Very well written. Sort of an introduction to modern Western philosophy by means of an anecdote related to the sole meeting of Karl Popper and Ludwig Very well written. Sort of an introduction to modern Western philosophy by means of an anecdote related to the sole meeting of Karl Popper and Ludwig Wittgenstein at Cambridge in 1946. In the course of describing their confrontation, the Vienna Circle is described and logical positivism explained. So, too, is the work of Bertrand Russell. The emphasis, however, is on Wittgenstein's evolving 'philosophy' of language and Popper's philosophy of science--both of which are accounted for within brief intellectual biographies. Entertaining and accessible. A fun read....more
One of my few philosophical publications was on Wittgenstein. In preparing it I'd read most of his work, much of it assembled posthumously by what I tOne of my few philosophical publications was on Wittgenstein. In preparing it I'd read most of his work, much of it assembled posthumously by what I think of as the 'Wittgenstein industry'. This slight pamphlet is such.
I've never read more than fragments of Frazer--enough to have gotten the gist of his arguments. Wittgenstein's critical remarks are of the character of annotations. The kinds of things one might write in the margins of a text. Without the contexts, only occasionally given, these remarks often hang off into space....more
Alon Segev is a close friend. A 'critical theorist', he teaches philosophy at Loyola University Chicago and had taught that and Jewish studies at variAlon Segev is a close friend. A 'critical theorist', he teaches philosophy at Loyola University Chicago and had taught that and Jewish studies at various schools in the U.S. and Europe. I studied philosophy in graduate school, mostly the great system-builders, thinkers like Hume, Locke, Hegel and, especially, Kant. My sense of 'critical theory' is that it is the work of criticizing such constructions and takes off with later thinkers like Husserl and Heidegger, both of whom I've read, neither of whom I've well understood. Consequently, this book was often above my head, Heidegger being the most prominent figure referenced, his Nazi sympathies being notorious.
This is the third and final volume of Kaufmann's late publication, 'Discovering the Mind'. Heroes in that quest are primarily Goethe, Nietzsche and FrThis is the third and final volume of Kaufmann's late publication, 'Discovering the Mind'. Heroes in that quest are primarily Goethe, Nietzsche and Freud. The most negative portrayal is that afforded Heidegger. Kant, Hegel, Buber, Adler and Jung get mixed reviews.
Of the lot, I'm familiar with them all but most familiar with Kant and Jung. Kaufmann's portrayal of Kant did not impress me as either fair or accurate except insofar as Kant's texts might be criticized for their style and for poor proofreading and editing. The portrayal of Jung, which I expected to be very offensive, Jung having been of enormous influence during college years, was better than expected, Kaufmann's criticisms being understandable, his reconstruction of Jung's break with Freud being plausible.
As a whole this trilogy was not impressive, it feeling like an expression of the accumulation of resentments of a lifetime. There are too many repetitions, even some typos, and much of the text is vague. While the appropriations of Nietzsche and Freud might inspire a neophyte to read them, the rest of the representations would serve only as turn-offs, not as a constructive starting point for further study. Kaufmann, the author is excellent intellectual biographies of Nietzsche and Hegel, is not well-represented by this work....more
Kaufmann's translations as well as his biographies of Nietzsche and Hegel had a great influence on my intellectual development, leading to a strong syKaufmann's translations as well as his biographies of Nietzsche and Hegel had a great influence on my intellectual development, leading to a strong sympathy with German intellectual culture by the time I entered seminary. This book, the second volume of a trilogy, was written towards the end of Kaufmann's life and proved an even greater disappointment than its predecessor.
If you want an apologetic on Nietzsche, Kaufmann's are the translations to study and his intellectual biography of Nietzsche the book to read. This, in my opinion, is a worthy approach to most thinkers, though not the last word. The fact that Nietzsche's work so readily leant itself to what Kaufmann (and I, in many cases) considered misappropriations should be taken into account in any evaluation of his work, particularly, as with Kaufmann, when so much emphasis is placed on the quality of an author's writing. This book, like the other two volumes, continues Kaufmann's lifelong efforts on the philosopher's behalf.
If you want a completely unsympathetic portrayal of Heidegger, assuming you've read the man beforehand, Kaufmann provides it. Personally, having done the work of reading his primary texts (but not the one on Nietzsche, which apparently is utterly worthless), I found this portrayal pleasing, but it is certainly not the place to begin.
The treatment of Martin Buber is mixed. Kaufmann was acquainted with and apparently fond of the man, but, as portrayed here, there seems to be little to recommend him as pertains to the theme of this trilogy....more
This is one of those books which took me beyond my comfort zone, reminding me of just how much I still have to learn. Primarily an expository defense This is one of those books which took me beyond my comfort zone, reminding me of just how much I still have to learn. Primarily an expository defense of Godel qua philosophy, a full understanding of the text would require a firm grounding in special and general relativity theories, classical (primarily Kant) and analytic philosophy, mathematics and logic. I'm relatively strong on Kant and what I've termed 'classical' philosophy, have a layman's understanding of relativity theory, but am quite weak in mathematics. Thus, while many of the names and anecdotes were familiar, the debates within contemporary mathematics were all quite new to me as were many of the terms used. While read casually, my understanding would have benefited by taking notes throughout....more
I have never read anyone more carefully than Kant and nor studied any text as thoroughly as his Critique of Pure Reason. Helped in this endeavor by NoI have never read anyone more carefully than Kant and nor studied any text as thoroughly as his Critique of Pure Reason. Helped in this endeavor by Norman Kemp Smith's magisterial commentary, I came to a positive, constructive appropriation of Kant's thinking, one which had enormous influence in shaping my worldview, especially as regards ethics.
Kaufmann, as much a poet, biographer, translator, historian of ideas and cultural critic as a philosopher, has a better sense of the history of philosophy than I do. This book, while acknowledging Kant's profound influence on that history, attacks Kant for having been, in part, a pernicious influence, contrasting his perceived inadequacies and pretenses to the broader wisdom of Goethe. Much of this critique is correct. Kant's Critiques do evince hurried composition and are marred by prolixity, contradiction and confusion. Still, as a whole, read sympathetically, Kant does achieve a reconciliation of ethics and natural science, both in their strongest sense, which has, in my opinion, held water up through Einstein (about the Copenhagen School of physics, I, like Einstein, have misgivings). Kant remains, for all his flaws, the narrow point in the stream through which all subsequent philosophy, in the West at least, flows. Further, as compellingly utilized by Rawls, deontological ethics retains its relevance.
My objections to Kaufmann are legion, but mostly relate to what I perceive as nitpicking, some of it clearly mistaken (such as his claim that Kant did not seriously consider non-human rational intelligences when, in fact, Kant explicitly considered the possibility of aliens--Jovian, as I recall--as well as the role of angelic intelligences in the history of ideas). In other words, while he reads Goethe sympathetically (although he was certainly not a systematic philosopher in the sense of Kant or Hegel), he does not extend that courtesy to Kant. Indeed, after defending ad hominem argumentation at the outset, he adduces questionable biographical details about Kant's life to effectively demean his thinking while not employing such arguments (how about children born out of wedlock?) to demean Goethe's.
One of Goethe's virtues, a strength also to be found in Hegel and, as such, a contribution to the foundations laid by Kant, is the weight he put on the genesis of philosophy, on the history of ideas and on their situation in life broadly considered. Thus it is appropriate to wonder how Kaufmann's experience of Kant differed from mine so as to result in his relative lack of sympathy. I don't know the answer to this but will keep my eye open for a biography of the man.
All this notwithstanding, this, the first volume of a trilogy, is worth examination by any familiar with the figures--Goethe, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Buber, Freud, Adler and Jung--discussed. However opinionated, Kaufmann's arguments are informed and his writing is clear....more
This work served well as a review of the intellectual debates from the 12th to the 14th centuries in Europe and of the transition from medieval, univeThis work served well as a review of the intellectual debates from the 12th to the 14th centuries in Europe and of the transition from medieval, university-based scholasticism to renaissance humanism. Attention is paid to the sociology of what might be termed an intellectual 'class', but not enough to satisfy me as regards the concrete realities of the universities of the high middle ages.
The author displays favor towards early scholasticism, particularly Abelard (a favorite of mine), and fails to conceal his disappointment with the intellectual achievements of the humanists. To my surprise, he maintains that the medieval universities represented a more of a democratizing tendency than did the early (pre-printing press) humanists....more
Author Strevens is an academic philosopher of science. In this book he takes on Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn as regards our understanding of 'science',Author Strevens is an academic philosopher of science. In this book he takes on Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn as regards our understanding of 'science', as it is actually practiced versus how such as they have conceptualized it. Here one might simplifyingly characterize Popper as tending towards idealization, Kuhn towards criticism. Strevens' own approach is to focus on the scientific practices that have actually increased human understanding and achievement, science that works, and, so doing, to recognize its essential character as narrowly and painstakingly empirical, eschewing ideologies and philosophies, ethics and aesthetics--at least in the domain of professional communications. This is the 'irrationality' of the book's subtitle.
My own take on all of this is to agree that modern science, so conceived, is, like he writes, 'a knowledge machine', just like modern capitalism is a wealth-generating machine--and that both of them are monstrously powerful. Strevens acknowledges this, recognizing that we're on a path to utter destruction while hoping that the 'golem' of modern science may afford the means to preserve civilization. However, he does not much discuss how many of the problems we face are themselves consequences of the sciences we practice.
Other than that I found the book to be very repetitive. Perhaps, not being a philosopher of science, I missed a lot of his subtle references. I've only read one book apiece of Popper and of Kuhn, and those long ago. In any case, his main point might have been handled far more concisely. Still, it was an easy, though somewhat boring after a while, read....more
This book was written by a philosopher trained in the analytic tradition and interested in neuropsychology, its ethical implications and altered stateThis book was written by a philosopher trained in the analytic tradition and interested in neuropsychology, its ethical implications and altered states of consciousness, he himself having had out of body experiences. The text ranges. Some, particularly the portions about brain function, involves a lot of technical language, including neologisms apparently coined by the author. The concluding portions about ethics and the occasional personal reports of altered states, however, are quite readable. As regards the technical material, I'm not qualified to judge. As regards the ethical considerations, I find myself in sympathy and impressed by his concern for non-human experimental subjects. As regards the philosophical orientation, the author skirts around a reductive physicalism, giving priority to the mathematical language of physics, and avoids addressing the free will versus determinism debates head on. Personally, I got the sense that he is not quite settled in his beliefs, much of the evidential bases for which have been derived recently from relatively new fields of research. I also get the sense that he may have been much influenced by Buddhist philosophy....more
Rene Descartes substantially contributed to the dualistic tendencies represented by the mind/body problem and to the primacy of mathematical modellin Rene Descartes substantially contributed to the dualistic tendencies represented by the mind/body problem and to the primacy of mathematical modelling. This book treats of a number of European commentators on Descartes who have critiqued rationalism and Descartes' apparent contributions to its development. Some are virtually unknown in the anglophonic world, others, like Proudhon, Sorel, Husserl and Heidegger, are relatively popular, at least in academe.
Author Segev, an Israeli professor of philosophy and Jewish studies, does not himself take an explicit position on, say, mind/body dualism or on rationalism vs. romanticism. He does, however, perform a commendable job of explicating the thinking of philosophers often deemed 'difficult', such as Martin Heidegger. He also, within the greater project represented in this book, does a good job of contextualizing the roots of Nazi 'philosophy' in the persons of Franz Boehm and other Volkish writers.
This is most definitely not a book for the masses. Some background in the history of continental philosophy is presupposed. The notes are mostly in German. Still, one can imagine a longer rewriting of this study aimed at the general public. With some more exposition, especially of Descartes and his times, and a scattering of illuminating anecdotes, such a popular book could be quite illuminating....more
This is philosopher Meyers' second published book. His first, The Fetal Position (2010), was a defense of the reproductive rights of women. This cons This is philosopher Meyers' second published book. His first, The Fetal Position (2010), was a defense of the reproductive rights of women. This constitutes a reasoned defense of the rights of homosexuals. A third book, reportedly about psychotropic drug use, is in the works. As in his previous work, Meyers describes the arguments on both sides, logically and, as relevant, empirically. For me, being ab initio in substantial agreement with his values, the most interesting and informative parts of the text were those detailing the facts, medical, genetic and psychological. Much of this was new to me. Least interesting were those concerning scripturally-based arguments—clearly not his field (Samaritans as pagans?, p. 56). Further, I especially appreciated his treatment of arguments from the perspectives of the four major schools of ethical theory: natural law, virtue, utilitarian and deontological. His description of virtue ethics was especially good, clear and concise. While Meyers' position is generally strong, his stance on gay marriage is, in my opinion, least convincing. While he does discuss the right to marry in terms of equality between hetero- and homosexuals, he does not figure in how the institution may discriminate negatively against single persons, denied the rights and privileges afforded couples. This, of course, raises questions concerning the involvement of the state in defining and promoting such legal contracts. One is reminded of the many historical instances when conjugal marriage was promoted for political reasons, for increasing economic and military strength. Then, clearly, there were at least political arguments against gay marriage, political arguments with ethical relevance. Indeed, this thoughtful book will doubtless inform, possibly infuriate, many readers. Provocative, it will serve as an ideal text for courses in applied ethics at the secondary and collegiate levels. ...more
I prefer Kaufmann, Danto and Hollingdale to Safranski's treatment of Nietzsche's philosophical development, perhaps because they tend toward portrayinI prefer Kaufmann, Danto and Hollingdale to Safranski's treatment of Nietzsche's philosophical development, perhaps because they tend toward portraying his thought as more coherent than Safranski does. This is not to say he's wrong and they're right. It may simply amount to my own predilections for systems and system building. I am, after all, most attracted to Kant and to interpretations of Nietzsche which put him within that tradition, albeit as towards the radical side of things.
Safranski at times made me think I was reading FN through Martin Heidegger, which might be simply a way of admitting that I found him, like Heidegger, obscurant--or simply difficult. Still, Safranski is known for his study of the latter. At other times I found him to be (over-?) emphasizing the aesthetic side of FN's concerns. Throughout, Safranski paints a picture of a thinker all over the place, inconsistent to an extreme, thinking tied strongly to passing moods and obsessional themes (see the recent 'I Am Dynamite' biography for a fuller exposition of this).
As Nietzsche himself wrote of his own works, in 1888, "In all seriousness, I really never knew what they signified. I would be lying if I claimed that they (apart from Zarathustra) had impressed me."...more
I've read enough Koestler books to have been intrigued by this one when it was donated to Heirloom Books in Chicago, where I volunteer five days a weeI've read enough Koestler books to have been intrigued by this one when it was donated to Heirloom Books in Chicago, where I volunteer five days a week. Besides my interest in him, I've also been reading along the margins of Asian societies, embarrassed by how little I know about them. This, being a book about India and Japan by a Westerner, seemed to offer an easy approach.
Koestler ostensibly visited India and Japan in the late fifties to investigate what they might have to offer as an antidote or alternative to our Western materialism. What he finds is not useful. Indeed, with the exception of one Indian land reform activist, his conclusions are almost wholly negative. On reflection, his conclusion is that both countries entered the industrial age without, like Europe, first experiencing the Enlightenment, leaving them torn between the demands of contemporary economics and their primitive, anti-rationalist thought forms.
This is hardly an exhaustive study. Koestler devotes most of his attention, respectively, to yoga and to Zen Buddhism, finding little of value in either beyond the moderately physical and psychic benefits of such meditations....more
I've only read two books, one being "Being and Time", and a couple of essays by Heidegger, all for two classes about his work, but I've read pretty muI've only read two books, one being "Being and Time", and a couple of essays by Heidegger, all for two classes about his work, but I've read pretty much everything by Nietzsche, most of it on my own. I rather thoroughly disliked the former, quite liked the latter, guided, as I was, by the somewhat apologetical books about Nietzsche by Hollingdale and, especially, Kaufmann.
Beiner's treatment of both is negative as regards their political philosophies and their appropriation by fascistic movements, including those allied with the Trump administration. And, yes, indeed, this is true. Both philosophers were anti-egalitarian and anti-democratic, despite Kaufmann's efforts to put the best face possible on Nietzsche and Heidegger's efforts to conceal his own Nazi past.
In my view, there are four major trends in ethics, those being the deontological (Kant), natural law (Aquinas), utilitarian (Mill) and virtue ethics. Nietzsche and Heidegger fit under the last of these rubrics, both of them harkening back to their idealized envisionings of the pre-Socratic Greeks. How they can know so much about those virtually prehistoric thinkers is beyond me, but, yes, such do associate with social caste systems, including slavery--whatever Parmenides or Heraclitos might have thought of such things personally--and both Nietzsche and Heidegger have some good things to say about rigidly oppressive hierarchies (and to war) as conducive to arete, to virtue or excellence--presumably imagining those like themselves guaranteed top spots in the pecking orders conducive to such. There is, however, more to both of them than this.
Most glaring, to me, is Beiner's failure to note the mystical element to Heidegger foundational ontology. I dislike Heidegger as a political figure and as a writer, but I must acknowledge that he had something to contribute to what we, more ordinary, mortals call 'theology', mystical theology. So, too, I was surprised to see Beiner taking Nietzsche's 'eternal return' as being more than a thought experiment arising out of his reading of contemporary physics books--a musing, as it were.
Finally, I am a bit taken aback by Beiner's confinement to the world of ideas. Fascist populisms don't catch on, as they are doing, because of thinkers like those two. They come to power because the masses are rightfully dissatisfied, and mostly for very material reasons. In fairer times we can afford the adolescent conceits of a Nietzsche or Heidegger fan. Now, facing dire economic and environmental prospects, the risk is great, especially since it seems unlikely that existing polities will manage these crises well....more
This book of essays, the successor to Irreducible Mind, makes two basic points: first, that the physical sciences have not explained consciousness andThis book of essays, the successor to Irreducible Mind, makes two basic points: first, that the physical sciences have not explained consciousness and, second, that any science of mind will have to take account of psi phenomena, some of which are empirically indubitable. In order to deal with these matters the authors review and propose a whole host of potentially fruitful models whereby both physis and psyche, matter and soul, body and mind, res extensa and res cogitans might be accounted for.
The authors of these essays come from a variety of fields ranging from physics to psychiatry. Many are established academics and/or researchers. Some appear to be autodidacts. Some of the essays are easily accessible, others--for me the stuff on quantum mechanics and Indian yoga--require a good deal of background. This is not, overall, an easy or a quick read.
What I found, generally speaking, most distressing was the seeming tendency of some authors to oppose metaphysical materialism with a metaphysical idealism. Maybe they simply haven't done much philosophy, but such absolutisms are antithetical to science--unless, of course, one is talking in a most old fashioned way of the faith based "science" of theology and such subsidiary topics as demonology, soteriology etc.
My take on the "mind/body problem" is substantially founded upon a reading of Kant whereby the human endeavor is seen as basically twofold, namely ethical and scientific. When acting one set of presuppositions come to play. Another set of presuppositions apply when it comes to understanding. As an agent I presume free will. As a scientist I look for rules. These are heurisms, not metaphysical claims. I don't know--and Kant attempts (convincingly enough for me) to prove that one cannot know--whether things like we humans are essentially free or determined. There isn't, for Kant, a problem here except such as will arise for those seeking absolute understanding.
Although it surprised me that this "resolution" received no serious hearing in this book, this does not mean that I think that the aforementioned "two basic points" of this project aren't worth pursuing. In fact, psychology is, compared to physics, still a very primitive discipline. The two psychologists receiving the most attention in the essays are Wm James and C.G. Jung. James made, I think, a good start on an introspective psychology, but what real research, what real science are the Jungians post-Jung doing? Not much. Indeed, there really isn't a discipline of psychology in the same sense as we speak of a discipline of physics--or chemistry, or biology etc. And insofar as some of the essays try to point out paths towards such an achievement, one is brought short by the fact that there are so very many of them and none far trodden. ...more
Poor Greg Guroff! He was the teacher in the two-semester Russian History course I took during the sophomore year at Grinnell College. Dr. Guroff was oPoor Greg Guroff! He was the teacher in the two-semester Russian History course I took during the sophomore year at Grinnell College. Dr. Guroff was of Russian extraction himself, presumably descended from victims of the Red Terror, and a proud collector of icons. We, his students, were creatures of the sixties, profoundly suspicious of our own State, many of us intrigued by the alternative(s) represented by, among other things, the post-revolutionary USSR. Personally, my interest was primarily with the origins of that and with its fringes, namely, the Social Revolutionaries, the Mensheviks and the anarchists. In any case, teacher and students were approaching our subject from different angles and classroom discussions were often heated, he thinking us naif, we thinking him reactionary.
Guroff, being our teacher, had the upper hand of course. Not only did he know more but he also had the power of the grade book. He was a proud Princeton man, intent on raising us to those standards. This he did by requiring a great deal of research and writing, several twenty-to-thirty page papers being required a term when most courses in the humanities and social sciences only required the equivalent of thirty pages total a semester. As ever, we retaliated, one of our number producing, with some help in typing, an essay of almost one hundred pages. Deadpan, he returned it, with a A-.
Guroff went on to greater things. Many years later I found him mentioned in the NY Times in reference to the Soviet Union where he was working for the US Information Agency.
Anyway, I had been first exposed to Bakunin through reading about Marx and that from a Marxist perspective whereby the famed anarchist was derided as the wrecker of the First Internationale, but I'd never read more than paragraphs by him until finding this book. Being interested in anarchism as a political philosophy since having read, with some sympathy, Alexander Berkman and various homegrown syndicalists during high school, I approached it with interest. Unfortunately, either Bakunin wasn't the scholar Marx was or the selection simply didn't give him his due. Whatever the case, I wasn't much impressed....more
The usual take on Plato is twofold. First, to try to separate Sokrates' thinking from his. Second, to trace the development of Plato's own thinking. AThe usual take on Plato is twofold. First, to try to separate Sokrates' thinking from his. Second, to trace the development of Plato's own thinking. Annas does neither. Instead she pretty much black-boxes Sokrates and doesn't try to resolve the contradictions in Plato's texts. Rather than attempting to trace the development of a 'Platonic doctrine', to even chronologically order the dialogues, she takes a minimalist approach. We don't know their order and the contradictions are just that, namely, different approaches to and hypotheses about the matters of concern to Plato. About that, about those concerns, and about the dialogical methods employed, we can speak.
As the subtitle has it, this is indeed a very short introduction to Plato. It might be read profitably by someone already familiar with the dialogues and letters or by one just approaching them.
The first book I ever reviewed for the Ares Press' journal, 'Ancient World', was Annas' study of ancient ethics. That was why I noticed this book at the Newberry Library's annual book sale and purchased it....more
Nine-tenths or so of this book is a very conventional, albeit prolix, survey of the history of philosophical thinking in the West from the pre-SocratiNine-tenths or so of this book is a very conventional, albeit prolix, survey of the history of philosophical thinking in the West from the pre-Socratics to the present. As a brief introduction to the history of ideas it is to be recommended. Even the wordy repetitiveness of Tarnas' exposition may function as an aid to retention and understanding for beginners.
Having devoted decades to such studies myself, I found most of the book to be a rehash of familiar ideas and would never have gone through the whole thing were it not given me as a gift by a distant friend I'll be seeing soon. As it was, however, I did have the satisfaction of finding its very familiarity a confirmation that I have obtained a decent philosophical education. Furthermore, I had the satisfaction of seeing some of my own judgments (my prejudices), such as regards the vital centrality of Kant, reinforced by the author.
What surprised me was the emphasis that Tarnas puts on C.G. Jung. Again, I had the satisfaction of reading his claim that Jung was a thoroughgoing Kantian, the very topic of my textually definitive master's thesis on that topic. But beyond that Tarnas goes further than I would, seeing Jung as propounding a synthesis and resolution of conflicting worldviews much as Kant (at least temporarily, as he puts it) reconciled the physical sciences to ethics and religion.
Tarnas doesn't so much focus on Jung, though, as he does on the psychotherapist Stanislas Grof, seen substantially in terms of Jungian archetype theory. Here, building on a weak foundation, a conceptual structure is built in the last tenth of the book which I found unsupportable.
Basically, the idea is that we, in this 'post-Modern' era, are alienated from the world, that, in fact, the history of philosophy is a history of successive alienations via the thought of such figures as Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Descartes, Kant, Nietzsche and Darwin, all of whom overturned old certainties while attempting to posit new models of understanding. In other words, its the old (simplistic and, according to Walter Kaufmann, unfair) Hegelian three-step of thesis/antithesis/synthesis-at-a-higher level. Jung and Grof, to Tarnas' thinking, offer the next step in this evolution toward the Absolute with the archetypes of birth and the feminine.
Here Tarnas gets too fuzzy for me to appreciate his thinking. First of all, neither Jung nor Grof were/are philosophers. Second, archetype theory itself is (like, admittedly, Kant's table of categories), in its detail (the shadow, the anima/us, the wise old man, the puer aeternas, the Self and so on indefinitely), poorly evidenced, some of the archetypes having more, some much less, evidential basis, some of them having more, some much less, logical necessity, some of them having more, some much less, biological correlation. Grof, he tells us, offers the ultimate achetype, 'ultimate' for this era at least, in the rediscovery of what Otto Rank called 'the birth trauma'--the progressive from uterine bliss, to the trauma of passing through the birth canal, to the awakening in the greater world. Here one isn't sure if Tarnas wants his readers to believe that one can actually remember the experience, an outrageous claim on the face of it, or is he's simply offering a metaphor which Grof, his clients and Tarnas himself have found to be fruitful. If it's just a metaphor, fine, fuzzy as it is, especially as Tarnas doesn't go into the fundamental difference between birthing-as-a-mother and being birthed, irrespective of gender--a difference one would expect to be emphasized given the weight he gives otherwise to gender differences. But that, very weak interpretation isn't clearly distinguished from the stronger, existential one that we, all of us, collectively and at the very core of our experience, KNOW its truth.
Where he is stronger, as regards Jung-think applied to civilization and its discontents, is in reference to Jung's observation that the universe becomes conscious in us. That makes some sense, but he hardly develops the idea, spending much more time with Grof's birth business than with Jung's rather commonplace, but potentially profound, observation (some of the implications of which are explored by Heidegger and other phenomenologists hardly even mentioned in the text.
Still, all my objections to Tarnas' concluding fuzziness aside, the bulk of this book is a worthy introduction to the history of philosophy in the West... ...more
Although I was assigned as a teaching assistant to Bill Ellos in Loyola University Chicago's philosophy department throughout my time there as a full-Although I was assigned as a teaching assistant to Bill Ellos in Loyola University Chicago's philosophy department throughout my time there as a full-time graduate student, occasionally he would have to share me with other faculty members. One of them was Jim Valone, a visiting professor from Bellarmine College in Kentucky.
Jim, just four years older than myself, had just completed the draft of a book on Kierkegaard and our work together consisted of reading the text, mostly aloud, with me pointing out typographical errors and asking questions about the content. As time went by we became friends to the point that we maintained relations even after he had returned to his home university.
Reading the book as we did, aloud and with attention to fine detail, is not equivalent to silent reading. As I recall, the book focuses on Kierkegaard's hierarchicalization of different modes of living in terms of their moral value. Having already read the Dane himself on this schematization, I didn't gain much for what amounted to its repetition....more