Now reading...

[Holy Ghost]

On 6/14/2025 at 12:56 PM, Pim said:

Kant could be tough but Hegel is definitely more complicated. I read in Dutch and I think reading it in another language than my first will make it even more complicated 😉 but I don’t mind. Just means I will get slower trough it and leave it aside on those evenings when I am tired or unfocused. Got his biography for those evenings which is very fun to read and gives his other book more context.

Can't agree more when it comes to translations. Martin Heidegger's Being and Time is a pinnacle example. This translation, which Heidegger did not assist the translaters is notoriously misunderstood because Heidegger wrote in this extinct German dialaect, which comfounded a translation for nearly 30 years, when this translation was finished in 1960:

 

Finally in the 1970's shortly before his death in 1976, Heidegger assisted Joan Stambaugh to retranslate Being and Time in what I believe is the definitive edition.

 

[Niko]

a colleague of mine can claim that three of his four grandparents took at least one course from Heidegger himself in Freiburg around 1930... I sympathize very much with his grandma who replaced the course with a course about (iirc) French cathedrals after a few weeks because the latter course was more fun... my late dad had a lifelong struggle with the obscure language that's still commonly used in the humanities in Germany... I have many childhood memories of him complaining about the way people said things in faculty meetings etc...  and, somehow, that preference for a simple and clear style in scientific writing has stayed with me... to the point where my tolerance for convoluted sentences and fancy words is pretty low... certainly far too low to appreciate Heidegger... 

In the 1830s, Heinrich Heine wrote a nice history of German philosophy up to Kant and Hegel... iirc, his diagnosis is something along the lines of: Kant would have wanted to express himself clearly but lacked the ability... and then generations of followers copied his obscure writing style as if it was part of the message... 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zur_Geschichte_der_Religion_und_Philosophie_in_Deutschland

[gvopedz]

19 hours ago, Holy Ghost said:

...is a juggernaut. Like Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, I had to live with this book for years (under the direction of Tom Rockmore no less!) to truly understand what is being said. Like Kant, Peirce, Aristotle, Heidegger, Husserl, I had to live with Hegel, to understand Hegel.

If you want to read Hegel's The Phenomenology of Spirit, I suggest that you also read (or first read) Robert C. Solomon's In the Spirit of Hegel.  https://www.amazon.com/Spirit-Hegel-Robert-C-Solomon/dp/0195036506

[GA Russell]

I was able to guess nearly everything about this one.

I guess after reading enough Ross MacDonald stories, you can spot the clues.

[ghost of miles]

I'm just about to embark on one of Macdonald's novels in the set that Library of America devoted to him.

Currently finishing this:

... and about to start this:

[jlhoots]

John Grisham: The Whistler

[ejp626]

Just finished The Leopard.  Will try to get around to watching the movie very soon.

Just under halfway through Didion's Slouching Towards Bethlehem.

Also midway through Richler's St. Urbain's Horseman.

[felser]

1 hour ago, ejp626 said:

Just under halfway through Didion's Slouching Towards Bethlehem.

I have that Didion book on my (literal) short stack of titles to read next, along with The Time of Our Singing by Richard Powers.  Here's what I'm currently reading (I normally have a Marcus book and a Peterson book working, along with whatever else I am reading).

 

Edited 11 hours ago by felser

[EKE BBB]

[Holy Ghost]

On 7/28/2025 at 10:13 AM, gvopedz said:

If you want to read Hegel's The Phenomenology of Spirit, I suggest that you also read (or first read) Robert C. Solomon's In the Spirit of Hegel.  https://www.amazon.com/Spirit-Hegel-Robert-C-Solomon/dp/0195036506

Read it (the Oxford edition, if I recall, it was reprinted as a Harper Torch paperback, I don't have it handy, and he assisted in some of the translations) and it was a huge assist. Very much admire his contribution to the Hegelian canon. 

 

 

Edited 4 hours ago by Holy Ghost

[Holy Ghost]

On 7/28/2025 at 9:40 AM, Niko said:

a colleague of mine can claim that three of his four grandparents took at least one course from Heidegger himself in Freiburg around 1930... I sympathize very much with his grandma who replaced the course with a course about (iirc) French cathedrals after a few weeks because the latter course was more fun... my late dad had a lifelong struggle with the obscure language that's still commonly used in the humanities in Germany... I have many childhood memories of him complaining about the way people said things in faculty meetings etc...  and, somehow, that preference for a simple and clear style in scientific writing has stayed with me... to the point where my tolerance for convoluted sentences and fancy words is pretty low... certainly far too low to appreciate Heidegger... 

In the 1830s, Heinrich Heine wrote a nice history of German philosophy up to Kant and Hegel... iirc, his diagnosis is something along the lines of: Kant would have wanted to express himself clearly but lacked the ability... and then generations of followers copied his obscure writing style as if it was part of the message... 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zur_Geschichte_der_Religion_und_Philosophie_in_Deutschland

Wow Niko, thank you for sharing these amazing stories. How rare you get a glimpse into Heideggers's "real" classroom, which sounds like you dig him or you don't. This is rare and insightful.

Wow! 

[Holy Ghost]

@Niko

This gets to me, "... my late dad had a lifelong struggle with the obscure language that's still commonly used in the humanities in Germany... I have many childhood memories of him complaining about the way people said things in faculty meetings etc...  and, somehow, that preference for a simple and clear style in scientific writing has stayed with me... to the point where my tolerance for convoluted sentences and fancy words is pretty low... certainly far too low to appreciate Heidegger... "

Niko, this story really upsets me too. I don't know where to start. I have had my fair share of pompous asshole professors acting like they know everything, and we students are a bunch of dolts and ninnys. No matter how hard I tried, I was never excepted into exclusive clubs that spoke fluent German (mine was still broken (I had to think) and could never roll my r's). I don't want to think Heidegger was one of them, but I am not German and even after taking four years of German plus two graduate years of German research, would want to believe Heidegger would not make fun of anybody because they're not fluent enough to speak nor write in his way, but now I think he does. If so, then Heidegger is a pompous asshole too and that pompous-ass tradition carried on and look how it affected your father is a complete shame. The idea Heidegger wrecked lives like that, your dad saying basically Heidegger set the bar, wow. And your Dad cites Heidegger as the reason. Agree. Wow!

For what it's worth, I couldn't even translate page one of "What is a Thing." I made so many mistakes, all I could say was, I gave it my best. 

This account just paints a new picture of Heidegger for me. 

I have some reevaluating to do...

Edited 3 hours ago by Holy Ghost