40 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Nobody plunges into the same river twice", February 23, 2001
This review is from: Fragments: The Collected Wisdom of Heraclitus (Hardcover)
This is what's left of the work of Heraclitus, the most interesting and enigmatic of the pre-Socratic philosophers. Diversity and constant mutation; the contraries which are reconciled in the final and total unity of Logos. Heraclitus tells us that the Universe is in permanent, constant transformation, that this perennial movement is embedded in the One, the summing up of all things which constitutes only one concept (Logos). The opposite of Parmenides, who emphasized Unity over Diversity and transformation, Heraclitus is proof that, by his time (6th century BC), educated Greeks took mythology basically as literature and folklore, but not as serious reilgion: their minds had expanded well beyond the fantastic adventures of the many antropomorphic Gods, to devise and understand that the Divinity has to be the final Unity, whatever its form. Heraclitus is, surprisingly, extremely "modern" in his approach to Nature and Divinity. The fragments reveal a powerful intellect, a real and relevant precursor of Western culture and civilization. Recommendable both to professional philosophers (whatever that means) and to the public interested in reflecting about the Universe and what it is.
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18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Poets Make the Best Translators, February 24, 2002
This review is from: Fragments: The Collected Wisdom of Heraclitus (Hardcover)
I know enough Greek to question the faithfulness of most of these poetic transliterations of the original. But that is beside the point. If you want a literal translation pick up a Harvard LCL edition and scan the dry as dust academic parallel rendering. I sometimes wonder if poets don't make the best translators. Here is a text vivid and gripping and sounding in modern ears with a booming resonance.
Additional thoughts:
1. This a beautifully produced edition with the Greek on the left and Haxton's fine poetry on the right. As usual, I skipped the foreward and notes preferring to commune directly with the Master rather than through the medium of a posturing chorus of academic factotums.
2. The information age was supposed to witness the twilight of the great age of printing. How wrong. It is a miracle that in this age Viking is publishing a side by side Greek and English version of a book two and half millennia old! Perhaps the great age of the Printed Book is only now dawning.
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39 of 49 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Possibly an "E" for "effort"..... maybe, October 26, 2001
This review is from: Fragments: The Collected Wisdom of Heraclitus (Hardcover)
As another reviewer said, (and i was thinking the same thing before i read their review), it seems geared toward upper middle class, bored housewives with little or no previous interest in ancient Greek philosophy. To still use the word "God" (capitalized) in a Heraclitus fragment is so blatant that it would surprise me if anyone who knows anything about the pre-socratics, and who has thought about their ideas would bother with such a book. No doubt that is what Mr. Haxton was wagering on before putting the original Greek next to the English translations.
I'm not degrading this merely because it is a coffee table book, i'm attacking it because it is in bad taste and adds absolutely no fresh perspective to Heraclitus' fragments or his life. I suggest looking at, instead, Luciano DeCrescenzo's "The History of Greek Philosophy Volume I: The Pre-Socratics" for a lively and interesting read (including biographical details).
"The Collected Wisdom..." is a hard cover as well, which makes not a lot of sense (other than the nice presentation) considering the length of the book. You could happily buy a book with all the fragments for nearly the same price or cheaper. No doubt the reason why Amazon knocked $6 off the original price was because there were too many unopened boxes collecting dust. Let the bookworms eat these ones.
The last thing we need is for the words of a man like Heraclitus to end up on bad robot-rock album covers or as band names (the same fate that Nietzsche now, regretfully, seems to be suffering from). It would seem that Roger Von Oech has decided to try his hand at the craps table as well with "Expect the Unexpected (Or You Won't Find It): A Creativity Tool Based on the Ancient Wisdom of Heraclitus". Are people really so dumb that they need these pre-digested, refined, books full of preservatives to inspire them? I am all for more simplified introductions, but if that means pandering and studying current trends, then what you'll always get is an ugly bastardization. The whole point of philosophy is to make people think!!
And yes, i realize that basically every translator of any kind of philosophy (regardless of time or place) uses "God" as a substitute for the original thinker's conception and belief system. I would call it Christian revisionism ... though it may also be because most translators cannot give their readers the benefit of the doubt and compromise their writings by pandering or making the work more digestible. Or simply because so few can translate from a more neutral standpoint or stand outside their religion for the sake of the writing.
a.n.
p.s. If anyone knows of any good translations of pre-Christian/non-Christian European philosophy which does not suffer from the aforementioned peccadillos, i would be interested to find out more about them
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