No comments about Michael Polyani: A Critical Exposition (Suny Series in Cultural Perspectives).

No comments about Georg Lukács and His Generation, 1900-1918.

3 comments about Isaiah Berlin: Letters 1928-1946.

1. If you are interested in Isaiah Berlin, and in understanding his roots and evolution, this is the book for you. These letters cover the period of 1928-1946, and deal with some very fascinating topics such as Oxford in the 1930's, Berlin's service in Washington and New York during World War II, and a cast of well known British, Continental and American characters. The collection is immeasurably enhanced by yet another superb job of editing by Henry Hardy, including an extended preface, extensive notes and a biographical directory which save the American reader from becoming too lost. But Berlin being Berlin, the letters are sometimes overly long, may deal with mundate topics, can be maddeningly repetitive, or lose one in the intricacies of Oxford and the academic life. Berlin is absolutely unrestrained in his comments, both pro and con, since these were meant to be private letters, and his views of some fellow academics can be devastating. However, he can positively support some individuals, such as H.L.A. Hart whose initial appointment as Fellow and Philosophy Tutor at New College Berlin strongly advocated. The book is dedicated to Hart's wife who provided indispensable assistance to Hardy in putting all this material together. As the letters illustrate, Berlin's prolonged struggle in writing his book on Karl Marx goes a long way toward explaining why his book output was so limited and he preferred to express his thinking in essays. This first volume concludes when Berlin is 37 and has returned to Oxford. By this point in the letters, one begins to have a very solid grasp of Berlin's character, interests, interactions, and ambitions. "Berlin on Berlin" is beyond question the best way to come to know and understand him.



2. Few philosophers in the twentieth century have had more of an impact on their times than Isaiah Berlin. Born in Russia in 1909, he immigrated to Great Britain with his family in 1921, where he went on to a fantastically successful academic career, first at New College, Oxford, then as a fellow of All Souls. His burgeoning career as a young philosopher (during which time he wrote his excellent short biography of Karl Marx) was put on hold by the Second World War. Though initially destined for the Soviet Union, he ended up in the United States, where he wrote weekly surveys of American politics that were unmatched for their insights and still reward reading.
   
   Berlin's insights were not just reserved for his superiors in London, though, as they infused his correspondence with his family and friends. This book, the first of three projected volumes, collects the letters he wrote during these early years, giving us a unique view of the man and his times. The Isaiah Berlin we see in these pages is witty and perceptive, not just about the people he encountered but about himself. His pride in his identity as a Jew is also apparent, and the letters chronicle his interaction with the flourishing Zionist movement of the 1940s as well as his involvement in academics and his work for the British embassy.
   
   Berlin's erudition also is evident in these pages, as is his penchant for name-dropping. Navigating through the people and places he writes about is a monumental task, and one that the editor, Henry Hardy, performs admirably. His footnotes provide an indispensable guide to the letters, vastly increasing the reader's understanding of Berlin's activities and encounters. The result is a work that offers a window into life in interwar Britain, the politics of wartime America, and the life of a great intellectual who lived in the world rather than apart from it.



3. "Life is not worth living unless one can be indiscrete to intimate friends', opines the remarkable Berlin in this collection of his early letters. Isaiah Berlin is one of the most engaging figures of twentieth century letters, and this early first volume stretches from his school years, through to his classic work on Marx, thence the war, and subsequent Cold War. Berlin the witty conversationalist manifests in these epistolations, with their colorful background amidst ominous political events of high drama.

5 comments about Philosopher: A Kind of Life.

1. I'll admit up front that I haven't read all of Honerich's memoir. But of the excerpts I've read, it has already become clear to me how misleading and shallow the "Publisher's Weekly" review (posted above) of this book is.

   You might expect Honderich to discuss his life in a respectable and proud way. Not so. He is completely frank and detached from his own past behaviors--as he says, it is a kind of confession. Although more of the book is in passive voice, this does not make it less exciting. Quite the contrary.

   Who else would, for no apparent reason other than that he thinks everything must be told, describe his one encounter with a prostitute, or his numerous relationships with women? Honderich also does a good job of describing how he beacame a philosopher, and the kind of life he leads as a professor of philosophy in the zany world of academia.

   This book is not the usual kind of autobiography; it's much more than that, and it's a shame that "Publisher's Weekly" didn't take the time to realize this.




2. Being a fan of the philosophy Honderich does, I admit to being dissapointed at the sort of re-telling his life has recieved. The clarity and knowledge that exist in his professional work are translated here...to the most tedious degree. One senses a Continental cloud descending as one attempts to remember the last page read. He was dating who? His colleague said what? The nerve...and the boredom. After reading the life of Ayer retold by another, I wonder if Ted should have waited for posthumous recollection. He seems to be leading the same life as his mentor, minus the dash. Proceed immediately to the last chapter and philosophical summary to retain your interest.

   Honderich maintains an excellent web site, devoted to issues of determinism and the ravaging of his critics. I suggest you visit there instead of these pages...it's free.




3. I have read all of Philosopher: A Kind of Life, and have some away with mixed feelings, and a mixed evaluation. I think that the book does represent a life in all its messiness and tensions, something which may not appeal to analytic minds less worldly (or sensual, or interesting) than Honderich is. On the other hand, my general picture of the man himself is one of a man who has the virtue of honesty in spades, but this has left him short of some of the other virtues. His vanity, roving eye for the women, and academic ambitiousness left me cringing throughout the book, and I do not consider myself a moralizer. Above all, he is continuously rationalizing his behavior, and hoping that you take his side because 'at least he is being honest about it.' To potential readers I would say: a compelling read, though you will find yourself in a relationship with Ted, and you might find this unhealthy.



4. While Honerich's book contains some interesting insights into the characters of the philosophers with whom he has come into contact, I find his constant bragging about how many undergraduates he has slept with rather off-putting. Far from being a confession of his exploitative behaviour, Honderich revels in his own skill at avoiding official censure for his actions at several universities (it is not difficult to see why he got on so famously with the late A. J. Ayer). Honderich has a reputation for being an intimidating opponent in debate, not because his arguments are particularly powerful but, because he bullys his adversaries into submission. He clearly carries this trait into his private life. The book does not leave one with much admiration for its author, in spite of his achievements in climbing the academic hierarchy. What I find in this book is yet another example of a misogynistic lecturer smugly reminiscing about how he got away with exploiting young women over whom he held academic power. This book is not particularly badly written but is not a heartening read.



5. This is the self-biography of a narcisist but conscious and honest person, who as such must be prized. It is informative, reflexive, sensitive and very well-written, with some liric pages, as in the description of his trip to Irland, where he met his second wife. About his academic and judicial strugles, one can only regret the smallness of this kind of life. And about his sexual adventures with students, I suspect this was harmless for all, except for him. I've learned something by reading this book and I recomend.

No comments about Objects of Enquiry: The Life, Contributions, and Influence of Sir William Jones (1746-1794).

1 comments about Black Philosopher, White Academy: The Career of William Fontaine.

1. Kuklick is not pushing the story of a heroic, iconic individual--Fontaine is not cast as a symbol of racial improvement.
   
   Instead he's telling the story of an individual whose career in academia was unlikely, rare for its time, and was, in fact, a mentor to Kuklick at the University of Pennsylvania. Fontaine's scholarly contributions, and his broader importance are both discussed.
   
   Race in higher education is a subject that will not go away any time soon, and this book certainly pushes the discussion forward.

1 comments about Germs: A Memoir of Childhood.

1. This memoir set in pre-World War II England has many very well written passages that nicely evoke a bygone era. It is centered on Professor Wollheim's recollections and introspections on his emotional start to life. With his sexual identity up in the air, being a social zero, and faced with irrational fears at every turn, this was not a blissfully happy childhood. Dr. Freud would have had a field day with this raw material of a life.

No comments about Schopenhauer (Blackwell Great Minds).

1 comments about G. K. Chesterton: Thinking Backward, Looking Forward.

1. A late Victorian-era/early modern age author/thinker, some of whose writings were precursors to science fiction and others which are seen as reactionary and in some cases bigoted and narrow-minded, G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936) is impossible to categorize. And Clark doesn't try. Rather than attempt to give a coherent, rational perspective of the prolific English author--an inevitably procrustean effort--Clark critiques many of Chesterton's diverse writings. Not only something of an exegesis of these writings, the critiques also entail putting them in a social context, noting their influence, and explaining what was controversial or provocative about them. Clark does not go so far as to be an apologist, but gives some background for a broader view of Chesterton's seemingly outdated and sometimes offensive opinions and remarks which have been called anti-Semitic, misogynistic, and anti-Darwin. As Clark--an English professor of philosophy--shows, all of Chesterton's writings and ideas, inspiring as well as irksome, grew out of his ingrained, vital, immense optimism. This optimism not only aroused him to be sharply critical of contemporary influences such as nihilism and science and progressive social developments such a women's suffrage and relativism, but also gave him a vision of ideal, desirable conditions for humanity.

5 comments about Hannah Arendt/Martin Heidegger.

1. The German tradition in philosophy has been so notoriously wrong about the nature of women so often that it is only fair that I, who usually appears as nobody in the world of philosophy as often as I am wrongly genedered in any attempt to belong to the world of women, have to read this book occasionally to remind myself how unfair this whole question must be in any context. That philosophy, as a love of wisdom, might be compared to a love of women, as the kind of passion that Mozart might attempt to display in operatic splendor in "Don Giovanni" (I think this is the most reasonable opera that I have ever heard) faces grave danger in a book in which the man who has embraced most totally the greatness of philosophy (who but Heidegger might want this distinction?), is slammed for having an unreasonable love life. For all I know, this might have been the story of a philosopher who might as well have thought that all was fair in love and war, but it is really the story of the woman. The perfection in this book, for me, was the idea that Heidegger might have been offended when Arendt triumphantly returned to Germany as the author of a book on totalitarianism in which the style of the Nazi regime, which Heidegger supported in certain official capacities, was treated like communism under Stalin, the kind of enemy of freedom that modern people ought to be able to understand in a negative light much better than anything positive that I could say at this point. I doubt if I would have had much interest in Hannah Arendt, if not for this book. It made me wish that I could be that smart.



2. Just to be fair: The book is not exhaustive but nor is it "tabloid" as one reviewer put it. And it is certainly not "soft porn". There is nothing "lurid" in these pages. The writing is, as the more fair-minded reviewer suggested, restrained in a respectful way, to all parties concerned.
   This brief account does not set out to describe the impact the affair had on the two individuals' respective work. For anyone to demand such an account seems to me totally unreasonable: That a private passion of the heart always impacts one's intellectual work is by no means a given.
   What this book shows you, regardless of the subjective tinge the author may have imposed on the characters in question, is the mystery of the workings of the heart. Ettinger sketches a portrait of a woman in love but not just any woman, but a woman of exceptional intelligence, expansive soul, and loyalty -- to her own ideals of friendship. Cloying speculations concerning the psychological causes -- childhood traumas, etc -- that may have led these two individuals to live and love the way they did are left out and the book is the more elegant and tactful for it.
   To call Arendt a naif for the way she allowed herself to be "abused over and over again" would be to admit to total lack of understanding of the very nature of love. Arendt shows over and over her desire, need, psychosis -- choose your favorite term -- to forgive a man who in many ways was unforgiveable. Love does that.
   In this double portrait of two people who happened to be academic thinkers, some 50 years is rendered as if it were a day. Heidegger comes off here as a man not above the sort of pettiness and calculation you and I lapse into occasionally, while Arendt is portrayed, without forcing any evidence to this purpose, as the kind of woman who could leave behind a legacy of not only of thinking but also of loving in the grand style. Great and important as Heidegger may be in the history of western philosophy, he may, alas, very well have been one of those gnomish professors we've all come across in our lives: brilliant and thus all the more annoying when they put their intelligence and intellect in the service of self-serving calculation. This book, written in clear prose and balance, confirms the disturbing (and disappointing) fact character and thought are not always equally winged.
   Forget the names of the characters involved. Read it as a document of a love that would have made a great B&W movie as well, with the late Ingrid Bergman as Arendt, and Mickey Rooney as Heidegger.



3. The story of Arendt and Heidigger's love affair is an interesting one, and this book is interesting because it tells that story, but for no other reason. The author seems to have chosen this subject becuase she had access to the material in the archive, and not because she had anything to say about the subject. It left me feeling that, aside from a a few gossipy details, I knew no more about either person than before. Not only do Arendt and Heidigger remain elusive, Ettinger does not even seem to want to go after them! Their relationship is primerily of interest becuase of what they thought and wrote: Ettinger presents the few enough facts about their relationship in a readable style, but has no grasp of the thought of either one.

   I find it impossible to agree with reviewer quoted on the back of the jacket, that this is "a most valuble book, an important record". It isn't: it's an evening's light reading. I can imagine a biographer of either figure (or a playwright or novelist, for that matter), immersed and *interested* in their work, who will really show us why their relartionship was important. (And why was a book that must of necessity include German names and words set in a typeface without umlauts? Bizarre!)




4. First let me sound completely old- fashioned. The Heidegger - Arendt affair is immoral from the beginning because it is an adulterous relationship.
   Secondly, Herr Philosopher did use his power and position to enchant the very enchantable fledgling philosopheress.
   Thirdly, however morally distasteful the relationship before the War its renewal afterwards represents a tremendous moral failing on Arendt's part.
   Fourthly, Arendt showed in ' Eichmann in Jerusalem' a kind of contempt for her own Jewishness. Her willingness to slip over Heidegger's Nazi connection shows a moral failing at the deepest level. Heidegger is no ordinary person, and as person of stature much more , not much less, should have been expected with him. He identified with those who killed one third of Arendt's people.
   Fifthly, Jaspers Arendt's other great mentor and friend was a truly noble person. He set an example in regard to Heidegger which Arendt unfortunately was unable to follow.
   Sixthly, Arendt in this relationship from the beginning was the subordinate, the secondary, and in some way the ' slave'. The Jew subordinated to the superior Aryan Heidegger. She never overcame this, and this represents a tremendous moral stain. She was a great thinker and in some of her life actions a noble person but in this relationship she failed the moral test. Heidegger was a Nazi sympathizer. For that reason I believe he deserves his own special place in a very low circle underground.



5. This slim volume was a book I had chosen thinking that it contained actual correspondence between Arendt and Heidegger. Instead it is the interpretation of these letters along with biographical details to portray the relationship between Arendt and Heidegger. This relationship began as a love affair between Arendt and Heidegger when Arendt was Heidegger's student.
   
   Ettinger's depiction of the interaction between Arendt and Heidegger is painful to read. According to Ettinger, Arendt was slavishly devoted to Heidegger and believed anything he said despite evidence to the contrary. She defended him despite his activities as a Nazi sympathizer. And she assisted Heidegger to restore his reputation after WWII.
   
   Heidegger is presented as a narcissistic manipulator who uses his charisma to cover up his bad behavior, and appears to believe his own lies, becoming angry when people challenged him. Arendt is portrayed as a pathetically willing dupe who is so enthralled by the psychopathic Heidegger that she does not challenge him, and accepts his pretences as the necessary payment to be his friend.
   
   The book is readable but shows little sympathy toward either character. It is a sordid and psychologically simplistic portrait of a relationship. It is to be hoped that there is more to the story than is portrayed here, however the pattern portayed here of emotional dominance and submission is not an uncommon one.