I read this book a few times. I was impressed by the dedication page: "To My Uncles / Walter Seligsohn / who volunteered in 1914 and was shot off his horse on the Russian front in 1915 / . . ." I was definitely not there, but that seemed to be a fantasy that is easier to put into practice than the idea of being a philosopher. In 1980, when I was sure that Walter Kaufmann thought he was a philosopher, but I was more interested in the history of thinking as bombing, I snuck up behind him and dumped a ton of bricks on his head. He shouldn't have been surprised, though, because it was his ton of bricks.

Things were tough, back in the 20th century, and the unsettling thing about this book is how well it avoids the psychological ploy of considering any individual totally insignificant in relation to questions about God. Franz Kafka is the individual who raised the biggest questions about what this book was trying to say, as far as I was concerned, and he seemed to be impossible for Walter Kaufmann to dismiss after the confrontation in section 32, which Kafka begins by observing, "Many complain that the words of the sages are always also mere parables, inapplicable in daily life, which is all we have got." The philosophical analysis of Walter Kaufmann took Kafka's complaint to the usual logical extreme, and found, "discourse that is ostensibly designed to elucidate them scientifically, while in fact its clarity is of the surface only, and on analysis it turns out to approximate double talk, is quite a different matter." (p. 117). In daily life, the question which keeps making an attitude about this kind of thing relevant is how well any individual can accept the acts of any authority as signs of pure benevolence. In 2001, I haven't been too pure, myself, and I still have a copy of THE AMERICAN COLLEGE DICTIONARY (Random House, 1964) which informs me that in English history, a benevolence was once "a forced contribution to the sovereign." Anything funny about this kind of double talk is likely to get me started on crimes against humor, or Nietzsche having the audacity to suggest, in section 273 of BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL, that certain people are condemned to comedy. I would invite people to read this book with the kind of question that keeps cropping up in my mind: Who are these people to tell me that there will be no more beating around the bush?

Writing about religion has always been a risky endeavor. There are few subjects which so often provoke banal,intellectually dishonest discussions that rarely get to the heart of the real issues. But Walter Kaufmann, one of the greatest scholars of the last century, succeeds in Faith of a Heretic where so many others have failed. Instead of defining concepts like "faith" and "religion" without examining their historical and cultural uses, Kaufmann traces religious ideas through their development in the Hebrew Bible, New Testament and subsequent philosophical discourse. This analysis results in a study of religion that avoids the reductionist condemnations of faith so common among today's "free thinkers," and the simplistic diagnoses offered by writers in the "science and religion" movement. If you want to start thinking seriously about religion, this is the place to start.

Kaufmann informs his work with his years as a professional philosopher, and professor at princeton. In it, he surveys, but with depth, the history of the western religious and philosophical traditions and allows the reader to think for himself. The book offers no easy answers to the big problems of life, but asks the rght questions, which are framed in ways that hold the readers thought for days, impacting the readers life permanently.

First off this book helped me greatly with my BA in English Literature. Anyone studying Dramatic Lit will benefit from reading this. If your getting a degree in philosophy this book will help you make connections between Aristotle, Socrates, Nietzsche, and Sartre. As a fan of Sartre's, "The Flies" this book greatly helped me to understand something I thought I already did.

If you despise Nietzsche don't buy this because by reading it one can tell Kaufmann was quite fond of the tragic philosopher--even though he disputes Nietzsche's belief that Euripides caused the death of tragedy. If your a complete advocate of Rationalism don't buy this unless you truely believe the unexamined life isn't worth living. Only buy this if like a good argument, no matter what side is right, and enjoy a deep analysis of the human condition.

Se trata de un brillante y riguroso estudio sobre el complejo género de la tragedia. Es realmente notable la claridad, la erudición y la amplitud de la información presentada por el autor. Este libro resulta una guía luminosa para comprender la tragedia. Resulta además muy bien escrito (la traducción al español publicada por Seix Barral en 1978 es también excelente). Desde Platón y Aristóteles (de quien examina algunos de los términos más importantes expuestos en La Poética), hasta Nietzche y Sartre este ensayo enriquece en cada página nuestra comprensión de la tragedia, no solo como género literario y dramático sino como visión de la realidad. Un espléndido trabajo.

Finding this book on ... search engine was a pleasant surprise, the book now in paperback. There are not many good books, apart from literary criticism of individual works, attempting to analyze the phenomenon of tragedy, whose very definition is subject to an almost metaphysical confusion. Kaufmann's work is especially significant since, as the translator and commentator of Nietzsche's famous work, he also provides a corrective to the inspired but misleading views of that brilliant thinker. The view of tragedy emerging from some preposterous cult or ritual of the goat, and like theories, have been laid to rest by recent scholarship, which Kaufmann cites. The question of the birth and death of tragedy is great historical riddle and defies easy analysis, as is the attempt to find the common denominator between its short list of examplars. The great age of the Greek tragedians is subject to many misperceptions, such as among them the idea that Aeschylus, a bit of an optimist, invented the tragic view of life, etc... Nietzsche's attempt to blame Euripides for the 'death of tragedy' is shown to be somewhat misleading, while the reaction of Plato and the birth of philosophy in its wake remains a forever ambiguous advance.
Kaufmann's 'steady as she goes' scholarship assembles a host of interesting issues and digressions, from the Poetics of Aristotle to the great interpretation of tragedy by Hegel, based on Antigone. Kaufmann's ironic view of philosophy, born in the same time and litter as the genre of the tragedians, is an additional twist, with a somewhat acerbic conclusion that should put philosophers to a double take. Finally, the strange inability of modern drama to grasp the essentials, let alone continue this tradition, throws a great question mark on the universal history from which tragedy is born, and the mechanical history during which it cannot survive. The work might be complemented by George Steiner's The Death of Tragedy.

When I was young, I was taught that I should appreciate J. S. Bach and other musical geniuses about like Walter Kaufmann grew up thinking that Hegel was really something. Kaufmann and I have both noticed how reluctant Hegel was to admit who he was talking about, so he considers it an anomaly on page 490 of the J. B. Baille translation of THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF MIND that the name Oedipus has been inserted into the sentence "In the story of *OEdipus* the son does not see his own father in the person of the man who has insulted him . . ." Walter Kaufmann lists the persons whom Hegel actually mentioned in his manuscript ("only thirteen men and women are named." p. 125). I would say Kaufmann left out Julius Caesar, since the preface happens to discuss historical facts like the year in which Caesar was born. Reading the translation of the preface by Walter Kaufmann in HEGEL TEXT AND COMMENTARY, a separate paperback volume with the same index as HEGEL A REINTERPRETATION, is the best approach for understanding Kaufmann's method of explaining Hegel. His commentary in that book is mostly in the form of notes at particular places in the text, and they do not always refer to persons that might have been meant by Hegel, as a lot of philosophy has happened since Hegel, and Walter Kaufmann was aware of various interpretations and more modern philosophers like Kierkegaard and Heidegger (who, "unlike Hegel, seeks to move philosophy closer to poetry rather than science." note 10 on Commentary page 93). Having HEGEL A REINTERPRETATION as a separate book allows Kaufmann to try to demonstrate the scope of philosophy in a way that Hegel attempted to do, encompassing it all as no one had tried to do since Aristotle.

I learned a lot reading this book years ago, allowing myself to feel a lot like Fichte in the comparison, "Nobody today would rank Fichte with Kant;" (p.110). Self-consciousness in German is not quite what it is in America today, but a large part of how modern the intrusive nature of our media has allowed us to become is the constant measure of our own sorry self-consciousnesses becoming aware of each other, a very Hegelian philosophical theme. The appreciation of particular geniuses in our own day might be troubled by knowledge such as Kaufmann's, that "There are not many non-German composers in a class with Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven; and during their era German poetry was coming into its own, too. The great achievements of the period were triumphs of the artistic imagination." (p. 114). Our own composers always seem to be thinking about something else instead of what it would take to make their music better.

Did anybody notice how long the song "Lily Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts" was on Bob Dylan's "Blood on the Tracks" album? If "the drilling in the wall kept up, but no one seemed to pay it any mind" could be applied to philosophy, it might be as a form of consciousness which seeks to avoid an overwhelming awareness of anything which is actually going on. Hegel ought to be considered good for philosophy in the way that Bob Dylan would be good for people whose interest in music involves owning the rights to the songs. The big legal questions in our society are about who has to pay for people to keep singing or swapping this stuff. Most people who buy this book will read it as consumers. Hegel was usually not a philosopher to be considered dangerous, but somehow, people like Marx, who read Hegel as an introduction to how unsettled things of their own day were, were dangerous in a lot of intellectual fields. I learned a lot about Fichte the first time I read this book. His attempt to identify God with a moral world order is clearly stated, and it only takes a little knowledge of human nature to see how his career suffered the consequences, with the result, "Accused of atheism, he published a couple of vigorous defenses in 1799 and threatened to resign if reprimanded, which was construed as a resignation--and he was let go." (p. 102). Hegel managed to avoid getting clobbered in that kind of argument, and modern philosophy has a lot of appreciation for everything he managed to say without causing a lot of trouble. This book pulls it all together.

....do start here, for Kaufmann is an able Hegel commentator, clarifier, and critic.

Departing from his area of specialty, Nietzsche and the existentialists, Kaufmann is no less able to authoritatively present a balanced, masterful, thorough, yet concise analysis of the life and work of perhaps the least understood philosopher. As those who have assayed the Phenomenology or the Logic surely realize, exploring Hegel without a guide can be perilous. Kaufmann neutralizes many of the language barriers and ambiguities in Hegel's great works, clearly presents their core themes, and, much to the delight of this reader, locates them within the intellectual currents of the time and Hegel's own intellectual struggles and victories. As all soon find out, parsing a single work of Hegel's is less a challenge than understanding it in the broader context of Hegel's "system," let alone the movement begun by Kant and Fichte and carried onward by Schelling, Marx and others. Kaufmann brilliantly brings the reader from a tight focus on the many subtleties of Hegel's method to a broad view of the intellectual landscape of Hegel's Germany. An added bonus is a diligent if sometimes ascerbic analysis of key players in Hegelian scholarship.

This book is soooo clear. I felt upon reading it that I had found the words I have so long sought. This is a remarkable application of the consequenses of Nietzche's philosophy. Kaufmann has obviously done a fair share of his oun thinking over the years. In fact, it reminds me of Nietzche: "We should spend less time in relentless activity and more time in relentless thinking." Kaufmann is simply relentless!

This remarkable book covers a lot of ground. From a new term coined Decidaphobia (and its' various behavioural strategies), to a broad rejection of justice as the backbone of our moral foundation, leading to the dismissing, of all things, GUILT! Why, you ask, should we eliminate guilt? From Kaufmann himself: "Guilt feelings are a contagious desease that harms those who harbor them and endangers those who live close to them. The liberation from guilt spells the dawn the autonomy." And it is at this point in the book that Kaufmann really takes off about alternatives to decidaphobia, justice, and guilt. I'd rather not give away his complete book in a review however!

Frankly, this stuff should be a first year phylosophy requirement. Really has a good chance to connect with younger readers in the beginning of the book with his discussions of decidophobia (ie, are you wasting your moral life).

Please email me if you've read this review and can give me some feedback!

Kaufmann's WITHOUT GUILT AND JUSTICE is a neglected classic of twentieth-century moral realism. His analyses are succinct, searing, insightful, and superb. Anyone who takes seriously the philosophical tradition of critical thinking should read this challenging masterpiece.

I had the opportunity to see the beautiful exhibit - Art in Poland in 1999 at the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore, Maryland. This book is the catalogue for that exhibit. The following museums were also participants: The Art Institute of Chicago, Huntsville Museum of Art, The San Diego Museum of Art and The Philbrook Museum of Art. It was the first time that this massive work of art had ever been seen outside of Poland.

LAND OF THE WINGED HORSEMEN: ART IN POLAND, 1572-1704 is a splendid pictorial of over 150 magnificent works of art from the Baroque era when Poland ranked as the second largest country in Europe. Poland's location is at the heart of Europe and for that reason its position is at the crossroads of Eastern and Western Europe. That melting pot of nations and cultures is reflected in this outstanding collection.

This book highlights paintings of the monarchy; icons, religious depictions and an historic and magnificent painting entitled The Battle of Vienna. Also shown are rich tapestries, exotic rugs, glassware, porcelains, military regalia, weaponry, liturgical objects and the crown of King Augustus III.

The Winged Horsemen was the name given to the Polish hussars. They carried a very long lance, wore traditional metal plate armor and usually had some type of animal skin draped across the shoulder. What gave them such a distinctive look were the wings that were mounted to the back of their saddles. In 1683 the King of Poland, Jan III Sobieski led an army of combined Polish and German Imperial soldiers to fend off an attack of 100,000 Turks who had laid siege to Vienna. The Polish Winged Horsemen led the assault and smashed through the Turkish defenses. The Turks fled in panic and Vienna was saved. A Turkish tent from that siege and armor from a Winged Horsemen are both pictured.

The beautiful photographs in this book are accompanied by well-explained descriptions of the various works of art.

This is a positively wonderful book!! It was done from the museum exhibit from earlier in 1999 and 2000. It has the most wonderful close up pictures of the tent,the spoons, the saddle, the lances and I believe it also has the history of the different items also, so you can learn how important the certain items are to Poles. Before this exhibit, I had wondered where the "Silver Spoon" phrase came from. This exhibit answered this question, as does this book!! Wonderful book, and Enjoy!!!

Goethe, Kant, Hegel is the first book of the Discovering the mind trilogy. This trilogy was Kaufmann's final work. The ideas discussed in this book are not new to his work but rather make it more complete. All of Kaufmann's work taken together forms an organic seamless whole.

In this book as with his others Kaufmann is interested in uncovering, exploring, defining and evaluating what is the essence of being human. He also extends this search beyond mere identifying to an exploration of what he considers are the human qualities worthy of cultivation and represent the best of humanity. To my knowledge his approach of a philosophical study of individuals breaks some original ground and because Kaufmann is building on previous work he is hugely successful in this task. This book should be a classic, recognized for its pioneering effort toward discovery of the mind (Kaufmann's definition of mind here is a "term for feeling and intelligence, reason and emotion, perception and will). Not only is it scholarly (in the best sense of the word) but it has a clear vision that Kaufmann is able to communicate clearly.

It is not enough for Kaufmann to present compelling reasons why life is most meaningful when meaning and purpose come from within, nor that the autonomous life (he discusses autonomy at length in Without guilt or Justice) is the key to finding that meaning. Kaufmann knows that even a dictator and tyrant can become such a person. Kaufmann goes on to articulate his vision of morality (a theme developed in his earlier work- The Faith of a Heretic). In this and the two subsequent volumes he shows us what attributes of these various men of varying greatness he sees as most representative of both qualities which give personal meaning to that individual but also elevate for us all the human spirit, as well as those qualities that do not. In Goethe, Kant, Hegel, Kaufmann rigourously illuminates that interior terrain into the minds of each of these men taking us on a journey of understanding. While it's clear that Kaufmann's vision (what is it to be human) is his own, the seeds of that vision can be found in his profound empathy of Goethe , Nietzsche(vol.ll), and Freud(vol.lll). In fact, implicit to reading this work is that we come to understand Kaufmann's mind as well. The book also provides us with the tools to be our own explorers and thus continue the contribution. In Goethe, Kant, Hegel, Kaufmann quotes from a letter written by someone who knew Goethe. In reading the attributes ascribed to Goethe one cannot help but feel that the description is just as apt of Kaufmann.

"He is violent in all of his emotions but often has a great deal of self-control. His way of thinking is noble; free of prejudices, he acts as he feels without caring whether others like it, whether it is the fashion, whether the way one lives permits it. All compulsion is hateful to him... He is not what one calls orthodox. But not from pride or caprice or to make an impression. About certain very important issues he speaks to few and does not like to disturb others in their calm ideas...I wanted to describe him, but it would become too lengthy, for there is much that could be said about him. He is, in one word, a very remarkable human being."

This book is well worth reading.

This is the work in which Hegel called the absolute that night in which all cows are black. Those people who think that philosophy is impossibly complicated might start by looking at Walter Kaufmann's comments on how bad the other translations and comments on this amazingly swift work by Hegel have been. The other bit of humor here is Hegel attacking philosophy in a way that can only seem to be a personal attack on the views of Schelling, and then Walter Kaufmann thinks Hegel lied when he told Schelling in a letter that he wasn't thinking of him personally when he was writing about how superficial philosophy seems to people who only read the stuff. What is truly astounding is how inspired people feel when they right this kind of stuff. Religion and poetry seem to be competing for inspiration that can claim to be as deep, but religious doctrines and poetic theories get rated along with stale philosophies in this kind of search for an absolute, which really might seem like a night in which all cows are black the first time through this. It helps to have a few other books around to help comprehend this stuff by putting Hegel in a context where this summary of what his first two major works might be about (he wrote his LOGIC later) strives for some importance. This could be as close to official German university philosophy as any student would ever understand, but Hegel might be found complaining here that students don't understand a lot of this any more than other people.

This book, Life at the Limits, a philosophical picture book by someone who appreciates how much our visual images determine which views might help maintain our society as a superpower, assumes modernity as it builds to a confrontation with all that has been taught, but this book almost fails to approach the comic willingness of those who have yielded to the temptation to be constantly entertaining, as that need is understood by those who have overcome the limits usually placed on philosophy, which in attempting to bolster the superpower's views, must be reluctant to admit that it was written in and about the kingdom of the cruel. There is no index in this book, which is taken as a sure sign to highly suspect readers, such as myself, that security would be breached if people were able to locate the identities assumed by the philosopher in this effort. It is also unlikely that anything suggested by this book will be considered in alphabetical order. There is a list of 24 words beginning with the letter d on page 66, but even those words aren't in alphabetical order, but, comically enough, a lot of them are described as dismal. Already, there should be something funny, and what comes to my mind as being one of my favorite comic bits on the same topic is a cockroach interviewing a mummy, the episode "archy interviews a pharaoh" at page 33 of "archy and mehitabel" by don marquis. The first important d word there is in the sentence, "in my tender prime I was too dignified to have anything as vulgar as ambition." (marquis, p. 33). Death is one of the d words in the Kaufmann list, and at times he seems to approach the view of the pharaoh who thought, "if I had my life to live over again I would give dignity the regal razz and hire myself out to work in a brewery." (marquis, p. 35). As archy says, "my sympathies are with your royal dryness," (p. 36) who had to admit, "I am as dry as the heart of a sand storm at high noon in hell." (p. 36). archy is not to be outdone, once religion has been brought into the discussion, and refers to the mummy as "divine drouth" and "my reverend juiceless ness" as well as "the royal desiccation" (p. 37) but the d words really pile up when a great cough of despair turned the unfortunate residuum "to dust and debris right in my face/it being the only time/I ever actually saw anybody/put the cough/into sarcophagus." (pp. 37-9). I can't be sure that this deformity of d word topics is what Kaufmann had in mind when he mentioned someone being "struck by more than one item from list A. . . . There is work here even for those who like to use computers." (p. 67). Depth was a word in the B list, in which comedy might be included in the derangement, drugs, debauchery, and, especially in the kingdom of the cruel, with "degradation of others." (p. 66). There is reason to believe that psychotic multiplicity might be a factor in achieving depth in such an effort; as Kaufmann says, "by attaining sufficient depth one approaches the limits." (p. 67).

On page 127, the entry for Nietzsche in the Bibliography says, "See page 2 above." Most people think of Nietzsche as all of the ideas which they have previously had about him and his philosophy, and Kaufmann, famous for his Nietzsche translations, is fortunate to be able to admit it so openly. Page 2 is a list, "Books by Walter Kaufmann," and due to its relatively recent appearance, and although it remains my favorite book, THE GAY SCIENCE is at the bottom of the list. Since there are a large number of photographs at the beginning, the Prologue of this book is on page 65. There isn't enough space in a review to go over "Dover Beach" on page 77, but I know, for sure, that the line "vast edges Near" should end with "drear".

Walter Kaufmann's significance as an artist and philosopher has yet to be thoughtfully assessed either by academicians or by the educated public. MAN'S LOT is perhaps Kaufmann's masterpiece, a series of artistic photographs which perfectly amplify and explicate the philosophy and poetry which accompany them.

I never grow tired of these images themselves. They are both personal and universal, illuminating the human condition in its many forms and variations on planet Earth. The first section focuses on the poor in Calcutta; the second on the effects of time on humans and the planet; and the third compares humans from a variety of cultural and historical settings, revealing our basic constancy within a framework of constant change.

We once respected thoughtful people who shared their wisdom with humanity through their art and writing. It is, for me, a sad commentary on our times that Kaufmann's work has been so thoroughly ignored. He sought to be accessible to the educated masses. It is grossly ironic that his works of genius are ignored by specialist and layperson alike.

And it is not that Kaufmann is NOT accessible. MAN'S LOT is written in clear and forceful prose. Its arguments are easily grasped, and its messages are potentially as transformative as are those of Plato's REPUBLIC.

For anyone who loves art, the act of thinking, and the pursuit of wisdom itself, there could be no better gift than a copy of this long out-of-print masterpiece. It should be cherished by the many rather than utterly ignored by the same.

Along with Kaufmann's RELIGION IN FOUR DIMENSIONS, there exist no better record of a life--Kaufmann's--devoted to understanding life and participating in its mysteries.

This is both a review and a Kritik of the "Montreal Readers" review. I happen to love the writings of Nietzsche, in my opinion he is the most important philosophical figure ever to walk this planet. However, do not listen to the "Montreal Readers" comments, he or she does not even know the title of the orignial piece, in this persons review it states the "La Gaya Scieza" when in actuality the original title in the german is Di Froliche Wissenschaft.
This book is a masterpiece, one of Nietzsche's most beautifully written books in which he paints a picture with witty and glamorous aphorisms. Many themes such as the Eternal Reccurance and the Death of God come into plsy and we get a glimpse of Nietzsche's nihilism. My advice is to read Ecce Homo and twilight of the idols before develving into this book. Nietzsche called it his most personal of books, and from reading it and studying Nietzsche myself I believe it to be as well. But that does not mean one should start with this book. One needs to learn and get personal with Nietzsche and gather an understanding of his concepts and ideas before anyone should dive into this work.
It is a masterpiece, but a work that is substantial and one of his longer works. Take a test drive with Nietzsche and if you want to read more, go and read this work.

The Gay Science is a wonderful celebration of life. One can not make categorial statements on Nietzsche, but that he wanted his readers to accept the indifference of nature, and not pity themselves with, "Why me?" questions. After all God is dead, therefore, why even bother yourself with asking why me? If there is one Carpe Diem philosopher it is Nietzsche! "One must have liberated oneself from many things that oppress, inhibit, hold down, and make heavy precisely us Europeans [modernity in general] today." Nietzsche takes his readers into cataclysmic conversations (aphorisms), trying to undo the manacles of our spirit. Do yourself a favor and pick up this book, instead of remaining curious about the "madman with a frizzy mustache". Keep and open mind, then curse and thank Nietzsche all you want and move on with your own standards of life.

This book contains the famous description of the madman announcing the Death of God. Obviously Nietzsche sees himself as the madman, sacrificing himself to bring humanity the awful news. What's odd is that Nietzsche was certainly not the first person to proclaim God's death; in fact, as he himself notes elsewhere, many educated people had already become either agnostic or atheistic. None of them, however, found this as earthshaking as Nietzsche. The reason, I think, is that he had an essentially religious nature. The word "spiritual" recurs throught the book. In one remarkable passage he even chastises St. Augustine for being insufficiently spiritual.

The Gay Science is a pivitol book for Nietzsche because it is the first in which the tension between the spiritual seeker and the atheist becomes manifest. Gone is the skeptical pose of "Human All Too Human"; instead we have the anguish of a man torn between two conflicting ideals. The tension, while it ravaged Nietzsche, did produce some brilliant ideas and unforgettable prose, even if it did not ultimately lead to a liveable philosophy.