Customer Reviews

Socrates, Buddha, Confucius, Jesus: From The Great Philosophers, Volume I

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Aside from being an intelligently written book, I gave this book 5 stars because it made a big impression on me. Jaspers explanation of Confucius made the strength of Confucious's teaching clear. Now I'm very interested in Confucious and am reading more books about him. In that respect, this slim volume changed my life: It brought Confucious to life. What's more, by explaining Confucius's feelings about Taoism, this slim book did more to explain classic Taoism than the 2 books on the Tao I've already read.

Be aware that this book is due to the editing of Hannah Arendt. This means that Jaspers did not put this book out and say "Ta Da, the 4 Greatest!" No, Jaspers wrote a 2 volume book on the great philosophers due to his post War interest in increasing tolerance among men (per the Encyclopedia Britanica). This book does not appear to have any noticable Existentialist influence.

Finally, if you are a fundamentalist Christian, be warned that it is clear from his writing that Jaspers does not believe that Jesus is the Son of God, nor does he believe the Bible is free of error. He is not disrespectful of Jesus nor of Christianity, but do not think that because Jesus is in this book that the book is strongly pro-Jesus.

Karl Jaspers was a somewhat unusual and enigmatic thinker. While being an excellent philosopher, he strongly distanced himself from the dominant philosophical schools of his time, both the continental and the analytical and positivist movements which dominated academic discourse. This was somewhat unfortunate and relegated Jaspers to being a lonely and marginalised figure, yet Jaspers published many works which are of enduring interest.

Of these are his four volumes on the history of philosopy and studies of great philosophers. In this volume Jaspers looks at Jesus, the Buddha, Socrates and Confucius as 'paradigmatic' figures who unleashed new visions which changed the world forever. Jaspers also adopts a somewhat unusual hermeneutical approach to these philosophers, taking the facts of scientific history not as starting points which constrain what can be said about these philsophers, but assessing their thought instead from Jasper's own existentialist framework. It is hard sometimes not to see Jaspers reading his own philosophy and philosophical viewpoint into that of these past philosophers, an approach closer to that of Nietzsche and Kierkegaard than that favoured by modern historians of philosophy.

Even so, Jasper's analysis of these philosopher-sages is fascinating and repays careful study.

This book is a joy to read. Jaspers has a real talent for breaking down complex thoughts into detailed, easy to read format. Jaspers presents a broad overview that should be attractive to newcomers. More advanced readers will appreciate his style and his refreshing perspective.

The previous reviewer, in reminding us of recent scholarship on Jesus and the Gospel tradition, raises several pertinent considerations. Jaspers' book generally reflects the more modern scholarship that has focused increasingly on certain parallel sayings in Matthew and Luke as "Q Gospel" remnants and on the earliest Vaticanus and Sinaiticus manuscripts of the earliest extant Gospel, Mark. Yet recent similarly focused studies on the other three paradigmatic figures covered here don't seem reflected in Jaspers' book to the same extent. Personally, I am not as disturbed as the previous reviewer may be by applying modern scholarship to the Gospels. Rather, what I miss is the same strictness applied to the other three written traditions. Confucius, for example, is eventually described as having held high office only when we get to relatively late texts in the Confucian tradition. Yet Jaspers accepts this description of him without question. In fact, if, as Jaspers does by inference in his Jesus chapter, we are to set some of what we read in the Gospel of John aside, then oughtn't we set aside similar texts describing Confucius as having had conspicuous political success? If the "Q Gospel" passages in Matthew/Luke and the earliest manuscript tradition for Mark are to be highlighted as delineations of the "historical Jesus", then only Chapters 3 through 9 of the Analects of Confucius, generally regarded as the earliest stratum of Confucian text, should be the primary basis for the kind of modern philosophical scrutiny Jaspers purports to offer. Jaspers' Confucius chapter does not confine itself to the kind of wandering, almost homeless, figure found in these seven earliest chapters. To be consistent, shouldn't it? While it's useful for Jaspers, at the outset of his Buddha chapter, to single out the Digha-Nikaya collection as the earliest stratum of Buddha sermons, the rest of the Buddha chapter goes well beyond the Digha-Nikaya collection, even flirting occasionally with Buddha traditions lying outside the Pali tradition, let alone the Digha-Nikaya collection! There's nothing inherently wrong with this, but it becomes inconsistent in the light of Jaspers' tacit adoption of certain tenets of modern historical criticism in his Jesus chapter. (To do Jaspers justice, he never explicitly offers quite the detailed textual background on the Gospel tradition that I attempt here.) What, IMO, might prove a more creditable effort -- since I would agree that these four figures indeed emerge as the most strongly verified human beings in history to live an essentially blameless life oriented toward an entirely self-made, and therefore inherently courageous, ethic -- would be a survey based exclusively on those fifteen or so sermons in the Digha-Nikaya regarded by modern scholars as the earliest for Buddha, on Chapters 3 through 9 of the Analects for Confucius, on the earliest, least "spun", Plato dialogues, such as the Charmides, the Hippias Minor, the Euthyphro, the Apology and the Crito, for Socrates, and on the Vaticanus/Sinaiticus Mark tradition plus the "Q" passages in Matthew/Luke for Jesus. It is unfortunate that Jaspers' book, with all its modern trappings (not in itself a bad thing, IMO), fails to do this rigorously. Hence, my three-star rating. Jaspers should be given credit, though, for a worthwhile start at the important task of evaluating perhaps the four finest human beings ever to walk this earth.

In an effort to be very fair, I will review this book for what it is, and not what I wanted it to be. What is it? A highly serviceable introduction to the lives, thought, and influence of the four titular historical personages. I cannot stress the word "introduction" enough here. Unless you have had no exposure to the figure that you are curious about, you will be hard-pressed in learning anything new about him. This, however, wasn't my first encounter with any of the four figures.

What did I want this book to be? Considering the reputation of Jaspers, I was expecting something more scholarly, yet I should have known better from the length of the book (just under 100 pages, not including the endnotes and bibliography). Considering he is mostly known for his "Philosophy and Existence," I thought that he might try to take a syncretic approach, blending his own brand of thought with these paradigmatic figures of the past. No such luck. I also thought that it might have had something other than strictly a "summary" type of feel that it did. It reads like lecture notes in that it's somewhat disjointed, a lot of the thoughts he explores do not go fully developed, and you are left wanting more.

Unfortunately, much of the stuff here is derivative and fails to shed any new light on the material it covers. Since this series pulled together from a variety of different sources in Jaspers' own writing (edited by his mentee, Hannah Arendt), it is difficult to tell whether or not this is the way he intended it to be. However, as I mentioned above, the book is not without its audience. It would be very suitable ancillary material for an introductory course in world religions.

Karl Jaspers has undertaken an interesting study in the little book. He looks at the teachings of four men who have had the most far-reaching impact on our world. He claims that the greatness of their influence is measured in centuries as well as globally. The four great men he chose for this book are, as the title suggests, Socrates, Buddha, Confucius and Jesus. He entertained the thought of including Mohammed but chose not to. He explains that Mohammed "might be comparable in historical importance but not in individual depth (p. 87)." One other interesting insight comes from Jaspers on the same page. We have no writings from any of the four themselves - what we do have comes from their disciples after they died.

So much for the interesting, now for the question of trustworthiness.

Jaspers examined the biblical accounts of Jesus through the lens of higher criticism. In other words, Jaspers did not deal with the biblical text itself when he studied Jesus, he dealt with the text after sifting through what others thought was truly the teaching of Jesus. The reason this poses a problem is important to all readers, not merely to Christians. If he did not take the teachings of Jesus (as recorded by his disciples) at face value, did he take the teachings of Socrates, Buddha and Confucius (as recorded by their disciples) at face value? Is the reader really getting Socrates, Buddha, Confucius and Jesus, or is the reader getting Karl Jaspers? Knowing the aspects of Jesus' teachings that have been ignored in this study, and their importance to understanding Jesus' view of himself and the world around him, makes me wonder what we may have lost, in this study, from the other three great men included here.

This book is a very interesting idea. But, is it trustworthy scholarship? Not in my humble opinion. However, those who do not wish to sift through the original writings will inevitably want to read Jasper's abridgement of those writings. This may be to the readers' benefit, or to their detriment.

This is a short reflection of different philosophers which can give you a glimpse of their thoughts living and effect of them on social set ups at that time. Book is written in a very simple language but mostly the names of cities are confusing and it would have been helpful if with every city there would have been a hint of geographical location . Some places it is there and mostly the place is left just with a distorted name. Overall readable book in free time but I doubt if it is worth of serious thought.