Customer Reviews

German Philosophers: Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche (Past Masters)

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These are highly admirable overviews by some of the best of the current set of the philsophers examining past greats.

This must have been a difficult book to put together. The editors would have to have found not one, but four great authors from which to put together introductions for the hardest authors in all philosophy.

He succeeded. This book makes immediately explaicable two of the hardest authors in all history- Kant and Hegel. I was amazed at the level of commentary in this short a work. It is almost impossible to pull this easy an introduction off. My hat is off to both Scruton and Singer.

The other commentaries and introcductions were as good as they come. Because of the ease of Schoepenhaur and Nietzsche, the authors had more room to give reasonably complete explanations and ruminations on their lives. Janner and Tannaway both make superb additions to these traditions, both commentaries worthy of being works in themselves.

This is four times a good book. My respect to all the authors, and my full throated call for people to read these books.

This is a truly wonderful book. The reader can grasp what is being said in a relatively short time and spend the rest of his life thinking about it. I recommend it to newcomers in philosophy to get a good introduction to the some great philosophical thinking as well as to more seasoned practitioners so that they may learn how to explain things.

All of the philosophers covered in this volume are difficult to read. They are difficult to read for several reasons, including: 1) some of the translations of the primary texts are mediocre at best; 2)translations never truly capture the intent of the original texts; and 3) even in the original German the ideas are challenging and difficult. Because of these difficulties, this book, which provides incisive accounts of the German philosophers, is particularly useful to the English-speaking reader. Highly recommended.

I was already familiar with these philosophers after taking a course in philosophy, but the way in which these authors eluciate the ideas of these thinkers makes this a five-star book. In order of their greatness I'd have to place Nietzsche first, Scophenhauer second, Kant third, and while Hegel was profound, his worship of history was a little too much for me to swallow, so I place him last.

Thsi book is the book I will be using to introduce a class to German philosophy. It is a superb text, and a good read on top of it.

If you're interested in any of the four philosophers covered in this book, you could pay ten bucks and get the "very short introduction" to him (which is the same), or you could dish out just a little more and get four brilliant books in one. I would definitely recommend the latter since if you appreciate any one of these thinkers, you'll likely find the other three fascinating as well.
The only criticism I have is that I felt the section on Hegel was perhaps a little too watered down, so I would only give that section four stars, but the book as a whole is solid gold.

Of the two reprint volumes (Greek and German Philosophers) that Oxford has published of its Past Masters series, I think all of the individual essays (except the one on Plato) are reprinted currently in its 'Very Short Introduction to...' series. So these volumes are a good deal because i think the 'Very Short Introduction' series are 10 bucks each. As well as being very clear and concise introductions by world renowned scholars.

Mental oracle social system corruption feedback loop:

Thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven (Jesus Christ).

I drew my sword and got ready
and the lamb ran away with the crown (Judee Sill).

I laughed so hard (Judee Sill).

Then we couldn't decide what to do
so we had another meeting.

I find myself equally able
to prove both conclusions. . . .
and, Kant argues, a
`completed infinity' is
an absurd idea, (Roger Scruton, German Philosophers: Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, pp. 55-56).

Hegel refers to the Greek
tendency to consult an oracle
for guidance before any
important venture is
undertaken. (Peter Singer, German Philosophers, p. 129).

Reason lifts free people above the chance events
of the natural world, . . .
Hence freedom cannot be achieved
without critical thought and reflection. (Ibid.).

An old Chinese said he had heard
that when empires were doomed
they had many laws. (Nietzsche, The Will To Power, section 745).

Hegel had influential friends in the years
in which his major concern was
`The Germanic World'. Prior to the
Reformation, he considered "the
Church, in his view, became a perversion
of the true religious spirit, inserting itself
between man and the spiritual world, and
insisting on blind obedience from its
followers." (German Philosophers, pp. 133-134).

Martin Luther had translated the Bible into
German in order to:
substitute the idea that each individual
human being has, in his own heart,
a direct spiritual relationship to Christ. (Ibid., p. 134).

Nietzsche considered Schopenhauer the first philosopher to openly revolt against the Deity like a golden calf substituting itself for some desire because "all willing springs from lack, from deficiency, and thus from suffering' (W1, 196)." (Ibid., p. 284). Napoleon was a key figure at the time Schopenhauer was trying to learn how to run a business, and the index only has a few pages that mention Napoleon to show where the war against French efforts to rationalize ruling structures had stumbled into a feedback loop. For Hegel,

Napoleon put an end to this
thousand-year-old empire
when he trounced the Austrians
at Ulm and Austerlitz, and then
in 1806 crushed the armies of the
next most powerful German state,
Prussia, at the battle of Jena. (p. 115).

In Prussia, von Stein . . .
immediately abolished serfdom
and reorganized the system of
government. (p. 116).

Any system that personifies the desires of free men will crumble if it seriously attempts to become a world system. Hegel was impressed by the rise in Christianity as an established Church in Roman times. Hegel considered the philosophical schools of the Roman Empire "a result of the helplessness that the individual, who sees himself as a free being, must feel in the face of a domineering power he is unable to influence. The retreat into philosophy is, however, a negative response to this situation;" (p. 131).

The short-lived victories of Napoleon
were sufficient to bring about within
Germany a code of rights, to establish
freedom of the person and freedom of property,
to open the offices of the State to the most
talented citizens and to abolish feudal
obligations. (p. 136).

Nietzsche wrote Beyond Good and Evil in 1885, in which section 199 boasts:

the history of the effect of Napoleon
is almost the history of the higher
happiness this entire century has attained
in its most valuable men and moments. (p. 383).

The current hope that hundreds of millions of people will be able to provide leadership for a world in which billions of people have little influence on which American moonwalk will capture the imagination of the society of spectacle's entertainment values is no worse than this book.