1 comments about Becoming John Dewey: Dilemmas of a Philosopher and Naturalist.

1. Thomas C. Dalton's book on John Dewey philosophy and its fortunes in American philosophical and scientific circles in the twentieth century is essentially a job in rehabilitation, not scholarship. Dalton is only interested in jousting with various philosophers, active either while Dewey was alive or since his death in 1952; as such it fails as a work of history, for it is advocacy and rehabilitation, at once sentimental and turgid.

No comments about The Letters of George Santayana, Book 2: 1910-1920 (The Works of George Santayana, Vol. 5).

5 comments about Autobiography of a Yogi.

1. Unbelievable I say not as a skeptic, but as a true rational person. This same skepticism opens up other horizons in one's thinking - is this all true? Yogi Paramahamsa, the author, renders in this charming and lucid storytelling, facts he came across in his life - like his Master being able to 'know' that they will have guests arriving in the middle of the night; another yogi predicting the author's arrival and telling him of what he did miles away and many more such incidents.
   
   All this makes one ask - is this all true or is the author lying? I would want to think, given the book's and the author's reputation, this is all true. Believing so also opens up different realms of possiblities defying all rationality. Who wouldn't want to attain a state where they can exists without eating or sleeping for days together OR having the ability to read clearly and correctly into another's mind? Knowing the power of meditation myself, I won't doubt the power of an absolute calm mind.
   
   Aside from the skepticism, I totally am enjoying reading this book. The storytelling abilities is that of a master and an erudite author. Just seeing photos of sages in the 19th century is itself inspiring. The book provides a great understanding of a young man's mind who seeks out and believes in spirituality. The power of written expression is to be truly found in this book. There is a charming nature about this book you won't regret reading it.



2. This is a wonderful book. This book is valuable to me than all other books that I have read put together. This book has so much of wisdom that I cannot explain here in few words. This book is NOT about religion or is biased to any religion. Yogananda tells about the universal truth that everybody must be aware of. Please do not try to judge this book without reading, and you will know why after you read it. I am sure lot of your inner questions will be answered after you read this book. This book will definitely be an inspiration to seek the ultimate truth which can be attained by each and everyone of us.



3. Yogananda's message is potentially world changing. However, I got more out of the Autobiography of a Yogi published by Self-Realization Fellowship because it was full of added footnotes which I found just as important and meaningful as the text. Many explaining the essential oneness of western and eastern religions through biblical passages, etc.



4. Understand spiritualism and see the larger picture of life and existence through this autobiography, which breaks down barriers between religions.



5. I will have to go against the flow, here. So, some people can actually perform "miracles" like talking and seeing gods, teletransporting themselves, materializing objects and even entire castles out of thin air, appearing in two places at once, bringing back people from death, fighting and taming wild tigers armed with only their kindness, levitating, predicting the future, healing wounds and fatal diseases with only their will, reading minds, etc, etc? Sorry, I don't think so.
   
   I am almost finishing the book and if it were sold as a fiction piece I would give it more credit. But since it is the author's "biography" and all the fantastic events in it described as truth... sorry again, I just can't.
   
   As a philosophycal way of life it is still very interesting, though.

4 comments about Friedrich Nietzsche.

1. Occasionally a book is published that daunts the reviewer's attempts to do justice to its subject--in this case, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)--and to the book's content. Curtis Cate's new biography is such a work.
   
   Cate chronicles Nietzsche's life and works in "quantitative detail," from his birth in Ro(e)cken, Germany, on Oct. 15, 1844, until his mental collapse in Turin, Italy, in Jan. 1889, and his death in Weimar on Aug. 25, 1900. One marvels at how minutely Cate narrates the year-by-year, month-by-month, and week-by-week events in Nietzsche's life.
   
   Cate describes Nietzsche's many friendships, from his early school years at Pforta, Wilhelm Pinder and Gustav Krug, and later with Paul Deussen, Carl von Gersdorff, Erwin Rohde, Franz Overbeck, Dr. Paul Ree, Malwida von Meysenbug, Heinrich Romundt, Albert Brenner, Heinrich Koselitz (Nietzsche's loyal disciple, whose musical pseudonym was "Peter Gast"), and, above all, his relationships with a beautiful and extremely intelligent 21-year-old Russian woman, Lou Salome, and with the Richard Wagner and Wagner's wife, Cosima.
   
   Over a period of three years, Nietzsche made 23 visits to Tribschen, the home of Richard and Cosima Wagner near Lucerne, Switzerland. And over the period of seven years, Nietzsche wrote close to eighty letters to Cosima, the daughter of Franz LIszt.
   
   Cate points out that Nietzsche's books are a sustained attack on metaphysical and religious beliefs. Nietzsche argued, writes Cate, that "the attention focused on otherworld fantasies had kept human beings from dealing in an honest, healthy way with the everyday realities that are of the most immediate concern to their well-being. . . . [His] whole philosophy was aimed at achieving a 'higher and nobler' degree of culture."
   
   In a letter to his busybody sister Elisabeth, who so often, during his life and especially after his death, meddled in his affairs, Nietzsche wrote: "Do we in our research seek repose, peace, happiness? No, solely the Truth, even if it be exceedingly deterring and ugly. . . . Here men's ways diverge. If you wish to aspire to peace of soul and happiness, then believe; if you wish to be the disciple of the Truth, then search."
   
   Against philosophical and religious "seriousness," Nietzsche wrote, "I would believe only in a god who knew how to dance. Come, [with our laughter] let us kill the spirit of gravity."
   
   Cate shows that Nietzsche's philosophy was profoundly personal, rising as it did out of deep existential struggles: "Of all that is written I like only that which one has written with one's blood. Write in blood and you will find that blood is spirit. A book that has no fire in it deserves to be burned."
   
   Nietzsche argued that, because of the inexorable advances of science, which, he believed, showed the world to be ungottlich, unmoralisch, and unmenschlich ("non-divine," "non-moral," and "non-human"), Europe was now plunged into a grave spiritual crisis, the crisis of nihilism.
   
   In the opening pages of his posthumously published work, The Will to Power, Nietzsche wrote: "Nihilism stands at the door. When comes this uncanniest of all guests? . . . What does nihilism mean? That the highest values devalue themselves. The aim is lacking; 'why?' finds no answer." It is a will to nothingness, in which a hopeless despair adjudicates everything to be valueless and worthless, without goal, meaning, or purpose.
   
   Nietzsche's central philosophical project was to "live through nihilism" to its bitter end and, hopefully, with the creation of new values, emerge on the other side. That he failed in this project seems evident, but never has a philosopher struggled so valiantly and courageously in wrestling with the demon of nihilism, of staring for a long time into the abyss.
   
   Cate writes, "Nietzsche conceived of his mission as a thinker to be that of the herald of a new 'dawn' in philosophical thinking, the prophet of a new, more honest, less visionary morality, purged and purified of a vast accretion of moral, political, social, and metaphysical prejudices and misconceptions, which had reduced the vast majority of his contemporaries to a collective condition of sheep-like stupidity."
   
   Georg Brandes, a Danish professor and one of Nietzsche's early admirers (he delivered a series of lectures on Nietzsche's philosophy at the University of Copenhagen) described the German philosopher's basic stance as being "aristocratic radicalism." Nietzsche responded with appreciation and hearty approval, saying that Brandes' _expression "aristocratic radicalism" was the "cleverest word" he had ever read about himself.
   
   Indeed, Nietzsche's elitism exalted everything that was noble, distinguished, and excelling, and derogated all forms of mediocrity, mendacity, and anti-intellectualism, including anti-Semitism (Nietzsche was an anti-anti-Semite) and the saber-rattling stupidity of a jingoistic German nationalism.
   
   At the very heart of Nietzsche's philosophy, writes Cate, is "resistentialism." This means that "it is not what assists Man that strengthens and ennobles him, but, quite the contrary, what resists his slothful inclinations and prejudices." His philosophy calls us grow up and become men in our thinking, rather than remaining dependent children, to reject the comfort, safety, security, and certainty of the herd and become an "free spirit" who dares to travel our own paths. "This is my way," wrote Nietzsche; "where is yours? The way doesn't exist."
   
   A key motif of Cate's biography is his chronicling of Nietzsche's illnesses. All of his adult life, Nietzsche was plagued by debilitating migraines that often kept him bedridden for days, by acute negative reactions to metereological changes, causing him to wear dark glasses and become a wanderer throughout Germany, Switzerland, France, and Italy in search of a climate conducive to his health. He suffered frequently from stomach upsets, nausea, fits of vomiting, and acute nervous seizures.
   
   Cate's numerous accounts of Nietzsche's struggle with ill health, scattered repeatedly across hundreds of pages, are impressive in their details, impressing on the us the long, hard struggle Nietzsche to lead the semblance of a normal life. And, although Cates only hints at the idea, one wonders if Nietzsche's "yea-saying," affirmative philosophy and his embrace of "amor fati" (love of fate) was not a defense mechanism against the perennial threat of a spirit-crushing pessimism into which he could have fallen because of his prolonged suffering.
   
   After five weeks of giving diligent attention to Cate's masterful biography, I conclude that it will take its place alongside Walter Kaufmann's Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist as one of the best--indeed, in some respects, the best--biographies of Nietzsche available in the English language. This is a distinguished volume. I recommend it most highly.
   
   Roy E. Perry of Nolensville, Tennessee, may be reached at rperry1778@aol.com
   
   (Note: Curt Paul Janz's excellent three-volume German biography of Nietzsche has not yet been translated into English.)
   
   ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Curtis Cate is the author of acclaimed biographies of Antoine de Saint-Exupery, George Sand, and Andre Malraux as well as several other books of non-fiction. He holds degrees from Harvard (History), Ecole des Langues Orientales (Russian), and Oxford (Politics and Economics). He was the European Editor for The Atlantic Monthly for eight years (1958-1965) and has written articles for the New York Times Book Review, the New York Times Magazine and the New Republic. He resides in France.



2. Nietzsche was perhaps the most important thinker in modern times. He understood that Western Mankind labored under a terrible burden, a burden forged by idealistic philosophy and biblical religion which substituted a world of timeless ideals for the reality in which men and women really exist. This burden had once been a boon of sorts but with the decline of religious faith and the growth of mass society it became heavier and more inhuman. Nietzsche's own experiences, his own difficult life, especically his German ethniciity, all these contributed to his unique sensibility and genius. But Curtis Cate's decision to explain Nietzsche's unsystematic philosophy through his life is a tedious mistake and failure. In almost 600 pages we suffer every physical, emotional, spiritual, and psychological onslaught faced by Nietzsche, all in the narrow and narrowminded world of German academia and Wagnerian romanticism, yet this exposure does not really do as much for our understanding as fifty pages of clear exposition of his thought would have done. Granted that Nietzsche's thought is necessarily untidy and contradictory, since it is anti-systematic and untraditional, but to expect the reader to understand it by reliving Nietzsche's life puts far too much of a burden on a writer's life. And Nietzsche's life is not really all that interesting when compared to his thought. Biography has it place -- but perhaps not so well in the discussion of a provincial professor like Nietzsche. His brain was far better than his feeble body, and his thought rose far above the petty events and puny individuals with whom he came into contact. Except for the saintly historian Jakob Burckhardt and the mystigogue of music and culture Richard Wagner, most of the people Nietzsche was condemned to know and deal with were not worth the dust on his sandalstraps. In this biography one necessarily therefore spends a lot of time with people one could well do without, like Lou Salome for example. No, biography is not the road to understanding Nietzsche.



3. This is a truly boring treatment of Nietzsche but I can't really blame the author; Cate has an obvious mastery of the material and writes well. The bottom line is: Nietzsche's life was not very interesting and thus makes for a dull biography. Nietzsche's accomplishments were in his ideas. As a result, the biography resorts to dwelling on minute details of N's travels and correspondence.
   
   There is some value in the book as it helps to make connections between his personal life and the evolution of his ideas but these rewards are just not worth the effort of plowing through the book. Plus, it is not as accessible to the non-academic as the author claims it to be. The Nietzsche-neophyte will quickly become lost in the digressions into various philosophical issues.
   
   Ultimately, the fault with this book lies with its subject matter and not the author. If you're looking for context to understand N's ideas, there are better books out there. If you're interested in his philosophy, then read his actual works (and yes, I have read them all so don't go there). Biographies of boring people seem somewhat pointless...
   
   Not recommended.



4. 
   
   This book is criticized because it has too much biography, and not enough of Nietzsche's philosophy. And then...vice versa, too much philosophy. I have always been interested in Nietzsche the man, and this book provides the reader with a good rounded view of him. Fortunately there is an extensive amount of correspondence available to provide the biographer with the essential information necessary to construct an informative picture of both Nietzsche and those who figured prominently in his life.
   
   No, Nietzsche did not live an "exciting" life, but that's never a criterion I use in choosing to read a biography. If it's thrills you want may I suggest reading the memoirs of, perhaps, a Navy Seal. When I finished this biography I felt I knew "Fritz". I became appreciative of the extreme difficulties he faced with perpetual ill health. I found the details of his friendship with the anti-Semitic composer Richard Wagner to be quite fascinating. And yes he did travel about a lot, and maybe, at times, his mobile meanderings aren't much more interesting than reading a railroad timetable. Yet these are facts of his life.
   
   Whenever Nietzsche publishes a book Mr. Cate spends five or more pages discussing the philosophy contained in the book. For a book that is not touted as an "intellectual" biography I found this to be a good balance in acquainting the reader with Nietzsche's thoughts. This smattering of philosophical interpretation helps in understanding how the Nazis distorted his views, and made him a national hero (Hitler visited Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth several times). It also provides some understanding of his falling out with Richard Wagner. I am not an academic, although I have read a trifling amount of philosophy. In my opinion the philosophical sections were presented in a lucid manner, and should pose no challenge to the reader. I am assuming, of course, that anyone picking up a biography of Nietzsche has at least some interest in philosophy. The author does drop some heavy weight words on us occasionally, and these were in the biographical material. I don't think I've ever encountered the word "propadeutic" before, and this word occurs twice in the text.
   
   I enjoyed this book very much, and am grateful for the insight into Nietzsche's life. One reviewer suggests that you read books of his thoughts instead of this biography. Well, I already have those, but they don't tell me much about the man who produced them. While Friedrich Nietzsche didn't live an exciting life he still was an extraordinary man. This biography got that message across to me.

No comments about John Dewey: An Intellectual Portrait.

2 comments about Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Witness to Jesus Christ (Making of Modern Theology).

1. This book is a great place to start if you are new to Bonhoeffer's work. It is equally useful for those who have read a lot of Bonhoeffer since it includes selections from key but less well known or less accessible works like his talk at the Fano "Life and Work" conference on the importance of addressing international issues, or his 1939 letter to the Finkenwald brethren. Moreover, de Gruchy's selection of pages or even paragraphs of more difficult texts are a model for such anthologies. The very useful 40-page introduction and editor's notes before each selection say just enough to be helpful while they reveal de Gruchy's mastery of his subject. They also reflect the fact that like Bonhoeffer, de Gruchy was active for years in political struggle within a repressive regime -- in his case, South Africa. Aside from brief biographies by Bethge or Robertson that quote widely from Bonhoeffer, I don't know of a better overview to one of the most useful thinkers of the last century for our own, precarious, ...



2. This volume on the works of Dietrich Bonhoeffer is part of a series by Fortress Press entitled 'the Making of Modern Theology: Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Texts'. Each of the volumes in the series focuses upon one particular theologian of note. These volumes are of use to students, seminarians, ministers and other readers interested in the development of theological ideas in the modern and postmodern world. Each volume is a reader of key texts from the theologian highlighted - the text entries are annotated a bit by the editors, and the editor of each volume provides an introduction setting the general stage for context and understanding.

   Editor John de Gruchy describes Bonhoeffer in simple terms -- as a witness to Jesus Christ. Bonhoeffer is no arm-chair theologian, but rather someone who put his theology into action, and became a modern-day martyr for his beliefs in what the gospel of Jesus Christ requires. Bonhoeffer was executed in 1945 for his part in the attempted assassination of Adolf Hitler, believing that what was finally required of Christian witness in Germany at the time was direct action against the evil that he embodied and perpetuated.

   Bonhoeffer was never a bone fide academic systematic theologian, but his writings, including those pieces he wrote in prison, have become classics of Christian literature. 'Letters and Papers from Prison' and 'The Cost of Discipleship' are known the world over, but are only part of a larger body of essays, lectures, sermons and books. Bonhoeffer's early upbringing, the son of a psychiatrist/professor, part of a Lutheran/Reformed family that was generally non-religious in outlook, was not one that would predict a theological career for young Dietrich -- in fact, his earliest interest in things theological may have had more to do with his desire to be different from his brothers and the rest of his family than any direct faith in the church. Bonhoeffer was a good student, but remained unswayed by any particular influence -- he was influenced by Kierkegaard, but not to the extent that Barth was; he used I-Thou language, but not taken directly from Martin Buber.

   Bonhoeffer was a parish minister, but continued to write during his pastorate. His work, 'Act and Being' was an exploration of the theology of action, including God's action in the world, and the theology of ontology, of being. After this work, Bonhoeffer spent time in America, at Union seminary in New York City, and developed there the beginnings of a theology of scripture and the Word. Back in Germany prior to the advent of the Nazi era (a period of relative political freedom in Germany), he worked on Christological issues. Bonhoeffer became the first Evangelical theologian to attack the Nazi's repressive policies. Was Bonhoeffer thinking that the freedom of expression that had come to be taken for granted in Germany would still exist under the Nazi regime?

   In what is arguably Bonhoeffer's most important work, 'The Cost of Discipleship', he argues against ideas such as cheap grace and doctrines of justification by faith that permit passive acceptance of evil policies and conditions in the world. Using the Sermon on the Mount as one example, he argues that the actions of discipleship are part of the grace bestowed, not in a works-righteousness manner, but nonetheless a requirement against what today we might term 'warm fuzzy feeling' theology.

   de Gruchy looks at several key areas of Bonhoeffer's work in the selected texts. The first section draws extensively from his doctoral dissertation, 'Sanctorum Communio', and his book 'Act and Being'. The other sections draw liberally on his other works as they relate to the topics at hand: Christology, the Confessing Church, Life of Free Responsibility, and finally, some of his last works from prison. de Gruchy speculates a bit on what a 'mature' Bonhoeffer who had lived might have looked like. He also includes a brief annotated listing of some key works that have been significantly influenced by Bonhoeffer's work.

   Each volume in this series also has a selected bibliography section -- this one for Bonhoeffer is divided into works by Bonhoeffer (primary sources in English), works about Bonhoeffer (secondary sources in English), and includes a text of larger bibliographic references. The book also has several indexes -- a place and subject index, and a names index. This is a very good book for scholarship. The translations of the works from the original German is new, preserving some of the language uses (masculine pronouns for God) while modifying others (gender neutral translations for terms such as Mensch, Menschen).

No comments about Galileo Galilei - Biography of the Father of Science (Biography).

3 comments about Gurdjieff: A Biography : The Anatomy of a Myth.

1. Having read this twice through, and having read a fair amount of related material, I must say that this is worth the time spent. Without getting lost in the ideas, the author introduced enough of them to be provacative and helpful, while covering the history more throughly than I have seen elsewhere. The book is very well written with good photographs and a great annotation section at the end which is particularly helpful. For those who enjoy fourth way reading, this book has a special place by mining some of the work idea vein while serving primarliy as a means of placing it in history. Definitely gives a good feeling of what an unusual, powerful and challenging man Gurdjieff was.



2. Gurdjieff remains a fascinating figure. Sadly the standard of writing is very poor. I don't know a great deal about the author but he sure ain't a scholar or academic on this evidence. Too much horrible, purple prose. Borrow it rather than buy it. Better still search for one of the few people still alive who can give a personal account of G.



3. I'll just say briefly that this book is the best biographic text of Gurdjieff available, and while it is a bit prolix it is not purple, as someone claimed. Actually I find it almost novelistically readable.

2 comments about The Time of My Life: An Autobiography.

1. An interesting book, a bit too long, and a very bad text-formatting job. One would expect much better from MIT press.



2. This autobiography is only `a factual account of external things'.
   It is a summing up of the author's travel experiences and symposia reminiscences.
   It contains only very superficial sketches of his family life and professional career and nearly nothing about his philosophical work or about discussions with colleagues.
   There are no emotions, no comments on political or social events, on war or peace. Nothing.
   
   I cannot recommend this book.
   
   For an introduction to the work of Quine, I recommend an interview with Bryan Magee published in `Talking Philosophy: dialogues with Fifteen Leading Philosophers.'

2 comments about On Godel (Wadsworth Philosophers Series).

1. This is a very interesting introduction to the thought and life of a great mathemetician and sometime philosopher. Hintikka has a clear writing style that helps with some difficult material and has special ability in making complicated math seem not so daunting. An excellent overview of the life of Godel.



2. I'm surprised that the previous review did not comment on the number of typographical errors; as far as I can see there is only one edition. The typos range from the merely distracting, to places where sentences become gibberish. Based on content, I'd give this at least 4 stars, but I found it too difficult to read. It's a nice complement to *Goedel's Proof* by Nagel and Newman--N & N give a much clearer exposition of Goedel's work, but Hintikka brings up a number of points I have not seen elsewhere (warning: many of the points raised can't be fully understood without referring to other works that treat them in more depth, unless you already have a strong background in mathematical foundations and logic).