Tag: Philosophers in 90 Minutes Series

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“Rousseau in 90 Minutes” by Paul Strathern, Ivan R. Dee

“Rousseau in 90 Minutes” by Paul Strathern is a brief introduction to the thought of Rousseau. Main content ‘Rousseau’s Life and Works’ describes brief Rousseau’s biography with his works, thought and theory. Strathern writes Rousseau’s up and down life political and diplomatic affair on Swiss and Europe amusingly. And he comments Rousseau’s thought focusing masterpieces “A Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts” and “Discourse on the Origin of Inequality”, and concepts of “general will”, “natural law” and “social contract”. Author directly describe Rousseau’s ambivalent temperaments. One were his abnormal tendency, brutal sexual characteristics and roaming life style. Another were the genius for music and literature, and original novel consideration and view point to human nature, human right, politics and social structure.

On “Social Contract”, considering conflicts wills of individuals in a society, ‘Rousseau attempted to overcome this difficulty by introducing the concept of the “general will.” Human society was itself viewed as a collective individual, which retained its collective liberty because it subscribed to its own general will. The general will applied to all because it derived from all. This ensured both liberty and equality as well as fostering a spirit of fraternity.’
By Rousseau’s discoveries and thinkings of humanity, social inequality “general will” and collective liberty, people became conscious of “humanity”, “liberty” and “society”, and they caused the enlightenment, humanism, social reforms and revolutions. Then Strathern stresses on Rousseau’s thought caused romanticism, the French Revolution, the American Revolution, utopianism, communism, socialism, fascism and the social revolution of the 60’s. It’s a rough notion but it has truth at one aspect. I think they include adoption and misuse of Rousseau’s thought. Humanity is not only nature, it’s artificial thing. Also Straighten describes Rousseau’s humanity is a “typical human being”. Social reforms and revolutions includes communism and fascism were arised to settle “inequality arise from society”, but their excepted humanity were “typical human being”.
And expected freedom by “typical human being” is plain and nasty. I think there are two types of freedom (or liberty), freedom for justice or fairness and liberty for equality.
The important thing is Rousseau’s thought causes not only equality and “humanity”, but also prejudice and arrogance.

Also I think humanity is not only natural. Humanity is artificial, artificiality is a nature of mankind. Humanity corrupted by civilisation and culture, humanity also resist against nature.

Rousseau in 90 Minutes (Philosophers in 90 Minutes Series)
Paul Strathern
Ivan R. Dee, Chicago, 9 April 2002
96 pages $7.95
ISBN: 978-1-56663-436-6
Contents:
Introduction
Rousseau’s Life and Works
From Rousseau’s Writings
Chronology of Significant Philosophical Dates
Chronology of Rousseau’s Life and Times
Recommended Reading
Index

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“Heidegger in 90 Minutes” by Paul Strathern, Ivan R. Dee

“Heidegger in 90 Minutes” by Paul Strathern is a brief introduction to philosophy of Heidegger. Main content ‘Heidegger’s Life and Works’ comments Heidegger’s life with and his philosophy from mainly his masterpiece “Being and Time”. First, this content describes Heidegger’s catholic background, and his abandon of theology and conversion to philosophy. Next it explains phenomenology and psychologism of his master Edmund Husserl, and Heidegger’s rebellion to Husserl’s philosophy. And he writes experiments of the World War Ⅰ and the great depression as political chaos and cultural chaos. This political cultural chaos and miserable condition made Heidegger criticized to traditional philosophy from Athens (Plato and Asistotle) to the Neo Kantian or the Hegelian, reevaluated the fundamental concept of being by pre-Socratic philosophers equal to Nietzche.
Then Strathern comments Heidegger’s chief work “Being and Time” by explanation of its principal concepts “Being (Sein)”, “being-in-the-world (In-Der-Welt-Sein)”, “Dasein”, “disclosedness”, “aletheia”, “essence of man” and the anticipation of death.
Heidegger thought philosophy focus on study of “being” itself. The central conception is “Dasein” which means the entirely “human existence”. Understanding Dasein is understanding own being, and it understands the being of beings at the same time. The core of Dasein is be in the actual world, it’s called “being-in-the-world” which is “specificity of our being” where “we ourselves are”. Being is not a mysterious thing, it’s everyday thing as “being-in-the-world”. So we understand it by “discloseness” of it. Heidegger’s an ancient Greek word “aletheia (truth)” means unconcealment. The unconcealment disclose our being and its possibilities, yet simultaneously we conceal all other possibilities. To choose one disclosure, beings cut away the other possible disclosure. Thus Heidegger arrived at the concept “essence of man”. “This could be done only by elimination the accidental and the trivial as we concentrate on the core of human being. Only by the anticipation of death is every accidental and ‘provisional’ possibility driven out. By grasping the ‘finitude of one’s existence,’ one frees oneself from the shallow ‘multiplicity of possibilities’ that life presents us.”

The commentary of this book on Heidegger, Strathern take notice of only main theories of Being on Heidegger’s major work “Being and Time” and background of the book. Strathern use German history, atmosphere and situation of the era, history of philosophy and biological description of Heidegger as for solely explain theories of “Being and Time”. The commentary on “Being and Time” is plain and short but essential, excellent and to the point. But it’s regrettable Strathern disregard Heidegger’s later philosophy, I think the thought has possibilities to beyond humanism, nihilism, problems of modern civilization (such as excessive advanced culture, technology and science), metaphysics and philosophy and human thought themselves.
This book is a only introduction to Heidegger’s complicated and tough philosophy. Its essence and overall characteristics in this small book. So I recommend this book to complete beginners to Heidegger.

“Comments and Criticisms” contains Heidegger’s writings and comments to Heidegger’s philosophy.

Heidegger in 90 Minutes (Philosophers in 90 Minutes Series)
Paul Strathern
Ivan R. Dee, Chicago, 9 April 2002
96 pages $7.95
ISBN: 978-1-56663-438-0
Contents:
Introduction
Heidegger’s Life and Works
Comments and Criticisms
Chronology of Significant Philosophical Dates
Chronology of Heidegger’s Life and Times
Recommended Reading
Index

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“Hegel in 90 Minutes” by Paul Strathern, Ivan R. Dee

“Hegel in 90 Minutes” by Paul Strathern is a brief introduction to philosophy of Hegel. Main content ‘Hegel’s Life and Works’ describes Hegel’s biography with his philosophy and historical context.
A remarkable point of this book is the commentary on theory of dialectical method of Hegel like descriptions below.
“The entire system rests on Hegel’s original mode of reasoning—his celebrated dialectical method. This starts with a ‘thesis.’ For example: Existence. According to Hegel, this is inevitably seen to be inadequate and incomplete. When we contemplate the notion ‘existence,’ it generates its opposite, its ‘antithesis’: Nonexistence. This too is then seen to be in adequate, and the two opposite then merge to form a ‘synthesis.’ In this case: Becoming. This synthesis retains what is rational in both the thesis and the antithesis, and in its turn may become another thesis. This allows the process to be repeated, in a series of triads, ascending in to ever more rational realms.”
“Hegel begins by saying that logic is the study of thought. As we have seen, the dialectical process ascends toward mind or Absolute Spirit. Mind is the ultimate reality, abstracted from the particular forms it assumes in the natural world. It is mind that shapes the world.”
And Strathern comments the Hegel’s system on “The Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Science in Outline” and the world-historical view of “Philosophy of History”.

This small book exclusively concentrates on commentary on Hegel’s “absolute idealism” and “dialectical method”. So Strathern can’t write entire Hegel’s tremendous philosophical theory and system. And descriptions to Hegel’s philosophy in this book is typical, stereotyped and superficial. Strathern emphasize Hegel’s progressiveness, idealism and influence to Karl Marx.
This book is an only brief introduction to Hegel and his philosophy.

Hegel in 90 Minutes (Philosophers in 90 Minutes Series)
Paul Strathern
Ivan R. Dee, Chicago, 28 April 1997
91 pages $9.95
ISBN: 978-1-56663-154-9
Contents:
Introduction
Hegel’s Life and Works
Afterword
From Hegel’s Writings
Chronology of Significant Philosophical Dates
Chronology of Hegel’s Life
Chronology of Hegel’s Era
Recommended Reading
Index