heidegger: In French, Dasein is translated by [being there], for example by Sartre. But with this, everything that was gained as a new position in BEING AND TIME is lost. Are humans there like a chair is there? (p. 126).

Heidegger is quite interested in how well he is understood in German, but he finally comes back to the plight of what is unthought in the end.

I must admit from the outset that my familiarity with Heidegger's philosophy, not to mention Fink's (a philosopher I'd never heard of), is not up to par with my fellow commentators (this is a generous assessment in my favor, to say the least--and obvious). That said, this review is not intended to sway Heideggar junkies one way or the other re: purchase, nor will it aid those who know Heraclitus' Fragments backwards and forwards; I am not in a position to do either. I aim to address only those nonspecialists who--like myself--are interested in Heraclitus, and who are considering making a purchase for that reason, and that reason alone.

I ordered "The Heraclitus Seminar", perhaps naively, in order to gain a better understanding of Heraclitus and his Metaphysics--I came away from the ordeal completely dumbfounded. This is partially my own fault--I knew going in that Heidegger makes for difficult reading, and that his precipitous works are, almost without exception, extremely abstruse. As such, his books require great dedication and patience. This, I was prepared for. However, I came to an impasse with the book almost immediately. This resulted from the multitude of passages that were written, within the body of the text, in Attic Greek--with *no* translations. (no kidding)

This one is better left for the later grad students and/or their profs--that is, unless you happen to be an extremely patient novice, who can read Greek without a lexicon, and who has a penchant for Heideggarian analysis of the pre-Socratics.

In terms of personal experiences, Heidegger is most revealing on page 5, in the first session of a seminar in the winter semester of 1966-67, when he mentions in his third comment to the participants, "Suddenly I saw a single bolt of lightning, after which no more followed. My thought was: Zeus." This experience is a link to the antiquity also experienced in the Biblical book of Job, in the speech of Elihu, at Job 36:27-33 and Job 37:3-24, leading up to the speeches of Yahweh. By page 7 of this translation of the seminar, Heidegger is demonstrating his link with "Fr. 1" of Heraclitus by quoting more than five lines in the original ancient Greek. Those who would prefer to know the English are given the Diels version in Note 3 on page 163. I find that Note 4, the Diels translation of Fragment 7, quoted (in Greek) by Eugen Fink in the second session of these seminars, is a bit easier for me to understand. The Glossary on pages 166 to 169 is a great guide to the Greek words for the major topics in this book. There is no index, but the approach being pursued in the fashion of this book could hardly gain any clarity by an attempt to locate the ideas in this book by any system related to page numbers. My comment on this reflects Heidegger's reaction to a participant who noted that the first philosophical dictionary didn't occur until Aristotle. (p. 7) Before things were sorted out, Heraclitus was trying to communicate something in Fr. 11 about "Everything that crawls . . ." (p. 31). The excitement picks up on page 32, when Fink quotes a poem by Holderlin called "Voice of the People."

This review is of a single essay by Sartre, "The Anti-Semite". He uses his notion of people's needing to turn away from their own natures and not look too closely at themselves, as causal to anti-semitism. He is probably correct that mankind in general wishes to concentrate the mind upon some external idea. Religion does this, of course, giving people a beautiful or demanding abstraction to focus upon at the expense of one's own nature. This is no brilliant insight. It is an idea as old as Genesis. Sartre's creation of a relationship between this
aspect of man's existence and anti-semitism is that the anti-semite concentrates feeling, thought and force of will upon the Jew individually or collectively in order to keep his own mind from
concentrating on his true nature.

As an explanation of anti-semitism Sartre is spouting pure nonsense. He says, for instance, that one cannot understand
anti-semitism unless one knows that Jews are totally blameness.

Sartre's general philosophy is of interest to many people, but is of no particular importance to me. However, his theory of the cause of anti-semitism is of importance when people accept what he is saying. His stated view is much akin to notions that anti-semitism is some sort of "virus" that infects the sufferer or that anti-semitism is "the most virulent form of raceism" or similar notions which have Jews in the position of young children being attacked, perhaps killed, by a child molester turned child killer. This view, widely promoted, is an attempt to force the public's minds to ignore cause-and-effect. Sartre's argument is infantile; it has no more connection to real causes of anti-semitism than a comic book or a video game has to real life.

As far as collections of Sartre's philosophical works go, this one is the best I've come across. The book is broken down into sections such as "Existentialism", "The Other", "Nothingness", "Politics", and so on. 16 chapters in all, each offering key excerpts from Sartre's entire corpus, especially focused on a specific philosophical matter. The editor, Stephen Priest, does a good job of introducing each chapter and his contributions offer excellent insight both to those who haven't gotten too far into Sartrean philosophy as well as those of us who occasionally need a refresher course. This book reminds me of why I first got interested in reading Sartre. It brings out the exciting spirit of Existentialist philosophy by focusing on the most poignant passages of Sartre's works. I do feel the book to be a bit pricey for a paperback, but all in all it is a rather aesthetically pleasing book. The binding and layout are high quality, as is usual for Routledge texts. Also, this book offers the complete "Existentialism and Humanism" lecture, including transcript of a question and answer forum which you will not find in most editions. Priest also does a decent job of providing biographical information in the chapter "Sartre in-the-world."

The selections in this book are very good, but unless you're up for a little bit of a challenge this book isn't for you. There were an excessive amount of typos, but that is bearable. The first and last thirds of the book were most down to earth. I would strongly recomend reading some commentary along with this, though not having read any on Sartre myself I can't recommend any. There's a good chance I will re-read this book again in the future, particularly as I now want to take a class in existentialism this fall. Really, the only drawback was how hard and next to incomprehensible the reading was at times, which is typical of philosophy. I don't even agree with most of what I read, but I still value the struggle to understand it.

In the introduction of the book Sartre's philosophical writings are spoken of as connected with the three fundamental values given in the slogan of the French Revolution, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. The first Existensial writings are devoted to individual development expression and freedom. The second period in Sartre's philosophical life, the Marxist period is said to be devoted to the value of'Equality'. And the third less extensive period to the value of ' Fraternity' In this period Sartre calls for the disappearance of the State, and places the focus on bonds of friendship, Fraternity. This rough classification is of course ' rough' and as Steven Priest makes clear Sartre is an Existensialist throughout concerned with the fundamental themes of human life, liberty, justice, life, death, anxiety, being, nothingness, truth and authentic existence.
The work is divided into eighteen chapters each of which deals with a major theme of this kind.
In it the reader can have a good feeling of the overall development of Sartre's philosophy, and can judge what they regard to be of value in it.
My own sense is that the truly important Sartre is the Sartre of the first period, of the existence precedes essence, of the making of meaning in our own life through our action, period.
But the philosophy of this first period too would seem to me to fall short of answering true human needs, and providing hope of ultimate meaning.For that one has to go to a kind of religious existensialism which of course Sartre would have nothing to do with.

This book is a very short read, but perhaps that is part of its charm. It is a window into contemporary thought, concerned with ways of viewing a super-extended human existence. As you may have noticed, humans and their gadgets, gizmos, plumbing, and bridges have conquered the world. But the imposition of the human will upon the structures of nature has its limits. When the everyday objects we take for granted in their use are seen as forms that have been forced into function, we cannot but notice, notes Baudrillard, that the object may someday take its revenge. The oceans, for example, may flood the earth. The author lets the reader become aware of the meaning that humans write into existence, mapping their desires onto an outside world that is otherwise non-human. Thus he encourages a world of the mind, of pass-words, that is, a way of adventuring with the spiraling language that humans otherwise use for politics. Although at times Mr. Baudrillard writes expecting that his meaning is self-explanatory, causing an unsure conjecture on the part of the reader, his book is a fine example of an urge to lead philosophy, the arts, the sciences, and ethics towards an interpenetrating coded language of thought, one that would encourage our minds to observe the world more brightly and, depending on where you stand, to regard it with ir/reverential I/eyes.

Baudrillard's main thesis here is that words, rather than just generating ideas, actually metamorphize and become these ideas, which in turn do the same. We end up, then, in a sprialing evolution. Baudrillard closes the book by offering that there cannot be an end as the final word will only metamorphize into yet another concept, or will become the object. While this thesis is great fun to play around with, the book's true merits come in the presentation of a collection of Baudrillard's most important topics that he has been working with over the decades. This book is far from an anthology, but reading this book along with other difficult titles will open new routes of interpretation, thus helping readers to better understand some of Baudrillard's extremely difficult concepts.

Baudrillard claims that words are at once the vehicles of ideas, and, in their own convoluted way, the very destination of that which they're driving towards. The same could be said of Passwords; each aphoristically short essay gestures toward a deciphering of Baudrillard's thought as a whole, but, simultaneously they stand as a signpost of that thought by which one could, after deciphering, re-cipher the thought into its totality.

Many of the essays in this volume are excellent entryways into Baudrillard's more discursive works i.e. Impossible Exchange, The Transparency of Evil, and Seduction. I think it's worthy of those already familiar with Baudrillard's work, but it functions best as it is titled, a password.

In his impressive body of work, Baudrillard seems to take an infinite amount of paths leading to a small set of concepts, or vectors upon which he observes society. One of those essential concepts dominating Baudrillard's work is that we can no longer make representations of the world we live in, because by now representation precedes reality, and as such is no longer a representation, but a model. Hence the end of the principle of reality, and the birth of the hyperreal, reality as nothing more than the simulation of a model.
With this book, Baudrillard allows those concepts to come forward, very much like nerve cells, connecting and connected to his previous works, clarifying many of his obscure observations.
Each word/theme works as a model throught which the world is, for lack of better word, simulated.
In many ways, those are the models upon which Baudrillard's work is generated, but I doubt it will be of much use to those who are not familiar with his work.

Most of this book isn't terribly compelling: I think in their (admirable) quests to avoid religiosity, the authors' ideas tend to be pretty thin. But James Ogilvy's essay on greed is really worth reading: a thoughtful way of approaching the place of desire in our lives, which acknowledges that the outer boundaries of desire head into greed.

"You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough", sez Wm. Blake, and that might be a good overview of the point of the essay....

The authors of those passages made me think deeper into the so-called-sins and about the most-probable history that sins were not bad in God's eyes. But merely man-made ideas planted into history to make themselves feel more powerful. I highly recommend this book to anyone. Give it a try.

I am enjoying some of the seven deadly sins more but questioning what I once thought of as my virtues. Thanks, Robert Solomon, I needed that.

Wicked Pleasures is a collection of well-informed, sometimes irreverant essays that reflect upon the so-called seven deadly sins-- lust, anger, envy, gluttony, greed, pride, sloth-- and in that process explain the hold they have on the moral imagination of Western Christendom for a millennium. Well written. Well edited. A pleasure to read.

I think this book was great. Although Nietzsche is one of the greatest philosophers, his written works and thoughts are sometimes fragmented and appear to be somewhat contradictory. Bernard Reginster, pulls together most of Nietzsche's major thoughts into a format that makes it easier to comprehend and digest. After reading this book, I can say I have a greater understanding of Nietzsche's philosophy. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who has enjoyed any of Nietzsche's writings.

This book has its minor faults, such as the propensity to get long winded and/or redundant at times, however as a whole it is a fabulous contribution to the wide berth of secondary lit on this giant. Reginster's systematic approach is controversial in of itself, but his arguments are well developed and do have a good deal of support. He addresses alternate interpretations of Nietzsche's thought, and discusses these other views in some depth. In all, the book concludes with a coherent and plausible interpretation of Nietzsche that is original enough to be fresh and will assuredly get one thinking again. In all, the book is most certainly worth reading, and I would recommend it highly.

This was an extremely dense (and intense) book, but that really was not the greatest annoyance I found. The first half is liberally sprinkled with unnecessary redundancies--less dedicated readers may find themselves thoroughly frustrated with such a thing; yet in spite of this, my interest remained strong: for although certainly not a novel, I awaited the tying-up of loose ends and for Reginster to expound upon his theory with finality. Such was the case in the second half of the work, which I felt completely rejuvenated his project--and not that he needs it from me, but as an advocate of Nietzsche's work myself, Reginster definitely has my backing as a new, brilliant, and fresh authority on, perhaps, the most misunderstood thinker of the last two centuries. This is without question not a starting point for those new to the Nietzsche corpus--though some will be tantalized simply by his name appearing in the title--this is a comprehensive view, with great stress placed upon two main themes of Nietzsche's pen: the will to power and the eternal recurrence. Reginster's clarification of the spurious presence of "The Will to Power", his endlessly helpful citing of Nietzsche's writings (not to deny Kant's and Schopenhauer's), and most importantly his lack of traditional views regarding Nietzsche make this book highly recommended--its flaws are not damaging to its credibility, and if you have the prior experience of Nietzsche and the patience for wading through the comprehensive approach presented here, you will find it an invaluable tool in your contemplations or pontifications of its targeted author. Bravo, Reginster!