Nietzsche, Heidegger and Buber (Discovering the Mind 2):

by Walter Kaufmann

In this second volume of a trilogy that represents a landmark contribution to philosophy, psychology, and intellectual history, Walter Kaufmann has selected three seminal figures of the modem period who have radically altered our understanding of what it is to be human. His interpretations of Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Buber are lively, accessible, and penetrating, and in the best scholarly tradition they challenge and revise accepted views.After an introductory chapter on Kierkegaard and Schopenhauer, with particular attention to the former's views on despair and the latter's on insanity and repression, Kaufmann argues that Nietzsche was the first great depth psychologist and shows how he revolutionized human self-understanding. Nietzsche's psychology, including his fascinating psychology of masks, is discussed fully and expertly.Heidegger's version of existentialism is herein subjected to a devastating attack. After criticizing it, Kaufmann shows how the same mentality finds expression in Heidegger's philosophy and in his now-infamous pro-Nazi writings. Here, as in his portraits of other major thinkers, the author's concern is to show that his subjects are of one piece.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Biography, History, Psychology

366 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

Walter Arnold Kaufmann was a German-American philosopher, translator, and poet. A prolific author, he wrote extensively on a broad range of subjects, such as authenticity and death, moral philosophy and existentialism, theism and atheism, Christianity and Judaism, as well as philosophy and literature. He served for over 30 years as a Professor at Princeton University.

He is renowned as a scholar and translator of Nietzsche. He also wrote a 1965 book on Hegel, and a translation of most of Goethe's Faust.

Reviews

[Hessam Ghaeminejad · Rating 3 out of 5]

جلد دوم ازسه گانه کشف ذهن والتر کوفمان به بررسی آرا و نظرات سه فیلسوف آلمانی زبان یعنی نیچه، هایدگر و بوبر می پردازد. البته در بخش اول کتاب شوپنهاور و کیرگارد(کیرکگور) رامعرفی و تاثیر احتمالی این دو تن را بیان میکند، کتاب افکار اینان درمیان نوشته هایشان را مورد کنکاش قرار می دهد و سعی برآن دارد که اندیشه ای که بیان و فلسفه ی روشن تری را دارد، به عنوان قهرمان کتاب معرفی نماید هرچند تمایل کوفمان به نیچه قابل کتمان نیست ( کوفمان مترجم آثار نیچه به زبان انگلیسی است) اما به
حق نقش نیچه را مبنی بر تاثیر گذاری بیشترازمیان آن دو در فلسفه و روانکاوی قرن 20 را نشان می دهد
نکته جالب در این بین حضور سه فیلسوفی است که به نوعی با یهودیت درارتباطند ابتدا نیچه که یهود ستیزان با تفسیرنمودن غلط اثارش راه را برای ادامه حیات این اندیشه باز کردند دوم هایدگر که رابط نزدیکی با حزب نازی داشت که به عنوان معرف ترین دولت ضد یهود شناخته شده اند و در آخر بوبر که خود یک یهودی نیمه معتقد بود
در آخر ترجمه کتاب شاید کمی سنگین به نظر برسد که این حزئی از شخصیت قلم فریدالدین رادمهر است اما این مانع فهمیدن و لذت بردن از آن نمیشه

[فؤاد]

فقط مقدمۀ چهل پنجاه صفحه ایِ «ایوان سُل» رو خوندم، و دو چیز رو فهمیدم:

اول: ترجمه بده. هر چند با زحمت و حدس زدن عبارت انگلیسی، می شد فهمید که نویسنده چی می خواسته بگه، ولی توی یه کتاب فلسفی این کار اون قدرها ساده نیست و خیلی انرژی می بره. کتاب فلسفی خیلی بیشتر از داستان نیاز به ترجمۀ خوب داره.

دوم: موضوع کتاب برای من مهم نیست. بنا بر خلاصه ای که ایوان سُل از پروژۀ کوفمان ارائه داده بود، هدف اصلی کوفمان اینه که نشون بده کدوم یکی از فلاسفۀ چند سدۀ اخیر آلمان، در روانشناسی (روانشناسیِ غیر کمّی، شاید بشه گفت: روانشناسی فلسفی) تأثیر مهمی داشتن. و بر همین اساس این فلاسفه رو قضاوت و ارزش گذاری کرده، مثلاً در جلد اول روی اهمیت گوته تأکید کرده و در مقابل کانت و هگل رو کوبیده و اون ها رو سدّ راه «کشف ذهن» برشمرده، جدای از انتقادهایی که از سبک نوشتاری کانت و هگل کرده که با تظاهر به دقت و موشکافی، در حقیقت می خواستن عدم دقت و ابهام و ناکافی بودن نظام فلسفی شون رو بپوشونن. و در جلد دوم روی اهمیت نیچه تأکید کرده، در مقابل هایدگر، که همچنان به بیماری تظاهر به دقتِ کانتی مبتلاست، و خیلی از نظریاتش در حقیقت انتحالی از نظریات کیرکگوره، بدون این که به منبع اصلی این نظریات اشاره ای بکنه.

این ها همه شاید برای خیلی ها جالب باشه، و صد البته مهم هم هست، و خود من هم از همین مقدمه زیاد یاد گرفتم، اما من فعلاً دنبال این ها نیستم، مثلاً روانشناسیِ فلسفی هر چند برام مهمه، اما برام معیار سنجش فلاسفه نیست. همین طور تظاهر به دقت، همین طور انتحال، یا تفسیر تحمیلیِ هایدگر از نیچه، که نظریات خودش رو در زبان نیچه گذاشته و در نظر نسل های بعد، نیچۀ روانشناس رو به یک فیلسوف تبدیل کرده. این ها اون قدرها برام اولویت نداره که بخوام روی کتاب وقت بذارم. فعلاً من دنبال فهمیدن حرف هام. زمان قضاوت بعداً فرا می رسه.

[Erik Graff · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kaufmann's translations as well as his biographies of Nietzsche and Hegel had a great influence on my intellectual development, leading to a strong sympathy with German intellectual culture by the time I entered seminary. This book, the second volume of a trilogy, was written towards the end of Kaufmann's life and proved an even greater disappointment than its predecessor.

If you want an apologetic on Nietzsche, Kaufmann's are the translations to study and his intellectual biography of Nietzsche the book to read. This, in my opinion, is a worthy approach to most thinkers, though not the last word. The fact that Nietzsche's work so readily leant itself to what Kaufmann (and I, in many cases) considered misappropriations should be taken into account in any evaluation of his work, particularly, as with Kaufmann, when so much emphasis is placed on the quality of an author's writing. This book, like the other two volumes, continues Kaufmann's lifelong efforts on the philosopher's behalf.

If you want a completely unsympathetic portrayal of Heidegger, assuming you've read the man beforehand, Kaufmann provides it. Personally, having done the work of reading his primary texts (but not the one on Nietzsche, which apparently is utterly worthless), I found this portrayal pleasing, but it is certainly not the place to begin.

The treatment of Martin Buber is mixed. Kaufmann was acquainted with and apparently fond of the man, but, as portrayed here, there seems to be little to recommend him as pertains to the theme of this trilogy.

[saml · Rating 4 out of 5]

love the heidegger-bashing

[Will Spohn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kaufmann’s task in this second book of a trilogy is to discuss the “mind” in relation to three thinkers: Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Buber. This book was not at all what I expected it to be, although I really didn’t know what to expect in the first place.

The book begins with some comments on Kierkegaard and Schopenhauer, and in effect these act as an introduction. The only thing I found of note was that Kierkegaard is much more of a philosopher than I had thought, even if (according to Kaufmann) he was ultimately limited by his dogmatism towards Christianity. Also, early on he introduces the distinction between those inspired by Kant and those inspired by Goethe, and how this inspiration of style and thought is crucial in understanding the two main adversaries: Nietzsche (Goethe) and Heidegger (Kant).

The sections on Nietzsche I found to be very interesting. Although the book did say it focused on the philosopher’s contribution to the mind, Kaufmann’s interpretation of Nietzsche seems to be primarily that he was a psychologist of sorts, which I was not expecting. Kaufmann walks a thin line between what he calls “reductionism” (reducing everything to an underlying psychological state, in this case), and attempting to explain certain aspects of thinkers. Sometimes it felt like he crossed that line, others not. Kaufmann also uses his own examples and goes off on his own thoughts, which sometimes seemed to me to undermine what he was trying to say.

The Heidegger section was wild, and markedly different from Nietzsche’s. While Nietzsche can be said to be the “hero” of this volume, Heidegger can be called the “enemy.” I have not read any substantive amount of Heidegger, so my understanding is limited, but from what I could understand Kaufmann is proposing essentially a full-scale take down of Heidegger. There is too much to explain in one place, but sometimes his criticisms seem to cross a line. Overall, though, they seem to be valid and I would recommend this section to any Heidegger fan.

The Buber section wasn’t really that interesting, considering I haven’t read him, and Kaufmann only uses him to highlight the importance of his theory of translation and understanding of an author’s mind.

I think that this is a good book, and one worth reading if one wants to gain a deeper understanding of how to analyze what goes on behind the text of a work, and how to approach the study of the human mind, not only of an authors, but of yours too.

[Hassan Majin]

اول اینکه از نشر چشمه و مترجم میخوام که این سه جلد کتابو لطفا از من پس بگیرن. یه مثلا ساده از اینکه این آقا مقدمات زبان یا نیچه رو بلد نیست میارم باقی دیگه عاقلان دانند:
در صفحه 131 جلد دوم نوشته
پنج سال پیش از این ، یعنی سال 1886 نیچه کتاب فراسوی نیک و بد را منتشر کرد و بخش 119 آن را سپیده دم نام نهاد یعنی Erleben und Erdichten که شاید بتوان چیزی شبیه به تجربه و خیال ترجمه کرد که یادآور شعر Dichtev است.
و این هم متن انگلیسی
Five years before he published Beyond good and Evil in 1886 , Nietzsche had called section 119 in The Dawn "Erleben und Erdichten", which brings to mind a poet(Dichter).

آقای رادمهر باید میدونست که نیچه یه کتاب داره به اسم سپیده دم و اینجا گفته که بخش 119 اون کتبا که 5 سال قبل از فراسوی نیک و بد چاپ شده رو نیچه تجربه و شاعری یا خیالپردازی نام نهاد که لغت شاعر رو به ذهن متبادر میکنه این دومی.
چقدر باید یک مترجم و یک ویراستار و یک ناشر بی مسوولیت باشن که اجازه بدن همچین ترجمه ای بیاد بیرون من نمیدونم. چرا آدمی که نیچه نخونده و المانی و انگلیسی بلد نیست باید کتابی در مورد نیچه از والتر کاوفمن ترجمه کنه؟ یعنی متوجه نشدی که وقتی حرف کاپیتال شروع میشه و با حرف تعریف داره به یک اسم خاص اشاره میکنه؟ یعنی اقلا اسم کتابهای نیچه رو نشنیدی؟ با چه اعتماد به نفسی بعدش اومدی این بخش 119 رو کاملا نامفهوم ترجمه کردی که اصلا معلوم نیست چی گفته در حالی که آلمانیش یک نثر درخشانه و ترجمه کاوفمن هم که مشهوره که سهل و ممتنعه؟
انتظار جواب دارم از مترجم و ناشر

[Babak · Rating 4 out of 5]

در آغاز كتاب از نقش كير كه گور و شوپنهاور در روانشناسي بحث شده كه عبارتند از دلهره و آزادي، ميل جنسي و سركوب. مفصل ترين و بهترين قسمت مربوط به نيچه و نقش او در روانشناسي عبارت بود از سطحي بودن خودآگاهي، اراده معطوف به قدرت، نقاب، روانكاوي تاريخي و اينكه احتياج به ايمان ناشي از ضعف است. هايدگر هم از نظر فلسفي و هم روانشناسي زير سوال رفته بود . كلا كتاب خواندني بود و وسعت مطالعات و دقت كوفمان بالا بود

[Rojin · Rating 3 out of 5]

اول این جلد کمی راجع به شوپنهاور و کی یرکه گور بود و بعد شروع کتاب با نیچه بود، به نظرم نقد نیچه خوب بود ولی کوفمان رسما از هایدگر بیزار بود و با نفرت تمام نقد کرده بود هایدگر رو، راجع به بوبر هم به نظر من اصلا نقدی در کار نبود در کل موخره کتاب جذاب ترین بخشش بود به نظرم

[Mahan]

ترجمه افتضاحه. بینهایت افتضاحه. و این آ��م کلی کتابِ دیگه هم ترجمه کرده و ناشرهای مشهور هم چاپ کردن! الان دارم این کتاب رو می‌خونم و اواسط کتابم، قبلشم جلد اولش رو خونده بودم، این لحظه دیگه واقعا عصبانی شدم و باید یه جایی می‌نوشتم چقدر این ترجمه بد و غیر قابل تحمل و مسخره‌ست.

[Arianne X · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hero of Volume Two: Nietzsche, uber-contra Heidegger, unter-contra Buber

Kaufmann’s project is only possible because he rejects the ‘New Criticism’ or contemporary theories (postmodern, post-structuralist, deconstructionist, etc.) of literacy interpretation. Contrary to the postmodern paradigm that the author is dead, Kaufmann believes that we can understand the mind of the author through his or her writings, thus opening the pathway to discovering the mind without being voyeuristic. Kaufmann rejects the postmodern tendency to deny the importance of the author and the assertion that texts are not really the products of authors.

Nietzsche:

Nietzsche starts by setting us free from the blinders of religion, the toils of culturally bound morality, ethical preconceptions and metaphysical preoccupations. He breaks the spell on the unholy trinity - the misguided quest for absolute certainty, necessity and completeness which dates back through Descartes, to Plato and even back to Parmenides but is not available in the human experience of existence.

Kaufmann presents a list of five major contributions Nietzsche made to human understanding:

1. Objective experience is a fiction. Our experience of existence is not objective, it consists largely of what we bring to it. Our understanding of any experience is highly selective. To a great extent, we create our experiences, or at least what we like to think of as our ‘objective’ understanding of them. Our understanding of experience usually takes its point of departure from that which actually occurred. This is the case because our moods influence our understanding, interpretation, memory and recall of any experience no matter what actually occurred. The importance of consciousness is thus vastly overstated if not plainly inferior. To me, this means that consciousness is not something we have, but it is something that has happened to us. Consciousness then pre-forms our experience of existence.

2. The Will to Power has been mischaracterized as a metaphysical phenomenon when it is really a psychological reality, a mischaracterization largely due to Heidegger. Nietzsche emphatically rejected the doctrine of two worlds that a metaphysical interpretation of the Will to Power implies. The exoteric and brutal connotations of the Will to Power were repudiated by Nietzsche and this willful misinterpretation was largely due to the efforts of Nietzsche’s sister in repackaging his ideas to make them palatable to the Nazis. Nietzsche himself said that the desire to rule is a sign of inner weakness and a disguise for the ‘soul’ of the slave. The Will to Power is not about power over other people, it can also mean the power to help other people. The Will to Power is about the affirmation of human life and human flourishing in the world, not the negation of this life in this world as implied by a doctrine of two worlds and carried to the point of absurdity by the pernicious cult of Christianity. The Will to Power breaks the tethers of human psychology to moral prejudices. The Will to Power is about the human development made possible when the ties to metaphysical errors, cultural conditioning, social bias and religious prejudices are broken. With the The Will to Power, we find that there are things in life more important than life itself when life is seen merely to be about the struggle for survival. Such human achievements are realized in self-overcoming and meeting challenges and overcoming obstacles.

3. The Psychology of World Views. Well it is true that Nietzsche’s primary example is Christianity, he also addresses Judaism, Buddhism, nationalism, and antisemitism as psycho-socially driven worlds views. Conviction based on true belief is a very dangerous threat to intellectual and psychological health. One needs not the courage of their convictions, but the courage to doubt their own convictions. Belief systems and convictions make a virtue of willful ignorance and a vice of intellectual curiosity. In Christianity, he saw that its psychological basis was resentment based on the status of slaves and members of the lower classes that first embraced the religion. The repressed resentment embedded in Christianity is a poison to both the body and the psyche. The need for faith is born from weakness and the more implausible the faith the more forceful the defense of it will be and thus the resentment of those who do not share it. This is nature of the weakness and the pathological need for faith.

4. Psycho-history. This is what Nietzsche referred to as listening with the third ear or seeing with the third eye, what he referred to as depth psychology. This is the study of historical figures with the added dimension of psychological considerations to obtain in-depth insights into their actions and the events containing them. Without this, our understanding of history is flat and superficial. This is an attempt to bring historical figures to life without relying on rumor and hearsay. Also, the reception of philosophical ideas can be greatly augmented by coming to grips with the psychological profile of the philosopher. Psychological analysis does not take the place of any other aspect of philosopher’s thought or the actions taken by leaders, but to better interpret the philosopher, poet or leader, a grasp on the mind and mentality of the individual is necessary, but not sufficient. Nietzsche employed this insight to come to an understanding of the Orphic, later Christian, soul as the internalization of our forbidden natural desires. The unreal inner soul acquired reality and the world of reality acquired a new unreality in the psychological chains of belief systems such as Christianity. This is the basis of ‘bad conscience’ - repression of desire that leads to frustration and aggression. All this Nietzsche saw prior to Freud.

5. The Philosophy of Masks. The notion of masks is not a simple dichotomy; not a simple matter of wearing a mask and being false or not wearing a mask and being true. The mask is the human as role player and in role play. Ironic for this Pretend Person to type these words as the philosophy of masks can be assimilated into the history of irony. In any case, we all wear masks, some explicit and intended, some implicit and more subtle but none are necessarily attempts at dishonesty. Ironically, the masked human is the honest human and the one professing transparency is the deceiver. In fact, it is the nature of modern existence that demands we play many roles, e.g., employee, consumer, leader, producer, owner, spouse, parent, sibling, friend, colleague, community member, etc. Special, unique and even inherited corrupted historical pressures impose roles and thus the need for masks especially upon women for example. None of these are inauthentic or false. One person can assume more than one role, wear more than one mask, even though the course of a single day as I know only too well. Nietzschean nuance is to see these roles in constant states of development and change, they are not static paradigm models. Humans are not constant through time and space and nor are the roles they assume or the masks they wear. Human existence is about becoming, not being. It is important that we mask ourselves to the world and not mask the world to ourselves. Thus, the greatest mask of all is that of the poet, artist, actor.

Heidegger (Party Member No. 3,125,894):

Heidegger’s path to certainty was through obscurity. Heidegger employed unusual terminology to intentionally achieve a form of obscurity to disguise some not very original and often borrowed insights into psychology and present them as original but mysterious pseudo-rigorous insights into ontology. This is what Kaufmann calls the use of hyper academic language to create the illusion of rigor. Heidegger’s metaphysical dualism shows in his overly simple and inadequate dichotomy of authentic and inauthentic to describe the human way of being in the world. It is much more likely that there is a continuum, not a dichotomy, between whatever authenticity and inauthenticity are intended to mean. What Heidegger offers is not new evidence or insightful analysis of phenomena but instead, a new wordy plumage as the new coinage of the realm. He proceeds thence to a willful misunderstanding of Nietzsche in referring to him as the last metaphysician when it was the very Catholic Heidegger who could be best thought of as fulfilling that role. For Kaufmann, Heidegger’s approach to understanding Nietzsche is arbitrary and both a philosophical and methodological scandal that defies belief. It was Nietzsche who said that faith in the existence of purely opposite values was the fundamental faith of the metaphysician. To accept the Heideggerian interpretation, we must believe that Nietzsche’s actual books, notes and letters can be ignored.

We find the nexus between Heidegger’s philosophy and politics, often denied, in his commitment to the idea of resoluteness and resolute commitments as a general proposition without offering guidance as to causes worthy resolute commitment. He stresses resoluteness and commitment for its own sake, without critical thought, independent of any value judgments about the nature of the commitment because resoluteness is a sign of authenticity. From here, the ease with which one could commit to a totalizing ideology such as Nazism should be clear. This still breeds a necessity mindset and a commitment mentality in contemporary culture that is highly dangerous, especially when translated into politics when the path our of inauthenticity is found in resolutely joining a movement. Kaufmann sums up Heidegger, in coming after Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, as a partial retreat back to the assured order, absolute safety and resolute certainty of Medieval Christianity.

Buber:

Drawing from Schleiermacher and Dilthey, Buber advances that the central task of the translator or interpreter is to discover the mind of the author. But Buber went further by insisting that we can come to comprehend, know and respect others in their radical otherness, an otherness that consists not just in their being separate individuals, but in being irreducibly unique and different for ourselves. As with Heidegger, we fall into a false Manichaean dichotomy, this time between the I and the You and between the I and the It. Kaufmann believes that a more accurate English title for Buber’s book ‘I and Thou’ would have been ‘I and You’. The basic theme of the book is that neither the ‘I’ nor the ‘You’ is an object of experience or use for the other, rather, ideally each party addresses and feels addressed by each other. ‘I and Thou’ comes from Buber’s attempt to find something more in human relations and explain why human encounters so often fail, with every ‘You’ destined to become an ‘It’; there is a lapse from ‘I – You’ to ‘I – It’. With this, Buber was placing too much trust in a non-exhaustive dichotomy, the same mistake of Heidegger made with authenticity and inauthenticity. Dichotomies that have plagued western thinking since Plato and Parmenides and renewed through Descartes and Kant into the modern world all based on the false and misapprehended religiously based wishful dichotomy between soul and body. The fatal flaw in Buber’s ‘I and Thou’ is its tendency for an over generalization of human relations as well as the failure to include the subtly, ambiguity and irony embedded in the human condition to such an extent that we often fail to notice it. There is no reason to believe that in the course of human relations every ‘You’ becomes an ‘It’. In fact, the empirical and observational evidence tends to suggest quite the opposite is true. The ‘I – It’ relationship is the stuff of objects and the study of the objective natural sciences whereas the ‘I – You’ relationship is the stuff of subjects and the subjective study of the humanities. Kaufmann’s main criticism of Buber is that he provided philosophical justification for excessive subjectivity.

Like Heidegger and Hegel before him, Buber promised to expand on his thesis with further volumes that were never written. This perhaps indicating that in all three cases, Hegel’s ‘Phenomenology’, Heidegger’s ‘Being and Time’ as well as Buber’s ‘I and Thou’ each author, well not abandoning the original work, found that something had gone wrong, making it impossible to expand upon the original work as promised. An important part of Buber’s overall project was to create a humanistic religion and arrive at a Jewish folk religion containing nothing contrary to reason. I believe that this was doomed to failure in that religion is by definition contrary to reason.

[Drab · Rating 4 out of 5]

More visceral about Heidegger than he is about Kant, which colors the second half of the volume.

[Mavaddat · Rating 4 out of 5]

I especially enjoyed the chapter on Martin Heidegger, which gives a devastatingly simple yet undeniable critique of Heidegger's entire philosophical project. I had been previously reading Heidegger sympathetically, but this chapter brought the dishonesty of Heidegger's main ideas to my attention. Kaufmann is emphatic that we not therefore disregard Heidegger as unimportant nor is he suggesting that we ignore Heidegger. He is only suggesting that Heidegger was guilty of covering up the problems he set himself to dissolving by needlessly impeding his readers with inconsistent language, failing to honestly identify the intellectual lineage of his contentions, employing a language of "ontology" to disguise his fundamentally anthropological enterprise, and subscribing to a Manichæan opposition of inauthenticity/authenticity. There is more to the critique than just this, but these were the points that most pressingly stood out to me.