Walter kaufmann translations

Walter Kaufmann on the “philosophic flight”

Critique of Religion and Philosophy, Chapter I, section 5.

Walter Kaufmann

From: Kaufmann, W. (). Critique of Religion and Philosophy. Princeton. Princeton University Press

PHILOSOPHIC FLIGHT.

Walter kaufmann biography death Kaufmann disliked Martin Heidegger 's thinking, along with his unclear writing. Kaufmann described his own ethic and his own philosophy of living in his books, including The Faith of a Heretic and Without Guilt and Justice: From Decidophobia to Autonomy Petty aspirations can be satisfied and may be hostile to humility. It is not a morality of rules but an ethic of virtues

Philosophy, like poetry, deals with ancient themes: poetry with experiences, philosophy with problems known for centuries. Both must add a new precision born of passion.

     The intensity of great philosophy and poetry is abnormal and subversive: it is the enemy of habit, custom, and all stereotypes. The motto is always that what is well known is not known at all well.

     Great poetry often deals with hackneyed themes.

Sophocles and Shakespeare chose well-known stories, Goethe wrote on love, Dostoevsky on murder.

Walter kaufmann biography Since there is no name for it we shall have to coin one-at the risk of sounding humorous: humbition. Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist. Existentialism , philosophy of religion , tragedy. Toggle the table of contents.

Yet what is new each time is not merely the language. The poet's passion cracks convention: the chains of custom drop; the world of our everyday experience is exposed as superficial appearance; the person we had seemed to be and our daily contacts and routines appear as shadows on a screen, without depth; while the poet's myth reveals reality.

     Newspaper reports, and even scenes we have seen with our own eyes, are like distorted images in muddy waters of that reality which we encounter in Oedipus Tyrannus, Lear or The Brothers Karamazov.

We live upon the surface; we are like ants engaged in frantic aimlessness - and that one talent which is death to hide, lodged with us useless till the artist comes, restoring vision, freeing us from living death.

     Philosophy, as Plato and Aristotle said, begins in wonder. This wonder means a dim awareness of the useless talent, some sense that ant-likeness is a betrayal.

But what are the alternatives? Bacon suggested: being bees or spiders.

Walter kaufmann biography wikipedia In the mids he made a conscious decision to live in the GDR. In other projects. The relationship between existential and tragic thought, literature, and experience held a particular fascination for him, which he explored in his Tragedy and Philosophy Augustinian theodicy Best of all possible worlds Euthyphro dilemma Inconsistent triad Irenaean theodicy Natural evil Theodicy.

Some thinkers, like the ant, collect; some, like the spider, spin; some, like the bee, collect, transform by adding of their substance, and create.

     Vary the metaphor. Men are so many larvae, crawling, wriggling, eating - living in two dimensions. Many die while in this state. Some are transformed and take flight before they settle down to live as ants.

Few become butterflies and revel in their new-found talent, a delight to all.

     Philosophy means liberation from the two dimensions of routine, soaring above the well known, seeing it in new perspectives, arousing wonder and the wish to fly. Philosophy subverts man's satisfaction with himself, exposes custom as a questionable dream, and offers not so much solutions as a different life.

     A great deal of philosophy, including truly subtle and ingenious works, was not intended as an edifice for men to live in, safe from sun and wind, but as a challenge: don't sleep on!

there are so many vantage points; they change in flight: what matters is to leave off crawling in the dust.

   A philosopher's insight may be a photograph taken in flight. Those who have never flown think they are wise when noting that two such pictures are not alike: they contradict each other; flying is no good; hail unto all that crawls!

Walter kaufmann nietzsche After military service in Europe during the Second World War in capacities that took advantage of his equal facility in German and in English , he returned to Harvard, receiving his PhD in In a article in Harper's Magazine , he summarily rejected all religious values and practice, especially the liberal Protestantism of continental Europe that began with Schleiermacher and culminated in the writings of Paul Tillich and Rudolf Bultmann. There is no teacher of humility like great ambition. The first lacks any single name but is a fusion of humility and aspiration.

The history of philosophy is a photo album with snapshots of the life of the spirit. Adherents of a philosophy mistake a few snapshots for the whole of life.