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Author: Walther Ziegler
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 3741227730
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 86
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Book Description
Albert Camus was a legend in his own lifetime, as a successful author, a philosopher and a “ladies’ man”. His philosophical discoveries remain provocative even today. Because, like all great philosophers, Camus posed the question of the meaning of life. But his answer to this question was an answer of an entirely new kind. This question as to the meaning of life has been answered, of course, very differently down the centuries. For Plato it is ‘the Good’ that holds the world together; for Hegel the ‘World-Spirit’; for Marx the relations of production; for Sartre freedom; for Nietzsche ‘will to power’; and for Habermas the development of communicative reason. Really, each philosopher has his own answer to this question. But Camus is the exception here. He has none. Or rather, worse: he has an answer, but one of very sobering effect. His answer to the question ‘what is the meaning of life?’ is simply ‘It has no meaning. Life is absurd’. We plan ahead and make decisions, but in the last analysis our whole life depends on a series of chance events over which we have no control. Nor is there really a goal. Nevertheless, it is our task to live proudly and undauntedly on. Camus compares the life of Man with the myth of Sisyphus. The mythical Sisyphus strained tirelessly to push a boulder up a mountainside, even though it always rolled back down before he reached the top. But precisely in this apparently senseless and absurd activity lay, argued Camus, a chance for a fulfilled life. Camus explains to us how we can live with absurdity. We must, he says, imagine Sisyphus happy. The book Camus in 60 Minutes explains, using selected quotations and examples, this theory of “the absurd” as it is developed by Camus in his main philosophical works The Myth of Sisyphus and The Rebel. The chapter on “what use Camus’ discovery is for us today” describes the “absurd style of life” that Camus recommends. Camus’ colourful examples of “absurd life-projects”, and his descriptions of how one best confronts “the absurd” itself and leads a life without God or ideological orientation are, above all in our modern societies, of powerful relevance and topicality. The book forms part of the popular series Great Thinkers in 60 Minutes.
Author: Walther Ziegler
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 3741227730
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 86
Get Book Here
Book Description
Albert Camus was a legend in his own lifetime, as a successful author, a philosopher and a “ladies’ man”. His philosophical discoveries remain provocative even today. Because, like all great philosophers, Camus posed the question of the meaning of life. But his answer to this question was an answer of an entirely new kind. This question as to the meaning of life has been answered, of course, very differently down the centuries. For Plato it is ‘the Good’ that holds the world together; for Hegel the ‘World-Spirit’; for Marx the relations of production; for Sartre freedom; for Nietzsche ‘will to power’; and for Habermas the development of communicative reason. Really, each philosopher has his own answer to this question. But Camus is the exception here. He has none. Or rather, worse: he has an answer, but one of very sobering effect. His answer to the question ‘what is the meaning of life?’ is simply ‘It has no meaning. Life is absurd’. We plan ahead and make decisions, but in the last analysis our whole life depends on a series of chance events over which we have no control. Nor is there really a goal. Nevertheless, it is our task to live proudly and undauntedly on. Camus compares the life of Man with the myth of Sisyphus. The mythical Sisyphus strained tirelessly to push a boulder up a mountainside, even though it always rolled back down before he reached the top. But precisely in this apparently senseless and absurd activity lay, argued Camus, a chance for a fulfilled life. Camus explains to us how we can live with absurdity. We must, he says, imagine Sisyphus happy. The book Camus in 60 Minutes explains, using selected quotations and examples, this theory of “the absurd” as it is developed by Camus in his main philosophical works The Myth of Sisyphus and The Rebel. The chapter on “what use Camus’ discovery is for us today” describes the “absurd style of life” that Camus recommends. Camus’ colourful examples of “absurd life-projects”, and his descriptions of how one best confronts “the absurd” itself and leads a life without God or ideological orientation are, above all in our modern societies, of powerful relevance and topicality. The book forms part of the popular series Great Thinkers in 60 Minutes.
Author: Walther Ziegler
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 3741241466
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 482
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Book Description
"Great Thinkers in 60 Minutes” is the second ‘omnibus’ volume drawn from the popular book-series of the same name. It comprises the five books, already published as separate volumes, "Marx in 60 Minutes", "Freud in 60 Minutes", "Sartre in 60 Minutes", "Camus in 60 Minutes", and "Heidegger in 60 Minutes". Each short study sums up the key idea at the heart of each respective thinker and asks the question: “Of what use is this key idea to us today?” But above all the philosophers get to speak for themselves. Their most important statements are prominently presented, as direct quotations, in speech balloons with appropriate graphics, with exact indication of the source of each quote in the author’s works. Between 40 and 80 representative passages are given from the work of each of the five philosophers. This light-hearted but nonetheless scholarly precise rendering of the ideas of each thinker makes it easy for the reader to acquaint him- or herself with the great questions of our lives. Because every philosopher who has achieved global fame has posed the “question of meaning”: what is it that holds, at the most essential level, the world together? There have emerged here a range of very different answers. In Marx, it is the relations of production – that is to say, the conditions under which we labour and produce the goods we need – which ultimately determine our sense of our lives, our thinking, and our whole culture. In Freud, it is the libido and thus the energy of our drives, which we can either live out, repress, or sublimate. In Sartre it is the absolutely free human will which compels Man to make himself what he is. In Heidegger, what absorbs us is the struggle for the authenticity of ‘Dasein’ and the ‘care’ for the Being of the world. Camus is the only philosopher in this series who gives no answer at all to the “question of meaning”. There is no “meaning”, says Camus; life is absurd and depends merely upon a sequence of random chance events. In other words, the meaning of the world and thus of our own lives remains, among philosophers, a topic of great controversy. One thing, though, is sure: each of these five thinkers struck, from his own perspective, one brilliant spark out of that complex crystal that is the truth.
Author: Walther Ziegler
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 3741227617
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 110
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Book Description
Plato’s great discovery was radically new but has echoed down the ages. His “theory of Ideas” has shaped the whole of Western culture and his name is known worldwide. More than 2000 years ago Plato used his “allegory of the cave” – which envisaged people looking at shadows on a cavern wall and taking them for realities – to express a terrible suspicion. He saw his fellow Athenians living in a manipulated world of appearances – cut off from reality and “put to sleep” by material pleasures, wealth and demagogic politicians – and hoped, with this image, to shake them out of this sleep. Plato’s suspicions here are astonishingly relevant still in our Digital Age. Do we not also risk getting entirely lost in the shadows and projections of our TV-, Internet- and mobile-phone-dominated lives? To know truth, argued Plato, Man must learn to see again with his “inner eye”. We are able to sense the truth if we succeed in looking beyond the mere appearances. For behind the everyday objects that surround us, and the immediately visible world, there is another (invisible) reality, a sort of higher level of Being, which can reveal to us the world as it truly is. This second, higher reality is the realm of the “Ideas”: above all the Ideas of the Good, the True and the Beautiful by which we must be guided in our lives. But what exactly are these Ideas? Where do they come from? What does Plato mean when he speaks of “the Good”? And, most importantly, how can we know this “Good” and live a life in accordance with it? The book Plato in 60 Minutes uses three of Plato’s marvellous allegories – “the chariot”, “the sun”, and “the cave” – to explain the philosopher’s fascinating vision of the Ideas. But it also presents, citing key passages, Plato’s great political vision of an ideal state ruled by philosopher-kings. Finally, in a chapter on “what use Plato’s discovery is for us today”, it is shown how burningly relevant the ancient philosopher’s thoughts still are. The book forms part of the popular series Great Thinkers in 60 Minutes.
Author: Walther Ziegler
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 3741241458
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 570
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Book Description
"Great Thinkers in 60 Minutes Volume 1" comprises the five books, already published as separate volumes, "Plato in 60 Minutes", "Rousseau in 60 Minutes", "Smith in 60 Minutes", "Kant in 60 Minutes", and "Hegel in 60 Minutes". Each short study sums up the key idea at the heart of each respective thinker and asks the question: "Of what use is this key idea to us today?" But above all the philosophers get to speak for themselves. Their most important statements are prominently presented, as direct quotations, in speech balloons with appropriate graphics, with exact indication of the source of each quote in the author's works. This light-hearted but nonetheless scholarly precise rendering of the ideas of each thinker makes it easy for the reader to acquaint him- or herself with the great questions of our lives. Because every philosopher who has achieved global fame has posed the "question of meaning": what is it that holds, at the most essential level, the world together? There have emerged here a range of very different answers. In Plato, for example, the "Idea of the Good" is that to which we need to open our souls; in Rousseau, it is rather only in our own original nature that we need to trust; in Adam Smith, it is in self-interest, which spurs on each individual and is finally transformed, by an "invisible hand", into the common good; in Kant it is the application of Reason which frees us and makes us capable of extraordinary moral actions; and in Hegel, finally, everything is held together by the dialectical self-development of the World-Spirit, which drives onward from epoch to epoch through the deeds of individuals and of nations until it has finally reached its great goal. In other words, the meaning of the world and thus of our own lives remains, among philosophers, a topic of great controversy. One thing, though, is sure: each of these five thinkers struck, from his own perspective, one brilliant spark out of that complex crystal that is the truth.
Author: Walther Ziegler
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 3741227722
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 114
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Book Description
Sartre is surely one of the most important philosophers of the 20th Century. His “philosophy of existence” influenced not just academic debate but the whole of Western civilization, especially European youth. In France, from the end of WW2 on into the 1960s, a certain “youth culture” milieu composed of secondary school and university students and young artists and intellectuals proclaimed their “existential” attitude to life by wearing the black clothes and horn-rimmed glasses that Sartre was seen to wear in so many photos from the period. The motto of these “existentialists” ran: ‘do not let anyone else tell you how you are to live’. They advocated a frank and intensive style of life, both as regards friendships and love affairs and political commitments. Sartre was the great philosopher of freedom. No other philosopher has so strongly emphasized the freedom of the human will. And because Man is free he must make something out of his life and lives as he believes it right to live, if necessary contrary to existing social rules and traditions. Sartre, for example, opposed many of his country’s wars, fought for a more just society, launched many petitions, and carried on a so-called “open relationship” with his lifelong companion Simone de Beauvoir. In his principal work Being and Nothingness Sartre also became one of the first philosophers to explore the nature of “love”. How does love actually work? What does it mean to lead a free and self-determined life? How free are we? The book Sartre in 60 Minutes explains the most important of Sartre’s theses in a clear and comprehensible way, keeping close to Sartre’s own text and including over fifty selected passages from his work and focussing on the central theme of his ideas about freedom and the structure of inter-human relations. In the chapter on “what use Sartre’s discovery is to us today” it is then shown how important Sartre’s thoughts still are for our personal lives and for the society of the 21st Century. The book forms part of the popular series Great Thinkers in 60 Minutes.
Author: Walther Ziegler
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 3752803827
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 166
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Book Description
Nietzsche has the reputation of being the most provocative and controversial of all philosophers. What he demanded of humanity was something tremendous: that we should develop beyond ourselves and become "overmen". Formerly, we could draw a meaning for our lives from religion. But this is no longer possible because, as Nietzsche says: "God is dead!" This brief dictum has echoed around the world. Man, Nietzsche argues, has freed himself, with the rise of the natural sciences, from all belief in a "beyond" and now has, for the first time, the chance to take his existence into his own hands. Most human beings, however, prove unable to fill the gap in their lives that the "death of God" has left. They continue to seek salvation in such new gods, or idols, as nationalism, socialism, racism, or capitalism. But instead of slipping into the blind worship of these new gods, or "godlets", we need - so argues Nietzsche - rather to trust in our own selves, allow our own "will to power" to unfold, and become "overmen". Just as flowers stretch up toward the sun and animals seek constantly after nourishment, we human beings too must struggle every day to secure our lives and render them richer and more intense. In daily life, conducting this struggle must always mean, in part, conducting it at other people's expense: whoever, for example, applies for a job as a manager and gets it will necessarily cause bitter disappointment among those who applied and failed. "One furthers one's ego always at the expense of others", writes Nietzsche. But "will to power" finds a whole series of very different forms of expression. The artist, the father of a family, the politician, the businessman, the employee, indeed every one of us individually, must find his or her own highly personal and particular path to self-development. "Become who you are!" "Nietzsche in 60 Minutes" explains his exhilarating philosophy step by step making use of some 160 of the most important passages from his works.
Author: Walther Ziegler
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 3756872025
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 606
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Book Description
"Great Thinkers in 60 Minutes Volume 3" comprises the five books "Confucius in 60 Minutes", "Buddha in 60 Minutes", "Epicurus in 60 Minutes", "Descartes in 60 Minutes", and "Hobbes in 60 Minutes". Each short study sums up the key idea at the heart of each respective thinker and asks the question: "Of what use is this key idea to us today?" But above all the philosophers get to speak for themselves. Their most important statements are prominently presented, as direct quotations, in speech balloons with appropriate graphics, with exact indication of the source of each quote in the author's works. This light-hearted but nonetheless scholarly precise rendering of the ideas of each thinker makes it easy for the reader to acquaint him- or herself with the great questions of our lives. Because every philosopher who has achieved global fame has posed the "question of meaning": what is it that holds, at the most essential level, the world together? For Confucius it is the search for the Dao, for the right path that leads us human beings to one another. For the Buddha it is a radical liberation from our needs and the approach, through meditation, to Nirvana. For Epicurus, by contrast, the meaning of life consists in the letting-be of our pleasures and the imbeddedness of existence in our bodies. Descartes, for his part, considers thinking to be the decisive quality of Man, allowing him to explore and master the world. Hobbes, finally, sees the central element of meaning to consist in humans' peaceful coexistence thanks to the founding of states, i.e. in a political act. In other words, the meaning of the world and thus of our own lives remains, among philosophers, a topic of great controversy. One thing, though, is sure: each of these five thinkers struck, from his own perspective, one brilliant spark out of that complex crystal that is the truth.
Author: Walther Ziegler
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 3753423122
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 146
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Book Description
Confucius (551 - 479 BC) is not only the most influential East Asian philosopher. His name is known around the world. Already 2500 years ago he posed the decisive question that still concerns us today: how do I find the "Dao", the right way in life? Whenever anyone begins a sentence with the words "Confucius says", people pay attention, expecting some timeless truth. But in fact his key idea is astonishingly up-to-the-minute. People, says Confucius, are naturally all equal. Therefore everyone, rich or poor, should have free access to culture and the chance to find his own "Dao". But how do I find my own way? Confucius's answer at first sounds simple. We must train our character, develop our best qualities, but at the same time always bear in mind other people's self-development. "What you do not wish for yourself, do not do to others," says Confucius. To live out co-humanity, or "ren", is for him the highest good. He knows, however, that we are not all saints. Thus, he remarks self-critically: "Conscientiously to perform all duties and not to be overcome by wine. What one of these things do I attain to?" All of us make mistakes while searching for the "Dao". We injure others, do not always tell the truth, or make bad decisions. The important thing is to learn from such mistakes. "To make a mistake and yet to not change your ways - this is what is called truly making a mistake." Confucius's thoughts also involve much wit and irony. The book "Confucius in 60 Minutes" Confucius's key idea and the fascinating lightness of his personality are presented using over 100 of his best quotes. The book is published worldwide as part of the popular series "Great Thinkers in 60 Minutes", now translated into 6 languages.
Author: Walther Ziegler
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 3741227692
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 114
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Book Description
Never before or since has a single philosopher produced such a tremendous effect as Karl Marx. His great vision of a society without private property was heeded worldwide and had huge historical effects. Allegiance to his ideas was proclaimed by revolutionaries, parties, governments and states. Marxism spread all around the globe. Marxist revolutions occurred in countries as different as Russia, China, Vietnam, Cuba, Nicaragua and Mozambique as well as many others, until at one point almost a third of humanity were living under communism. But some hundred years after Marx’s death the communist world that he had inspired fell apart. After the fall of the Iron Curtain many claimed that Marx had been entirely in error and that the sole viable economic system is really capitalism after all. It was hoped that democracy, market economy, and a fair distribution of wealth could all be combined together. But this optimism did not last long. The global economic and financial crises of recent decades have profoundly shaken belief in the power of the market to regulate itself. It has become ever clearer that capitalism does indeed display the structural flaws that Marx described in his main work, Capital. Certain of Marx’s predictions, such as the forming of powerful economic monopolies and the ever-growing gulf between rich and poor, have already come true. Others can be seen approaching on the horizon of current social developments. His acute critique of capitalism is, then, more relevant today than ever. There is no question but that Marx still has a lot to say to us. The book Marx in 60 Minutes explains in clear and perspicuous terms, using some seventy key quotations from Marx’s works, such topics as the materialist philosophy of history, the doctrine of “base and superstructure”, Marx’s critique of religion, and the analyses developed in Capital of “surplus value”, capital accumulation, and the immiseration of the workers. In the second part of the book, entitled “Of what use is Marx’s discovery to us today?”, Marx’s insights are applied to the present situation. The book forms part of the popular series Great Thinkers in 60 Minutes.
Author: Walther Ziegler
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 3753422681
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 154
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Book Description
Foucault counts as one of the great Post-Structuralists. Already his book-titles -"History of Madness", "Discipline and Punish", "The Use of Pleasure", "The Order of Things" - show his entirely new way of looking at things. He is also one of those philosophers who have become more, not less, influential after their death. This should both please and worry us. It is pleasing that Foucault's key ideas have remained so vital and relevant but worrying also because the main one among these ideas is so disturbing. "Man is erased, like a face drawn in the sand": With this thesis of "the end of Man", Foucault does not mean that we are about to die out as a species, for example through climate change. He means only that Man as we have hitherto known him, as a free, self-determined being spontaneously enjoying his own pleasures, is vanishing. This "Man" is being dissolved into the discourses and structures of our "carceral society", in indeed just the way that a face drawn in the sand is dissolved by the incoming tide. In the 18th century there was invented a new circular prison which allowed the warder to observe all the prisoners from a single central point. This feeling of being always observed has, Foucault argues, become the model for our whole society. But Foucault shows us, besides the origin of the structures of our coercive society, also a certain model for a modern "art of living". What does this model look like? Is it still possible at all to break out, as a true individual, from this "coercive society"? Is Foucault right to universalize his "prison paradigm" and say that we all feel constantly observed? Of the disturbing present relevance of his thoughts, in any case, there can be no doubt. The most important of these thoughts are explained here using over 100 key quotes. The book appears as part of the popular series "Great Thinkers in 60 Minutes".
