No comments about John Stuart Mill - Life and Times of the Political Philosopher (Biography).

3 comments about The Life of David Hume.

1. What is there not to like about this beautifully written account of the admirable David Hume? It conveys the time (American Independence, the flowering of Scottish genius, the major development of sceptical inquiry), the places (Scotland, England, France), the people: Rousseau, the French Court but most of all Hume himself whose good humour, decency and genius can only inspire others who have the courage to question. I think the full quality of this book is portrayed by the fact that twenty years after I gave a copy to my father he quotes Humes's comments on facing death in a letter to me. A book you could never give away without keeping a copy yourself.



2. This is only modern biography of Hume. Very well written and researched, it concentrates on Hume's personal life and career as a man of letters. Hume is a wonderful subject for a biography; an important figure who is simultaneously a warm and attractive personality. Mossner does an excellent job of detailing Hume's personal life, friendships, and literary career. For individuals really interested in Hume, this book is a treasure trove of information. It is also a very valuable work on the intellectual culture of 18th century Scotland and the Enlightenment in general. Mossner describes very well the intellectual atmosphere of lowland Scotland, which produced not only Hume, but Adam Smith, the great chemist Joseph Black (though Mossner mentions him only as a physician), and numerous other important intellectuals. Mossner shows also the international quality of the Enlightenment. Within months of publication, Hume's Treatise on Human Nature was mentioned in German publications, and his later, more popular works were known across Europe. Hume had an international, even intercontinental (Benjamin Franklin), set of correspondents and friends. This books is a valuable companion to reading Hume's work.
   What this book is not, however, is a full scale critical work. Actual discussion and analysis of Hume's important philosophical work is relatively brief. Nor is there much explicit discussion of the origins of Hume's thought in the work of prior 18th and 17th century thinkers. This biography was last revised in the late 1970s and apparently not greatly changed from the original version published in 1954. Over the course of the 20th century, Hume came to be regarded as one of the real titans of Western thought, with a corresponding increase in the secondary literature on Hume. We also know much more about the 18th century and the Enlightenment than Mossner. There is definitely a need for a major critical biography of Hume, though producing such a work could easily consume a scholar's career.



3. Given the price of this book - some 40% overpriced for a book of this type and lenghth - you'd think that at least the print job should be done properly. After all, this is the Oxford U Press. Well, in my copy, the ink quantity fluctuates, so that some paragraphs are dark while others light. This is a little annoying when the random contrasts have nothing to do with emphasis! Also, the back breaks so easily, that this book is effectively a pulp print. Then why the high price, pray tell me ?

   Anyway, these are trivial matters. The book itself is very good. I consider it complementary to Norman Kemp Smith's study of Hume's philosophy, as it focuses on Hume the man rather than his philosophy. As Sir James Jeans said, the biography of a philosopher is not irrelevant to his thought, and Hume is no exception. (This is less true of natural scientists.) Mossner's book is particularly helpful in answering my own questions about Hume's religious views - a topic of the most controversial sort even in his own day.

   I'm very impressed that Mossner pointed out the fact that Hume had inspired Einstein on his road to relativity. This little known fact was always very important in my own estimate of the great philosopher.

   Here's the irony. Hume wrote his masterpiece in France, which remained the only place where he was really appreciated. Back in Scotland, he could not even find a proper job. And now, the best 20th century biography (there are good 19th century biographies) of Hume was written not by a Scotsman or even an Englishman, but by a Texan (probably) of Jewish descent. What have all these Edinburgh professors (excepting Smith, of course) been doing all these years? Given the primary sources at their disposal, why didn't they just pick up the pen to reconstruct the life of Scotland's - even Britain's - greatest non-scientific thinker? One suspects that to this day Hume is still under-appreciated in Scotland.

   Mossner's biography of Hume is a labor of love.

No comments about Jean-Paul Sartre: A Life (Lives of the Left).

No comments about Rousseau (The Routledge Philosophers).

No comments about Felix Guattari: Thought, Friendship, and Visionary Cartography.

No comments about Rudolf Steiner: An Introduction to His Spiritual World-View : Anthroposophy.

No comments about Mothers and Sons, Fathers and Daughters: The Byzantine Family of Michael Psellos.

2 comments about Young Heidegger, The (Studies in Continental Thought).

1. John Van Buren proposes a relatively straightforward thesis: the later works of Heidegger are a revisiting of themes that he began as a young teacher at Marburg. His thesis enables him to closely examine Heidegger before his phenomenological masterpiece Being and Time and the events that preceded that publication. In the spirit of the phenomenological project, he is able to bracket and set aside the "dangerous" Heidegger for the purpose of understanding his thinking before it was polluted by his Nazi reputation.
   
   So what do we get to see? Well, Van Buren explicates Heidegger's student years as a seminarian training to become a Jesuit, but then is later advised to refrain from such training, due to literal trouble with his heart. And then we get to see, Heidegger the theological student attempting to remain with in the walls of the church both in his thinking and faith. It is during his years as a theology student that Heidegger encounters Brentano's work on the different senses of 'being' found within the work of Aristotle. This begins a lifelong obsession for Heidegger. After this, we get to see a young Heidegger that frees himself from the tradition and ceremony of the Catholic Church, who then goes on to become an "un-dogmatic Protestant."
   
   Eventually, we get to see in fascinating detail, the young Heidegger wrestle the Pauline concept of time as it was understood by Augustine and also the Lutheran concept of Reformation. Van Buren proposes that the fundamental existential dialect found within Heidegger's life is one that starts in theology and ends with ontology. Ultimately, the ones that free him from theology are Luther and Eckhardt. It is specifically within Eckhardt that Heidegger is introduced to the larger conception of Being, which becomes the mystical path found within the bindings of his later writings.
   
   Eventually, at the end, Van Buren returns the reader to the question that has been bracketed aside, which is: what of Heidegger and Nazism? This is obviously a question that has plagued biographers of Heidegger since his death and, even though some writers have proposed that we should simply analyze Heidegger's philosophy instead of his life, this is an obvious impossibility. For unlike his beloved teacher Edmund Husserl, Heidegger's thinking did not belong to a bracketed realm of a "transcendental ego." Heidegger was a thinking-being-in-the-world. Therefore, his thought is inextricably bound to the world in which he lived.
   
   Ultimately, Van Buren concludes that Heidegger's philosophy should not be considered something that is considered a blueprint for Nazism, but it also wasn't something that was resistant to it nor did it redeem him from it. All in all, this book is a stimulating and sobering read. It is academically focused in its scope, meaning it is not as comprehensive as Safranciski's engaging read 'Between Good and Evil.' However, this is for more obvious reasons, since Van Buren's book is out to investigate a specific thesis concerning Heidegger's life. I would recommend both books in regard the Heideggerian, but I would recommend this one especially for the serious student rather than the curious onlooker. In addition, I would recommend the basic writings of Heidegger, since a great deal of that book contains the later works of Heidegger, which are discussed at length at the end of this book.
   
   P. S. I know Amazon does not display, but this book comes with a delightful yellow cover, which is all too appropriate for a biography about a phenomenologist, since the concept of yellowness seems to be a favorite example of theirs.



2. This work I assume is the published book version of Van Buren's (VB) doctoral dissertation by the same title- and it shows. It's hyperresearched and overquoted, tough-going, brutally tedious, repetitive as if the author/PhD candidate set himself a goal to write a certain number of pages no matter what. The first part is introductory with the worst first chapter imaginable: a cheap and nasty attack on Heidegger- the very thinker on whom the author will spend the next 400 pages writing. It attacks Heidegger on all fronts using Derridaean cheap-shots among other things. He joins Kisiel and Sheehan in insulting the executors of Heidegger's will (his family) for...executing Heidegger's will! And not that of Kisiel, that is, for keeping the editions of the opus as Heidegger requested them, of his last hand, instead of opening up the manuscripts to Americans scholars to fabricate their own "critical edition." As if there's some dirty secret to be found or if somehow a radicaly different Heidegger would emerge. VB also finds it reprehensible that Heidegger didn't think highly of his work as a student so much so that he suppressed it and made it disappear. I don't know about VB, but I would not want my students papers to be included in any publication either if I were an old world-renowned philosopher.
   
   While this chapter makes one want to put the book down once and for all, if one continues to chapter two, one finds an outstanding summary of Heidegger's work. One wonders whether chapter one was introduced to please an editor, a professor perhaps, a prospective employer, or the author is trying to align himself with a certain school of interpretation. Oddly enough, the rest of the book for the the most part is sober and straightforward scholarship, without the hysterical hatred.
   
   VB tries to make a case for an additional time period in the study of Heidegger, namely, the young Heidegger period, which he wants us to believe is as significant as the early and late Heidegger. It is as siginificant because many of the themes and terms of those Heideggers occur already in the young. So VB is in a tricky situation where he wants us to buy into this additional period that basically says nothing particularly different from the other two.
   
   The following 2 parts / 8 chapters give us a chronological account, more or less, of Heidegger's influences, classes he prepared and taught, and thus how his thought evolved. We go through some stages of Heideggerian development: ultra-rigorous young logician/mathematician, the discovery of the spirit of medieval mysticism, the revolt against Catholicism and introduction of Protestant individualism, the years with Husserl, the transcending of Husserl's lifeless phenomenology to lived philosophy, the overcoming of metaphysics.
   The final part IV while promising something new, just reassembles old material thematically but doesn't introduce much new material. It's as if one were re-reading the previous chapters again in different order. Even the chapter called "Indications of Ethics" covers mostly meanings of the word "indications" and very little ethics. Perhaps VB is trying to do a Heideggerian repetition on Heidegger, but while Heidegger goes deeper each time he repeats a question-- The Question-- one can't overcome the sense that VB just keeps recycling material covered previously. One even notices the author going into auto-pilot at times where he himself seems bored and unable to stop, forces himself to go on and on and on. Such is the chapter Primal Christianity where he seems to want to cover so much ground that each paragraph now discussess a different concept.
   
   The last chapter titled "Reinscribing Heidegger" (that would have made an apt title for this entire book) becomes more interesting when VB sets his sights on the late Heidegger. Here he repeats a familiar contention: that the late Heidegger becomes everything the early Heidegger opposed. And yet VB says that the late Heidegger basically repeats the early Heidegger. In any case, VB expounds the typical criticisms against Heidegger: mythical, essentialist, anti-humanist, authoritarian. Thus the final chapter takes us back to the first angry anti-Heidegger chapter of this book.
   
   The problem of research and quoting mentioned above can be seen in this sample sentence (pg 274):
   
   Insofar as this primal something has always already been fulfilled and differentiated in the "worldish something" of "lifewords" and "specific sphere of lived experience" (e.g., "aesthetic," "religious," "political" experience), the tendency toward the primal something is always "motivated" by this dimension of having been.
   
   VB unfortunately choses to put in quotations marks not just quotations of Heidegger but every single word that is being used in a Heideggerian way and any word mentioned by Heidegger. As a result, each paragraph has at least half a dozen of these frivolous quotation marks that do nothing but add to the unreadability of this book. Take the sentence above quoted, most of the words in quotations marks don't need them. It is not like Heidegger has come up with some new meaning of the world "political" or that we don't know that when VB uses "lifeworlds" this is used in a Heideggerian way. Even VB knows that having to reference all this would be a nightmare so he resorts to a rather aweful reference strategy, namely to put in parenthesis at the end of each parahraph a list of abbreviations of the works where all his quotations presumably come from. It's unclear where one would find the word "political" though.
   
   One would have to conclude that VB has not succeeded in convincing the scholarly community that there is this younger Heidegger that is somehow unique and different because whatever comes before the Hedeggerian Turn is simply considered the early Heidegger. So while VB's main aim does not work, this text is still worthy of reading mainly as a summation of Heideggers youth. It would have been much better had it been revised for publication (I'm assuming again that this text is no different than his dissertation) and cut in length and re-edited. I'm being somewhat harsh on this work because it's such an aweful read. VB quotes Heidegger so much that one doesn't get a sense of the author's voice here. Heidegger should always be quoted sparingly. It's dangerous to overquote him because Heidegger is much more interesting and powerful than those who write about him. So eventually you just want to put the book down and read Heidegger instead. VB fixates on some triads of concept which don't do nearly as much work as he thinks they do just as he obsesses with the term "indication." And one can't rid oneself of the impression that this book is poorly written- again due to the quotation madness, and because VB has a tendency to write out lists for certain concepts where one or two terms would have been enough. Instead he lists 10 or 15 different terms for some Heideggerian concept- of course all in separate quotation marks. VB is at his best when he frees himself from the self-imposed constraint to quote Heidegger 5 times per sentence and just speaks his mind instead.
   
   VB is a terrific scholar. The amount and sources of his material are astounding. He also navigates through all of the sources, including letters Heidegger wrote and comments he made to his students, with tremendous ease. He does focus too much though on letters and comments. If one wants to find out about the influences on Heidegger, this is a good place to look. Just note that it won't be a quick weekend read but a punishing one that will take months.

2 comments about Aristotle.

1. Sir David Ross' explication of Aristotle's philosophy is most helpful. Aristotle's works that have survived to today seem to be post-lecture notes, a sort of "here's what I covered in today's lecture" recap. As such, Aristotle's books are sometimes confusing, occasionally contradictory and often just plain difficult to understand. In addition, Aristotle was a scientist first and philosopher second. This makes his works, which we read for their philosophical content, more difficult to grasp in some cases. Further, as with any translated works, various translators convey Aristotle's assertions in different ways, some of them more useful than others.

   Ross' deep understanding of The Philosopher, gained through years of study, teaching and translation, gives him the background needed to help the reader understand more clearly Aristotle's position on various subjects. Ross is able to reconcile some apparent contradictions, to point out some of Aristotle's underlying assumptions and make confusing passages clear.

   As a graduate student in philosophy, I find Ross' work to be very helpful and expect to use it extensively as background material for my thesis. But the value derived from reading and understanding Aristotle is not limited to students or philosophers, and the value of Ross' book is wide-ranging as well. Aristotle will be helpful to students, teachers or lay readers interested in philosophy but struggling with some of the archaic attitudes presented in many translations of The Philosopher's work.




2. Unfortunately I can not be extremely positive about this work of Ross. Still how you will benefit from the work will depend on your expectations. If you need some summary to draw upon in an undergraduate course, this work will be helpful. But the work will not give you real insight, either because it does not intend it, or simply because it can not achieve it. Sorry that I have to talk like this on a great scholar's book.

4 comments about A Transatlantic Love Affair: Letters to Nelson Algren.

1. This book gives a real insight into de Beauvoir's character- after reading these letters, one will never again look upon her as a cold intellectual. If anything, they show that the passion she felt with Algren could not compare to whatever sort of relationship she had with Sartre. Reveals de Beauvoir's true self more than any of her autobiographies.



2. This tome unites fascinating, ethereal elements of time and place with the more mundane features of long-distance love.

   First, the unique bits of which only Simone de Beauvoir can honestly write: The intellectual scene of post-WWII Paris, firsthand knowledge of Camus and Sartre, a complex network of friendships mixing the communities of European intelligentsia, fascists, existentialists, writers, and actors. Then, of course, there is the head-over-heels love in which she found herself with Nelson Algren, noted American author, immediately upon making his acquaintance. All of these interesting facets add spice to this book.

   Surprisingly, what truly makes this book unforgettable, impossible to put down, at times embarrassing in its candor and recognizable to the reader are its themes of commonality to everyone else on the planet. Anyone who has ever fallen in love, suffered instant infatuation for another, missed the touch of a far-away lover, or slogged through a long-distance relationship will relate/commiserate/understand/anticipate both the words and the feelings behind them.

   Simone de Beauvoir wrote all of these letters to Nelson Algren in English (not her native French); happily, the misspellings and grammatical errors are preserved without correction. The reader will note progressive improvement in her English abilities as the correspondence lengthens and her relationship matures.

   I believe all readers will find these pages touching, satisfying, and intriguing. Those of you who have experienced long-distance passion will enjoy the letters as well, but with the distinct pain of knowing the inevitable conclusion in advance.




3. Having read all of De Beauvoir's autobiographies, this book was disappointing. The content can only be described as a mere extension of 'Beloved Chicago Man' (again relating to her relationship with Nelson Algren). In the latter, the letters to Algren are immediatly captivating, but quickly become repetitive rather than developed and by the end seem embarrassingly girlish and naive leaving a strong feeling of voyeuristic intrusion. This latest publication is an unnecessary extension of Beloved Chicago Man.



4. To correct the reader from Brookline, this book is exactly the same as "Beloved Chicago Man"- it's the same book with different titles in the US and the UK. As the reviewers below state, this is a great window into the relationship between Algren & de Beauvoir, and shows the truth feelings of de Beauvoir.