2 comments about Plato: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions).

1. This is Prof. Annas' second contribution to this series, her first being A Short Introduction to Ancient Philosophy. This one does not measure up to the first. Some of the weaknesses of "Ancient Philosophy" are more evident in "Plato", while the strengths are lacking.
   
   My first beef with Prof. Annas is trivial, but annoying, and that is her insistance that the traditional English language usage for the third person impersonal discriminates against females. In order to counter this supposed disrespect of females, she creates opportunities to plunk down a "she" or a "her" where a "one" or "it" or "he" would normally be expected. An example: Annas writes, "Someone who wins the lottery, for example, may well not be made any happier by just having the money. Unless she puts it to intelligent use, the money may do nothing for her, or even ruin her life." So, we were talking about the relationship of money to happiness, when suddenly the topic changes to gender politics. Why not just say, "Unless the money is put to intelligent use, it may contribute nothing to happiness, and may even ruin one's life", and leave gender politics out of it? I purchased this book in order to learn about Plato, not to deal with Julia Annas' feminist complexes.
   
   She is excessively agnostic about the order of composition of the Platonic dialogues, dismisses with little discussion the internal evidence for a sequence, and its implications for the reconstruction of a picture of the historic Socrates. My complaint is not that she disagrees, but that she doesn't discuss the issue, which seems to be an important one in studies of Plato. And she really doesn't get to the meat of Socrates' irony and method of inquiry.
   
   She devotes an entire chapter to sex and gender issues, only to then dismiss Plato thus: "By this point, studying Plato has little to contribute to modern feminist discussion: his starting points and many of his assumptions are too remote from ours for him to be a profitable partner in debate for very long." If that's true, why did we just spend an entire chapter, 14 percent of a very short book, on the subject?
   
   The remainder of the book is taken up with superficial discussions of Plato's views of virtue, the soul, and metaphysics, and ends with a rousing statement of the obvious: "For in the end, his deepest message is not that we should believe in Forms, or the importance of virtue, but that we should engage with him, and with our own contemporaries, in aspiring to understand these matters."
   
   I finished her Short Introduction to Ancient Philosophy stimulated to read more. By contrast, reading this book left me with the opposite feeling, that reading more by Annas would be frustrating and a waste of time.



2. This is the first book that I have ever read about Plato. While it is not the best book in this series - it should have been longer - it is still a good read and worth the $... you'll spend for it.

   The best thing about this book is that, rather than just focus on Plato's own philosophy, generous mention is also given to his place in culture and the history of the interpretation of his works. More than anything, this makes for a more enjoyable read, but it also gives us a clue as to how certain practices and ideas that are still current today have (at least some of) their roots in Plato.

   However, when it comes to Plato's own thought about different things, this book is a bit lacking. His theory of the forms is given short mention, while an entire chapter is devoted to his views on sexuality. Given our current cultural milieu, such a focus on sexuality is indeed interesting, but was sex really so central to Plato's philosophy?

   While it is important to note the differences between his own culture and ours, it is more important to note the main currents of his thought, especially given the constraints on length for this book (the subtitle is, after all, "A Very Short Introduction"). If she had explained his most important and most famous ideas more, such a focus would not seem so disproportionately out of place.

   Yet, it is also worth noting that Annas' goal seems to be to write a book that is simply a good place to *start*. The book ends with an invitation to do philosophy rather than to simply know about it which is, so to speak, in the very spirit of Plato himself.

5 comments about Bill W.: A Biography of Alcoholics Anonymous Cofounder Bill Wilson.

1. Marital difficulties
   Wilson was serially unfaithful to his wife Lois. Wilson 's affairs with women caused controversy and concern within AA and it was common knowledge in New York AA circles. His interest in younger women increased with his age, and caused Barry Leach and other friends of Wilson to form a "Founders Watch". People were assigned to keep an eye on Wilson during the socializing that followed AA functions and to separate and steer away those young women who caught Wilson's interest. Wilson, like many in his generation, could be sexist, but he was also "capable of treating the women who worked with him with dignity and respect". In the mid 1950s he began an affair with Helen Wyn, a woman 22 years his junior, "in duration, intensity and scope" this was different from his other affairs. Wilson at one point discussed divorcing Lois to marry Helen. Wilson with determined perseverance was able to overcome the AA trustees objections, and renegotiated his royalty agreements with them in 1963, which allowed him to include Helen Wynn in his estate. He left 10% of his book royalties to Helen and the other 90% to his wife Lois. In 1968 with Wilson's illness making it harder for them to spend time together, Helen bought a house in Ireland.
   
   Alternative cures and spiritualism
   In the 1950s Wilson experimented with LSD in medically supervised experiments with Gerard Heard and Aldous Huxley. With Wilson's invitation his wife Lois, Father Dowling, and Nell Wing also participated in experimentation of this drug. Later Wilson wrote to Carl Jung, praising the results and recommending it as validation of Jung's spiritual experience. (The letter was not in fact sent as Jung had died.)
   
   At a parapsychology meeting in the 1960s, Wilson met Abram Hoffer and learned about the potential mood-stabilizing effects of niacin. Wilson was impressed with experiments indicating that alcoholics who were given niacin had a better sobriety rate, and he began to see niacin "as completing the third leg in the stool, the physical to complement the spiritual and emotional." Wilson also believed that niacin had given him relief from depression, and he promoted the vitamin within the AA community and with the National Institute of Mental Health as a treatment for schizophrenia. However, Wilson created a major furor in AA because he used the AA office and letterhead in his promotion.
   
   For Wilson, spiritualism (communicating with the spirits of the dead) was a life-long interest. One of his letters to his spiritual adviser Father Ed Dowling suggests that while Wilson was working on his book Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions he felt that spirits were helping him, in particular a 15th century monk named Boniface.[18] Wilson believed that the living could communicate with the dead and kept a "Spook Room" in his basement, where he along and others would conduct seances with a Ouijiboard, as well as experiment with automatic writing. Despite his conviction that he had evidence for the reality of the spiritual world, Wilson chose not to share this with AA.



2. I've been a "friend" of Bill and Dr. Bob since Christmas 1990, and have read a lot of material, both "conference approved" and other, and this book is probably the best biography of Bill W. that I've come across. I have to disagree with the reviewers who gave this work a low rating... I do not see this biography as a "hatchet job" or any sort of attempt to demean or diminish the memory of Bill Wilson.
   
   Bill was not saint, and he never really sought sainthood. If some hold him to saintly standards or infallible behavior, those depictions were\are pressed on him.
   
   Hartigan successfully describes Bill's childhood, young adulthood, service years, marriage and the early years of AA's struggles in great detail. Until I read this book, I knew from other readings that Bill had many faults, but I did not fully appreciate the depth of his alcoholic behavior, and its effect on both Bill and Lois. I also did not appreciate the severity Bill's lifelong struggle with deep depression.
   
   This biography also does a good job putting context and details to Bill's lesser known "adventures" which folks hostile to AA use to discredit Bill and the AA program.
   
   Bill experimented with LSD, starting in the 50's and into the 60's... starting when the drug was legal and being investigated for psychotherapeutic potential to help alcoholics and schizophrenics.
   
   Bill actively promoted niacin for alcoholics, dragging the AA name into this promotion, but it was out of enthusiasm and hope to help the still suffering alcoholic. He was called to task for this, and the AA name removed from such endorsements.
   
   Bill was unfaithful to Lois and maintained long term relationships outside his marriage. This biography, written by the personal secretary to Lois at the end of her long life, makes no excuses for this behavior, but does add context.
   
   I came away with greater appreciation of Bill Wilson, the man, who overcame many serious problems to help create an organization that has helped many thousands of people live better lives.



3. The author went to work for Bill W's widow. Eventually this book resulted, after both were dead.
   
   The book provides a much needed perspective. It is clear on Bill's early atheism (which he called agnosticism) and helps focus how AA is a spiritual program and not a religious one and wny.
   
   Over and over again it explains the forces that were being reacted against. If you've listened to Bill and Charlie (they are available for free on the internet as mp3 downloads for ipods and similar products -- or your computer), this fills in the gaps.
   
   For example, everyone knows about Bill as a womanizer in his later years. What people do not know is that about the time he turned forty, his wife decided that she was done with sex. She was older than he was, went through menopause and retired from sex. No wonder that has he got into his fifties he started thinking of her more as a mother figure and less as a wife figure.
   
   In a modern hospital, such as where my wife works, everyone knows about "banana bags" (IVs that are yellow from the b-vitamins, especially niacin, used routinely on alcoholics who have serious problems because of bad diet) -- but I never knew that started with niacin for alcoholics.
   
   Or the rumors of financial misuse -- at complete odds with poverty and the audits -- now I know how they started and how they kept going.
   
   I'm not an alcoholic (well, I've never had a drink, so I'm at least a very dry alcoholic), though I've sent a number of clients to 12 step programs, until recently I did not have the slightest idea what they were about.
   
   With this I understand what makes AA different from every other program out there, why it found that balance and how it was shaped and touched by the personality of its founder.
   
   The book is an easy read, and gripping. I finished it over a weekend, along with other projects and preparing and teaching a Sunday School lesson.
   
   It was interesting, complex, consistent and had a basic appreciation and fondness for the subject.
   
   I'm not sure how it plays inside AA, but from the outside I find myself admiring Bill W and AA a great deal from having read this book. Heck, I even got started on the "Big Book" (I've read about half of it so far).
   
   If you've gotten to this page where the book is advertised, it is probably worth your while to buy it. I got my copy at half price books for six dollars. They had a bundle of them. Used copies in excellent to new condition abound.
   
   Buy it, read it, think about it. Well worth the read.



4. This is an amazing bio of Bill W.
   
   I've read pass it on and afew other AA related books, nothing has held my interest with such awe as this wonderful book.
   
   This book gives you a better understanding of Bill. Everyone has there own opinion.



5. Of late, I have been doing a lot of research work and writing on the differences in religious views, religious background, and religious influences on A.A. co-founders Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith. In that connection, I have found myself turning more and more to Francis Hartigan's account and quoting portions of it in various contexts. The Bill Wilson story itself has been hacked around in so many ways, many of them inaccurate, that I look for the tidbits that show the author's real familiarity and lack thereof with the subject at hand. In Hartigan's case, I found his recital of the "spiritual experience" by Bill's grandfather, Hartigan's details on Lois Wilson, and Hartigan's accurate observations on Bill's decision for Christ at the Calvary Rescue Mission to be most refreshing and quotable. Among the plethora of recent books on Bill's life, I believe this Hartigan biography and the Bill W. Autobiography from the "Bedford Papers" as reported by Hazelden to be two important resources for learning A.A.'s historical, spiritual background. Dick B.

2 comments about The Soul of a Lion: The Life of Dietrich Von Hildebrand.

1. This incredible, 2000 book features a forward by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, who subsequently changed jobs!!!
   
   Dietrich Von Hildebrand was anything but a dull, boring academic. As described by his widow, his life was filled with sanctity, romance, heroism, and intrigue. An outspoken opponent of Hitler, he became targeted for assassination. Hunted throughout Europe, he arrived in New York City in 1940, where he taught at Jesuit-run Fordham University until 1960.
   
   Even after retirement, Von Hildebrand maintained ties to Fordham through his protege, the late Dr. William Marra - my own teacher! I am deeply disappointed that I never took the opportunity to hear one of Von Hildebrand's presentations.



2. "The Soul of a Lion" is a very moving account of the life of Dietrich von Hildebrand, one of the most important Catholic theologians of the 20th century. Since it was written by his lovely wife, Alice, she does not pretend to be an unbiased observer. However, while she clearly writes from a heart filled with deep love and affection, she also recounts his mistakes and character faults without attempting to whitewash them.

   Some of the highlights of the book include the sections detailing his very cultured, very European uprbringing; his conversion to Catholicism; and his courageous, outspoken opposition to Nazism, resulting in his dangerous escape to America with his family.

   My one disappointment with the book is the ending-- Alice von Hildebrand ends her account with his arrival in the United States. This necessarily leaves untold the story of how the first Mrs. von Hildebrand (Gretchen) died, and how Alice had the great good fortune of meeting and eventually marrying Dietrich. Surely this is another moving tale which deserves to be told! Perhaps, someday, a continuation??

5 comments about Symposium (Oxford World's Classics).

1. The Symposium of Plato is a profoundly thought-provoking, entertaining and inspiring piece of philosophical writing. It is very short, yet infinitely more substantial than many longer works.
   
   We are in Athens, 416 B.C.E. The scene is a banquet at the house of Agathon, who had the day before celebrated the victory of his tragedy. By the end of the party, seven men - and one absent but central woman - will have presented their views on the nature and meaning of Eros, or love.
   
   There is no difficulty in keeping the characters distinct in our minds. Plato has great fun contrasting the opinions - and verbal styles - of tragic poet, comic poet, politician, physician and the rest, allowing absurdities and profundities to mingle freely. Socrates is very appealing, saint-like, yet utterly down-to-earth, playing his usual role of a 'philosopher' - one who 'knows only that he does not know' - always in passionate search of the truth, but catching only revelatory glimpses of its perfection.
   
   Phaedrus gives the first speech, praising lovers' (especially homosexual) passion and loyalty, which makes them perform mighty and heroic deeds. Pausanias differentiates between virtuous, or spiritual love, and common, or bodily love. Virtuous love between men should not be primarily about sex, but about improvement and education of the soul. Eryximachus, the doctor, makes a mostly irrelevant (and boring) speech, claiming nature's contrasting elements illustrate the need to balance the healthy and unhealthy aspects of love. Aristophanes then delivers a brilliantly memorable speech, hilarious and poignant by turns, telling of how humans were once two-in-one, back to back, with two heads, four arms and four legs, with three combinations of sexes, male/male, male/female, and female/female. Their strength and speed made them threaten the gods, so Zeus cut them in half, leaving them to search forever for their other halves, and through love attempt to regain their original oneness. Agathon then gives an over-the-top, ecstatic speech, praising love as the youngest, most graceful of the gods, saying he brought order to heaven itself, 'empties men of disaffection and fills them with affection', etc, climaxing with the suggestion we all follow in love's footsteps, 'sweetly singing in his honour'.
   
   It is then Socrates' turn. He performs for all conversations that took place between himself when much younger and Diotima, a 'wise' woman from Mantineia, to whom he had gone for instruction in the highest truths of love. In sum, the lesson is that love is the desire for the everlasting possession of the good and beautiful, which brings happiness. We crave immortality, in order to be happy eternally. We love our offspring, artistic works, laws and institutions, because they are all attempts to achieve an immortal name. These, Diotima claims, are the 'lesser' mysteries of love.
   
   The 'greater' proceed from the 'lesser' in ascending steps. From one beautiful body the lover creates 'fair notions', then he sees all bodies are similar and equally worthy of love. From bodies he proceeds to the beauty of the virtuous mind, then the beauties of institutions and laws, climbing from there to the beauty of the sciences, until, after much growth in wisdom, he reaches the vision of all creation as beautiful. The final step is to rise to the contemplation of unchanging, eternal, absolute beauty itself. To spend your life in union with perfect beauty allows you to bring forth 'real' things, not 'images' and 'be immortal, if mortal man may'.
   
   A drunken Alcibiades bursts in at this point, and gives a rambling, often funny, speech about his love for Socrates and how he - a very beautiful man - was spurned sexually by him. He describes Socrates' near-supernatural control of himself, totally above the effects of pain and pleasure. The book ends with a description of Socrates' companions all falling asleep as dawn breaks (after all-night drinking) and his going about his usual day.
   
   Throughout the Symposium, Plato makes it clear that sexual relations are not the best thing at all for 'lovers'; they who wish for the highest happiness must seek to grow in virtue and wisdom and become increasingly detached from earthly pleasures. This is the origin of the phrase 'Platonic love'. Women were not considered their intellectual and spiritual equals in Athens at the time, so men of sophistication had to look to each other for emotional sustenance.
   
   What then, we may ask, can the Symposium offer human beings today who are not interested in purely mystical/intellectual living and prefer the sexual and emotional satisfactions found in personal relationships?
   
   A great deal, I believe. In his introduction Benjamin Jowett states that Plato 'is conscious that the highest and noblest things in the world are not easily severed from the sensual desires, or may even be regarded as a spiritual form of them'. In other words, earthly pleasures and transcendent ones are inextricable. Plato used words such as 'good' and 'virtue' to describe freeing oneself from the world of the senses, by using our reason to choose correctly who - or what - to attach to as we move through life. If we choose correctly, be it friends, sexual or lifetime partners, we strengthen our sense of inner freedom, until finally we experience it at the deepest, mystical level - the profound shift in consciousness that Plato was pointing to as the highest good - which in and of itself is morally and values-neutral.
   
   The genius of Plato is that he communicates the total commitment required to attain perfect freedom, and the moral obligation of all human beings to strive for the happiness it alone can deliver.



2. .
   Plato's "Symposium" is the story of Agathon's dinner party where conversation takes place with a small group of men, who recline, eat and drink around a table offering their views on Love. This story is an amazing account of how intelligent and yet so different a culture the men from ancient Greece were compared to our society today. Each speaker has this most amazing ability to tell two stories at the very same time, an creative artistic movement of what love 'is' in each and every story. applying and , metaphorically. intertwining a cultural, mythological story of the gods, giving far deeper meaning. In addition to this, the love relationships and sexual nature of these men also permeate an entire cultural feel to the story, enveloping a radical differentiation from our de-mystified and de-enchanted world back into a once existing world of substantial meaning and profundity.

   Phaedrus, speaks first and relates how love is the greatest good, the beautiful, is shameful of ugly things and how only lovers are willing to die for one another.

   The second speaker, Pausanias, applies two types of love, one Aphrodite, a common base love working at random with men's feelings, for money, for loving physical bodies, boys, men and women. The other type of love, from a much younger goddess, being a higher type, the heavenly, who only loves other men and boy love, but this is not physical body love but from affection of the mind of virtue and wisdom..

   Aristophanes has the hiccups, so it is Eryximachus, a doctor, who speaks third, applying the idea of love as a double love; "for bodily health and disease are by common consent different things and unlike, and what is unlike desires and loves things unlike." p.82 The god of art was said to implant love as a healing art, all such love guided by this god. "It is quite illogical to say that a harmony is at variance with itself or is made up of notes still at variance." "So love as a whole has great and mighty power, or in a word, omnipotence ."

   Aristophanes, the comic writer, gives a moving account of Love as a absolute human need, a desire for completion to the point of each person once shaped differently being cut in half, taking our current shape, in need of the other to complete the whole of what we once were. "For first there were three sexes, not two as at present, male and female, but also a third having both together," and they were violent, strong and forceful and would even attack the gods. So Zeus and the other gods held a meeting and decided to cut them in halves and make them weaker. From then on, they were sexually drawn to one another, both heterosexual and homosexual, reasons all due to the way of the cutting of the halves.Lesbianism and boy to man love is freely spoken of and justified according to this story of the gods. His moving speech on the beauty and virtue of love however, is according to Socrates, true only in the sense of romanticism and fictional idolatrous admiration of what love should be. For Socrates found such a romantic explanation of love as untrue to what love really is and what love contains, as it does not contain all the beauty and good.

   The fourth speaker, Agathon gives a moving speech on the beauty and virtue of love however, it is according to Socrates, true only in the sense of romanticism and fictional idolatrous admiration of what love should be. "For all the gods are happy . . and love is the happiest of them all being the most beautiful and best . . the youngest of gods." In his speech, love is every good, virtuosos and beautiful thing.

   The last speaker, Socrates, found such a romantic explanation of love to be untrue, for what desires good, virtue and wisdom is only something that does not contain such, something lacking, and therefore lacking it desires such things. Love only desires what it lacks. Love is neither beautiful nor ugly. "To have right opinion without being able to give reason is neither to understand nor is it ignorance. Right opinion is no doubt something between knowledge and ignorance."

   It is so interesting how common and free sexuality and homosexuality were, how each man present commented on the beauty of the young men in their glory of youth. Alcibiades, jealous of Agathon, also a young beautiful male, makes a moving speech how Socrates refused his love and how other like young men, also were moved with his amazing wisdom and prose.

   While women are generally discounted, and the bonding of affection in male love was considered a higher love by Pausanias, Socrates explanation of love, by far the most profound, was one he received from a woman named Diotima. Here, as another reviewer has stated, shows Plato's the egalitarianism and wisdom, like that of the beauty and ultimate goal of Love.

   Later a group of men crash the party and the drinking really gets started. Some leave, while Socrates stays all night, never loosing integrity from his drinking and leaves with all his integrity.




3. Perhaps the most "literary" of all Plato's works, "Symposium" is the story of a dinner party gathering of great (and a few not so great) minds, whom engage in a discussion in praise of eros, or passionate love. It is considered literary because it is highly metaphorical, it's characters are drawn well and in some cases unforgettably, and it succeeds on many levels. It is not uncommon for Socrates to elevate the subject of discussion in any given dialogue to that of our earthly existence, and how we should go about it. Perhaps shocking to readers unfamiliar with the Greeks is the prevalence of homosexual love, particularly with young boys. But, if nothing else, this is an insight into ancient culture. And the absolutely magnificent speeches given by Aristophanes and Socrates remain profound and beautiful to modern readers, regardless of whether or not the other speeches are unpalatable to some. Also, Alcibiades, drunken, hilarious rant is not to be missed. Read in a single sitting, this work is almost sublime.



4. Enthralling, entertaining, educational, and thought-provoking, "The Symposium" is one of Plato's classics. A group of men gathered at a dinner party in ancient Greece discuss the topic of love. Each man offers his view or definition of love, and the results are all different, engaging, and full of symbolism. Although it is a short book, one must not read it once and put it away; it ought to be be read again and again just to compare to what is "picked up on" each time. One thing always puzzles me: I will never know why Plato included the doctor (his name escapes me at the moment) have a bout of hiccups during someone's speech. I have never come up with a satisfactory answer - nor has any one I know, either. Nevertheless, this is an excellent read that I highly recommend for anyone - student and nonstudent. Enjoy!



5. Plato's "Symposium" will always be read because there will always be people who question the nature of Love. Agathon's dinner party is the scene of a conversation between a small group of men, who go around the table offering their views on Love. What does Love mean to us to-day? Reading over the responses of the dinner-guests and their host, we find the same range of answers in Ancient Greece that we are likely to find now.

   Phaedrus and Pausanias are utilitarians and materialists. Phaedrus looks at love between people and a proto-Burkean love for government and state. Pausanias complicates the argument, saying that there are two different kinds of love, one which is common and one which is heavenly - yet still oriented towards the real and the tangible. Eryximachus is a proto-Swedenborg, trying to reconcile or harmonize the two kinds of love.

   The jewels of Plato's "Symposium" are Aristophanes and Socrates. Aristophanes gives us the profoundly moving depiction of Love as a fundamental human need, a desire for completion. For a writer of comedy, whose aim as an art form is forgiveness and acceptance, Aristophanes's explanation is no surprise, though its depth is amazing. While women are generally discounted throughout the "Symposium," not only does Socrates, as we might expect, completely astound his audience (both inside the book and out) with his progressively logical and ascendant view of Love, but he also does it through the voice of a woman, Diotima. When we realize that Socrates is a character in this fiction, and that his words originate in a woman, the egalitarianism and wisdom of Plato the author truly shines forth, like the absolute beauty he claims as the ultimate goal of Love.

   Was Plato a feminist? I don't know. I do know that the "Symposium" is a tremendous book. I picked it up and did not stop reading it until I was finished. The style of the Penguin translation is smooth, with a lighthearted tone that can make you forget that you are reading philosophy. Plato's comedic masterpiece in the "Symposium" is the character of Alcibiades, who provides the work a fitting end. Get the "Symposium" and read it now. You cannot help but Love it...in a Platonic sort of way.

5 comments about Niccolo's Smile: A Biography of Machiavelli.

1. Niccolo's Smile is, undoubtedly, a masterpiece in accessibility, ease of prose, and historical flow. Viroli has written a book that is both deeply human and unabashedly humane, as well as enjoyable, both for the Machiavelli fan and the newcomer.
   
   I cannot, however, understand or even detect where all the kudos and admiration for the translation come from: the book was evidently written in Italian, and the translation is so literal, so unedited, and so evident, that it is sometimes difficult to read through entire paragraphs without picking up a pencil and correcting the evident mistakes.
   
   Perhaps it is due to my Romance-languages background (Spanish is my native language), but I didn't find anything commendable about the translation, whereas the biography itself, on the other hand, is indeed a true masterpiece. (And this from a fan who's read through 12 other Machiavelli biographies, including De Grazia's intriguing Machiavelli in Hell, also available from Amazon).
   
   In short: buy it, enjoy it, and if you find yourself re-reading certain portions in search of a more coherent meaning, don't blame yourself: it's the translation.



2. Every now and then you read a book that brings its subject to life. Having studied Machiavelli from his writings, it helps to now know of his charms. This book contributed to my understanding of his works but more importantly to the background and history of his conversations. A good, quick read... Recommended.



3. Maurizio Viroli does a masterful job of bringing the teachings of the world's first modern philosopher, Niccolo Machiavelli, to light. Machiavelli has gained an unwarranted notorious reputation for his "evil" treatise on political thinking and acting through his authorship of "The Prince". "The Prince" received more notoriety than his politically erudite work "Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy" in which Machiavelli espouses his belief that the Roman Republic was the best and most virtuous form of government to emulate. His breadth and understanding of Roman history is remarkable. Viroli throughout his book emphasizes Machiavelli's love of his country Florence, and the proud political work as a minor government administrator and ambassador Machiavelli performed during its years as a republic. It was on his many ambassadorial trips to the French, Papal, and Italian courts that he learned to observe political leaders and their governmental institutions which formed the basis of his political theories in his many writings. My favorite quote from the book is from a letter Machiavelli writes to a friend; "It's better to act and repent then not to act and regret".
   
   Modern philosophers starting with Machiavelli reject the classical view of politics as undemocratic and elitist. Only wealthy men of leisure would have time to develop the virtues and character necessary to rule. Machiavelli believed that man by nature was selfish and driven by ambition. Machiavelli is not interested in character formation and moral appeal but in building the right kind of institutions to govern society. Laws and justice would protect men from power hungry rulers. Modern philosophy is an out growth of the revolution that takes place in the natural sciences during the Enlightenment. The purpose of science is the conquest of nature man is in control of human life. Philosophers from Machiavelli on become sectarian. "Everything good is due to man's labor rather than to nature's gift." This book is not all politics and philosophy. Viroli gives us a good insight into the life and times of Niccolo Machiavelli with a good study into his character, passions, and psyche.
   
   As a retired Army officer and student of political philosophy, I found this to be a great book to continue one's journey into political philosophy and history of Europe.



4. This biography presents the full Machiavelli, not just the cynical philosopher of politics. The reader discovers many other facets of his sometimes lusty, sometimes ironic, sometimes mischevious personality. The book places Machiavelli in the context of local events current to his time. We can see how he was influenced by, and tried to influence, the politics of his day. Above all, this book conveys Machiavelli as a writer, more effective in offering advice than he was at managing events. Viroli's brief essays at the beginnings of some of his chapters are elegant works in themselves. A plan of Renaissance Florence would have been a useful addition.



5. This is a concise and lively account of Machiavelli's life. It provides the general reader with much needed context and background in order to read Machiavelli's works with any kind of understanding. While there are good scholarly works that can provide the feeling of more intellectual heft, this book should not be underestimated simply because it is easy to read and doesn't require weeks to read.

   Machiavelli is one of those brand-name characters that evoke certain reactions in people in such a generalized way that people mistakenly believe they know something about the man and his work. This book can help debunk much of that received nonsense. It is surprising how "modern" a man he was considering he lived nearly 500 years ago.

   The author has admiration for Machiavelli's skills as an analyst and as a diplomat, has sympathy for his personal suffering and disappointments, and forgiving in his attitude towards Machiavelli's human failings (the author might not even agree they were failings - they were just human). And that is the book's greatest contribution; it shows its subject as a human being rather than a caricature or a statue.

   In any case, I found this to be a very valuable and entertaining book. I recommend it highly. You can draw your own conclusions about the subject and they author's conclusions. But you will have gained a lot in the process of coming to those (now better informed) conclusions.

   There are a few helpful maps throughout the book and a suggested reading list at the end. The translation is terrific.

No comments about Quine (Arguments of the Philosophers).

4 comments about Badiou: A Subject to Truth.

1. This is an excellent introduction to Badiou. Even with my limited education I was able to start really getting into his ideas and move on to start Badiou's writings, himself. It includes a layman's introduction to set theory as an appendix that is excellent and absolutely necessary to really starting to get what Badiou means by things like 'generic', 'void' and many of the other terms he uses.
   
   Through the text the terms Badiou uses are explained in detail. I could not have asked for more - only wish that there were more books this good introducing other great contemporary philosophers.



2. I followed the author's advice, to start by the Appendix "On the development of transfinite set theory", which is the key to a real understanding of Hallward's book and Badiou's philosophy. Understanding the 25 page long appendix took me as much time as the reading of the rest of the 400 pages of the book... It is a very good outline of set theory as used by Badiou, but I found it hard to understand it without the equations, that I finally found in Wikipedia. The rest of the book is much easier to read. I followed some of Peter Hallward's leads, like to read Saramago's novel "All the Names" as way of understanding Badiou's theory of love as a category of truth and event.
   All in all, Peter Hallward's book is an essential key and introduction to the next step: reading Alain Badiou's complex and exciting "Being and Event".



3. Hands down the best and most comprehensive book on Badiou to date, and probably for sometime to come. Covers just about everything the guy has written, a fair bit of it unpublished. The emphasis is more on Badiou's `Being and Event' (1988) and subsequent work, so one weakness here is the relative lack of detailed attention paid to `Theory of the Subject' and Badiou's other early texts. The concluding stuff on `absolutism' is maybe a little OTT. But in general this is very solid work, and not many contemporary philosophers have been given such careful treatment so early in their reception. If you're curious about Badiou, or know something about him but are looking for some extra material, then this is an excellent place to start.

   And unlike the previous reviewer, I thought the mathematical and contextual dimensions of the book were mostly helpful and about as thorough as is feasible, at least for non-specialist readers. Most of Rasheed Sabar's bizarre objections don't make any sense, or suggest that he hasn't actually read this book - for instance Hallward offers around a dozen obvious reasons why Badiou is opposed to Heidegger, and Badiou himself repeatedly affirms both formalism and realism/platonism without any contradiction or confusion, etc. If you want more info I found a much more informed & reliable review by Adrian Johnston, on the Metapsychology website (http://mentalhelp.net/books/books.php?type=de&id=1819).




4. Before briefly stating my opinions on the book, let me mention that amazon reviews, capped at 1,000 words, do not provide an optimal forum for in-depth reviews. My review has been criticized as "non-sensical" by the other reviewer on this site who posted from New York. Within the next several days I will put up a website which contains a much longer review of this book. Not only will I show that my claims are not non-sensical, I will also attempt to get it into the other reviewer's tiny mind just how the book fails. The author himself, upset at the amazon review, sent me a letter, to which I will respond in depth on the aforementioned website. If you are interested in understanding Badiou (indirectly) or how Hallward's book lacks significant philosophical worth, look for this upcoming website. For now:

   Though indisputably erudite, Hallward's book is not only confusing but confused. The first four chapters seek to situate Badiou in the context of classical philosophy and current French thought, and to clarify the role of mathematics in Badiou's philosophy. The attempt to contextualize Badiou fails horribly. We find out, in particular, that Badiou aligns himself with Plato, Descartes, Sartre, etc; we find out that he rejects the linguistic turn. We find out that he is the "exact contrary" of Heidegger, but it is never explained how or why this is so. In other words, all we get is a cataloguing of Badiou's positions (as if he were a politician) without the argumentation that Badiou uses to ally himself with these positions. The majority of what we get by way of argument-reproduction is the trite phraseology that Badiou cares for strong subjectivity, clarity, universalism, etc. Ok. But why? And how does he defeat the linguistic turn? Why is thought before being?

   The explanations clarifying Badiou's equating of mathematics and ontology fail abysmally through internal contradictions. The author fails at points to keep "pure being" and "what can be said of being" distinct; at one page he will call mathematics "true thought", and at another time he will say that it is valueless--it is the event which is true thought. We do not get a clear sense what the precise connection between mathematics and reality is for Badiou: at one point Hallward says that, for Badiou, mathematics as articulating Being implies that it is "prior to" the distinction between the actual and the potential; while at other moments he attempts to understand Badiou as a partial realist and partial formalist (these terms, or at least realism, presuppose the strong divide between reality and mathematics which Badiou seeks to overcome). It is of course possible to make arguments which resolve these tensions in Hallward's text. But the book makes the reader work too hard to thread something coherent from the mess that is presented.

   It is only through attentive reading that these gaps and contradictions come out. A cursory reading will leave one very satisfied. But if you want to understand Badiou deeply, this book reads roughly. Unfortunately, there are few other books on the market which cover the range of Badiou that Hallward does. So i'd have to say that it is decent by default.

5 comments about Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Restless Genius.

1. Until Damros published this 2005 National Book Award finalist, there has not been a good single-volume biography of Rousseau in the English language. This is because Rousseau's own auto-biography, "Confessions" (1782), is so well done and the number of sources for Rousseau's first 40 years are otherwise so weak, that writing a new biography is mostly a retelling of what Rousseau has already said. The strength of Damros' biography is to summarize Rousseau's life, his evolving thinking and his major works, including historical significance and context, while weaving in some of the best scholarship available after two centuries of reflection.
   
   His personality can best be describe as immature and "sharp at the edges". He either loved a person with all his heart, or hated them as his worst enemy. Usually, it started with the former and ended with the later, fueled by his paranoia and over-active imagination. These are traits one normally sees in a child, a black and white world view of love and hate unable to deal with the ambiguities of human weaknesses - which makes sense given Rousseau's brilliant genius combined with his abusive child-hood; lacking a mother he needed to trust someone, but at the same time could trust no one because of his abusive past. This fueled his desire for self-sufficiency and subsequent rejection of dependent relationships - thus he was naturally conflicted in an 18th C French society which was based on hierarchies of dependencies, where everyone was either the master of someone, or mastered by someone (and usually both)--Rousseau found a way to both live and preach an isolated life of self-sufficiency and inward reflection, hallmarks of the modern man. The master of no one, mastered by no one, and completely isolated from everyone. All of this is directly reflected in his works and ideas, so it is possible to fully understand Rousseau's works by understanding Rousseau the person - this biography paints the full portrait and answers many questions.



2. This fine biography traces one of those lives that would not be credible if it were fiction. After his mother died and his father abandoned him, Rousseau wandered from place to place without receiving any formal education. He failed at just about every job he attempted. Through a course of self study, however, his genuis slowly fermented, and then, in a mind bogling 5 year period around the age of 40, produced The Social Contract plus two of the most popular and influential novels of the 17th century, Emile and Julie.
   
   The story of his life, as told by Damrosch, serves the purpose of explaining where his philosophy came from. In Damrosch's view, Rousseau's outsider status and his ability to learn on his own provided the prespective from which he could see through the assumptions of his day and emerge with a unique view of life. Damrosch does a superb job of weaving between Rousseau's life, his personality and his philosophy.
   
   My only slight criticism is that the substance of The Social Contract, the book for which he's best known today, fills just a few pages. I would have preferred more on that. Damrosch, a professor of literature, seems more at home analyzing the two novels and the later autobiography, Confessions, which he considers the first modern autobiography in which a person tries to look at his childhood and inner life to see how he became the person he became. Damrosch does a first rate job examining all aspects of Rousseau's thought as revealed in the novels and the autobiography.
   
   In short, an extremely well written biography of a both intriguing and important man.



3. This fascinating biography gives a concise and briskly moving snapshot of one the key figures of our contested modernity, indeed, and ironically, of the Enlightenment tradition. Before Hegel mechanically codified dialectic Rousseau lived it in his embrace and intuitive grasp of contradictions that form the unity of life. Perhaps this is the reason he is often misunderstood and why a work such as The Social Contract provokes in turn its own dialectical audience. At a time when a technocractic rendition of the Enlightenment reigns as scientism Rousseau's critique, at the fount of the Romantic movement, still speaks to us. And Rousseau first grasps what Kant will make explicit in his 'critique of pure reason': the place of freedom in the mechanical Newtonian triumph, finally a triumph over man. All in all Rousseau is simply a human puzzle and this cascade through the strange incidents is superb reading.



4. I had previously read a good deal about Rousseau in general histories of the Enlightenment, and inspired by Prof. Damrosch's course for the Teaching Company, I had re-read a few of Rousseau's own works, but I was still intrigued and puzzled by his place in history and by his personality. Prof. Damrosch's book is so comprensive, insightful, and readable that my questions have now been answered to my complete satisfaction. In addition, Prof. Damrosch encourages and enables readers to compare themselves to Rousseau in terms of the unique individuality that we all share. I think that I now understand my own similarities and differences to Rousseau better than I did before. But I am not only a fellow human being but a participant in the history and culture of the modern world, which has been more profoundly affected by Rousseau than most of us realize.



5. It is no disrespect to a biographer of Rousseau to say that his task is made considerably easier by the fact that his subject had himself, in his fifties, written such a vivid and amazingly self-revealing autobiography, the famous Confessions. Especially as far as the first half of Rousseau's life are concerned, the main task of the biographer is to recount a story that has already been written, correcting the occasional misremembering or misrepresentation, and to comment upon it. Damrosch's own writing always reads pleasantly and easily, and he also alerts us in advance to how Rousseau's descriptions of his own childhood and adolescence would inform later writings, like Julie (1761) and Émile (1762), and how much his youthful resentment about the way he was treated by social superiors would be the foundation for his later political theories.
   
   For the first 37 years of his life, Rousseau had not revealed himself as the genius in the subtitle, though he was certainly restless: constantly on the move physically and psychologically highly labile. One wonders, in fact, how interested one would be in those 37 years if he had not shown himself a genius thereafter. I for one became a little impatient that as much as 2/5th of this long book is devoted to this early period, which by itself is not all that interesting, in which there are a lot of trivial incidents and in which we are told more about Rousseau's marginal acquaintances than perhaps we want to know. True, there emerges a good picture of the aristocratic segments of society which took Rousseau up and in which he moved with an understandable touchiness about his own status; and we also learn, for example, that Rousseau's behaviour in placing his five children to a Foundling's Hospital as soon as they were born (not left on the doorstep, a story later spread maliciously by Voltaire) was not as unusual in those days as one might think: more than a quarter of all newborn babies in Paris were abandoned in this way. Most of them were illegitimate, as Rousseau's were, and some of them, like Rousseau's later friend d'Alembert, were the illegitimate children of aristocrats.
   
   To me the book became really interesting when Rousseau made his break-through into real originality, and from that point onwards it gains immensely in power. Damrosch's analysis of Rousseau's writings is excellent. It does several things: it explains the ideas clearly and succinctly; it shows their originality at the time and the way they have influenced later thought, and it invariably links the ideas up with Rousseau's psychology. In this respect Damrosch goes against some literary theorists who insist that one should read texts as if one knew nothing about the lives of their authors; but many of Rousseau's books deliberately reflect his personal experiences in such a thinly disguised form that such arid theories are even more than usually inappropriate. Outstanding, I think, is the analysis, near the end of the book, of the Confessions, and I was particularly taken with his comparisons between Rousseau's autobiography and the autobiographical writings of his contemporaries, Voltaire, Diderot, Hume, Gibbon, and Benjamin Franklin. (Damrosch is an American professor, and he comments: "Contemporary American culture talks the Rousseau line but lives the Franklin life").
   
   Damrosch's account of Rousseau's emotional, prickly and suffering personality amply bears out David Hume's famous judgment: "He has only felt, during the whole course of his life; and in this respect his sensibility rises to a pitch beyond what I have seen any example of, but it still gives him a more acute feeling of pain than of pleasure. He is like a man who were stript not only of his clothes but of his skin, and turned out in that situation to combat with the rude and boisterous elements, such as perpetually disturb this lower world."
   
   The book is attractively illustrated with contemporary engravings and portraits and with photographs of places where Rousseau lived.

5 comments about Letters : 1925-1975.

1. This collection of letters is as one- sided as the relationship between Heidegger and Arendt was in certain respects. In this collection Heidegger is the one who speaks, over three - fourths of the one- hundred sixty- six letters are his. We do not have key documents, Arendt's early letters to Heidegger which were destroyed either by Heidegger himself or a member of his family.
   The relationship in the first stage at Marburg in 1925 was of the great intellectual figure Heidegger, already a person of tremendous reputation, thirty- five married with children, and that of an eighteen old student worshipper. The illicit love affair was clearly passionate and deeply felt on both sides.
   However in little more than a year there are signs that he does not mind her going out with a fellow student,and off to study somewhere else a sign perhaps of his being troubled that the affair exposed might cause harm to his reputation.
   A second stage came with the rise of the Nazis to power , Arendt's exile, and Heidegger's becoming a collaborator with the Nazi regime. At this stage Arendt becomes disturbed about allegations of Heidegger's anti- Semitism.
   The third stage came after a long hiatus in letter - writing. It was only after the war that there was a renewal of their relationship, though it is not clear that this was also a romantic renewal. For by this time Arendt was married to Heinrich Blucher. At this point Arendt played the role of advisor to Heidegger in helping him deal with the charges of collaboration with the Nazis. This chapter is not one which does Arendt credit. Her readiness to not simply excuse Heidegger for his revolting behavior, (including anti- Semitic remarks, dismissal of Jewish colleagues, a use of concepts of his own philosophy in a pro- Nazi speech, ) but to help him get off the hook reflects a loyalty void of all judgment. And this from the philosopher for whom 'judging' was a fundamental philosophical category.
   Their post- war reconciliation was prompted and pushed by Heidegger's viciously anti- Semitic wife, Elfreide. Elfreide despised Arendt but understood that she could help Heidegger, and so encouraged the renewal of the relationship. Heidegger for his part never read Arendt's work and could not give her the kind of respect and esteem that she continued to give him.
   Heidegger and Arendt are profound souls, and this is felt in the content and tone of these letters. They are people of high ideals and aspirations. They are two of the most significant thinkers of the twentieth century. Their story of love and friendship is a fascinating one. And whatever additional light is thrown on this relationship is eagerly seized upon by students of their work. Yet their relationship illicit at the outset , later became even more suspect as it worked to cover up Heidegger's immoral behavior. The dishonesty and evasiseness of Heidegger in dealing with the charges against him is all the more reprehensible as it is that of one whose fundamental enterprise is in striving for Truth.Arendt's excess of caring to protect Heidegger are in painful and troubling contrast with her insensitity to survivors of the Shoah, this of course in her famous 'banality of evil' analysis of the action of Eichmann. Her tone in ' Eichmann in Jerusalem' was contemptuous and superior, a tone she might too have learned from Heidegger. There are those who claim that the final phase of the Heidegger- Arendt relationship involved a reversal in which she was the powerful one and he the one more needing and enslaved. But these letters do not seem to bear this out. Her loyalty to him and love enabled her to continue serving him too well to the end of their days. She died in the latter half of 1976 and he only six months later.
   
   .



2. Most of the material in this correspondence between Martin Heidegger and Hannah Arendt shouldn't come as much of a surprise to most students who are familiar with these great thinkers's respective work. Although, there is surprisingly little discussion of the unfortunate political situation of Heidegger, I suppose the de-Nazification trials exhausted the subject. Still, this is a nice collection of letters; what unfolds are the painful vicissitudes of their affair, and the almost complete destruction of their (and their families) lives on account of WWII. What is a pleasure to read here, however, is Heidegger's casual remarks on his serious philosophical projects, it provides an excellent window into his craft. One reaction, though it hardly comes as a surprise: Heidegger was a terrible poet. For example:
   
   "SONATA SONANS"
   What rang rings.
   It sinks
   Into lament's unknown ware's
   Sings into what no one dares,
   What's formed from the wreath,
   Takes place,
   Gentle's love and woe
   Into the Same.
   
   Etc. Etc.
   
   Perhaps the most problematic aspect of this collection is (at least for me), that it turns the reader into a creepy voyeur who peers into these personal love letters. Still, there is enough scholarly material contained within for scholars and students to make it a worthwhile collection.



3. Everybody knows what two people in a situation like Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger in 1925, a female student and a married philosophy professor, shouldn't say to each other. With imaginary docudramas filling in the blanks of the lives of so many famous people in ways that fulfill the fantasies of millions of TV viewers, as well as the readers of historical novels, those who watch movies about Samson, and theologians who wonder what Adam and Eve ever saw in the forbidden fruit, it is a relief to be getting some actual documents from a famous romance. Heidegger's fame was growing rapidly at the beginning of this book, and Hannah Arendt was bound to become known for paying attention. The fiftieth item in this book, "Martin Heidegger for Hannah Arendt: Five Poems," ends with the short poems:
   
   Correspondence
   
   Godless is God
   alone, and no
   other thing--
   death first
   corresponds,
   to the ring
   of Being's poem,
   the first.
   
   DEATH
   
   Death is, in the world's own rhyme,
   Being's mountain chain.
   Death will evade what's yours and mine
   in the falling weight
   falling toward silence's tor,
   star of earth, nothing more.
   
   For the friend's friend (pp. 63-64, prior to a letter dated Febr. 15, 1950).
   
   Hannah Arendt responded in item 127, twenty years later, a few weeks after Heidegger sent her a poem about time, but trying to quote the earlier poem, from New York, on November 27, 1970:
   
   Dear Martin,
   For days, weeks, I have wanted to write to you, at least to tell you how much good your letter did me, your sympathy, the time poem as an aid to reflection. Together with the other from many, many years ago
   
   Death is, in the world's design,
   Being's mountain chain.
   Death will evade what's yours and mine
   In the falling weight.
   Falling toward silence's tor,
   Star of earth, nothing more. (p. 173).
   
   British users of the English language might know that tor is a hill. Heinrich Blucher had died and a memorial service was held at Bard College on November 15. Like soldiers in a time of mounting casualties, people of different ages often have unsettled feelings about death because which will survive is not obvious. Hannah Arendt died in December, 1975, a few months before Heidegger's death in May, 1976. The `Romeo and Juliet' ending of fifty years of being German, Jewish, or American thinkers, bound together by an interest in the years that offered multiple lessons to be learned on both sides, makes this a bit more interesting to me than the other collections of Hannah Arendt's Letters with Karl Jaspers, Mary McCarthy, Hermann Broch, Kurt Blumenfeld, and Heinrich Blucher.
   
   This book mentions Nietzsche or Heidegger's book about Nietzsche about a dozen times, but the interesting comments are in Hannah Arendt's tribute, "Martin Heidegger at eighty" on pages 148-162, and a brilliant short description of Heidegger as a fox in July 1953 which ends with:
   
   But the fox living in the trap said proudly: So many fall into my trap; I have become the best of all foxes. And there was even something true in that: nobody knows the trap business better than he who has been sitting in a trap all his life. (p. 305).
   
   Most of us could apply the trap business view to everything in life that requires our involvement. Longing for a few ideas, we can pick up a book like this as the inside and outside view of an intellectual trap. Lacking the ability to read this book all at once, I had bookmarks in several places for weeks at a time as my ability to comprehend was expanding to get a grip on what this book has to offer. The Index is helpful for those who have particular interests. Minor items like Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor are not to be found in the Index, however much it might have been on Heidegger's mind when he wrote his letter of April 12, 1950, listing Beethoven, opus 111 Adagio, Conclusion as an addressee on page 74 and thanking Hannah for the opportunity to listen to it:
   
   "And now, Hannah, you have, on top of everything, and with a loving word, also given me Beethoven's Opus 111. Its sound has already become kin to the light I mentioned at the beginning of this letter.
   
   "Elfride returns your greeting and kiss with a happy heart and is glad you returned home safely. Say hello to your dear husband from me." (p. 76).
   
   The index does not have an entry for Elfride Heidegger on page 76, but it did list page 74, where Heidegger wrote about "what is loving about love that cast its light into my room when Elfride and you embraced. We will need time to make what has become of us our own: That you came, that what grew close in us became the closest closeness; that Elfride was helpful with all of it, that our love needs her love; that everything, including your safe return home, is reflected, clarified, and validated in everything else."
   
   I'm sure that Nietzsche wrote that a married philosopher, like Socrates, ought to be cast in some comedy, as Aristophanes did with Socrates in `The Clouds' in 423 B.C., a comedy which placed last in the competition with Cratinous and Ameipsias at the Great Dionysia in the month of March, 423 B.C. Fortunately, Aristophanes revised his comedy, so "The Clouds' that we have today, "as purely farcical as the presentation of the philosopher himself suspended in a basket betwixt heaven and earth" in the notes for the Rogers translation, might be much better than running through it the first time. Heidegger's opportunity in these LETTERS to get himself right all over again after five half decades had passed has a miraculous quality, to say the least.



4. This collection of letters is an absolute necessity for anyone interested in Hannah Arendt, and particularly her relationship with the controversial German philosopher (and mentor) Martin Heidegger. The letters are well annotated and there is a helpful introduction as well. The only problem is that there are relatively few letters from Arendt. And those that appear in the collection are somewhat concise, whether from the editing or simply because they were not extensive. As a result, the reader does not get the intimate and expansive view into Arendt's thinking and activities that one comes away with from reading, for example, her collection of letters to and from Mary McCarthy. Of particular interest is the exchange of poetry between the two--somewhat ironic given Heidegger's controversial career and purported anti-Semitism during the Nazi period. One cannot help thinking, as the letters pass by, as to why Arendt chose to treat Heidegger with such kid gloves; nonetheless, there is a touching quality about this late-in-life correspondence of two former lovers. Quite pleasant and informative and not overly technical in philosophical terms.



5. Perhaps it's a sign of the times in which we live, but the biggest stories of recent note in philosophy have been Heidegger's flirtation with National Socialism and the revelation of his affair with his student, Hannah Arendt, in the 1920s. The affair with Arendt has left a bad account of the affair (Ettinger) and a badly written novel in its wake, but perhaps these lumps of fool's gold have led us to the real thing, for they helped persuade Heidegger's son, Herman, to open the private files of his famous father and release these letters to the public. These, along with the letters to Arendt that are extant, comprise a volume that belongs in the library of every serious student of Arendt and Heidegger. It provides a glimpse of the lives and thought of two intellectual giants and of how events led to their estrangement and shaky reconciliation.

   The first part of the book comes across as a one-way conversation, as only Heidegger's letters to Arendt are extant. Obviously Heidegger was smart enough to destroy Arendt's letters lest they fall into the hands of Mrs. H. The tone of these early letters is that of a besotted adolescent. Heidegger sends her bad poetry and, in one letter, refers to her as his "little wood nymph." As these letters were meant to be strictly private, we cannot help but suffer the embarrassment of an unintentional voyeur. However, the section ends on an ominous note with a letter from Heidegger in 1933 answering Arendt's charges that he is anti-Semitic. This came shortly after the ascension of Hitler and makes us sad that Heidegger destroyed Arendt's letter making the charges.

   The correspondence begins anew after the war and only because Arendt saw it in her heart to forgive her former mentor and in effect bury the hatchet. Heidegger seems most pleased and the letters lead to a personal reconciliation with Arendt visiting Heidegger and his wife in Germany. But all was not to remain quiet. Heidegger had confessed all to his wife, and took her willingness to see Arendt again as a sign all was back to normal, as it were. The letters he sends in 1950 give the impression that he is more than willing to resume their affair; to once again have his cake and eat it, too. But a sudden dispatch from Heidegger warns Arendt to cancel a postponed visit and not to write for a while. Seems Elfride Heidegger was not the willing accomplice her husband believed her to be.

   But time heals all and the letters (and visits) resume. Heidegger is more interested in what he is doing and the American response than in what Arendt is doing. In one telling letter, he admits he has no idea of what she means by "radical evil." Another subject on which Arendt treads lightly is that of Karl Jaspers: Jaspers and Heidegger attempted a reconciliation after the war, but failed and each has bitterness toward the other with Arendt playing the diplomat in the middle, though in her letters with Jaspers there is no doubt about whose side she is on.

   Another missed opportunity is the sudden death of Merleau-Ponty a few months before he was to meet Heidegger in Marburg. Arendt has a higher opinion of him than does Heidegger, although in a philosophical debate I'd place my money on Merleau-Ponty, whose forays into aesthetics, ontology and physics expose Heidegger as stuck in a neo-Kantian continuum.

   All in all, this is the book students of these two intellectual giants have waited for, and I, for one was not disappointed in the least.

No comments about The Lives of Sri Aurobindo.