4 comments about Being and Some Philosophers.

1. A great friend of mine, who has taught the full spectrum of philosophy courses, gave me this book as a preparation for Fritz Wilhelmsen's book, "The Paradoxical Structure of Existence," which I had read some time ago but not understood well. Gilson is the pinnacle of lucidity and insight. He presents philosophical positions with which he may end up differing in such a way as to give them all the credit they do deserve. Like Aristotle carefully thinking and correcting, he arrives at compelling conclusions in a very undogmatic and patient manner. It is hard not to be jealous of Gilson in a way: Few people can combine such subtlety of understanding, keenness of insight, and lucidity. This is one of the rarest philosophical books to be found, in which there is really no "Gefuffel," to use Wilmoore Kendall's word. He is one of those people you read and think, "I wish I had a mind like that." This book has had a profound impact on me, because it is anything but "armchair philosophy" -- once you get what he's driving at, it makes all the difference.



2. This is perhaps the greatest and most illuminating study of the history of metaphysics and the problems that motivate it that I've ever read. Gilson begins by discussing metaphysics as the inquiry of being qua being and shows why philosophy is led endlessly back to this issue because of a fundamental ambiguity belonging to the concept of being. On the one hand we use being as a noun denoting possibility or the whatness of a thing. For instance, a triangle is a three sided figure regardless of whether triangles actually exist or not. On the other hand we use being in the sense of the verb "to be" denoting existence or the fact that something is. Problems emerge when we recognize that when we speak of beings we tend to emphasize their intelligibility, essence or whatness, while nonetheless all of us are actually concerned with whether or not a particular essence actually is. Since there's not much that can actually be said about existence, philosophy progressively comes to emphasize the intelligibility of beings as in the case of Wolffe, Kant and Hegel such that being becomes reduced to a field of pure possibility (formal ontology) that cannot explain what existence adds, if anything, to the being of a thing. Gilson traces this tension throughout the history of philosophy, examining Parmenides, Plato, Plotinus, the Scholastics, modern thought and existentialism showing how all of these different thought experiments have been attempts to come to terms with this issue. Ultimately Gilson wants to advocate a Thomistic solution to this problem, but whether you agree with Gilson's solution or not, what's truly of value in this book is the paradoxes and difficulties inherent in the different attempts to reconcile being as possibility or essence and being as existence. This really is a must read for anyone interested in metaphysics and in contemporary critiques of essentialism and universals. As someone deeply entrenched in contemporary continental philosophy (Deleuze/Heidegger), what is so amazing about this book is that it is so relevant to current debates and argued in such a reasonable and careful way. Where many critiques of essentialism today take on the cast of being teleological and moralistic by virtue of referring to some sort of politics as the reason that we should reject essentialism, Gilson shows that the troubles with essentialism are internal metaphysical problems in their own right that deserve to be addressed in their own terms. Gilson ultimately does not reject essences, but does argue that we cannot divorce essence from existence.



3. Gilson is an excellent communicator and this book is evidence of such a claim. From the Pre-Socratics to the Modern Period, Gilson peels back the cover of historical philosophy and examines the metaphysical issues of being, existence, essence, the one, substance, etc. What is more, Gilson ventures into the epistemic foundations of knowledge and existence - the two cannot be separated, but in usual Thomistic fashion, being always precedes knowing (unlike the Cartesian claim - which Gilson determines is one of the most serious problems of modern philosophy: see "The Unity of Philosophical Experience").

   Gilson, in a type of systematic fashion, takes his reader on a journey throughout the history of philosophy and discusses certain philosopher's notions about specific metaphysical issues. However, but agreeably so, Gilson compares and contrasts the various philosophers to the metaphysical system which, according to this text, seems to be the most tenable, namely Thomistic metaphysics.

   Gilson does such a good job pointing out the problematic areas of other philosophers (regarding these metaphysical issues) that it is difficult to disagree with him. The title of the book fits perfectly with its contents, namely being is discussed in light of some philosophers and their assertions regarding being, etc. If you are wanting a text which discusses certain philosophers throughout history, with respect to the issues of being, existence, substance, essence, etc. and wanting to gain a greater grasp of Thomistic metaphysics, then you could not read a better text. I highly recommend this book.




4. Gilson's treatise is a wonderful survey of the history of metaphysics, in its endless struggle with the question of being. Every bit as ferocious a critique of the metaphysical tradition as anything Heidegger wrote, and arguably superior in terms of insight and coherence, BEING AND SOME PHILOSOPHERS ultimately resolves philosophy's perennial "forgetfulness regarding existence" by a turn to Thomas Aquinas and the Thomist concept of God as the actus essendi subsistens. Anyone who thinks, after reading this book, that Thomas is not as innocent of metaphysical naivete as Heidegger is often said to be has simply failed to grasp the meaning of Gilson's argument. Really a brilliant book.

No comments about El discurso moral en Eugenio Maria de Hostos y otros ensayos.

5 comments about My Sister and I.

1. My Profile- No qualifications as a Philisophy critic whatsover
   
   This review refres to the spanish edition "Mi hermana y Yo"- Edaf
   
   I have not read Nietsche since my days at the university.. and not only him, just about any other philosopher as well, I guess life got in the way and now I had to live it..
   
   This is a strange book, for many its a fake and the reasons to claim it are substancial.. others, say its from the thinker himself, me? as I can remember the passion of Nietsche its there and that a hell of a difficult thing to emulate..
   
   Once you get past the shock of the incestous relantionship and you have the context of see past his particular anti-semitism and anti-christianism then you can appreciate the personal anguish that its contained in this pages.
   
   Strange enough, I am browsing through the book now expecting to see the many highlights and notes I used to make back then, and the book does not have that many...many thought are stirring up, did I really read this? looking over some of the aphorisms I try to picture myself reading this with passion I had back then.. where is that desire now?
   
   One of them is worthy of the laughter that only experience can provide
   
   " Mis necesidades sexuales aumentan, no disminuyen. Solia pensar. Pronto, pronto esto terminará, y estaré en condiciones de ofrecer toda mi naturaleza apasionada a la filosofía. No sucede nada de esto, y ahora pienso que no sucederá nunca. La filosofía siempre será el segundo violín de mis necesidades de mi naturaleza orgánica. es como morir en el Fuego" 49 del capítulo VI
   
   " My sexual needs increase, not dimish. I used to think: Soon, soon all of this will pass and I will be in conditions to offer all of my passionate nature to philosophy. Nothing like that is happening, and now I think it will never happen. Philosophy will always ne second fiddle in the needs of my organic nature. Its like dying in fire"
   
   Back in my 20s there was no way I thought my sexual desires were going to diminish, I thought tranquility was to be put to a "later age", say my 40's.. well I am here and I guess I have to postpone it till my 60s!! Glad to know Nietzshe felt the same way too.
   
   Seiously, this book is worthy of a review, if for anything, as the last parragraph says (before the epilogue poem)
   
   "As the poet Lucilus onced said, the friend of Scipion: Virtue exists so as to allow us appreciate the true worth of those things for which we live for.
   
   Let us impress eternity's seal over our lives.
   
   Lets live in a way that we shall desire to live eternally; this is my credo, yesterday, today, tomorrow and the days that precedes those of tomorrow."



2. There is debate over this book's authenticity, yes. However, research that I had turned up was nothing like what the reviewers here claim. That in and of itself tells me that there is a possibility that people just do not want to believe that Nietzsche wrote this book.
   
   But, honestly, does it matter? The book has some amazing points and theories, regardless of the incest. If this book is a fake, the man who wrote it has been done out of his due credit. The fact of the matter is, people who are honestly interested in philosophy would read the book for its insights. The author does not really matter. I found this book in a thrift store, and it made me love Nietzsche. I discovered that it was supposedly a fraud, and then looked at Nietzsche's philosophies. I still greatly enjoy Nietzsche. And I still enjoy My Sister and I.
   
   Don't pass over the book because it is controversial. If anything, read it BECAUSE it is controversial.



3. Of course it would be threatening to academic followers and/or readers of Nietzsche to learn that in the wake of his father's death (as a result of injuries sustained to his head after tripping over the family dog), his sister Elizabeth crept into his bed at night for comfort because their mother had switched off emotionally, and that during their lives Elizabeth and Friedrich developed a very close turbulent and incestuous relationship - which for Friedrich ruled out any kind of intimacy with women for the rest of his life.
   
   Whatever arguments are presented in relation to its authenticity, this book demonstrates magnificently that the thoughts and ideas expressed in the accepted works of Nietzsche are based not on the high ideals of the Greeks, but on the psychology of having been left fatherless and under the power of women from a very early age, from the particular contradictions prejudices and delusions that this growing human male had to deal with during that particular life.
   
   It is a rather tawdry tale which nevertheless points out the connections between the "man" and the "philosophy" - particulary Nietzsche's alleged mysogyny, and that reveals a vulnerable naive and trepidatious human being, incarcerated in an asylum, facing death, already experiencing seizures paralysis and insanity. Having moreover just discovered that his crisp autobiographical statement to the world in Ecce Homo is not going to be published because his sister has forbidden it. At the same time though he is aware that she is already starting an archive of his oeuvre so that the Nietzschean philosophers who are beginning to make themselves known will have some resource with which to work.
   
   The one who is supposed to have faked this tragedy is skilled indeed in psychology and psychoanalysis. There are obvious anachronisms in the text, but all of these are explainable in other ways than that the whole book is a fake. What seems more likely is that Nietzsche did write notes that were smuggled out of the asylum or that he dictated words to somebody who then collated them into a manuscript. But that the story presented in the Amok edition of the book's subsequent travels is partial and/or inaccurate for whatever reason. Personally I doubt that Oscar Levy was the translator, and would add that it is not actually a very good translation.
   
   Anybody who wants to find out more should read the book for themselves rather than listen to voices for or against its authenticity. That would be a much more Nietzschean approach.



4. A diary from an insane asylum attributed to the most important philosopher of the post-modern era...
   
   This book is controversial. Not for whether it is by Nietzsche himself (which it most likely is) but because it confesses to his sister's molestation of Nietzsche, and his subsequent erotic desires for her. If true, Nietzsche would have repressed such issues during his life, and only felt the courage to speak out about them close to his death. And if true, it pokes a gaping hole in the theory that Elisabeth commissioned this work, as it paints an unflattering picture of her.
   
   This book would be very entertaining for both casual readers, as well as Nietzsche scholars. It is an interesting look into the mind of a brilliant genius. The fact that this book is often ignored by Nietzsche scholars seems to be a bit strange. Why? I believe that this book represents a diminution of Nietzsche's emphasis on the value of individual strength. Nietzsche in this text shows himself to be vulnerable to an overwhelming need for solace and love from others, values which he denounced throughout his career. (This adds further credence to the belief that this work is truly his, since what single dying man wouldn't wish that he had people who really cared for him around?) It seems that if a conspiracy existed to make one more Nietzsche book, it would have been a further exhortation to the will to power. However, because this book can be read as a parenthetical withdrawal from his espoused doctrines, it shows why theoreticians would decry its legitimacy. It is much easier to understand a man's writings if one ignores a lengthy inner contradiction.
   
   But this is all the more a testament to the book's possible authenticity. Nietzsche's work is full of contradiction and reconfiguring of values. As he insists in the introduction to Beyond Good and Evil, why must we insist on the truth? Why not rather untruth?
   
   An entertaining challenge to one's perspective on Nietzsche's philosophy, whether it is authentic or not.



5. The preeminent scholar of Nietzsche, Prof. Walter Kaufman, has obtained a written confession from the "translator" (Levy) that this book was in fact written in English by Levy. There was no original German manuscript by Nietzsche. This book is not by Nietzsche, and is not worth reading.

2 comments about Mencken: A Life (Maryland Paperback Bookshelf).

1. As a fan of H.L. Mencken--and perhaps one of the few people under thirty who has read "The American Language," "Treatise on the Gods," "Heliogabalus" and all five volumes of "Prejudices"--I am shocked and appalled at the lack of respect paid the great author by his biographer. Mr. Hobson didn't seem to undertake the arduous task of writing a biography on his subject due to a sincere respect or enthusiasm; rather, he seems to have been moved by the less noble motivation of "One-ups-manship"; for as a Baltimorean scribe who happened to be at the right place, at the right time--he was granted access to some of Mencken's hitherto guarded (and now recently released) documents by the executors of Mencken's estate. As a result, Hobson is at times needlessly peevish with his subject, naively judgmental and historically hypocritical. The last remark is born of a nausea grounded in a Politically Correct self-righteousness that the biographer displays when he all but waves his finger at ghosts from the past when, say--for instance--he notices that in a much different world people in the 1910s and 1920s used such racially insensitive phrases for "haggling" as "jewing one down". (SHOULD this be considered offensive? --Certainly.) But for anyone in the modern era who has uttered the phrase "gyped," perhaps eighty years from now some pompous pedant will lodge the ludicrous claim that this shows your hatred of "gypsies" (where in fact the term "gyped" comes from). No, I might hazard the assertion that most people who have used the phrase do not hold an irrational grudge against the Romany people. Rather, they use such phrases unthinkingly--bereft of an racial connotations. My point? --Yes, there were insensitive things about the past. But no more so than in the Present. And to trot out situations and customs--verbal or otherwise--without the benefit of a cultural context betrays both ignorance and malice. Mr. Hobson is shameful in his betrayal of that lowest of critical temptations: To lash out at one's betters. Perhaps if Mr. Hobson thinks that using the term "African American," instead of "black" is a badge of tolerance over and above that of Mencken, maybe he can back up his words with actions: For it was Mencken--not Hobson--who distinguished himself by aiding and promoting writers of the Harlem Renaissance and for his outstanding support of civil rights for both blacks and Jews. Perhaps Mr. Hobson has given as much of himself to the causes of helping others? --If not, then he needs to moderate his disrespectful attitude; for Mencken's actions speak louder than Hobson's words.



2. Despite some boring passages, Fred Hobson provides a generally interesting and thorough portrait of the original cynic, H.L.Mencken. The book addresses many issues of racism and anti semitism on Mencken's part fairly and openly. The novel is excellently written. I would have preferred more information on the Scope's Trial in relation to Mencken because my interest in Mencken was sparked when reading Inherit the Wind by Laurence and lee in which Mencken is satired as E.K.Hornbeck. Read this book- it is informative and excellent. My congratulations to Fred Hobson and Happy Reading

No comments about UC The James Family: A Group Biography.

No comments about Nelson Goodman (Philosophy Now).

No comments about On Weber.

No comments about Mira por dónde.

No comments about Chomsky (Headway Guides for Beginners Great Lives Series).

No comments about Memoirs of the Life of Monsieur de Voltaire (Hesperus Classics).