Kierkegaard in 90 Minutes is a book written by Paul Strathern. It is a part of the Philosophers in 90 Minutes series and it was published in 1998. The book is about Soren Kierkegaard, who was a Danish philosopher and social critic, who was considered to be the first existentialist philosopher. Kierkegaard was born in … Read more
Friedrich Nietzsche’s “On the Genealogy of Morals” is, at its core, a genealogical study of the origins and evolution of human morals. In this work, Nietzsche examines the historical development of two opposite sets of morality—the “master” morality and the “slave” morality—and argues that the latter has come to dominate modern thought. How has slave … Read more
In Beyond Good and Evil, Friedrich Nietzsche critiques the Judaeo-Christian tradition and promotes what he calls “life-affirmation.” Nietzsche believed that the traditional values were stifling human potential and creativity. He thought that people should break away from these values and instead embrace their deepest desires and instincts. Nietzsche’s philosophy is often seen as amoral, but … Read more
It’s been two weeks since I’ve started reading Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy, and I’m finally finished. It was a dense read, but well worth it for anyone interested in the origins of drama and tragedy. Nietzsche opens the book by discussing the two fundamental drives that he believes are at work in all humans … Read more
Arthur Schopenhauer is one of the most underrated philosophers of all time. In his essay “On the Vanity of Existence,” he argues that life is ultimately meaningless and that we are all just chasing after windmills. While this may sound bleak at first, there is a lot of wisdom to be found in his words. … Read more
One of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century, Foucault’s work has had a seismic impact in such fields as criminology, cultural studies, history, philosophy, political theory, and psychiatry, as well as sociology. His inter-disciplinary studies of madness, medicine, knowledge, punishment, and sexuality have significantly altered how sociologists now approach these topics. In his … Read more
It isn’t clear either how to deal with Monsters. Do you flirt with them and derive small amounts of benefit from them over long periods of time, or do we completely starve the Monster? So how do we fight with the Monster within us? We struggle to contain it. We repress it and try to … Read more
In What is Ancient Philosophy? Pierre Hadot shows us the more practical side of philosophy, based on the way it was practices by its originators in ancient Greece over two thousand years ago. Hadot teaches us about the different schools of philosophy that existed at the time, and delineates their similarities and differences in an … Read more
Might not Socrates be the prototype for that image of the philosopher so widespread, yet so false-who flees the difficulties of life in order to take refuge within his good conscience? On the other hand, the portrait of Socrates as sketched by Alcibiades in Plato’s Symposium-and also by Xenophon-reveals a man who participated fully in … Read more