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For more than half a century, the renowned liberal thinker Sir Isaiah Berlin has occupied an important spot at the center of British intellectual and public life. Recipient of knighthood and the Order of Merit, he has been the head of an Oxford College and the director of the Royal Opera House. During World War II, he acted asWinston Churchill's eyes and ears in America. He is also a talented and prolific writer with five volumes of essays to his name. Surprisingly, John Gray's book is only the third full-length examination of one of this century's seminal thinkers. ... Read more

Reviews (7)

Political philosophy at its best
The four essays in this work are 1) Political Ideas in the Twentieth Century 2)Historical Inevitability3) Two Concepts of Liberty 4) John Stuart Mill and the Ends of Life."
In the first essay Berlin laments the tendency of twentieth century thinking to deprive the great questions of their significance and substitute for them technical questions alone. In the second Berlin argues that the notion of historical inevitabity is untenable and that our everyday life and historical experience require a kind of liberty . In the third he makes his famous contrast between freedom from, and freedom to, or for. And in the last he explores the political thought of John Stuart Mill one of his great predecessors and through Mill's mirror develops some of his own ideas.
First and above all Berlin stands against the idea that there is a single system or idea an absolute which all Mankind should be coerced into obedience to. Berlin in his thinking points to the plurality of ends and values in life, and the contradictions between various systems of values. He is a liberal philosopher who connects the dignity of Mankind with this liberty from external coercion and oppression.
His writing is profound and yet somehow conversational and flowing .
This work contains the heart of the thought of one of the great political thinkers of our time.

Lays out Berlin's thoughts pretty well!
This book came out in the mid 1990s right when the biggest debates were dealing with cultural diversity and affirmative action. No book not even this one can capture the essence and writings of Berlin's writing that expanded nearly six decades yet it provides a fresh analysis of his ideas to those who aren't familiar with the 'history of ideas' and unleashed in the public debate about what to do about the remnants of liberalism and multiculturalism in this day and age. I recommend buying this highly.

It's Deeper Than You Might Suppose!
"One belief, more than any other, is responsible for the slaughter of individuals on the altars of the great ideas....This is the belief, that somewhere in the past or in the future, in divine revelation or in the mind of an individual thinker...there is a final solution."

Isaiah Berlin has been somewhat wrongly looked at simply as a historian of ideas. While he is that, this book is fertile with ideas, old, new, original and daring. What start out as four essays on liberty, turn out to reveal an astute world view. The one quoted above is taken from the third essay, his famous "Two Concepts of Liberty." In it he argues that the division between 'freedom from' and 'freedom to' is a subtle intertwine, more delicate than we often suppose. In the end, we must err on the side of 'freedom from' for one important reason; while the abscence of coercion might leave loose ends, by trying to tighten all loose ends, the rope loses all slack. Without the metaphor, by coercing others, we assume that our viewpoint is the only correct one and force others to live uniform to our ideas.

This is the theme that runs through all four essays. The first, "Political Ideas in the Twentieth Century" examines the failure of all the isms then en vogue; communism, fascism, socialism. Same idea. They preached of a graspable absolute truth that in the end, proved not so handleable. The second essay, "Historical Inevitability" tackles the problem at the root; the belief that our actions are determined and that free will is an illusion. Berlin, while not trying to disprove it (try, you can't do it!), exposes it as untenable. Every thought, action, word and concept we evoke is dependant upon belief in human autonomy. This essay is quite long and began to repeat itself a bit. Fight off the urge to skip through it. Very meaty!!

The last essay, "John Stuart Mill and the Ends of Life" is something of a recap of the ideas presented in the book. It is Berlins tribute and critique (Mill would've approved) of Mill, his philosophy and his life which unlike most philosophers, was lived in complete accordance with his views.

Great book. The only problems I had were the length of the second essay and Berlin's annoying habit of turning every sentence into a twenty-one lined, 12 comma, infinitive after split infinitive beast. Although his language is beautiful (a la Barzun), this was hard to get used to. HIs thoughts, though, are classic.

THE 20th Century's Man of Letters
I won't review the four essays, except to state the obvious: They concern liberty, and what liberty entails. But that much one could ascertain from the title.

What the title does not reveal is how penetrating Berlin's analyses of the myriad subjects he comments on. His prose is exemplary, and his style endearing. Many learned people think Lionel Trilling, Erich Auerbach, Jacques Barzun, etc., are the men of letters for the 20th century reader. As enjoyable as many of these and other authors of the 20th century have been, I am amazed at how infrequently Berlin is listed among them. Yet, his mind is keener, his prose more mellifluous, and his ideas more interesting than almost anyone else of his Age.

Berlin is not a difficult read, but he is a challenging one. His weave of ideas and his elaborate critiques will require attention, but give him your attention, and he'll reward you plenteously. He is a genuine philosopher who deals with issues of the common man, not the nuances of linguistics; he is concerned with freedom, the life well-lived, and ideas that are important (not just fasionable). This collection of four essays is as good a place as any to introduce yourself to one of the 20th century's true giants of belle letters.

A Serious Vision
Agreed. Berlin's book is not the easiest in the world to read. But, then again, neither is Plato, or John Locke, or even Mill for that matter. He writes in a 19th century style, but one which, I think is beautiful and elegant. This is not a book to be devoured, but to be savored. Each word is carefully crafted. To me, Berlin is like diving into a pool of the english language, and just floating in ideas and language.And the ideas are wonderful. More than any other political philosopher, Berlin has diagnosed the problems, and the dangers, of modern social and political thinking. When he argues that those who advocate limits on liberty, in the name of justice, or equality, or another ideal, are in fact diminishing the amount of liberty in society as a whole it is hard not to agree with him. His analysis of the problems of modern philosophy and political thought is as acute.These are the ideas that I now find most compelling in this book. The essay of the two types of liberty is wonderful, as is the one on Historical Inevitability. But it is the essay on Political Ideas in the 20th Century that has become my favorite over the year, for the simple reason that he was incredibly prophetic. In the 19th century, Berlin argues, conservatives and liberal, even socialists, despite their differences agreed on the fundamental questions of politics; who should rule? What is the basis of authority? Why should I obey? What are the obligations and responsibilities of citizenship? In the 20th century, we no longer even consider the questions to be important, or relevant. All political problems have been reduced to either technical matters, of social or economic engineering, or are treated as psychological disorders, that need theraputic treatment.We accept the lost of liberty because we no longer think of it as important, as a question that needs solving. Problems like poverty, or equality, or a cleaner environment, which are suseptible of technical solutions. Anyone who worried about liberty in the face of all of these problems was, ipso facto, crazy, and a refusal to face reality. Hence, prozac or lithium is the prescribed course of treatment, to remove the source, or at least the feeling, of discontent.It is time to take another look at Berlin, not merely as a defender of liberty, but as an analyst of modern political and social thinking, and the dead ends to which it is leading us. ... Read more

Book Description

This brief text assists students in understanding Foucault's philosophy and thinking so that they can more fully engage in useful, intelligent class dialogue and improve their understanding of course content. Part of the "Wadsworth Philosophers Series," (which will eventually consist of approximately 100 titles, each focusing on a single "thinker" from ancient times to the present), ON FOUCAULT is written by a philosopher deeply versed in the philosophy of this key thinker. Like other books in the series, this concise book offers sufficient insight into the thinking of a notable philosopher better enabling students to engage in the reading and to discuss the material in class and on paper. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Not a Bad Supplemetary Text. . .
. . .but in serious need of an editor. It has numerous problems, from typos to continuity issues to a fairly jumbled (but apparently unintentionally so, ha ha) ordering of ideas within the text. This only interferes with readability in a few places, but it might be enough to confuse a reader who is new to either Foucault's ideas or this style of academic writing. Despite this, I think it should come in handy as an accessible gloss of some difficult material. On the other hand, it would be a shame to substitute reading this for reading either the original texts or competing interpretations of Foucault's work. ... Read more

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Reviews (2)

Heartwarming and Intellectually Engaging
Jaspers and Arendt cover everything and everyone: Sartre, Heidegger, Marx, Goethe, Camus; post-WWII Germany, "the infinitely complex red-tape existence of stateless persons," the Cold War, the "senile" Eisenhower administration, Eichmann, totalitarianism, the atom bomb, local democracy--it's all there. So too is a life-long, extremely close friendship between people who weathered a war from different sides of the globe, who faced cold war terror in radically different ways, who loved their spouses intensely but felt somehow separated by differences in world-view tracable to ethnicity(Gertrude was ethnically Jewish and Heinrich was ethnically Christian). Her admiration of him, her intellectual debt to him, her love for him; his seeming amazement at her vivacity, his admiration of her intellect, his cold, German form of love--and the walls cracking, and his sentiment sometimes pouring through.

It's a warm book up until the very last entry, Arendt's address at Jaspers' funeral. That's enough to send a shiver up your spine--but only if you read it in the context of everything else.

More Than a Correspondence - A Dialogue
In 1926 Hannah Arendt was a student of Karl Jaspers at Heidelberg University. What began as the questions of a student to her teacher in 1926 blossomed into a friendly correspondence that ended with Arendt's forced emigration from Nazi Germany to the United States, with a stopover in France in the 30s, and then resumed in the Postwar years completely transformed into a rich, detailed dialogue between colleagues and friends, taking on a father-daughter feeling in many of the letters.

It was during the years after 1945 that the two examined everything about their world and themselves. Of particular importance were the dual issues of German guilt for the war and, for Jaspers, what it meant to be a Jew, for not only was Arendt and her husband Jewish, but also Jaspers's wife. This issue becomes intertwined in their conversations about the future of West Germany, the Suez War of 1956, and Arendt's trip to Jerusalem to cover the trial of Adolf Eichmann. When they shift the political into the personal, Martin Heidegger, a colleague of Jaspers and a teacher of Arendt, is there for taking. The passages concerning Heidegger are quite gossipy at times and lend the reader a voyeuristic look into the private worlds of Arendt and Jaspers. It's almost as if when things get dull and weighty, a little dirt about Heidegger adds just the spice to make the letter memorable.

The other strong point of this book is the portrait Arendt paints of politics in 1950s America, succinctly analyzing the Eisenhower (and later Kennedy) Administrations, describing the collapse of the cities in the 60s, and the "pointless" war in Vietnam. It's almost as if a mirror were held up to history, as insights about those turbelent times pour forth from every letter dispatched.

An invaluable book, not only for those interested in the scholarly events of the times, but for anyone interested in the history of the times. ... Read more

Book Description

This brief text assists students in understanding Quine's philosophy and thinking so that they can more fully engage in useful, intelligent class dialogue and improve their understanding of course content. Part of the "Wadsworth Philosophers Series," (which will eventually consist of approximately 100 titles, each focusing on a single "thinker" from ancient times to the present), ON QUINE is written by a philosopher deeply versed in the philosophy of this key thinker. Like other books in the series, this concise book offers sufficient insight into the thinking of a notable philosopher better enabling students to engage the reading and to discuss the material in class and on paper. ... Read more

Book Description

Throughout his life, German philosopher Karl Jaspers (1883–1969) recorded his experiences and reflections in diaries and correspondence. This comprehensive biography is the first to explore these extensive and candid private writings that illuminate not only Jaspers’ life and relationships but also the ideas he proposed in Way to Wisdom, The Question of German Guilt, and many other published works.

Suzanne Kirkbright provides a sensitive and intimate portrait of the philosopher whose work on truth, personal integrity, and the capacity for communication contrasted acutely with the erosion of such values in Germany in his lifetime. She describes how Jaspers’ Jewish wife, Gertrud, influenced his thinking, the loss in 1937 of his professorship at Heidelberg University, and his relationship with such celebrated colleagues as Martin Heidegger and Hannah Arendt. Kirkbright examines the unshakeable ethical content of Jaspers’ philosophy and demonstrates his unique and scrupulous personal adherence to the philosophical principles he espoused.





... Read more

Book Description

This is the most important book about the nature of philosophy and of the human soul published this year. In making the condition for its own possibility its deepest concern, philosophy is necessarily about itself-it is autobiographical. The first part of "The Autobiography of Philosophy" interprets Heidegger's "Being and Time", Nietzsche's "On the Genealogy of Morals", Aristotle's "Metaphysics", and Plato's "Lysis" as examples of the implicitly autobiographical character of philosophy. The second part is a reading of Rousseau's "The Reveries of the Solitary Walker". Although Rousseau's explicitly autobiographical writings are more often read for the tantalizing details of his rather eccentric life than for their philosophical import, this work is an artful use of Rousseau's exile and isolation-"the strangest position in which a mortal could ever find himself"-as a paradigm for the human soul in its relation to the world. In powerfully articulating the activity that is at the core of all philosophy, "The Reveries" articulates the nature of the human soul for which this activity is the defining possibility. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

An excellent guide to the deeper meaning of Rousseau
Here one walks into profound reveries of unraveled clarity. Davis's book is a powerful, inspired, and enormously thought explication which gives birth to new wisdom honoring the words of Rousseau. Davis knows that theonly way to do justice to himis to faithfully and painstakingly followRousseau's path. He is the most fortunate of authors to have Michael Davisas his companion. Suffer the first four chapters; what follows, especiallyin the last two chapters, will justify your effort to understand. Anyoneinterested in philosophy should read this book. ... Read more

Book Description

"What is truth other than to fully live for an idea?" It is amazing that the voice of this modern John the Baptist was not recognized in the English-speaking world until almost 100 years after his death in 1855. When Kierkegaard was finally translated, he emerged from the subconscious of an era, and his thinking had a stunning impact. Here were the ideas which a disillusioned world needed in order to understand what was going on in the 20th century - and here was a call for every single individual, whether Christian, Buddhist, or atheist, to look deeper and scrutinize the landscape of their own precarious existence.

This beautiful treasury presents Kierkegaard's existential philosophy in light of his religious experience and devout Christian faith. Contains quotes and inspirational passages, full color photos, interviews with scholars, and a concise biographical sketch - an accessible introduction to a fascinating thinker. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A "must read" for all Kierkegaard enthusiasts.
Soren Kierkegaard original wrote his philosophy of life in the 1840s and offered more than 13,000 pages of existential thought and exploration into the meaning of Christianity and God. His work was not discovered by the French existentialist movement until after his death and became widelyknown in the 1930s. In Soren Kierkegaard: An Authentic Life, The Life AndWritings Of A Christian Philosopher With Samples From His Works, Ben Alexshares his profound and personal experiences of pilgrimage to Denmark andhis detailed and exhaustive studies of Kierkegaard's powerful life andthought. This Northstone Publishing edition is a beautiful treasury ofKierkegaard's existential philosophy in light of his religious experienceand devout faith. Compelling photographs link Kierkegaard's words toimportant historical sites. This highly recommended compendium of quotes,inspirational passages, and interviews with scholars, is enhanced for thestudent of Kierkegaard's work with a concise biographical sketch. ... Read more

Book Description

ON MAIMONIDES, like other titles in the Wadsworth Philosopher's Series, offers a concise, yet comprehensive, introduction to this philosopher's most important ideas. Presenting the most important insights of well over a hundred seminal philosophers in both the Eastern and Western traditions, the Wadsworth Philosophers Series contains volumes written by scholars noted for their excellence in teaching and for their well-versed comprehension of each featured philosopher's major works and contributions. These titles have proven valuable in a number of ways. Serving as standalone texts when tackling a philosophers' original sources or as helpful resources for focusing philosophy students' engagements with these philosopher's often conceptually daunting works, these titles have also gained extraordinary popularity with a lay readership and quite often serve as "refreshers" for philosophy instructors. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

This book should not have been published
Chris Taylor has produced an apalling book. Impossible to read, convoluted and meandering, 'Socrates' appears designed to make philosophy less accessible to the average reader than more. It is strange that Oxford would publish such a jargon-filled book as an introduction. Most of the text deals with Socrates' background and his historical context. This is fine in theory, but leaves little space to explain the philosopher's work. When Taylor finally gets around to Socrates' position, he seems to assume that the reader has a full understanding of the philosophical lines of thought of the time (eg. the sophists, the cynics). I finished the book having no idea of the meaning of Socrates' key belief, that "knowledge is virtue". Taylor uses visual language that confuses rather than clarifies his arguments, such as "a keystone of the arch". The conclusion is a good example of Taylor's absurd style: "Every age has to recreate its own Socrates. What is his significance for a post-Christian, post-idealist epoch for whom neiher the figure of a precursor of Christ nor that of the embodiment of the world-spirit in its development of a higher form of consciousness has any meaning?"

Good for those with a background in philosophy.
Taylor's SOCRATES is detailed and scholarly, and a useful work for those who have already had a fair amount of exposure to the Platonic dialogues. However, its level of technicality is liable to confuse and frustrate beginners, who just want a readable overview of who Socrates was and what he taught. Even these readers will benefit from the first chapter, which discusses the life of Socrates, but the following chapters, which deal with his thought and influence, will be heavy-going for the average reader. As such, this book is recommended to philosophers, but really is too advanced to qualify as a standard introduction.

Too difficult for an introduction
This is the fifth Very Short Introduction I've read (others included Logic, Ancient Philosophy, Anthropology, and Sociology) and it is the first that wasn't fun to read. I think Taylor's style is too academic for a series like this. Sentences like "I do not wish to suggest that Plato had a clear grasp of the distinction between purely conceptual definitions and the substantive type of account exemplified by the cognitive theory" (60) require entirely too much examination and prior knowledge of the subject to be considered introductory material for most people reading without tutelage. And there are plenty of more detailed books alraedy available that are written in that style.

I do not wish to suggest that I'm an idiot, but I do look for something a bit more breezy in an introduction to a topic. I think many people turn to introductions because the original works can sometimes be a slog to read. I choose carefully which original works I'm going to make the effort to read, and I want introductions to material that will either a) bring me up to speed on things I don't have the time to read, b) give me basic information to choose more wisely which works to read or c) expand works I've already read. Having already read The Republic, I found that none of these 3 goals was accomplished by this volume. Its a shame, too, because VSI has been by far and away my favorite series of introductions. I hope they rethink this Socrates introduction and publish a new one aimed at a more general audience.

An Excellent Introduction to Socratic Philosophy
Most of the books in the Past Masters series serve as excellent introductions to the profound insights and complex ideas produced by humanity's greatest thinkers. Cristopher Taylor's edition on Socrates is no exception. Perhaps the most important philosopher in history, the thoughts of Socrates remain as valuable today as they were more than two thousand years ago. Many of Socrates' ideas still serve as the foundation of much modern thought and retain the power to stimulate the most critical of intellects. Taylor does an excellent job of describing the many important aspects of both Socrates' life and his ideas. The book provides a short biography, examines the validity and reliability of what his contemporaries wrote about him (Socrates wrote nothing himself), examines his influence on Plato while exploring the distinctions between the two great thinkers, and provides a thorough and enlightening summation of Socrates' main ideas (especially in regards to ethics). This book should serve as an enjoyable and informative read for both the casual reader and the philosophical enthusiast. ... Read more

Book Description

The ongoing renaissance in Descartes studies has been characterized by an attempt to understand the philosopher's texts against his own intellectual background. Roger Ariew here argues that Cartesian philosophy should be regarded as it was in Descartes's own day--as a reaction against, as well as an indebtedness to, scholastic philosophy. His book illuminates Cartesian philosophy by analyzing debates between Descartes and contemporary schoolmen and surveying controversies arising in its first reception. The volume touches upon many topics and themes shared by Cartesian and late scholastic philosophy: matter and form; infinity, place, time, void, and motion; the substance of the heavens; the object or subject of metaphysics; principles of metaphysics (being and ideas) and transcendentals (for example, unity, quantity, principle of individuation, truth and falsity). Part I exhibits the differences and similarities among the doctrines of Descartes and those of Jesuits and other scholastics in seventeenth-century France. The contrasts Descartes drew between his philosophy and that of others are the subject of Part II, which also examines some arguments in which he was involved and details the continued controversy caused by Cartesianism in the second half of the seventeenth century. ... Read more

Book Description

Aristotle, originally published in 1923, is now re-issued with a new introduction by John L. Ackrill, which reviews developments in Aristotelian studies since Sir David Ross originally wrote his classic study. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Aclassic review of Aristotle
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.

Aristotle unraveled
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, occasionallycontradictory and often just plain difficult to understand. In addition,Aristotle was a scientist first and philosopher second. This makes hisworks, which we read for their philosophical content, more difficult tograsp in some cases. Further, as with any translated works, varioustranslators convey Aristotle's assertions in different ways, some of themmore useful than others.

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

As a graduate student in philosophy, Ifind Ross' work to be very helpful and expect to use it extensively asbackground material for my thesis. But the value derived from reading andunderstanding Aristotle is not limited to students or philosophers, and thevalue of Ross' book is wide-ranging as well. Aristotlewill be helpful tostudents, teachers or lay readers interested in philosophy but strugglingwith some of the archaic attitudes presented in many translations of ThePhilosopher's work. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

The Impossible Thought of Georges Bataille
This translation of Surya's 1992 biography of the notoriously contradictory French writer contains nearly 500 pages of text supported by 86 pages of notes. It is the first full-length biography in either English or French. Bataille is decidedly an acquired taste, and this book may well persuade you to admire this neo-Sadean thinker who spent his nearly sixty-five years (1897-1962) as a "paleographic archivist" at the Bibliothèque Nationale and, finally, as the director of the Orléans Municipal Library. Anyone who can weave together Bataille's scatophilic and necrophilic obsessions with his literary themes and debauched private life as Surya has without sensationalism or prurience surely earns my admiration. Surya does full justice to his subject's innovative claims concerning the role of consumption in capitalist civilization; the negative features of so-called inner experience; the alleged links between eroticism and death; and the impossibility of community. Indirectly, Surya shows how Bataille's persistent preoccupation with the "informe" (formless) not only illuminates some of the most cutting-edge academic work in art history and literary criticism today, but also eerily foreshadows recent scientific theories of catastrophe, chaos and cosmic evolution. Surya is particularly good at displaying the development of Bataille's "impossible" thought against the background of French left-wing political activity and so successfully distances Bataille from any easy embrace of French (or German) fascism, a predilection for which hasty readers infer from his "The Psychological Structure of of Fascism" (1933)--the first analysis of its subject from a psychoanalytical point of view, according to Surya (p.177).
Surya's book is not an easy read, however, if you're expecting the straightforward prose of Deirdre Bair's studies of Samuel Beckett, Simone de Beauvoir and Anaïs Nin. Surya's is the prose of a philosophically trained literary man and not an historian. I would buy this book only if I were already pretty familiar with Bataille's work and wanted to situate it in his life and times. For a first look, I would turn to Allan Stoekl's introduction to a collection of Bataille's major essays entitled, "Visions of Excess" (1985). ... Read more

Book Description

Years after his death, Jacques Lacan remains not only one of the foremost intellectuals of the century, but also one of the most controversial. The first major biography of Lacan, this is a fascinating portrait of the man's life and an illuminating explication of his complex liasons and unorthodox, often perplexing ideas. ... Read more

Book Description

The work of Ludwig von Mises exercised enormous influence upon the thought of libertarians, classical liberals, anticommunists, and even traditionalist conservatives during the postwar years. But, as Israel Kirzner shows in the second installment in our Library of Modern Thinkers series, Mises’ dedication was always first and foremost to discovering truths—and destroying falsehoods—within the science of economics. In this thorough yet concise introduction to Mises’ life, economics, and influence, Kirzner (a former student of Mises and an influential free-market economist himself) traces the key elements of Mises’ life, explains his core contributions to economic theory, and assesses his impact on twentieth-century economics and political thought. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

Solid But Not Spectacular
This is a good overview of Mises, his life and background and his economics. It is workmanlike, basic and easy to read. It is not spectacular but it is very solid.

I did enjoy reading it, however. The first two chapters give alot of background information on von Mises's life and work and I found that interesting because it is always nice to know a bit about an author as a person rather than just his work. And the bottom line about von Mises is that he was a couragous, honest and brilliant man and the proof is in the tremendous admiration earned by worthy friends and supporters.

The Third chapter takes up von Mises's ideas on methodology, his a priorism and his commitment to value free economics. The two page section "The Intellectually Revolutionary Character of Economics" is really good. Section 5 of the chapter, "Mises' Methodological Defense" didn't really help me understand Mises's case for a priorism as opposed to empiricism, but I already know that from "Human Action" (huan events are complex and variables can't be held constant so it is always possible to come up with different plausible explanations for happenings; you can never isolate specific causes and their effects because it is not clear what is causing what). Section 6 "Mises and the A Priori: The Extremist?" explains what Hayek thought was a critique of Mises and Kirzner shows how it wasn't but I couldn't follow him. The one page section "Mises and the A Priori: Not So Extreme!" was appreciated because it gives alot more plausibility to Mises's claims about economics having to proceed a priori; I like the idea of economic logic but I think empirical studies and just common sense observation have got to play a role in economics, though I need to think about this more.

Chapter Four was pretty familiar but "The Entreprenurial Character of the Misesian Market Process" was welcome because it just emphasized for me how central the entreprenuer is to Mises's conception of how the market works.

I skipped Chapter Five on monetary theory, the business cycle and interest rates but it looks pretty good.

Chapter Six tries to address how Mises reconciled his idea of value free economics with his passionate arguments for capitalism and against socialism and interventionism. Socialism can't work and interventionism produces consequences the intervenionists didn't want and eventually leads to socialism (which doesn't work ;) I accept the arguments by Ayn Rand on the foundations and standard of ethics and so I can argue rationally for capitalism but I don't know that von Mises can.

In the end, I think that one has to read von Mises himself to get an appreciation of just how deep and comprehensive his grasp of human action and economics is. But this book does provide a little context and a useful overview. Maybe I was expecting too much; after all, how are you going to do justice to one of the greatest thinkers of all time in 200, double spaced pages? Can't be done.

Economic Man
In his autobiography, Russell Kirk told a story about Ludwig von Mises that I found revealing. The city of Geneva had allocated plots of land upon which citizens could grow their own food. When Mises visited economist Wilhelm Roepke in Geneva, he scorned this method as an inefficient way of producing food. Roepke replied that it was nevertheless an efficient way of producing human happiness.

Mises was less interested in happiness, morality, and value judgments, in part because he considered them separate from his main interest, what he called the universal, scientific laws of economics and the "pure logic" of human action. He believed these laws were as simple and true as theorems in geometry.

Prof. Kirzner shows how Mises' views grew out of conflicts with various economic schools of thought, then analyzes his approach to market processes, monetary theory, cycle theory, and rate of interest. In the last chapter he portrays Mises as one of the most vigorous defenders of laissez-faire.

Kirzner knows his subject, and he does a decent job of trying to explain complex matters in a relatively short space. But the reader with no formal knowledge of economic theory will face some difficulties, including wrestling with terms such as fiduciary media, neutral money, positive time preference, sloping demand curves, praxeology, wertfreiheit, numeraire, and consumer sovereignty. Mises believed he was creating not merely a new economics but a new epistemology. Consequently he shares the philosopher's habit of defining and redefining terms, abstract generalizing, and numerous qualifications and asides. Much the same could be said for Kirzner, who repeatedly interrupts his prose with parenthetical commentary. I imagine many readers will find the book inaccessible.

Kirzner concludes that Mises never explored in detail the problem of translating theory into policy -- the very thing that readers will likely want to know. It was at this point, the last 20 pages or so, that I understood why the book was often unclear.

It is worth remembering that Mises called himself not a conservative but a classical liberal, a revolutionary even, in the utilitarian tradition of Bentham and Mill. He was an absolutist in regard to the free market. He believed any government intervention disrupted "natural" processes and necessarily led down the slippery slope to socialism. He saw little role for government except the protection of private property, and therefore scorned measures such as minimum wage, social security, protective tariffs, anti-trust, and progressive taxation. For Mises these were laws that had centralized power in democratic Germany and had paved the way for Hitler and the National Socialist party.

No surprise, then, that Mises attached high importance to his own theories and to defending them, for he believed quite literally that he was saving the human race. Unfortunately, this self-centeredness led also to intransigence and harshness toward those who disagreed with him, in a manner reminiscent of another libertarian icon, Ayn Rand. Both came dangerously close to believing in the Marxist fallacy of Economic Man.

Excellent
ISI Books has just come out with a series called Library of Modern Thinkers, which will contain summaries of the thought of important (for lack of a better term) conservative and libertarian thinkers - kind of like an Oxford University Press "Past Masters." According to the jacket, current and forthcoming titles will cover Nisbet, Ropke, Oakeshott, de Jouvenal, Lytle. Francis G. Wilson and Will Herberg (in other words, thinkers that wouldn't be included in a series that contains volumes on such worthies as Foucault and Derrida).

If Prof. Kirzner's work on von Mises is representative, then this series will be an important contribution to the publishing world. Prof. Kirzner received his doctorate in economics in 1957 under von Mises and has written a number of important studies. This book is well organized and informative. It starts out with a chapter on von Mises' life, a chapter on his role in economics, and chapters on specific facets of his economic thought. It concludes with an overview of von Mises as the 20th century's preeminent free-market thinker.

As a layman in economics, I learned a lot about von Mises the man and economist. For example, there is a discussion on methodological differences between Hayek and von Mises, a discussion of the pioneering nature of much of his monetary thought, and how his thought differs from neoclassical economics. I found particularly insightful Prof. Kirzner's comment that Human Action isn't simply a compendium of Austrian thinking, but is truly a brilliant extension of Austrian thought to a vast swath of economic and sociological issues.

I have one big problem with the book. It is over 200 pages long, but it is double-spaced! In fact, there are no block quotes. Another quibble: according to the jacket, Friedman and Becker are "exponents" of the Austrian School.

Mises Expounded and Defended
by Joseph R. Stromberg-- Israel Kirzner's Ludwig von Mises is a welcome addition to the literature on Mises and economics. It is a very useful book, not only for the academic reader unfamiliar with Mises's work but also for the intelligent layman. What is quite startling is just how much the author manages to accomplish within the compass of a fairly short work (220 pages).

Kirzner announces at the outset that he intends to tell "the story of Mises in his role of economist" (p. ix). His aim is to expound the "subtlety and depth of Misesian economics" while clarifying issues he thinks many readers of Mises have failed to grasp. Furthermore, Kirzner makes the case that Mises was the greatest free-market economist of the twentieth century.

The book begins with a thorough summary of Mises's life (1881-1973) and of his achievements. It covers his education in Vienna in the shadow of the German Historical School and his break with that outlook after becoming acquainted with the opposed views of the Austrian School through reading and talking with Carl Menger (p. 3). Mises attended Böhm-Bawerk's seminar and began publishing technical papers in economics. His first important work, The Theory of Money and Credit, came out in 1912, breaking new ground and extending the Austrian paradigm.

Kirzner introduces the years following World War I, during which time Mises advised the Austrian Chambers of Commerce, helping to avert runaway inflation in Austria; conducted his famous seminar; and published many important books and papers. The Nazi Anschluss drove Mises into exile in Switzerland, but in 1940, he came to the United States and later became a citizen. His masterwork, Human Action, was published in English in 1949, the same year that he began his famous New York seminar. That seminar continued into 1969.

Following the biographical sketch of Mises, Kirzner drops back to set Mises's work in the broader context of early twentieth-century economic thought. Kirzner gives thumbnail sketches of the competing schools'German Historical, Marshallian, and Walrasian. This setting allows him to zero in on what was new and revolutionary in Mises's writings. According to the author, Mises's first great accomplishment was to integrate money and monetary theory into general Austrian economics, grounded on insights about marginal utility, subjective value, and acting human beings. Kirzner shows how and why Mises did this and how this led to his breakthrough into the Austrian theory of business cycles.

The author continues with a discussion of Misesian economics as a system self-consciously built upon rigorous, if unpopular, epistemological foundations. Kirzner contends that Mises shored up these foundations "because he came to be convinced that the vitally important lessons which economics can teach are likely to be dismissed on methodological grounds by those representing special interests" (p. 69). Mises believed that the rise of economic theory was, in itself, revolutionary in that it undercut earlier moralistic and power-political approaches to the study of human societies.

Kirzner proceeds in a straight line to an excellent summation of the Austrian system's architectonic structure. Apparent detours turn out to be necessary background to Mises's views and shed more light on them by giving an account of competing ideas and traditions. There is a generous evenhandedness in the way in which Kirzner sorts out differences and agreements between Mises and Hayek. The lucid presentation of difficult concepts make this a useful book even for those who already know a great deal about the subjects covered. ... Read more

Book Description

An up-close look at visionaries who have changed the world!

What do Jesus Christ, Albert Einstein, Margaret Thatcher, Ayn Rand, Charles Darwin, and The Beatles have in common? They are just a few of the men and women who have enlightened us, challenged us, and paved the way to progress, innovation, and human accomplishment. The Everything® Great Thinkers Book introduces you to the larger-than-life artists, philosophers, religious leaders, pop-culture visionaries, and scientists whose ideas have altered and shaped our way of life. You will learn how such diverse figures such as Buddha, the Marquis de Sade, infomercial king Ron Popeil, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton stand as a testament to dreams fulfilled and missions accomplished. Their genius challenged the ideology of their times, and these thinkers often risked their lives and reputations to fight for their theories and beliefs. Featuring:

·Brilliant scientists, such as Thomas Edison

·Powerful politicians, such as Elizabeth I

·Creative geniuses, such as Leonardo da Vinci

·Fascinating philosophers, such as Socrates

·Religious leaders, such as Muhammad

·Amazing entrepreneurs, such as Bill Gates

Delve into the fascinating lives and accomplishments of these great thinkers—and be inspired to greatness! ... Read more

Reviews (1)

This Book Is a Wonderful Tour-de-Force
This is a fun and informative book.It is both educational and funny.The pantheon of Great Thinkers included here run the gamut, and venture well beyond the predictable.Also, this book is totally unique among these various series.I recommend this book.I learned and laughed, which is my litmus test for a good read. ... Read more

Book Description

Brilliant and bedraggled, the picaresque Jewish philosopher Solomon Maimon was one of the great thinkers of the eighteenth century. Now the definitive English version of Maimon's remarkable Autobiography, the 1888 translation by J. Clark Murray, is available for the first time in paperback, enhanced with a new introduction by Jewish studies scholar Michael Shapiro.

Wry and spirited, shrewd and unrepentant, Maimon alternated between nomadic destitution and intellectual swordplay among the Jewish elite of Berlin. The son of a petty merchant in Polish Lithuania, Maimon was a child Talmud prodigy who became increasingly antagonistic toward the Jewish establishment and receptive toward the secular philosophies of Spinoza, Hume, Leibnitz, and Kant.

A perpetual outsider, Maimon observed with an equally sharp eye the excesses of his time and the vicissitudes of his own life. Parallel to his own development as a thinker in the company of Moses Mendelssohn and others, Maimon conveys the physically wretched but spiritually vibrant Polish ghetto, the beginnings of Hasidism (which he denounces as antirationalist), and the world of the wealthy Berlin Jewry who enthusiastically embraced the ideas of the Enlightenment.

Combining philosophical discourse with personal anecdotes that shift abruptly from the tragic to the hilarious and back, Maimon's Autobiography indelibly portrays one man's devotion to truth on his own terms regardless of the cost to himself or others. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

A rich historical document
This autobiography seems to me more important as a historical document than as a work of art. Maimon despite his great intellect and his courage in going where his mind led him does not seem to me to speak of himself or his life with great psychological depth or insight. I too think that he did not understand truly the nature of the Hasidic movement he criticized harshly. Still this is an important work as a document which gives insight into the Jewish world of his time.

Great book, possibly not by Maimon
This is an amazing book and I am surprised it is not better known. Ittells about the life of a Polish Jew who escaped from what he consideredthe stifling atmosphere of Polish Hasidic life and went to Germany tobecome part of the German Enlightenment. He translated Kant into Yiddishfor the edification of his compatriots back home. The scenes depictingMaimon's marriage at the age of 12 and of Jewish life in eighteenth centuryPoland are very memorable. Someone told me recently that this book mightnot actually have been written by Maimon at all but by the"editor," the German writer Karl Philip Moritz, who apparentlyhad a similar life. Perhaps that is why the book has not been reprinted. ... Read more

Amazon.com

When Friedrich Nietzsche first met Richard Wagner in 1869, the magisterial composer was more than twice the age of the fledgling philologist. Wagner had also just been banished from the royal court of Bavaria for his adulterous affair with Cosima von Bülow. Although the friendship between the two men began rather well, it would famously degenerate into a bitter intellectual and emotional feud, over which Nietzsche would continue to obsess even after Wagner's death in 1883 (but then, Cosima--who'd married Wagner as soon as possible after her divorce--was more than happy to keep up her late husband's end of the battle, and Nietzsche's own death in 1900 did nothing to change that).

Joachim Köhler's densely compact Nietzsche and Wagner draws heavily upon available correspondence from all parties--and Nietzsche's early writings--to examine this turbulent relationship. The point is not so much that Wagner was a manipulative jerk (although he certainly was that) or that Nietzsche and Cosima, who both suffered miserably in youth, were psychologically vulnerable to Wagner's seductive but emotionally abusive behavior; rather, the idea seems to be an examination of the effects of the relationship on the philosopher's thinking, both before and after their breakup. It's an academically rigorous account, so while it is fraught with traces of melodrama, they are buried under careful analytic prose, making this book far more suitable for scholars than general readers interested in biographical data on any of the principals involved. --Ron Hogan ... Read more

Reviews (4)

Ecce Homo(cough, you know what).
A great sage once said, "All history's a lie" and this book only further enhances that point. Which is why I am recommending it.

Kohler not only contends that Nietzsche was a homosexual, but an uber-sissy who was lowered to menial tasks of propaganda and undershorts buying for the heavy-handed Master Wagner. Drawing largely from the diaries and personal correspondence of three megalomaniacs, which we know are highly accurate accounts of objective reality and history, Kohler paints a picture of a menage a trois of ascetic bondage: Nietzsche to Cosima and the Maestro, Cosima to the Master, and Wagner himself to the libidinous gods of hedonism. To top this off, the Dionysian Nietzsche in his final stages of dementia and mustachio maximus, calls out to Cosima, his spiritual Ariadne and soul-bride to come save his tottering soul from the labryrinth of the Wagnerian oppression that continued even after their reknowned split. Thus proclaiming, "C-o-s-i-m-a, you are the only MAN for me." Well Kohler didn't say that, but in saying that Wagner was "a woman" in Nietzsche's eyes and that Nietzsche himself, the constant companion of man-worshippers and man-worship was feminine in affection and mannerisms towards his friendths[sic], we can deduce from Nietzsche's admiration for her as an intellectual equal(remember his MISOGYNY!), that she was the only masculine personality in the triumvirate and thus Nietzsche's love and his homosexuality are validated. Not to mention that Herr Wagner is a dead ringer for Redd Foxx!

All facts and fictions aside, the book made me laugh quite a few times. Maybe the truth was lost somewhere in the translation from German to English but it didn't stop my enjoyment. Why let history and truth get in the way of that? I mean, Nietzschean lore has purported that the young man, while serving in the German calvary during a riding exercise had fallen from his saddle and was dangling upside down under the belly of the horse(Perhaps it was the same horse that he witnessed being flogged and this was what sparked his madness!) and said, "Oh Schopenhauer, where are you now?" Who's buying that but the ghost of Schopenhauer and me?

Esthetic monstrosities
The author of _Zarathustra's secret_ takes us through the period encounter between Nietzsche and Wagner in a quite graphic tale of one of the first of the modern celebrity farces, that of Wagnerian ego and its hangers on. Although the account is well done, I should wonder if a clever cutpurse like Nietzsche was ever really subjugated and whether he didn't, despite an series of emotional shocks, achieve the net equivalent of going undercover as a Wagner disciple, to his profit or loss in unclear. For all the background music of the philosophic, more than musical, leitmotiv (Schopenhauer gave it away with fake hint, the 'will') this account of artistic overdrive twice over is a remarkable tale of psychological helplessness, in Wagner and Nietzsche. Anyway, worth reading.

if your interested in these two, buy it.
NW is not the most academic of books in form, but readability and lack of footnotes do not make a book worthless. Köhler may not have enough evidence to convince the critical, but the material provided is well worth the read. Homosexuality/onanism/anti-semitism: these elements are simply not central to either individual (Wagner's anti-semitism may be the exception). Some of Köhler's conclusions may be questionable, but his observations are not what make the book. The content itself is very interesting, and the intelligent and familiar (with RW/FN) will come away with a great degree of insight. To anyone sincerely interested in either, it is requisite. Perhaps you will not agree with Köhler, so what? The book is simply worth the read. My opinions didn't change from the book, but I have a much richer picture of both men. (I am honesty surprised that anyone could find this book upsetting [see review below]. It's a fun little book, if you hate it, you really ought to relax a bit. Not for tyros: if you've only read a bit of FN or seen an opera, and you want a key to understanding either, forget it. But if you are deep into either, you skip it at your peril.

Incoherent, ignorant, incompetent
Once in a lifetime a book comes along ... that is so arm-wavingly silly that it's almost Pythonesque. This book, "Nietzsche and Wagner: a Study in Subjugation" is actually less reliable than Robert Gutman's or Marc Weiner's Wagner books, which were previously the record-holders. But Kohler beats them hollow. I'm sorry to say that this book has the scholarly merit of a UFO abduction memoir.

Kohler doesn't even bother to try to substantiate his various untrue and silly claims. One of these claims is that Nietzsche was homosexual, for which Kohler (as several critics have pointed out) adduces no evidence at all. Maybe Kohler thinks that Nietzsche calling a book "Die Froeliche Wissenschaft" (The Gay Science) makes Nietzsche "gay" in the current sense. (The meaning of "gay" seems to be changing again, but that's another story.) But we have plenty of evidence of Nietzsche's heterosexuality and no evidence at all of same-sex desire or practice. Nietzsche was a misogynist, hostile and contemptuous towards women, also clearly afraid of them, but that doesn't make him homosexual. Kohler seems to think that claiming something is the same as making it so.

Kohler also claims that after the Nietzsche-Wagner split Wagner conducted a relentless and vindictive campaign against Nietzsche on the grounds that he (Nietzsche) was homosexual. Again, Kohler doen't support this claim of a homophobic campaign by Wagner with any evidence. But then, how could he? There was no such campaign. Instead there was the famous letter from Wagner to Nietzsche's doctor, expressing concern for the health of "our young friend N."and suggesting that Nietzsche's nervous problems might be caused by excessive masturbation.

Wagner's letter is splendidly dotty, but it also brings Kohler's claims crashing to the ground. (1) Masturbation is not the same thing as homosexuality. Wagner did not think Nietzsche was homosexual; instead, prescient in so many things, Wagner was the first major thinker to call Nietzsche a wanker (just kidding, Nietzsche fans). (2) A kindly meant, if eccentric, letter to Nietzsche's doctor is not quite the same thing as persecution. It's clear from Cosima Wagner's Diaries that Wagner's private reaction to the split with Nietzsche was regret, a wish to have the breach healed, and an undoubtedly patronising pity for "that poor young man" Nietzsche. These are not the sort of feelings that lead to persecution or a campaign of vilification, as Kohler claims.

As well, Wagner's actual attitude to homosexuals (there were no gays in the 19th Century) is suggested in an earlier letter to a homosexual friend. Wagner suggests that his friend "try to cut down a little, on the pederasty"... The attitude is one of amused tolerance, which won't do now, but it was progressive and liberal by the standards of his time. Wagner wasn't a homophobe.

In fact Wagner didn't respond in public to Nietzsche's repeated attacks (except once, a very indirect reference in one of his essays, without mentioning Nietzsche's name); contra Kohler, the abuse was very much a one-way street, and not in the direction that Kohler suggests.

Kohler also presents a Nietzsche who wrote antisemitic passages in his works during the alliance with Wagner, but who stopped after the split. This is simply and flagrantly untrue. The post-Wagner Nietzsche attacked antisemites, but he also continued to attack and insult Jews. There are many, many antisemitic passages in Nietzsche's work - Nietzsche fans, like Kohler and the reviewer from Kirkus Review quoted above, like to overlook Nietzsche's antisemitism, but antisemites find Nietzsche a useful supporter and resource. You'll find plenty of antisemitic quotes from Nietzsche on proud display on the Web's neo-Nazi sites, and the vast majority of these antisemitic passages were written AFTER the split with Wagner.

And there's Nietzsche's attack on Wagner in which he claimed that Wagner had a Jewish father. There is irony, of course, in claiming an antisemite has Jewish parentage. But it reflects what Wagner himself seems to have believed, that the man who was almost certainly his real father, Ludwig Geyer, was Jewish. For this attack Nietzsche must have drawn on his private conversations with Wagner, in which Wagner poured out personal fears to a man he believed was his friend. The nastiness in Nietzsche's attack is in the betrayal of confidence, not in the claiming that Wagner had a Jewish parent.

I mention this attack by Nietzsche, couched in antisemitic terms and involving personal betrayal, because Kohler skips blithely over it. Imagine what he'd said if it had been the other way round; Wagner attacking Nietzsche in antisemitic terms while betraying an intimate confidence. But in fact there are suspiciously few quotes of any kind from Nietzsche in Kohler's book. Given the book's profound ignorance of the details of Nietzsche's or Wagner's life and philosophies, I suspect this is not so much because Kohler wants to keep it simple, but because he is not particularly familiar with his subjects' work. Given the sort of book he's written, he didn't need to be.

By the way, an earlier book by Kohler, that's only just been translated into English, "Wagner's Hitler", is now available. Friends who've read the German edition tell me that it's even more fanciful, nonsensical, dishonest and incoherent than this book. I'll look for it in a remainder bin.

Laon ... Read more