2 comments about Marsilio Ficino (Western Esoteric Masters Series).

1. FOR ANY ONE WHO IS PRIVILEDGED TO KNOW OF FICINO, PLEASE REMEMBER THAT HE WAS A REN-MAN, PHYSICIAN; WHEN OUR MEDICAL DOCTORS BEGIN TO UNDERSTAND THE 7 BODIES-THEN, HEALING WILL BEGIN.



2. This book is a superb and portable volume of some of Ficino's main writings. It has various epistles, a good selection from De vita coelitus comparanda, and the entire Book of the Sun. Reasonably priced and highly readable, it is good for scholar and amateur alike, with a concise introduction by Angela Voss that itself is worth the price of the book. If you are interested in the course of human thought in European civilization, do yourself a favor. Buy this book.

5 comments about The Making of a Philosopher: My Journey Through Twentieth-Century Philosophy.

1. This book is both a memoir and yet another introduction to philosophy. McGinn tries to come at introducing philosophy in a different way: through his autobiography and through the issues that prompted his interests in philosophy, the ideas he found interesting as a young man studying philosophy, and what he has thought about at particular times in his career as an academic.

   The results are rather mixed. You don't get much of substance here, and so you should look somewhere else if you're searching for a serious and comprehensive introduction to philosophy. But this book does cover enough ground to give you a taste of what current academic philosophizing is like. It includes a breezy, straightforward picture of the life of an academic along with brief sketches of lots of interesting philosophical issues. Furthermore, there's not a lot of history covered here; the emphasis is on a few historically important philosophical issues and the more striking arguments and positions that have been defended in contemporary analytic philosophy. So this really gives you an account of what professional life is like for people working in contemporary Anglo-American analytic philosophy, the tradition in which McGinn works.

   It appears McGinn intends the reader to come to philosophy in the same way he did. We go from the vague, somewhat confused ideas and concerns that first led McGinn to philosophy to immersion in ideas and concerns of current-day professional philosophers. Now, this emphasis on the intellectual development might seem too limited a perspective from which to introduce a subject. But this isn't such a problem here since specialization isn't as extreme in philosophy as it is in other parts of the academy. Since the division of intellectual labor here isn't as extreme as it is in the sciences, all philosophers tend to know a lot of the same stuff.

   The book is quite interesting at the beginning, and I think the first couple of chapters would be a good introduction to just what philosophical thinking is like. Here there are very few details about McGinn's early life, and he concentrates on only those elements of his autobiography that are relevant to his intellectual development and his eventual interest in philosophical questions. So these chapters are concerned with the kinds of philosophical problems that are likely to be of interest to those without much, or any, background in the subject. Skepticism, free will, the existence of God--these are the sorts of issues that are introduced in this chapter. McGinn doesn't say a great deal about these issues here, though he says enough to reveal how philosophers attempt to answer them and how they criticize or defend the answers given by others.

   The latter chapters come to focus more on the nature of life in academia and the issues that get discussed in contemporary analytic philosophy along with McGinn's own intellectual development as an academic. So we really get two stories here. The first story is the one of McGinn's rise to prominence in academia, and the other is the story of major issues in U.S. and U.K. philosophy from the sixties to the present. And these stories are interconnected since McGinn is a prolific thinker who has published on nearly everything of central importance in contemporary metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of language. Some of the highlights he mentions are Davidson and Quine on meaning, Wittgenstein and Kripke on rule-following, Kripke and Putnam on reference, David Lewis on possible worlds, Dummett's anti-realism, Nagel's views about the mind and its relation to the body. And whenever McGinn discusses someone's ideas, he attempts to provide a brief portrait of them.

   Whatever one thinks about McGinn's personality--and some aspects of it can be off-putting--his discussions of issues here is pretty even-handed. While he occasionally says unflattering things about other philosophers, but he's more even-handed when it comes to their ideas--even those ideas with which he isn't sympathetic. He doesn't ridicule the ideas of others; nor does he use the book to push his own ideas on the topics he discusses.




2. I learned about McGinn via the work of Jerry Fodor. "The Making of a Philosopher" was the first book I read from him. This book is a rather good portrait of the intellectual development of a person. It is fascinating to see how his interests in philosophy develop and the persons involved. The book has the additional benefit of containing philosophical explanations that are short, to the point and clear.
   McGinn also comes across as a very likable chap, unlike some of the pompous gits one finds frequently in philosophy (for a sample of these individuals just take a look at the reviews in this page).



3. Ontogeny describes the origin and the development of an organism from the fertilized egg to its mature form. Ontology is the philosophic study of being or existence. Colin McGinn takes the reader on a ontogenic journey from his youth in a mining town in northeast England to his arrival as a Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University. His journey takes us through his choice of philosophy as a career, his personal philosophic questions, his answers (or non-answers), his initial rejection and later rise in prominence at Oxford University. We can sense his existential questions as he tries to apply the philosophy he teaches, the questions of ontology, epistomology, free will, fate and luck, to his own life. This personal history is very engaging and serves to humanize the scholar and soften the aloofness and arrogance we usually associate with a world class academic.



4. In his book The Making of a Philosopher, McGinn seamlessly weaves in and out of autobiography and concise explication of the most notable contemporary philosophical concepts with uncanny agility. In doing so, McGinn creates a new and entertaining genus of philosophical writing. Very often, philosophy seems so cold and abstract; almost inhuman. In addition to McGinn's extremely clear treatment of the most notable contemporary philosophical concepts, the Making of a Philosopher defies tradition by putting a human face to such popular contemporary philosophy, from describing Saul Kripke's table manners (p. 66) to David Lewis' driving habits (p. 101) and much, much more.
   
   I happened to stumble across this book just after I graduated from Berkeley, and as it happened, reading it was a great way for me to reflect on and summarize a good deal of material that I was exposed to as an undergraduate. Feeling somewhat burnt out and jaded about philosophy at the time, what sold me on the book initially was the very beginning of the preface (a section of the book that can make or break a purchase for me), "The purpose of this book is to explain philosophy in an accessible, engaging way. But how best to do that? After trying out a number of plans for such a book, I hit upon the autobiographical format. More orthodox formats inevitably became too textbooklike, and while there is a place for such books I didn't want my book to remind the reader of school."
   
   Needless to say, given my current mood at the time, I was sold. I was happy to buy the book too, because I had been meaning to read more of McGinn's work anyway, since I found the few scraps of his work that I had been exposed to exceptionally clear and intriguing. It was a natural purchase for me.
   
   One negative about the book: I do wish that McGinn had taken it upon himself to go into greater detail about his life. To his credit, he does a good job of highlighting the good and the bad, but you finish this book with a sense that McGinn has left out many, many important details about his life. Not that it's that philosophically important, but he fails to mention any of those gritty details that make biographies so interesting--he fails to mention anything about his love life, for example. Before I give too much away, let me just say that biographies in philosophy are extremely rare. If anything, I recommend that anyone remotely interested in the subject should read this book to get a different perspective of philosophy that isn't very common.



5. How do people become professional philosophers? Why are some so strongly compelled by the analytic (philosophy of language) tradition in philosophy? It is these questions that CM illuminates in his brief but very readable 'intellectual' memoir. If these questions don't interest you -- as it appears they did not interest certain reviewers on this page -- don't bother reading TMoaP. If they do, read on. You're sure to be rewarded for the few hours' effort. 4 stars, not 5, only because the rewards -- in my view -- were not as ample as they might have been. By which I mean: I greatly enjoyed reading TMoaP; I only wish it had gone longer and at greater depth into the areas of CM's philosophical interest. Guess I'll have to give CM's 'serious' philosophy a read sometime. TMoaP succeeds on two levels: it is an interesting and entertaining memoir, and a spur to further -- and deeper -- reading in philosophy. What more should a reader expect?

1 comments about Life of Apollonius of Tyana, Vol. 1: Books 1-4 (Loeb Classical Library, No. 16).

1. This is the definative, unabridged translation of Philostratus' _Life of Apollonius_ for your permanent library. The Jones translation was made from the Teuber text of C.L. Kayser.
   
   _Philostratus completed this work in C.E. 220, while the historical Apollonius was generally thought to have left this world around C.E. 98. Apollonius is presented as an example of the ideal spiritual and good man in the classical world. In a Roman Empire ruled increasingly by force, violence, and greed, this Apollonius would be the ideal role model. Indeed, that is what you encounter in the books, example after example of Apollonius encountering worldly and wicked men and setting them straight. It is still rather inspiring, even though you realize that this Apollonius is probably a composite character of many philosophical and religious characters of the classical world. This is not to categorically state that there was no original, Pythagorean, named Apollonius that served as the original inspiration- it is just that we do not know how much of the original is still there.
   
   _Apollonius was to be understood as the champion of traditional "pagan" cults and philosophy against the new religion of Christianity. Apollonius is shown to be tolerant to other religions and faiths- something that the new cult, even then, was not. Perhaps his very name reflected this tolerance and defense of the traditional. This is also no doubt why he visits India during his travels, for even in those days the Vedic tradition was seen as the "root" of all religious tradition.
   
   _In any case, the account is still quite edifying in its depiction of what was considered the archetypical example of the good, just, and tolerant man in the late classical world.

3 comments about A Quest Among the Bewildered: The Early Autobiographical Novel by Wulf Zendik.

1. Reviewer: A. Boggess from Adirondack Review, NY When a publisher I had never heard of queried me about a posthumously-published novel by an "undiscovered Beat," I was skeptical at first, but also curious.  The Beats to me are like a secret lover to the more literary wife I cling to most of the time.  I pick up 'Naked Lunch' or 'The Dharma Bums' whenever I want a break from the highbrow fiction I am accustomed to reading.  Needless to say, the thought of something new in the Beat vein intrigued me.  As I said, though, I was hesitant.  After all, any Beat writer worth publishing would have been "discovered" 50 years ago at the height of the movement.  Right?  Well, apparently not. Wulf Zendik easily fits in with the likes of Burroughs, Kerouac, Ferlinghetti and the rest.  His writing is equal parts Bukowski and Buddha, as much Ginsburg as Gao Xingjian. 
         In 'A Quest Among the Bewildered', described as an "early semi autobiographical novel," Zendik straddles the traditional Beat line between living and meditating.  He touches on all the familiar themes: love, lust, homosexuality, intoxication, spirituality, the subculture, and the quest for enlightenment as found in experiencing all the rest and moving beyond.  His language rages and burns, then mellows, slows, lulls the reader into a feeling of safety before lunging with a sharp blade:

          ...Zendik writes with the enthusiasm of a young seeker, while topping off his prose with the insights of a learned master.  While all the Beat basics are here: the energy of Kerouac, the poetics of Ginsburg, the over-the-top edginess of Burroughs, Zendik's work often resembles something more eloquent and grand.  It often reminded me of Rilke's novel 'The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge' in the way the narrator stops to contemplate the simplest things while keeping what can loosely be called a story hidden far in the background.
         'A Quest Among the Bewildered' is the kind of novel one hesitates to enter, but rejoices in having left after its unexpected soul-searching, its journey to places of self and society, its magnificent dreamscape of language and idea.  How Zendik remained an "undiscovered Beat" seems as much a curiosity as his work.  This book makes a case for his being included among the more noted writers of his generation.  At times harsh, at times dazzling, Zendik's prose touches every nerve and reaches every secret desire.  It hooks the reader and refuses to let go, not in the way a Stephen King novel might, more in the way carnival rides and conversations do.
         Recommendation: BUY THIS ONE.  While it might be the last book on your shelf, it will not be last in your thoughts.  The words and insights will stay with you for days until you feel the urge to pick it up again, go back for a second helping of life at its most raw, its most fascinating.  Expect a truly wonderful reading experience.




2. This book is amazing......thats all i have to say....he (Wulf Zendik) actually created a commune that lives on TODAY as the embodiement of his ideals in this book......just browse for "Zendik Farm" and you will find it......The work that they have done has had a HUGE influence on me.....and not in a bad way but making me a better more world consious and compassionate person......if you want truth read this....



3. I agree that this is the best thing I've yet read by a Beat Author - I'd love to have been at those places, met those people and witnessed the scenes described by Zendik. The writing style is so moving and poetic. His revelations and observations about love, romance, sex, the women he was with and the artists he knew are a missing piece of true history about that time and place. Just going through those experiences would change anyone, but the courage to go forward in pursuit of those ideals, that's what gives me courage in my life to believe in my own possibilities. And the possibilities for humanity.

   Definitely the most honest powerful book I've ever read, and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to "think outside the box". Zendik writes with a great hunger to express, but precisely, and with generous wit - always with the willingness to turn the penetrating look on himself. I found myself identifying with the feelings and attitudes described, and more than a few times it struck me how absolutely true it is that everybody has these types of thoughts and feelings...

   If you're a fan of Henry Miller, J.D. Salinger, Hunter Thompson or Kurt Vonnegut - I recommend this book to you... this is a fierce piece of work...

   Dennis Holcombe - Asheville, NC

5 comments about The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche.

1. _Friedrich Nietzsche_ by noted early 20th century American journalist H. L. Mencken is a both a brief biography of Nietzsche as well as a basic outline of his philosophy. Nietzshe's biggest influence is easlily recognized as his predescessor in German pessimism, Schopenhauer, along with the ancient Greeks before Socrates. Nietzsche is criticized as being only a destructive force in his philosophy, merely tearing down the decadent Christian morality that reigned in the West during the 1800s. However, Nietzsche's ultimate goal was the "superman," men who were above morality, sentimentality, religion and the "mindless grazing herd of cows" that constituted most of humanity. Much of this book attacks Christianity, which Nietzsche abbhorred above all other things, and considered it a "slave-morality" derived from the Jews as opposed to the "master-morality" of the European aristocrats. The origin of morality, according to Nietzsche and derived from Schopenhauer, comes from a race's will to live, and this manifests itself in a the law codes, usually of divine origin, of any given tribe, ethnicity, social group, civilization, race or nation. Nietzsche differed from Schopenhauer in that he felt that a heroic life was the best life to lead, instead of giving up the will to live as Schopenhauer taught. Both Nietzsche and Schopenhauer rejected trying to live a "happy" life, realizing that true happiness is unnatainable. In some respects, Nietzsche is reminiscent of the religious prophets he hated so much--he does not believe in free will, that people are more or less determined in their ways by forces that are beyond individual control, but he still exhorts them to dust themselves off and better themselves anyway. As far as his views of marraige and women are concerned, they are very pessimistic yet grounded in reality. "Love" comes from physical desire, and marriage is the official sanctioning of it. The ultimate purpose of marraige should be to breed a better race of humans to attain the "superman" in the future. There are some areas where Nietzsche's thoughts went a little fantastic. One theory he propounded was that Christianity was created by the Jews to make the rest of the ancient world a "slave morality". This is ridiculous, as Mencken notes, however some Jewish scholars today like to credit their own people with Christianity's rise at the same time voicing their disgust towards Christianity itself. But Nietzsche predicted that in the future Jews would be the ones that would virtually rule the world and have the greatest amount of influence in the intellectual fields. Another of Nietzsche's offbeat ideas is the doctrine of "eternal reccurance," that time repeats itself in cycles from eternity to eternity and gives the heroic "superman" the same struggle (in which the superman glories in) forever. As far as Nietzsche's influece goes today in 21st century America: I would only conclude that it is partial. It is readily apparent from reading Menckens exgesis where Nietzsche influenced Nazism, libertarians, nihilists, right-wing anarchists, "Ayn Rand style" objectivism and Satanism. Nothing exists for racial improvement, eugenics or euthanasia that is propelling humanity upward. The racial policies and ideals in ascendancy today are extremely dysgenic instead. Some of Nietzsche's ideas which are more readily observabable are the rule by an elite that is above the law--an "Illuminati" of sorts--but it is not bringing the human race upward--it is sending it crashing down to hell. I do not personally agree with many of Nietzsche's ideas, especially his attack on Christianity, but this is a thought provoking book of the "mad prophet of Nihilism."



2. As an example of H.L. Mencken's nascency as a serious writer and critic, this biography of the philosopher Nietzsche is invaluable to anyone interested in the writings of either man. The introduction by the editor is insightfully critical but does fail to emphasize the context in which Mencken himself held certain views controversial by today's accepted standards. Mencken's interpretations of Nietzsche's ideas tend toward social Darwinism. Especially where he is writing about the early life of Nietzsche, Mencken's outline is better than any other book in English on the subject. But Mencken mixes and matches concepts arising from Dionysus and Apollo too loosely, sometimes to the point of miscomprehension of Nietzsche's position, and sometimes by using their Roman name equivalents. All in all, Mencken is thorough, conscientious and clear in his expose on the great German philosopher.



3. The first thing that needs to be said about this book is that, as an exposition of Nietzsche's philosophy, it's profoundly flawed. Of course it doesn't claim to be exhaustively comprehensive, and today most of its readers will be drawn as much to the author and his interpretation as to the subject itself. But here the interpretation effectively buries the subject. In his own lifetime Nietzsche observed that in most cases "whoever thought he had understood something of me had made up something out of me after his own image (Ecce Homo III I)," and such is the case of Mencken.
   
   Symptomatic of this is Mencken's tendency to blithely dismiss (as "sheer lunacy", p.85, or "absurd", p.154) whatever in Nietzsche he fails to properly understand or finds to be at odds with his own reading. But the main problem is not so much in this, nor in his omissions, nor in his over-simplifications, nor even in his errors as such; as the introduction quite rightly notes, Mencken is "dead wrong" in equating Nietzsche's will to power with Schopenhauer's will to existence. The real problem is that, in so thoroughly misunderstanding this & other such key aspects of Nietzsche's philosophy, Mencken inevitably, and substantially, misunderstands that philosophy as a whole.
   
   In this particular case, whereas a -higher- and -fuller- existence is seen by Nietzsche as the aim of the will to power, and hence the greatest good, Mencken's misinterpretation takes existence in itself to be the goal (eg, pp.81-83) and thereby interprets the overman as the man most fit to survive the Darwinian struggle for existence (pp.67, 79, etc.). In fact, Nietzsche repeatedly insisted that it is the mediocre who are most successful as far as mere survival goes ("the last man lives longest" Zarathustra Prologue 5; "species do -not- grow in perfection; the weak prevail over the strong again & again" Twilight of Idols IX 14), and by contrast frequently laments the fragility of the higher man ("the ruination of the higher man, of souls of a stranger type, is the rule" Beyond Good and Evil 269, see also 276 & 62, inter alia).
   
   Another example, the more lamentable for the sheer intellectual laziness it represents on Mencken's part, is his chapter on "Truth". Now, Nietzsche's critiques of objectivity and of the limits of conscious reason, as notably in BGE & TOI, are among the most brilliant and influential things he ever wrote. Yet Mencken wastes half the chapter in a pedantic general discussion of truth, then finally turns to Nietzsche by announcing his views are too complicated to be summarized in the available space, proceeds to misrepresent them, and concludes with the patently false assertion that Nietzsche was a moral ("atheistic") determinist.
   
   More unfortunate still, and far less forgiveable coming after the century of further Nietzsche scholarship which has been undertaken since Mencken first wrote, is that this book's introduction, which is supposed to be there to catch Mencken's errors, cheers him on in this one, as well as as in others. Let it be noted too, in passing, how absurd it it when the author of this introduction complains about the lack of clarity in Nietzsche's style--nevermind the countless passages (the Gay Science 381 is especially instructive, but see also Zarathustra, BGE, EH...) in which Nietzsche addresses the issue of style, connecting it with his conception of the order of rank. In other words, his style is a reflection of his philosophy and can't be criticized in isolation from it, any more than one can speak of Plato's use of dialectic as a mere question of style.
   
   As a final point, this particular edition of Mencken's work is further unsatisfactory in its sloppy editing and in its lack of corrections for those facts Mencken gives about Nietzsche's life which are objectively wrong (generally he was as accurate as possible for his time, but since them far more material has come to light--about Nietzsche's relationship with Lou Salomé, for example, not to mention that awful sister of his, who in Mencken's time was still posing as the--largely unquestioned--voice of authority in all things concerning her brother).
   
   To be fair one might find this book worthwhile for a number of reasons; as an example of how Nietzsche was often understood when his influence was first making itself felt; as one of the earliest works of an exceptional man in his own right; and there are even parts which do serve their intended purpose quite well (I think Nietzsche would have entirely approved of the chapter on Education). Finally I myself found Mencken useful here as a sort of intellectual sparring partner; having read a good deal of Nietzsche, I wanted to sort out my own thoughts by putting them up against those of another intelligent but non-specialist reader. So the book does have its uses, just not the one it claims to.



4. "There are some areas where Nietzsche's thoughts went a little fantastic. One theory he propounded was that Christianity was created by the Jews to make the rest of the ancient world a 'slave morality'."
   
   This comment is plainly misguided. Nietzsche was not given to simple constructs such as the one laid out here, in which a previous reviewer suggests that "the Jews" (presumably the entire race) conspired together to create in Christianity a slave morality that would conquer the ancient world. This implies, among other things, that the Jews were solely responsible for Christianity, that they created it intentionally, and that they wanted or necessarily had to build another religion to accomplish the feat of a slave morality. Nietzsche, in fact, emphatically attributes slave morality also to Judaism _in and of itself_. He considers Judaism the origin and execution of slave morality par excellence. _On the Genealogy of Morals_ is particularly useful on this subject.
   
   If such an analysis is present in Mencken (I submit that I haven't read the volume under consideration completely through), consider his Nietzsche the more impoverished for it.



5. _The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche_, first published in 1908, by Baltimore newspaperman H. L. Mencken was the first complete exposition of Nietzsche's thought written in English and presents a version of Nietzsche that may be unfamiliar to his latter-day interpreters. H. L. Mencken (1880 - 1956) was an iconoclastic newspaperman who made a name for himself through his brash style and opposition to F.D.R. Mencken, whose ancestry was German and thus was heavily influenced by Germanic thinkers, wrote this book when he was twenty-seven years old to present the thinker of Nietzsche to the American people. This book presents Nietzsche as an elitist and atheistic philosopher who foretold the destruction of Christianity (which has yet to occur) and advocated a Social Darwinist philosophy. Mencken's political thinking may be understood as largely libertarian, though it included a racialist element to it, and thus this book contains much of the all-too-typical commentary against altruism common to the Social Darwinists of the time. Latter-day interpreters of Nietzsche have attempted to soften his image; however, as this book effectively shows, Nietzsche was a staunch advocate of eugenic breeding policies and Social Darwinism. I strongly disagree with the contents of this book, but nevertheless I find it a useful exposition of an alternative Nietzsche which our modern day academics seem afraid to face. Politically and philosophically there is much to disagree with about Mencken but he is always fun to read.
   
   
   
   The first section of this book is devoted to Nietzsche the man. Mencken begins by tracing Nietzsche's boyhood and youth. Nietzsche was the son of a preacher and from an early age had a strong fear of the Lord. Mencken explains Nietzsche's relationship with his father and sister (who eventually became the executor of his estate) as well as his early interest in literary matters. Mencken goes on to explain Nietzsche's progress in school and his developing cynicism and loss of faith. Following this, Mencken turns to Nietzsche's early development as a philosopher. In particular, Nietzsche's youthful reading of Arthur Schopenhauer framed his experience and led to his pessimistic understanding of the world. Nietzsche decried Christianity as a weakening doctrine and developed his notion of the superman. Mencken explains how Nietzsche's sickly constitution contrasted so starkly with his philosophy. Later in life, Nietzsche was to develop an illness which rendered him helpless and thus was left to his sister's care. The exact nature of this illness (and as to whether or not it was syphilis - it probably was not) has been debated much since.
   
   
   
   The second section of this book is devoted to Nietzsche the philosopher. Here, Mencken explains the Nietzschean contrast between Dionysus and Apollo in his early philological work. This contrast was to play a further development throughout Nietzsche's philosophical life. Following this, Mencken turns to the Nietzschean conception of the origin of morality. Nietzsche viewed Christian morality as a means of "slave revolt" and as a weakening doctrine which destroyed the will to live. Nietzsche maintains that morality is man-made and that the masters have a right to create their own morality. Following this, Mencken turns his attention to Nietzsche's comments that it is possible to move beyond good and evil. Here, Mencken maintains that Christianity developed as a conspiracy of the Jews, a slave people against the masters. Mencken further maintains that Nietzsche is fundamentally an immoralist. Following this, Mencken turns his attention to the Nietzschean conception of the superman. Here, Mencken and Nietzsche emphasize individualism and an opposition to charity and altruism as only serving to further weaken the race. Nietzsche also feared the notion of the eternal recurrence, which played some role in his later philosophy. Regarding Christianity, Nietzsche has very harsh words believing it to be an utterly corrupting influence. Mencken also mentions such notable evolutionists and Social Darwinians as Haeckel, Darwin, T. H. Huxley, and Herbert Spencer in this respect. Nietzsche regarded Christianity as essential a Jewish plot against the masters. Regarding truth, Nietzsche opposed the platitudes of the metaphysicians, the theologians, and politicians as Mencken says. Mencken finds the direction in which civilization is moving towards "universal brotherhood" to be rooted in the Christian conspiracy and thus to be anathema as well. Nietzsche firmly believed in the caste system and the aristocracy and thus opposed all forms of democratic leveling and socialism. Regarding women and marriage, Nietzsche's views were somewhat shaped by Schopenhauer's views on women. Nietzsche remained a lifelong bachelor and opponent of marriage. Regarding government, Mencken presents Nietzsche as a libertarian anarchist. Mencken writes, "Like Spencer before him, Nietzsche believed, as we have seen, that the best possible system of government was that which least interfered with the desires and enterprises of the efficient and intelligent individual." Nietzsche condemned both the monarchical ideal and the democratic ideal. Mencken also shows Nietzsche to be an elitist and Social Darwinist who despised altruism as a weakening doctrine. Regarding crime and punishment, Mencken argues that Nietzsche maintains that from torture arose self-torture and from this the idea of Christian sin. Regarding education, Mencken maintains that the ideal of education is to impart culture. Mencken ends with a section of "sundry ideas" of Nietzsche emphasizing his thinking on various topics. Following this, he details the rather complicated relationship between Nietzsche and Richard Wagner.
   
   
   
   The third section of this book attempts to examine Nietzsche as prophet. Mencken delves into Nietzsche's origins showing his philosophical development. Mencken also considers Nietzsche and his critics, both pro and con and ends with an outline for how to study Nietzsche mentioning various sources.
   
   
   
   Mencken's presentation of Nietzsche is certainly far from the modern day sanitized version we are given from academics. As such, I think this book is a useful account of the philosopher. I certainly do not agree with much of what Nietzsche or Mencken have to say, for example regarding altruism and Christianity, and believe that similar ideas were largely responsible for the rise of the Nazi tyranny. Nevertheless, this book gives a useful accounting of the Social Darwinist Nietzsche.
   
   
   
   For an appropriate response to the excesses of Social Darwinism, please consider the book _Darwinian Fairytales_ by the late Australian philosopher David Stove.

No comments about Florence Kelley and the Nation's Work: The Rise of Women`s Political Culture, 1830-1900.

5 comments about The Journals of Ayn Rand.

1. Interested in Ayn Rand's personal life as well as her philosophy? "Journals" offers an interesting look at the famous author.



2. I agree with Stephen Cox, who writes on The Daily Objectivist website: "One of its best features is the large amount of plain good writing that one discovers here, much more than one might expect to find in an author's working notes. Rand does very well in the medium of brief and (as she thought) temporary comments. The volume contains many shrewd observations, vital expressions of personality, and spirited confrontations with intellectual problems." A great insight into a great mind!



3. I was initially disappointed. The early pages are difficult to read and mostly seem to restate stuff that shows up in more polished form later. However, you can see the transition from quasi-Nietzschean ideals to a more mature Objectivism, and in particular the transition of the primary virtue being independence (The Fountainhead) to rationality (Atlas Shrugged). Interesting elements: Rand's notes for a movie about the invention of the atomic bomb, including what she was trying to convey and what she learned from her interviews. Her notes on books about architecture, her response to what she considers silliness, and her adaptation of what is said to characters in the book.

   Most of the notes from Atlas Shrugged deal with analyzing the psychology of the "parasite." This goes on for pages and seems rather tedious since it comes across as largely speculation-no evidence is cited. More interesting are the notes from the interviews she conducted about how to depict a steel mill and other settings that occur in the book.

   Also noted that she wants to believe in the existence of a soul (i.e., the element of a human being that thinks and is not part of conventional matter). That was rather striking!

   I am inordinately proud of myself for finishing it in one day, though I wonder at the same time how much I missed. Can't see myself rereading it anytime soon, though. If I reread anything, it will probably be Atlas Shrugged or possibly The Fountainhead.




4. The JOURNALS OF AYN RAND is an important addition to the large body of work by and about Ayn Rand. This work is put out by Rand's Estate, which worked with scholars associated with the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI). JOURNALS contains an introduction and notes by editor David Harriman which are, for the most part, helpful. There is a forward by Leonard Peikoff which is pretty much what you would expect.

   Rand wrote out her notes in complete sentences, so there is a good deal of lengthy philosophical and other matters contained in this book. One of the best parts her notes for a work Rand started after THE FOUNTAINHEAD, called THE MORAL BASIS OF INDIVIDUALISM. It's over 60 pages long. Particularly revealing are the notes for an early story called "The Little Street" which is highly Nietzschian in tone, as even the editor had to admit. (Peikoff's forward attempts to downplay the influence of Nietzsche on Rand's thought.)

   One thing I found interesting is that most of the journal entries are before 1955. However, Rand didn't start writing philosophical essays until after that. JOURNALS includes some notes for the articles that make up INTRODUCTION TO OBJECTIVIST EPISTEMOLOGY, but that's about it. Editor Harriman tells us that Rand made only brief outlines for her philosophical essays, and felt that publishing them wouldn't add much. I would like to take Harriman's word for it. But was there no benefit to publishing these outlines? This might be a minor point, but for the fact that there are reasons to question the accuracy of the JOURNALS. Prior to this book, some small portions of Rand's journals were published by ARI-associated scholars. In an entry dated January 20, 1947, the previously published version contains a reference to Albert J. Nock, which is left out in the version published in JOURNALS. There are other changes as well, such as the removal of "duty" in a passage on ethics. [Sciabarra,"Bowlderizing Ayn Rand", Liberty, Sept. 1998.] This isn't a big deal to fans and casual students, but to scholars attempting to sort out the influence of other thinkers on Rand's thought, it is a big problem.




5. If you happen to be an intellectual struggling through the travails of achieving very long-range goals, then this book has a mother load of precious gems for you to mine. You have to work at it, though. You have to want it. You have to already know what it's like to sit day after day in front of a white piece of paper and force yourself to work—especially to solve difficult mental problems on your own. Serious intellectual work is tough going, and this book will show you just how tough it was even for one of the brightest minds the world has ever known, yet it will also help you to see how that same mind overcame those challenges.
   
   For me, reading this book was a little like having Ayn Rand come back as a ghost to hover over me, urging me on in my struggles to be a fiction writer, promising me that I will succeed if I work hard enough, employ good study methods, always engage my own values, and above all use reason as my guide.
   
   This book is not for everyone. Though David Harriman did a remarkable job of selecting the right content and sorting it for clarity and readability, it remains just what the title states: Ayn Rand's personal journals. It is not a diary. There's nothing here about personal hobbies, romance, or life's milestones. Only her writing notes were included so that the reader can see a straightforward record of the orderly mental processes that she applied to her work.
   
   Personally, I found this book to be challenging, informative, and highly inspirational — a fascinating look into a fascinating mind.

2 comments about The Enemy: An Intellectual Portrait of Carl Schmitt.

1. _The Enemy_ provides an excellent and thorough introducion to the life and thinking of the German political philosopher and jurist Carl Schmitt. The book traces the developments in his thoughts from his earliest days as a Catholic schoolchild in the Rhineland to his eventual professorship in constitutional law and his involvement with the Third Reich regime and the subsequent developments in his thought after the Third Reich had fallen. Schmitt is normally considered to belong with the "conservative revolutionaries" such as Ernst Junger, Oswald Spengler, Martin Heidegger, and several other important figures in the Weimar republic prior to the advent of the Third Reich. These thinkers were important for their political and philosophical thought which was firmly opposed to liberalism, bolshevism, and modernism. An important aspect behind Schmitt's thought was his Catholicism (however tenuous that link may have become for him at various moments in his life). Certain interpreters of Schmitt have made the claim that Schmitt's writings can be understood on the basis of a "fundamentalist" Catholicism , in which the crisis in the modern world is perceived in apocalyptic terms involving an encounter between Christ and Antichrist. Schmitt became a jurist and a professor of constitutional law and a great deal of his writing is concerned with the application of his political principles to the legal status of the constitution. Schmitt's thinking is heavily influenced by the German Romantics such as Schlegel and Hegelianism, but also has a Latin character influenced by such Catholic counter-revolutionaries as Joseph de Maistre and Donoso Cortes, as well as the writings of Thomas Hobbes in his _Leviathan_, and the writings of Machiavelli. Perhaps Schmitt is most famous for his understanding of the political in terms of the "friend-enemy" distinction. He outlined this distinction in his famous work _The Concept of the Political_. Schmitt came to occupy a central place in the Third Reich regime and was often regarded as the "Crown Jurist" of that regime. The particular problematic of Schmitt's involvement with the Third Reich and his adherence to certain anti-Semitic beliefs is firmly covered in this book. After the defeat of the Third Reich, Schmitt would come to partially renounce some of his earlier alignment with it; however, he would also come to regard the process of denazification which involved him spending several years in captivity as equally abominable. Much of Schmitt's work focused on a particular interpretation of Thomas Hobbes in hiw book _Leviathan_. Schmitt may have believed in an apocalyptic myth involving an obscure quasi-Messianic figure, the Katechon (see the discussion in the book; but also see Paul's epistle to the Thessalonians where it is explained that the Katechon refers to a "restrainer" who is to come). The book also discusses Schmitt's relationship with the new international order subsequent to the Nazi regime. The importance of Schmitt's thought here in regards to our modern era which is closely coming to approximate a New World Order and a system of international law based in the United Nations (i.e. the League of Nations in Schmitt's time) cannot be overestimated. Schmitt's later works include a book entitled _Land and Sea_ which outlines the differences between land and sea powers and a work entitled _The Law of the Earth_. The relationship between a landlocked continental German power and a seafaring English power rooted in the Calvinistic religion plays an important role in Schmitt's writings. Schmitt's later days were spent in relative obscurity as a figure who was considered anathema by the new intellectuals; however, he continued to write and work and gather a group of students around him. Carl Schmitt is a fascinating figure who encountered the dark side and whose thinking still poses interesting questions for the modern world. His distinction between friend and enemy continues to occupy an important place in the role of political theory and although some on the Left have attempted to usurp his ideas, his ideas remain firmly grounded in the tradition of right wing intellectuals of the conservative revolution. This book provides an excellent introduction and outline of his life and thought and is to be highly recommended to all those interested in this figure.



2. This is the best all-around survey of and introduction to Carl Schmitt's thought. Balakrishnan does a good job of identifying each of the many, many "turns" in Schmitt's thought and situating each of them within the contemporaneous political developments in German-speaking Europe. There is some basic discussion of Schmitt's personal and religious life, as well as his political allegiances and the vicissitudes of his unstable status within the German establishment. This book is scholarly, clear and readable. If there's a problem with The Enemy, it is that Schmitt's thought does not lend itself to summary. He seems not only to have 'evolved' intellectually over time, but also to have taken simultaneously contradictory positions in contemporaneous works.
   
   Schmitt's brand of legal nihilism is fashionably dangerous. But, in my view, he is an artifact of a bygone moment in German history and has little to teach contemporary Anglo-American lawyers. Schmitt is frequently cited as an intellectual ancestor of Bush's lawyers John Yoo and David Addington but I suspect any similarity is accidental. In any event, the comparison is less than enlightening. However dubious their legal advice, Yoo and Addington both speak the language of precedent, jurisprudence and constitutional authority. Schmitt's arguments were grounded in a muscular continental mysticism - the gestalt of force and submission. Yoo and Addington are perhaps overly concerned with the defense of the republic, but they take its legitimacy for granted. Schmitt was suspicious of the very possibility of parliamentary rule. He sensed that deliberation was an arbitrary process with no logical endpoint. He feared that parliamentary politics was foundationless - that it was, to steal a phrase from Steven Hawking, 'just turtles all the way down.' Schmitt sought sovereign power as the font of political legitimacy - the solid ground beneath the State's feet. He seems to have concluded that sovereign power comes into being through an act of will or faith. This notion is alien to Anglo-American legal thought, where legal authority is derived from text, tradition, history, or natural law. Schmitt is compelling because he shows us an alternative law and politics of reactionary postmodernism - critical legal theory in service to naked power.
   
   In the end, Schmitt is historically important for his two aphorisms: "He is sovereign who decides the exception." and "Tell me who your enemy is and I will tell you who you are." Meditate upon these long enough and you won't need this or any other book on Carl Schmitt.

1 comments about Becoming William James.

1. Psychologically informed, but with no psychobabble -- respectful of James, and of other members of that famous family -- but not uncritical. This is a terrific biography, which deserves many readers.

2 comments about Locke: A Biography.

1. This is a fascinating biography of the great Locke. It is well balanced in details of both the life and movements of Locke, as well as providing some concise discussion on his various works.
   
   I was left the thought as to just how Locke's works may have developed if he, like all in his age, did not have the threat of religious politics breathing down his neck. I tend to believe he would have been a lot closer to Hume if he had both lived in Hume's age and had Hume courage ( and lack of political ambition!)
   
   A great biography that almost demands to be finished in one sitting.



2. Although Locke's philosophical arguments must stand or fall on their own merits, our knowledge of his life and times nevertheless enhances our understanding of those arguments. Fortunately, Locke was a regular correspondent and journal keeper, so scholars such as Woolhouse can reconstruct both major and minor episodes in his life and convey something of his character. Woolhouse does an excellent job of weaving all of these strands together to produce a comprehensive account that, perhaps surprisingly, is highly readable.
   
   Different sorts of readers look for different qualities in biographies. Woolhouse's book will appeal to many. Readers of a historical bent will be most interested in the exciting and dramatic events of the 1670s and 1680s that unfolded around Locke--the Whig/Tory conflict, the religious struggles, the Glorious Revolution, and the advent of William of Orange. It is difficult to overstate the significance of these events in British, Dutch, and French history for the later development of Europe and for how the North American colonies would evolve, and it is interesting to see them from Locke's perspective, sometimes as an observer and other times as a participant. Readers of a more philosophical bent will be interested in the development of Locke's thinking in its historical context--for example, how he reacted against Cartesian rationalism and came to develop his empiricist theory of knowledge, or how he came to incorporate the older natural-law tradition into a comprehensive theory of natural (that is, prepolitical) rights to life, liberty, and property....
   
   Locke's contributions to epistemology, philosophy of mind, and theology are still staples of modern higher education, and his life would be worth studying in relation to any of these subjects. We feel his influence most strongly, however, in our political lives. When one studies Locke's political writings, their influence on the American revolutionaries eighty years later is obvious. By the 1770s, though, Lockean principles were no longer radical; they were commonly accepted because they had been the principles of the faction that emerged victorious in the English power struggle of the 1680s. So when Jefferson wrote, "We hold these truths to be self-evident," the declaration was a highly effective rhetorical flourish rather than a plainly false epistemological claim. If Lockean principles were widely accepted in England, then how could the English deny the logic of the colonists' position? The later development of a system of government predicated on natural-rights theory, as remarkable as it was, did not arise in a vacuum. It had antecedents in history. By studying these antecedents, we can understand our own times better. Because Locke was such a crucial figure in this story, Woolhouse has done us all a great service by producing this biography.