As Visionárias

by Wolfram Eilenberger, Claudia Abeling (Translator)

A trajetória das pensadoras que, além do preconceito, enfrentaram as maiores questões de seu tempo.

Em meio ao horror da ascensão do nazismo e da carnificina da Segunda Guerra, Simone de Beauvoir, Simone Weil, Ayn Rand e Hannah Arendt libertaram-se dos grilhões do gênero e provaram que a emancipação do pensamento podia ocorrer mesmo em meio a situações extremas. Os reflexos dessa libertação chegam até os nossos dias em temas como gênero, identidade, religião, liberdade e autonomia. Com grande habilidade narrativa e um equilíbrio magistral entre a apresentação biográfica e a análise acurada de ideias, Wolfram Eilenberger nos oferece a história de quatro vidas legendárias que, em meio à convulsão, mudaram nossa forma de entender o mundo e lançaram as bases para uma sociedade mais livre.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, History, Biography, Feminism, Womens, Politics

400 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2020

About the author

Wolfram Eilenberger, born 1972, is an internationally bestselling, award-winning writer and philosopher.

In 2018, he published Time of the Magicians (Zeit der Zauberer) in Germany. The book instantly became a bestseller there, as well as in countries such as Italy, and Spain. It has been translated into thirty languages.

In November 2018 it won the prestigious Bayerischer Buchpreis, in 2019 the Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger in France. It was also shortlisted for several other awards, both nationally and internationally. The book also received wide critical acclaim in the US and UK.

Eilenberger has been a prolific contributor of essays and articles to many publications, among them Die Zeit, Der Spiegel, and El País. He has taught at the University of Toronto, Indiana University Bloomington, the ETH Zürich and Berlin University of the Arts.

Eilenberger is one of the program directors of the phil.cologne, Germany's biggest philosophy festival, and moderator of the TV program Sternstunde Philosophie (Swiss Television). He also holds a DFB football trainer’s licence and appears regularly as a soccer expert on German TV and radio.

He is married to the linguist and former Finnish national basketball player Pia Päiviö, and he lives with his family in Berlin.

Reviews

[Barbara K · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collective biography of four of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century (Hannah Arendt, Simone de Beauvoir, Ayn Rand and Simone Weil) covers their lives from the period 1933 to 1943. They were all of a similar age, and their ideas took form during a tumultuous period in history.

As an undergraduate I was exposed to the writings of three of them, Arendt, Beauvoir, and Rand. I will confess to being completely put off by Rand after reading The Fountainhead, and nothing I read in this book has changed my opinion on that. In fact, I struggle to classify her as a philosopher; I can't help seeing her as someone who read too much Nietzsche at an impressionable age and used his thoughts to rationalize a self-serving approach to life. Although Eilenberger makes a valiant effort to justify her inclusion in this book, I failed to find in her story the intellectual rigor that distinguishes the others. That said, she certainly left a legacy in the American right wing/libertarian community.

The evolution of Beauvoir's philosophical thinking during this decade was a curious thing. Initially she was guided by her lifelong bond, at both the academic and personal levels, with Jean Paul Sartre. As the years went by and she and Sartre engaged in various relationships with others, both jointly and individually, her philosophical thinking gradually assumed its own identity. This culminated a half dozen years after the end of the period covered by this book with the publication of The Second Sex, a book that inaugurated the resurgence of feminism, especially in the 1960's. While many criticisms have been leveled at it, there can be no question that it triggered a rethinking of the historic status of each sex, or possibly more accurately, each gender, with respect to the other.

Beauvoir seemed strangely untouched by the events of the pre-war and war years, except perhaps that during the time Sartre was conscripted she was more free to pursue her own lines of thought. Neither was Jewish, both came from well-off families, and neither had any marked interest in real-world politics. Both of them lived comfortably in Paris throughout the war as they pursued their writing projects. I'm not sure I would have classified the 1933-1943 period as "dark times" personally for Beauvoir any more than for Rand.

Not so for Hannah Arendt! She spent the years between 1933 and 1941 essentially on the run from Nazi Germany. Each place she relocated eventually became unsafe. The experience of being stripped of her German citizenship in 1937 while living in Paris and working for various Jewish aid groups stimulated her thinking on the essence of being German-Jewish and the nature of totalitarianism. She escaped from an internment camp in 1941 and made her way to New York, where she worked as an author and academic, developing lines of thought that were distinctly her own and not part of any philosophical or historical school.

One of the books for which she is best known, and the one that so impressed me in college, appeared in eight years after Eilenberger's 1943 bookend: The Origins of Totalitarianism. By that time she had already experienced the controversy surrounding her book about the Adolf Eichmann trial in 1961, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. I mention that book here only to highlight Arendt's determination to develop her own intellectual approach to world events rather than being part of any "camp".

That brings us to Simone Weil, perhaps known more as a mystic and religious thinker than as a philosopher. Her writings in the early 1930's, while she worked as a trade unionist, reflect what are perhaps the most astute observations anywhere at that time about the inevitable growth of both Soviet and Nazi totalitarianism given the combination of economic circumstances and men anxious to consolidate their power. But in 1937 she underwent an experience of religious ecstasy, followed in subsequent years by other forms of divine intervention, and her thoughts took a more mystical direction. Born into an agnostic Jewish household, she found a close connection to the Roman Catholic religion from this point forward in her life.

Although Weil was frail and prone to health-related crises her entire life, she nevertheless insisted in putting herself in danger by pushing herself to work in a factory to experience the life of workers with no control over their lives, and by volunteering on the Republican side during the Spanish Civil War. During World War II, determined to become involved, she returned from a safe haven in New York to London, where she wrote extensively as her health deteriorated further. She died in 1943, possibly from self-starvation.

The Visionaries: Arendt, Beauvoir, Rand, Weil, and the Power of Philosophy in Dark Times is engagingly written, and I enjoyed being introduced to Weil, learning more about Beauvoir, and being reminded that I have wanted for years to read more of Arendt. If only Eilenberger hadn't felt the need to include Rand!

[Iamthesword · Rating 3 out of 5]

The concept is exciting: Following four female philosophers - Simone de Beauvoir (grande dame of feminism), Hannah Arendt (grande dame of totalitarianism research), Ayn Rand (grand dame of libertarianism) and Simone Weil (someone I had never heard about before, but turned out to be the most interesting of the bunch) through the turmoils of the years between 1933 and 1943, exploring the connection between their biographies, the circumstances of their time and their thinking.

Eilenberger has already had wide success a few years ago with another book like this about four male philosophers (Heidegger, Benjamin, Wittgenstein and Casierer) in the 1920s (ZEIT DER ZAUBERER/TIME OF THE MAGICIANS). And the start is really motivating. Eilenberger strikes a tone that is entertaining and manages to mix history, anecdotes and compact summaries of their thinking in an appealing way. But the longer you read, the more you see the shortcomings:
There are passages where there's far more anecdote then talk about his heroines' thinking. Especially the parts about Hannah Arendt tend to tell more about general history than about her life and her philosophy. For a book about four women, there is a lot of talk about the men around them instead of them. It seems as if Eilenberger didn't have enough material from them to fill the pages. It is true that Beauvoir and Arendt wrote their central works later, but then why didn't he adapt the structure of the book?

Instead of a strictly symmetical approach, he could have given more room to the more productive ones at any point. And he could have written about a longer period of time, not just ten years - the epilog shows that there would have been enough to write about everyone of them (except Weil who died in 1943). Sometimes it feels as if Eilenberger felt obliged to copy the structure of ZEIT DER ZAUBERER. So you get the feeling of a sequel that has to stay close to the original, not a book of his own right.
It's by no means a bad book: It's entertaining, I had some insights - I got e.g. some ideas about the connection between Ayn Rand's ideas and modern American right wing thinking. And most important: It made me order some of Simone Weil's writings! But, in the end, there was some disappointment. Because it could have been better. And perhaps it should have been, too.

[There is a far more detailed review by "Anna" who read it with me and who put the criticisms in better words than me. Go read it. It's in German though: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...]

[Luna Miguel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinante ensayo—biografía(s)—novela. Lo he devorado. Cuánto he aprendido sobre Simone Weil, Simone de Beauvoir, Hannah Arendt y Ayn Rand. Sus historias entrecruzadas dan una imagen muy viva de algunas de las diferentes corrientes filosóficas de la época. Y qué buenos, especialmente los capítulos 4 (Prójimos) y 7 (Libertad). Un libro de historia, de política, de filosofía, de creación literaria... De él se sale con demasiada bibliografía pendiente y muchas ganas de aprender.

[Emma Deplores Goodreads Censorship]

Read through page 52. Unfortunately the author’s (or translator’s) style did not work for me. It jumps around a lot, offering random details without the larger context of his subjects’ lives, in disruptively short segments, all while treating his subjects like characters in a novel, purporting to write their internal monologues.

Also, I didn’t need an explanation for why one would write about these four women—they’re each quite a big deal and also led interesting lives (amusingly, I knew of all of them, had previously read two with a third on my TBR, while I don’t think I’d even heard of more than one of the male philosophers featured in his previous book). Nor even for writing a group biography despite their apparently not knowing each other—they were at least contemporaries and provide for interesting contrasts. But I think I did need an explanation for why that group biography should focus exclusively on a single decade, from 1933-1943, when three of the four were only just getting started in their careers by the end of it. The book treats this era as complete unto itself and offers no context or explanation; it begins not with an introduction to its thesis or even its subjects’ early lives, but a flash-forward to 1943 before returning to 1933. But (except for Weil, who was dying) why should we care what they were doing in 1943 specifically? Their lives did not unfold in lockstep so why is the book organized as if they did?

Admittedly I am no great lover of philosophy, but I do love historical biographies and just quickly found myself dreading this one.

[Rainer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leben und Werk der vier Philosophinnen Hannah Arendt, Simone de Beauvoir, Ayn Rand und Simone Weil in den Jahren 1933-1943. Der Text springt zwischen den vier Biographien hin und her und verbindet so die Darstellung ihres Lebens mit der Entwicklung ihrer Ideen und der Zeitgeschichte. Wer sich wie ich auch ohne fundierte Fachkenntnis in Philosophie für ihre historische und politische Verortung interessiert, dem wird dieses Buch gefallen. Mir hat‘s sehr gefallen.

P.S.: Ich habe erst nach ein paar Seiten Lektüre gemerkt, dass es hier nicht um die viel bekanntere Simone Veil geht - die war 18 Jahre jünger und auch eine spannende Person. (französische Ministerin und Präsidentin des EU Parlaments).

[Michael Reilly]

This is the second half of what is, in effect, a history of philosophy from 1919 to 1943. The first half is Eilenberger's last book, "The Time of the Magicians". It tracked the intellectual development of four great male European thinkers, Martin Heidegger, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Walter Benjamin and Ernst Cassirer, from 1919 to 1929.

This volume tracks the intellectual development of four great female European thinkers, Simone de Beauvoir, Hannah Arendt, Simone Weil and Ayn Rand, from 1933 to 1943. The women in this volume are even more diverse than the men in the first volume.

Weil was a hard-core ascetic who believed that the truth of a philosophy was in the philosopher's willingness to live it. She insisted on poverty and hard labor as a test of sincerity. She worked herself sick.

Arendt was a brilliant academic personality who never got to live the true academic life because she was Jewish and a woman. Her life experience in Germany and war-scarred Europe informed her analysis of totalitarianism and her willingness to judge Jews even when they were in the worst conditions. Like Weil, she cherished the importance of looking directly at philosophical truth.

Beauvoir is the most difficult of the four for me to understand. She had a complicated and deep relationship with Satre which seems to have worked better for him than for her. Much of her thought seems to be reactions for or against his writings or lessons learned from her relationship with him. I am totally unqualified to judge her thought. I do not understand much of it.

Rand doesn't belong with the other seven thinkers in these two volumes. The other seven have nuanced and everchanging philosophies. They can be impenetrable at times. They all give the feeling at times that they are desperately trying to put into words a thought so intricate that it can't be expressed in words. And all seven draw from most of Western philosophy in their writing.

Rand is a one trick pony. She has a central organizing thought. The selfish ego is the good. She was not well read in philosophy. There was almost no development or evolution of thought or theories. She expressed her plain thoughts clearly without ambiguity. She epitomized H. L Mencken's line that "for every complex problem, there's a solution which is simple, neat and wrong." Her career more closely resembled a cult leader that a great thinker or philosopher.

All four of these women were wrestling with great intellectual challenges in the middle of a world of turmoil. Arendt fled Nazi Germany, Weil fled France and more or less worked herself to death at the age of 34 in 1943. Beauvoir stayed in occupied Paris during the war. She and Satre never really came to a satisfying compromise with that situation. Rand was safe in America during this period.

It is interesting that both Weil and Arendt, from very different premises, both quickly identified the similarities in the totalitarianism of the Nazis and the Soviets. Arendt was also attacked because she was quick to recognize the inherent contradiction Israel would face if it adopted a European type of nationalism that treated the Arabs as "the other".

Eilenberger tracks all of the strands of thought during these twenty-five years. He tracks the lines from Heidegger to Satre to Beauvoir, or the lines from Nietzsche to all eight thinkers or the lines from Joyce and Picasso to the world of philosophy.

This is heady stuff. At times I lost my way. It is, however, exhilarating to spend time with people who take true thought so seriously. These two books are an exciting intellectual treat.

[Arianne X · Rating 5 out of 5]

Resistance in Dark Times

Four Women – Four Responses – Four Paths – Four Visions

The appeal of this book for me was immediate and obvious. A plural biography of four female, like me, thirty-something year-old, like me, creative writers, like me, philosophers, like me (or at least as I like to flatter myself on the last two points), facing both personal trauma and social darkness, like me. Thinking is always a lonely enterprise and writing is a solitary project.

The book covers the limited period of 1933 – 1943. The pivotal year of the book, and for each biography, is 1943, the nadir of despair and despondency for each thinker as well as darkness for a world in the midst of a grinding and grueling war of violence and attrition reaching the depths of starvation and cannibalism. The books ends with the death of Simone Weil in 1943 and only the Coda at the end f the book brings each of the thinkers to date in terms of their later works, and future influence.

Rand provided the intellectual framework of American Libertarianism and neo-liberalism.

Weil went on to have much of her work published posthumously with the help of Albert Camus.

Beauvoir became the founder of feminism and an intellectual leader of the women’s movement.

Arendt became well known for her profound and controversial insight into the “banality of evil”.

Each were contemporaries of approximately the same age in 1943, viz., Ayn Rand (38), Simone Weil (34), Simone de Beauvoir (35), Hannah Arendt (37). Each were caught up in the same whirlwind of global events, depression and war, at the same age, in a state of disappointment, waiting and struggle. Each was called to thinking through their circumstances, their autonomy, and the fact of undeniable social conditioning at work in their thinking about social chaos while just trying to remain human during the struggle. Each had to meet the challenge of being consistent on philosophical principles in the inconsistent reality of the world. The collision of Philosophy with world resulted in the following.

Ayn Rand – Radical libertarianism and the implications for human freedom.

Simone Weil – Total world war and the implications for Christianity.

Simone de Beauvoir – Socialism and the implications for social solidarity.

Hannah Arendt – Zionism and the implications for global citizenship.

Each of the thinkers profiled in this plural biography met the end of the old world order and the beginning of a new world order from perspectives based on different experiences in and of each world. Each came to us from four different contextual sets of experiences and showed us four different responses to the challenges of modernity and plurality, four possible paths for understanding the past and charting the future, four different visions for finding justice and assigning value, four different ways of determining meaning and living life. Self-creation or self-definition is always contingent on the historical conditions and cultural context in which one finds oneself. No one can escape this. Simply stated, we become defined by others or live by negation. The irony is that the more one is socially isolated (like myself), the better chance one has at self-definition. At the core, each of these is an ethical position. Here is my, in one world please, summary.

Ayn Rand, Russian, (1905 – 1982) – Egoism – Becomes an absolute leading to indoctrination.

Simone Weil, French, (1909 – 1943) – Altruism – Becomes an extreme leading to self-destruction.

Simone de Beauvoir, French (1908 – 1986) – Existentialism – Becomes a freedom leading to entrapment.

Hannah Arendt, German (1906 – 1975) – Humanism – Becomes an ideal which proves impractical.

Something should be said, please summarize Arianne, what is meant by each philosophical perspectives identified above:

Egoism – The individual is accountable to no one for their right to self-relation, love and happiness.

Altruism – Absolute identification of oneself with the suffering of any and all others.

Existentialism – Why do others exist and how are we to grapple with this predicament?

Humanism – Our ability to relate and communicate with each other is the key to rational existence.

And of course, for their efforts, each earned the following pejorative and derogatory nicknames over time:

Ayn Rand – “Mean Girl”

Simone Weil – “The Red Virgin”

Simone de Beauvoir – “Beaver”

Hannah Arendt – “Jew Hater”

For all their ostensible differences is philosophy, personality, and perspective, there was a shared vision that went to the core of the experience of existence for rational human beings acting in an irrational world. For each, the crucial question was not the ‘objective’ facts of world, but in how to approach those facts. Each would agree on the need to make autonomous fundamental independent decisions dependent one’s encounters with the world.

For Rand, this is the “sense of life”.

For Weil, this is “unaccountable sainthood”.

For de Beauvoir, this is the “ethics of existentialism”.

For Arendt, this is ‘thinking without bannisters”.

Personal intentions cannot be measured solely against the standards of other people, otherwise all such personal intentions are derivative of a wider narrative and perverted.

[Hrafnkell Úlfur · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eitthvað svo asnalega kómískt við það að hópa Rand saman með Arendt, Beauvoir og Weil, því á meðan þær þrjár voru á meginlandinu að upplifa helvíti á jörðu í formi seinni heimsstyrjaldarinnar er helsta áhyggjuefni Rands það hvort að Gary Cooper muni ekki pottþétt fara með aðalhlutverkið í kvikmyndaaðlögun á verki hennar. Á meðan Arendt fer í gegnum það sem mun leiða til þess að hún skrifi Uppruni alræðishyggjunar, Beauvoir með Hitt kynið, og Weil með Ilíonskviðan, eða ljóðið um afl, að þá kemur Rand með Atlas shrugged...

[Redo · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great and fascinating book. What was really fascinating to me was how the author presented the philosophy, worldview of his characters and what shaped it. I knew them before, but I more of stumbled upon some of them too. I was intrigued by Arendt the most. At the same time, I became curious about Rand. Ayn Rand is quite disliked in the philosophical community, at least when there are no libertarians. At the same time, however, I was intrigued by the idea of following the life and philosophy of such a strong woman. Her philosophy itself also seemed intriguing to me, as it was said to be a heir to the philosophy of the Russian nihilists (from the times of Dostoyevsky's "Demons").
The book also had an inspiring element - it showed how to face difficult times with the help of philosophy. Initially, I wasn't sure whether the book would be good all the time, as it’s focusing on as many as four people. Everything turned out to be great though.

The entire book was divided into several parts. At the same time, it constantly focused my attention, was engaging and intriguing. It was great to discover the heroines' philosophy, which was engaging and magnetizing. At the same time, the story of the lives, thoughts and struggles of the four women was no less captivating. It was human, and at the same time it gave strength to the reader and it inspired them. At this point, it is probably good to add that the author focuses on the period 1933-1943, the period of development and influence of nazism on Germany and the world, and the period of World War II. It fascinated me for a long time. It was a time of change, a difficult time, but at the same time against its background emerged the philosophy of opposition to nazism. The author also depicted well the evolution of women philosophers and the changes in their lives and thoughts. Beginnings, doubts, fears, strength, triumph.

As for the heroines themselves, let me mention some of their most interesting moments for me. Arendt was interesting as an independent thinker, an analyst, and at the same time a strong woman able to adapt to difficult conditions. What was fascinating for me were her moments of shaping her philosophy regarding Jews and Zionism, towards which she was also able to maintain independence. Her analysis of totalitarianism was compelling. The philosopher attracted attention every time she appeared. Also its outro, about the release of "The Roots of Totalitarianism" and participation in the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem, was absorbing. It made me want to read these two books. It was great to observe the German thinker in real life.

Simone Weil was also strong. She impressed with courage, including physical courage, despite her poor health. I remembered her as a soldier at the front, traveling along with an anarchist group. I remember her meeting with Trotsky, with whom she talked about the revolution and with whom she quarreled. Her time spent as a factory worker. Her plans to work as a nurse. When she was assigned to work at a desk, as a philosopher (which she was from the beginning), you could see the freshness her of thought and dedication. Her life and philosophy were fascinating, she showed perhaps the greatest intensity of the group. What surprised me was that she wasn't a Christian right away - we see the moment of her breakthrough.

Ayn Rand was the second woman who absorbed me. She wasn't always easy to like, but she was fascinating, like a literary heroine. Her biographical background was fascinating for me – she was a refugee from communist, revolutionary Russia, which she had always opposed. She wrote a novel using these memories. She entered Hollywood and opposed communism within it. Her political activity was surprising and engaging. Her philosophy was really interesting, as it gradually tried to theoretically encompass communist and capitalist, collectivist and individualistic systems. It was fascinating to watch her create her own philosophy, learn philosophy, and create her screenplays and novels. In a way, you could say she turned her personality into a philosophy. It would seem that she lived inside theory. At the same time, however, she tried to add sensational plots to her novels in order to make them popular. She saw "Fountainhead" as embodying an ultimately engaging, dramatic larger-than-life conflict. At the same time, again, it was fascinating for me to read, while looking at another book about her, that her philosophy of objectivism has its background in Russian nihilism and Russian philosophy and its spirit in general. I need to get back to Ayn Rand's Russian background book (I have two of them written down: "Ayn Rand: The Russian radical" (Sciabarra), "Ayn Rand and the Russian intelligentsia" (Offord)). Its philosophy itself, Objectivism, can be described as (radical?) individualism, elitism, philosophical egoism and pro-capitalism, seen as the embodiment of freedom.

I was probably least interested in Simone de Beavoir, although she had very absorbing and dramatic moments. Her philosophy, existentialism, was also humanistic, and she believed and struggled with it no less than Sartre. The moments of her growing awareness, humanitarian and war involvement were interesting. It was interesting to watch her personality change and mature. However, her love triangle did not seem interesting to me, although it must have been shocking at that time. I think it was interesting as an application of existentialism in practice - and eventually de Beavoir's novel was based on it. Her period of tension when Sartre went to serve as a soldier at the front was dramatic, it was one of the most engaging moments in her entire story in the book.

The book had its flaws, mentioned in other reviews. Although, despite this, I didn't feel like it was as significant (to me) as they made it out to be. Although, I can imagine, other people felt it more. For me, the philosophical part was not insignificant. I also didn't have the impression that the anecdotal part prevailed. I think that its grouping into motifs present in the characters' lives was good. Maybe sometimes there was really no main idea - although on the other hand there were recurring motifs in the lives of all the heroines, and there were also general parts of the book focusing on the evolution of the protagonists and their struggle with the crisis. So… I guess it's subjective. It is a feeling of lack that may or may not occur. The book is not a philosophy textbook, but neither is it a completely popular biography.

Overall, I'm happy with “The Visionaries”. I feel that the book was absorbing and I gained some knowledge or message from it. I am positive about the author. And as for the heroines - I feel the need to explore their books and fates.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ein Buch über vier kluge Philosophinnen in stürmischen Zeiten klingt toll, und die Idee hat mich sofort überzeugt. Und zunächst war ich auch sehr angetan: Das Buch bietet zahlreiche Anekdoten, lädt dazu ein, Parallelen zu ziehen und die philosophischen Grundideen nachzuvollziehen. Dabei ist Simone Weil sicher die unbekannteste und über weite Strecken interessanteste Persönlichkeit, aber auch Hannah Arendt, Ayn Rand und Simon de Beauvoir lohnen einen Blick.

Dennoch ist Feuer der Freiheit hinter meinen Erwartungen zurückgeblieben - unter anderem weil es der Nachfolgeband von Zeit der Zauberer ist. Der erste Band war zeitlich so zugeschnitten, dass die philosophischen Gleichzeitigkeiten im Vordergrund standen, die Struktur des Buches resultierte also aus inneren Logiken. Feuer der Freiheit übernimmt diese nun und überträgt sie auf eine ganz anders gelagerte Konstellation. Und das funktioniert nicht immer.

Mussten es wieder vier Personen sein? Auf die großen Unterschiede des historischen Kontexts - Rand und Arendt leben vielleicht zeitweise auf dem selben Kontinent, aber in sehr verschiedenen Welten - wird kaum eingegangen. Hätte der Zeitraum nicht angepasst werden können? Die weltpolitische Entwicklung scheint wichtiger für die gewählten zehn Jahre zu sein als die inhaltliche Entwicklung der Philosophinnen. Außerdem: Warum zehn Jahre? Nur, weil das in Zeit der Zauberer funktioniert hat? 15 wären vielleicht sinnvoller gewesen. Und muss man wirklich immer alle vier gleichberechtigt anführen? Simone de Beauvoir wird erst im letzten Drittel wirklich spannend, bei Rand hätte man an vielen Stellen kürzen können und Arendt dient oft Insert für historischen Kontext, ohne dass wir etwas neues über sie oder ihr Denken erfahren.

Einige Unterschiede zu Zeit der Zauberer stoßen dafür etwas bitter auf: Viel mehr als bei Wittgenstein und Co werden diese Frauen über die Männer in ihrem Umfeld erklärt. Das liegt auch daran, dass teilweise das Material offenbar nicht ausreicht - siehe gewählter Zeitraum - aber insgesamt würde man sich einen analytischeren Zugang dazu wünschen, dass es sich nun einmal um vier Frauen in einer spezifischen Zeit handelt. Natürlich ist "Frau sein" keine Erklärung - aber wenn man sich schon dezidiert vier Philosophinnen aussucht, sollte man deren Position zumindest mitreflektieren. So hätte auch die Frage nach Genie und Wahnsinn, nach Religiösität und Essstörung bei Weil betrachet werden können - ganz abgesehen davon, dass Eilenberger sich hier einem klaren Urteil entzieht und damit die Deutungsmacht seines Buches erheblich schwächt.

Keine Frage: Es ist ein unterhaltsames, kurzweiliges Buch, bei dessen Lektüre man einiges lernen kann. Am Ende aber stellt sich die Frage der Kohärenz der einzelnen Kapitel sowie eines abschließenden Fazits: Das Buch plätschert angenehm aus und verweist darauf, dass die wirklich spannenden Entwicklungen vielleicht noch kommen. Das ist schade, da man durchaus mehr aus dem Material hätte machen können. So bleibt Feuer der Freiheit zumindest hinter meinen Erwartungen zurück - auch wenn ich es zu Weihnachten sicher verschenken werde.

[Nelson Zagalo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wolfram Eilenberger, filósofo alemão, surgiu recentemente na cena internacional como divulgador de filosofia com o livro "O Tempo dos Mágicos" (2018), dedicado a Walter Benjamin, Martin Heidegger, Ernst Cassirer e Ludwig Wittgenstein, focado no friso temporal 1919-1929. Para dar continuidade à fórmula de sucesso, avançou para o intervalo 1933-1943, mas desta vez escolheu quatro mulheres — Ayn Rand, Simone Weil, Simone de Beauvoir e Hannah Arendt —, intitulando o livro como "O Fogo da Liberdade" (2020). Eilenberger faz lembrar Sarah Bakewell, pelo modo como cruza bem história, filosofia e arte, contudo, falta-lhe alguma capacidade de síntese e visão holística, ficando-se por um tom mais jornalístico, de descrição cronológica de eventos.

Começando pelas escolhas, Ayn Rand salta à vista por ser a menos erudita, e ter uma obra com menor alcance. No entanto, não podemos deixar de reconhecer que o seu pensamento se tornou central na segunda metade do século XX, nomeadamente suportando grandes pensadores económicos — ex. Milton e Greenspan — que viriam a tornar-se dominantes na cena política. Mesmo que estejamos contra às suas propostas — objetivismo, libertarianismo e egoísmo —, não podemos esquecer que todo o seu trabalho foi feito sempre em contraponto ao Estalinismo. Para Eilenberger, a sua presença neste lote deve-se à sua necessidade de fugir de um regime político, ao espírito combativo que demonstrou face ao mesmo e o modo como recorreu à arte literária para o fazer.
No outro lado, totalmente oposto, temos Simone Weil, que apesar de também se ter desiludido com o comunismo de Estaline e Trótski, defendeu até ao fim uma espécie de altruísmo extremo. Apesar de judia, converteu-se ao cristianismo seguindo de perto o espírito missionário, desafiando frentes de batalha para salvar e redimir populações da opressão. A maior parte dos seus escritos foram publicados postumamente. Das 4 filósofas, acaba sendo a de maior impacto pelo modo como se ofereceu totalmente à causa das ideias e também porque a sua morte define o fim do friso cronológico do livro.

As outras duas filósofas, Simone de Beauvoir e Hannah Arendt, são as mais célebres, dispensando grandes apresentações. A primeira reconhecida como figura principal do Feminismo, apesar de ter estado na base do Existencialismo. E Arendt, a principal figura por detrás dos estudos sobre o totalitarismo, nomeadamente a tentativa de explicar como foi possível conduzir uma nação inteira a aceitar a barbárie do Holocausto. Ambas tiveram de realizar a sua emancipação, Beauvoir de Sartre e Arendt de Heidegger, acabando por definir não só o seu caminho, mas todo um contributo original que mudaria a nossa compreensão da sociedade no seu tempo.

As 4 convocadas têm em comum a fuga de regimes políticos e a redenção pela escrita, tendo todas elas tido imensa dificuldade em ser aceites e publicar as suas obras. Não posso dizer que tenha aprendido muito de novo sobre cada uma, mas Eilenberger relata com velocidade e de forma muito bem entrosada as vidas e ideias das quatro, centrado num curto período de 10 anos, altura em que todas se aproximavam dos 30 anos e se sentiam plenas de energia, vontade de lutar e sem receio do caos criado pela 2ª Guerra Mundial.

Publicado no VI: https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.com...

[Cem Alpan · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Vizyonerler: Arendt, Bevauvoir, Rand, Weil ve Felsefenin Kurtarılması"
Ya da, "Savaş döneminde felsefe yapmak ne işe yarar?"
(Türkçede vizyoner, özellikle Özal dönemi etkisiyle fena çınlıyor ama başka karşılık bulmak da zor).
Bu dört sıra dışı kadının 1933'ten başlayarak savaş sonrasına kadar ki tarihin en zorlu dönemlerinden birinde, düşüncelerini nasıl şekillendirdiklerini, totaliterliğin yükselişiyle, adaletsizlikle, eşitsizlikle, yerinden yurdundan edilmelerle, sonu gelmez şiddetle, ölümün kıyıda beklediği belirsizliklerle nasıl yılmadan baş ettiklerini ve felsefe ve düşünce tarihini şekillendirdiklerini anlatıyor.
Bu figürler arasında beni en çok Weil etkiledi. Özellikle İlyada'dan yola çıkıp savaş hakkında yazdıkları o kadar yüklü ve dolu ki insan düşüncesindeki amansızlığı ve açıklığı tam olarak sindirmekte güçlük çekiyor - okurken "sonra dönüp bir daha okurum" telkiniyle acele acele ilerliyor (aynı hissi sözgelimi Moby Dick'in bazı bölümlerinde de yaşarım). Ama bir o kadar Beauvoir'ın hikayesinden, düşüncesinin gelişim aşamalarından da etkilendim. Bugüne değin kısa, ozyasamoyküsel kurmacalarını okumuştum, ve bu kitap bende onu daha iyi tanımak isteği uyandırdı. Rand, elbette aralarında problemli olanı, Weil ile aynı olgulardan yola çıkıp tersi bir felsefe yontuyor, ama o dönemden bugüne yansıyacak düşünsel rüzgarları anlamak için iyi bir örnek teşkil ediyor.
Yazarın önceki kitabı Türkçeye Kolektif kitap tarafından çevrilmişti. Bunun da çevrileceğini sanıyorum.
İlgililer kaçırmamalı...

[Sandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Feuer der Freiheit" ist eine unglaublich spannende historische Erzählung über zentrale Figuren der europäischen Kulturgeschichte. Eilenberger findet das exakte Gleichgewicht zwischen den menschlichen Eigenarten der Personen, ihrer gegenseitigen Wirkung und Wechselwirkung, und ihrer Rolle in der Kulturhistorie des 20. Jahrhunderts.

Der Text ist zwar gefüllt mit Fakten und Zitaten, doch sind die Ereignisse so fließend und reichhaltig erzählt und die Kapitel so gekonnt ineinander abgestimmt, das die ordentlich heftige informative Bagage eher im Hintergrund bleibt. Vordergründig ist "Feuer der Freiheit" eine spannende Geschichte als ein Sachbuch.

Dass die Personen de Beauvoir, Sartre und andere im Buch behandelte Biografien viele interessante Aspekte zur Ergänzung bieten, ist selbstverständlich bekannt – und doch erläutert Eilenberger die Kontexte und Bindungen zwischen den historischen Figuren auf eine Interesse weckende, spannende Art.

Ein Muss für Biografie-Liebhaber und Interessenten der Zeitgeschichte.

[schafiboi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Die Prämisse und den Themenfokus fand ich super. Leider gefallen mir die fiktionalisierten Einschübe aus den Biografien der Protagonistinnen überhaupt nicht. Denn es fällt an allen Ecken und Enden auf, dass sie aus der Perspektive eines weißen Mannes unserer Zeit geschrieben sind. Mehr faktenorientiertes Erzählen hätte ich begrüßt.
Trotz des unangenehmen Gefühls aufgrund des Male Gaze ist das Buch aber lesenswert. Denn ansonsten finde ich die Mischung aus vier so grundverschiedenen philosophischen Betrachtungsweisen sehr spannend und auch die Auswahl der Auszüge aus ihren Texten sehr gelungen.

[Rudi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Außerordentlich lesenswert und denkanregend.

[Norman Weiss · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eine interessante Themenstellung, aber eine in meinen Augen nur teilweise überzeugende Umsetzung. Neben zwei bekannten und vieldiskutierten Denkerinnen - Simone de Beauvoir und Hannah Arendt - behandelt das Buch auch Simone Weil und Ayn Rand.
Eilenberger mischt Biographisches mit Werkauszügen und Fiktionalem, er wechselt dabei hektisch die Perspektive. Das Buch ist flüssig geschrieben, aber wirkt irgendwie konstruiert, auf Markterwartungen hin angelegt.
Also gibt es die drei Sterne eher für das Thema.

[Luisa Ripoll-Alberola · Rating 3 out of 5]

Biografía filosófica paralela de Simone Weil, Simone de Beauvoir, Hannah Arendt y Ayn Rand. Como método de indagación, me parece chulísimo: retrata de un modo muy certero la guerra. Aún así, me gustó mucho más el primer libro del autor usando este método, Tiempo de magos. La gran década de la filosofía: 1919-1929, dado que Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Cassirer y Benjamin tienen una filosofía más compleja y más desconocida para mí.

Cosas que he aprendido:
- la lucidez filosófica de Weil a la hora de analizar la sociedad, el socialismo, etc etc. Un montón de cosas que se piensan de modo general ahora parten de ella sin que lo sepamos. Especialmente interesante me parece el Diario de fábrica, incluido en La condición obrera.
- la complejidad de las relaciones poliamorosas de Beauvoir y Sartre (wtf)
- que a Ayn Rand, como filósofa, se la cancela demasiado rápido, era algo que ya sabía pero que este libro me confirma. Aunque su filosofía derive en el libertarismo, las preocupaciones de Rand se inician por la existencia de una élite mediocre en Estados Unidos. ¿Por qué depender de la colectivización de la opinión para tener fama, prestigio, lectores, oportunidades? ¿Dónde queda el valor del individuo (MI valor, se preguntaba Rand)?
Creo que es muy comprensible, y que el mundo sigue siendo en gran medida así. Y esa filosofía es la que más subyace en El manantial, que es para mí una obra maestra.
- El desarrollo del proyecto sionista. Arendt estaba vinculada con él al principio, desde París, cuando su pretensión era la de fundar una colonia judía en el país musulmán. Años después, ya en Nueva York, Arendt asistió sin voz ni voto a un congreso en el que se proclamaba el objetivo de la instauración de un Estado de mayoría judía (siendo el país de minoría judía en ese momento). Esa reunión fue un shock para ella, claro. Es fuerte: esas ideas son las que primaron en el sionismo después. Arendt crea un grupo para investigar las implicaciones políticas de un proyecto así, pero fracasa. El final de la historia ya lo sabemos.

[Simone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Girl power!!! I love to see (and read) women getting the recognition that they so rightly deserve. Although the names of these important female philosophers are not unknown, they have always been pushed to the back while their contemporary male philosophers were and have always been celebrated. It is refreshing to read something where these women and their achievements are put in the limelight. Learning about their lives and ideologies and how they were all interconnected was absolutely fascinating.

[Searnold · Rating 5 out of 5]

What connects the four "Visionaries" considered here goes beyond words such as "theme" or "family resemblance". Such words work, but they miss the unspeakable suffering, the heroic endurance and the superhuman ability to create in a political environment that means to destroy them. Each of the four women studied here pictures, no embodies, the law of Zeus: "pathei mathos". That is to achieve wisdom one must suffer.

[Frank · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eilenberger hat ein bestechendes Talent, Zeit und Denken zusammenzuführen, meint, diejenigen Stränge der Überlegungen seiner Protagonist/innen herauszustellen, die sich aus der unmittelbaren Korrespondenz mit Zeittendenzen ergeben. Deswegen gelingt es ihm wie schon früher in "Zeit der Zauberer" ganz unterschiedliche Persönlichkeiten und ihre Charaktere unter einem gemeinsamen Aspekt zu betrachten und nahe aneinander zu rücken, was mit derselben Berechtigung als eigentlich divergierend begriffen werden könnte. Das trifft im vorliegenden Fall besonders auf die geistige Entwicklung Simone Weils und Ayn Rands zu, zwischen denen Simone de Beauvoir evtl. eine Scharnierfunktion hätte einnehmen können. Hannah Arendt fällt allerdings ein bisschen aus dem Raster, das Eilenberger anlegt, denn bei ihr geht es kaum um ein Ich im Widerstreit mit einem oder den Anderen (außer im Falle ihrer Arbeit über Rahel Varnhagen), sondern eher um die Möglichkeiten einer Minderheit, Autonomie und Selbstentfaltung im Rahmen einer feindlichen Mehrheitsgesellschaft zu gewinnen. Wie dem auch sei, der gewählte Blick ist verführerisch und bringt durchaus belastbare Einsichten zu Tage, auf die es Eilenberger als implizitem Statement ankam: Konsequente Liberalität widerspricht jeder Unterordnung unter ein Kollektiv, eine Harmonielehre oder Heilserwartung, setze aber die Anerkennung der individuellen Freiheit der Anderen als Konstituens eigenen sinnvollen Handelns voraus. Der Mensch bleibe ein "zoon politicon", sei "Mensch" aber nut als individueller Einzelner und nicht als jemand, der sich nach dem anonymen "man" des Common Sense richte. Insofern käme es darauf an, sich auf seine Ziele hin zu entwerfen und eben nicht darauf, seine Ziele mit denen der Masse in Übereinstimmung zu bringen (Totalitarismus).
Dem ist alles in allem zuzustimmen und von daher ist das Buch denjenigen zu empfehlen, die noch auf der Suche nach sich selbst und ihrer Stellung in der Gesellschaft sind. Freilich ist der blinde Fleck dieser verführerischen Konzeption deutlich zu benennen, weil Eilenberger das nicht tut: Der Einzelne bewährt sich wohl in seiner Wahl und mag zum Ich durch eine existentielle Wahl (wer will ich sein?) werden, allerdings kann er oder sie das nur unter den jeweils vorgefundenen und immer schon gesellschaftlich vorgeprägten Umständen von Geburt und Erziehung tun. Insofern ist der oder die Einzelne - ob er oder sie will oder nicht - immer "Individuum" als "gesellschaftliches Ensemble" (Marx) überkommener Wertvorstellungen und die Handlungsspielräume, sich davon zu emanzipieren, sind immer zeitbedingt und in einem spezifischen Sinne "überindividuell". Gerade deswegen gelingt es Eilenberger ja auch, Verbindendes im Denken ausgeprägter Individualistinnen auszumachen. Wie anders wäre das möglich, wenn nicht die Zeit selbst einen Blick auf den Horizont gesellschaftlicher Möglichkeiten eröffnet hätte, den freilich nur Denkerinnen auf höchstem Niveau gewagt haben? Es war dennoch "nur" der Blick in eine bürgerlich- liberale Nachkriegsordnung, die sowohl nationalsozialistische wie sozialistische Kollektivismen ablehnen musste, da diese durch die gerade aktuelle Totalitarismuserfahrung desavouiert waren. Von daher sind die an Heidegger und Nietzsche angelehnten Entwürfe, ein Ego ganz im Gegensatz zum Kollektiv zu denken (Rand) bzw. trotzdem zu versuchen, es als ein Selbst unbeschadet in das Kollektiv "Menschheit" einzubetten (Weil, Beauvoir, Arendt) zeitbedingt und wenig überraschend "bürgerlich- individualistisch". Bei aller Anziehungskraft des Existenzialismus als Lebensentwurf für junge Leute seien diese also davor gewarnt, die Ansprüche des Ich kontextlos zu bejahen. Das "Engagement", mit dem Sartre die Kluft zwischen dem Einzelnen und den Anderen überwinden wollte, ist eben nicht nur ein Engagement FÜR Andere (was eine Elitekonzeption ist), sondern legt im Angesicht kollektiver Bedrohungen wie dem Klimawandel heute ein Engagement MIT Anderen nahe. Aber das übersteigt den Horizont der von Eilenberger vorgestellten Denkansätze und meint heutige Problemstellungen, denen sich die im Text vorgestellten Philosophinnen sicher gewidmet hätten, würden sie heute leben. Damals lag ihnen das Miteinander (außer vielleicht bei Weil) aber eher fern.
Insofern Eilenbergers Buch, das schon deswegen verdienstvoll ist, weil es weibliches Philosophieren als eigenständig und originell an sich (und nicht bloß als Anhang einer männlich dominierten Philosophie- Geschichte) vorstellt, sich an ein "Alltagspublikum" und nicht an Spezialisten wendet, hätte eine kritische eigene Stellungnahme dem Text gut getan. Nicht alles spricht für sich und durch sich selbst verständlich im Kontext einer anderen Zeit und ihrer andersgearteten Probleme. Das führt zu dem Punkt Abzug für ein ansonsten gut lesbares und im besten Sinne belehrendes Buch, in dem Simone Weil meine persönliche Entdeckung ist. Ich muss ihre Illias- Texte unbedingt im Zusammenhang lesen (bisher kenne ich nur ein Fragment)...

[Noèlia · Rating 5 out of 5]

No cal tindre cap noció de filosofia per a disfrutar aquest llibre. Quatre autores -filòsofes- del segle XX que sense saber-ho entrecreuen idees i pensaments. M'ha captivat, sobretot, la mescla entre història i filosofia ben engrescadora que fa l'autor i fàcil d'entendre i de digerir per part del lector.

[Emmers · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked up The Visionaries by Wolfram Eilenberger after slogging through Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism and feeling a little bereft of interpretive perspective. It has been a long time since liberal arts school. Considering that I was only interested in about a quarter of The Visionaries, perhaps its not surprising that it ended up being a solid meh. All these thinkers have interesting things to say that a relevant to our modern times, but their inclusion is largely incidental. I didn’t feel that Eilenberger added anything meaningful.

The most baffling decision for me was how many section breaks this book has. There’s literally hundreds. A short chapter can be effective, especially for making dense philosophical discussion approachable to a general audience. But there is a limit beyond which a section is simply too short for the complexity of the idea it is supposed to contain. The Visionaries’ section breaks every two pages means that a thought has scarcely been introduced for it to be cut off by a section break. Most ideas are explored over multiple sections — Arendt’s complex national identity as a German Jew takes four or five — when it would be less distracting for it to be one longer one. The short sections stifle full exploration of the subjects’ lives and ideas and I often felt unsatisfied by the limited depth of the thought involved.

While the time period is obviously significant, its short scope feels like it unduly restricts discussion. Arendt and de Beauvoir are particularly affected since they published their most significant work ten to fifteen years after the 1930s-1940s period covered by the book. A more flexible time period or a more thematic organizing structure would be beneficial. There’s a huge gap between Arendt here and Arendt in Origins of Totalitarianism. Moreover, aside from the obvious, the choice of period feels unmotivated. Outside events define the scope of the book, rather than the internal demands to the philosophers’ ideological development. As an example, Eilenberger’s discussion of de Beauvoir is limited to her early adulthood and engagement with existentialism, shaped by her partnership with Jean-Paul Sartre. Eilenberger makes a pretty thin attempt to connect this to the work she’s best known for, her feminist philosophy, but it is barely explored. The brief time period eliminates all of Arendt’s best known work, and Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.

The wavering between the biographical details of the philosophers’ lives and the philosophical details of their early thought was much less focussed than what I was looking for. Eilenberger is primarily interested in each philosophers’ conception of ontology — the study of being and what type of entities exist — and how an ontology develops into the way people would relate to each other. Since I came looking for more of Arendt’s political philosophy, this was not up my alley. That may be a me problem because I’ve just never got the point of existentialism and a lot of 20th century philosophy. I need to see a more tangible connection to the real world. I’m a realist/situationist, so sue me.

I have little patience for such a hagiographic view of Rand in particular. The book takes at face value that her philosophical principles lead to the results advertised, which simply isn’t true. Equality on the basis of mutual acknowledgement of individuality is not compatible with a self-determining ubermensch facing down the hordes of the far-too-many. An ubermensch is defined by having other mensches to be uber of. A more aggressive interrogation of all the subjects would be rewarding. All of them have meaningful critiques of their work to be explored.

Simone Weil mostly reminds me that communists who idolize labour but are pathologically incapable of doing any have been a problem for centuries.

I’m sure there’s someone out there who can find a use for this book, but there is too much biographical content for a deep exploration of the philosophical ideas, but too much philosophy and too short a time period to function as an effective biography. I desperately wanted a stronger focus. On anything.

[Reyer]

October 2025

Despite its interesting subject, I found The Visionaries: Arendt, Beauvoir, Rand, Weil, and the Power of Philosophy in Dark Times by the German philosopher Wolfram Eilenberger disappointing. Perhaps it’s partly due to the Dutch translation, but the style came across as unnecessarily awkward and difficult to get through. The author jumps from one subject to another – or from one anecdote to another – without any clear cohesion or structure. All bricks, little cement. I didn’t finish the book, which is a pity, because the lives and works of Hannah Arendt, Simone de Beauvoir, Simone Weil, and perhaps even Ayn Rand should make for a worthwhile reading.

[José Corrales Díaz-Pavón]

Frente a Tiempo de magos (el libro sobre la creación del corpus filosófico de Wittgenstein, Benjamin, Heidegger y Casirer en los 11 años que van del 18 al 28), El fuego de la libertad tiene la ventaja de partir de una premisa más humilde: si Elinberger presentaba su anterior libro como la década (excurso: una década no son 11 años, sino 10) en la que cambió la filosofía, esta es el “refugio” de la filosofía. No puedo no advertir cierto agravio comparativo: los hombres son los magos que pueden cambiar el curso de la filosofía, y las mujeres (Arendt, Beauvoir, Weil y Rand), el “refugio”, aun cuando, de los ocho citados, posiblemente la que más haya cambiado la filosofía y, con ella, el mundo, sea Beauvoir —con Wittgenstein y Benjamin en un posible empate técnico en segunda posición por su influencia en el giro lingüístico y el giro cultural—. Posiblemente la menor ambición en la presentación del tema sea un punto a favor: libra a Elinberger de hacer algunos requiebros un poco forzados que sí tenía que hacer en Tiempo de magos. En El fuego de la libertad tiene, por tanto, más libertad para jugar al juego de espejos y correspondencias biográficas con las que relaciona la filosofía con las circunstancias sociohistóricas de las que se nutre (o se debería nutrir) y que en el caso de las 4 pensadoras que trata se materializó en una reflexión sobre el individuo frente a la sociedad, imbricada en la experiencia de unos sistemas totalitarios que querían fagocitar a las personas en la colectividad (clase, nación). Elinberger es, desde luego, un mago a la hora de biografiar, de dotar de un tempo más propio de la novela a lo que podría ser considerado la anodina vida de 4 intelectuales. Quizá, cuando expone alguna de las claves del pensamiento de las autoras, se vuelve un poco oscuro (de hecho, algunas de las citas de Weil son más claras que la exégesis posterior de Eilenberger), pero, con todo, es altamente recomendable si te gusta la alta divulgación filosófica.

[Kathrin (la_chienne) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wolfram Eilenberger erzählt in "Feuer der Freiheit" von der "Rettung der Philosophie in finsteren Zeiten". Die finsteren Zeiten sind die Jahre von 1933 bis 1943, beherrscht von Totalitarismus und Krieg, die Retterinnen heißen Hannah Arendt, Simone de Beauvoir, Ayn Rand und Simone Weil. Vier starke Frauen und herausragende Philosophinnnen, die trotz aller extremen und schrecklichen äußeren Umstände (drei von ihnen waren zudem Jüdinnen) nicht resignieren, nicht stillhalten, sondern Kraft ihres Denkens gerade in diesem dunklen Jahrzehnt zu den grundlegenden Ideen ihrer philosophischen Weltanschauung finden. So unterschiedlich diese im Ergebnis jedoch ausschauen, was alle vier Denkerinnen eint, ist, dass sie ihre Werte leben und die Freiheit verteidigen möchten. Ihr Auseinandersetzen mit Freiheit und Totalitarismus und ihre Fragen nach dem Verhältnis von Individuum und Gesellschaft wirken bis heute nach. Und gerade sogar aktueller denn je: Was heißt es, ein freier Mensch zu sein? Und zwar ein freier Mensch zusammen mit anderen Menschen. Wie gehe ich damit um, wenn meine Freiheit beschränkt wird? Geht es im Leben nur um mich oder auch um andere?

"Feuer der Freiheit" ist ein mitreißend erzähltes Sachbuch, das Biografie, Zeitgeschichte und Philosophie in sich vereint. Unterhaltsam, verständlich und anregend – definitiv auch für Philosophie-Laien wie mich. Sehr fasziniert hat mich, wie konsequent alle vier gegen alle Widrigkeiten ihren Weg gehen. Vier wichtige, kluge Frauen – aber insbesondere mit Hannah Arendt möchte ich mich noch tiefer beschäftigen.

[Megan Lucy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This group biography covers one decade- 1933-1943- in the lives of four exceptionally gifted philosophers who explored the concept of self and other in the shadow of totalitarianism. The book does very well by the dyad of Rand and Weil clearly outlining their opposing philosophies of the self's relationship to society. It helps that the decade covered culminated in Weil and Rand's most influential works. We never quite get to the most influential work by Arendt and Beauvoir though, so it feels like there are important pieces missing from their stories. It's also clear that the author approached Arendt through his earlier work on Walter Benjamin and Heidegger. Often, Benjamin is quoted more in the Arendt chapters than Arendt herself. It's also notable that the fact that all four philosophers were women is barely noted, as if it had no effect on their lives. It is really hard to tell from the writing if that is how they viewed their own relationship to their gender or just a choice by the author. It seems unlikely at least in the case of Beauvoir that gender could play so little role in her life. At any rate you could come to this book with very little knowledge of Rand and Weil and come away with a decent understanding of their philosophy, but you would need both prior knowledge and more research on Beauvoir and Arendt to feel similarly satisfied.

[John Reis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the story of Hannah Arendt(1906-1975), Simone de Beauvoir(1908-1986), Ayn Rand(1905-1982) and Simone Weil(1909-1943). The story starts in the early 30s and ends in 1943.

Rand is in the US and has learned English. She is struggling to sell “Red Pawn” and then “Night of January 16”. Simone and Jean Paul Sartre are having troubles, so Olga is added to make it a triad. Simone Weil, the ascetic communist arranges for Leon Trotsky to live with her parents after he flees Russia. She takes a job at a stamping factory to learn what proletarian work is like. She never makes quota in the six months she works there. Weil becomes a Malthusian. And begins to worry about collectivization. She saw a cultural U-turn as necessary and decentralization as necessary.

Hannah, having arrived in Paris, is concerned with official papers. “If one is attacked as a Jew, one must defend oneself as a Jew.“ She works for an aid organization, preparing children for life in Palestine. In 1935. She has an opportunity to visit Palestine.

Rand finally sells “We the Living” and begins work on “Secondhand Lives” and on Howard Roarke’s character.

Hannah begins a new relationship. 1936 proves tumultuous across Europe. Stalin’s show trials begin. France elects a socialist and a Jew. Civil War in Spain breaks out, and the Olympics are staged in Berlin. Hannah wondering about the nature of Love worries about the individual in a nation state.

Simone and Jean Paul receive teaching assignments. She bristles about Jean Paul’s sexual activities. They add several more people to their family. The situation is quite draining. Jean Paul’s book is rejected. Simone wonders “how could there be such a discrepancy between other people’s views and our own?”

Weil goes to Spain in the hopes of fighting but is assigned to a kitchen. She is burned in an accident and is sent back to Paris. Weil is the action figure of the book; courageous but hopelessly inept. De Beauvoir and Sartre seem to not have been affected by the Nazi occupation of France.

Weil, in great pain, seeks solace in religious music and travels to Italy in April 1937.

Simone B’s life fleeing domesticity has left her, unable to find pleasure Then she and Jean Paul begin reading “Being and Time”.

Simone W. writes of the Iliad and war. Germany, invades, France and Simone B has a nervous breakdown. Simone B begins to read Hegel.

In June 1941 she creates a new philosophy of freedom, based on mutual existential recognition rather than looking at the situation as self versus others. She declared it to be a situation that could be one solely by each together, and at the same level. No man is an island.

Simone W reaches the following conclusion “one must not be I, but still less must one be We.” “Man is a social animal, and the social element represents evil.” so how was the relationship with the other to be established? Weil thought, through the attentive and unalterable acceptance of their essential vulnerability, their suffering.

Hannah has made it to the US and is determined to learn English. She writes articles in favor of a Jewish military unit. But she draws the line at the formulation of a Jewish state as planned by the Zionist movement. She rather saw a federal system as the route to take.

Rand writes “The Fountainhead”. Simone B. writes “She Came to Stay.” Weil starves herself to death so as not to take food from the mouths of the poor.

These four women opposed tyranny each in her own way. Rand saw altruism as the enemy, de Beauvoir saw domesticity(?) as the enemy, Arendt is concerned with identity and Weil saw totalitarianism as their foe.

Rand has her husband Frank by her side; Simone B. has Sartre. Arendt has her husband Heinrich Blucher and Weil has her parents. Rand and de Beauvoir get the most space and are clearest to me. Weil gets lost at times. Arendt gets little space, and it seems to me lost at times.

[David Steele · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s taken a while to finish this - so much so that I’m inclined to start it again. However, I think I’d rather use the time to read something from the women in the book, rather than about them. As a biographical study, this book covers a ten year period, managing to stay largely sympathetic to all four women, giving a real sense to what their drivers genius and unique flaws were. I was already rather enamoured with Arendt and especially Rand before reading this. I hadn’t heard of the other two - although I’m a bit interested to learn more about Camus, so it was nice to find a cross-over there. Of all these four, I think I’d like to learn more about Simone Weil, who strikes me as the most interesting / flawed of the bunch.
It was a bit frustrating to jump between the four of them so much. I’m tempted to use a bunch of highlighters to mark the pages up so I can go back and read the complete sequences in turn… but maybe that’s a job for next year.

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 5 out of 5]

A near-perfect combination of history, biography and philosophy. Everything is concise and organized so that all the relevant information is communicated with finesse, and it doesn't get lost in its examination of each writer's core belief system. This is how to write a book covering multiple topics without ever overwhelming the reader or boring them with too much minutiae.

[emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

focuses on how all four of them define the relationship between the self and others, the events in europe between 1933-1943 and the politics of war, without trying to force their ideas into a unified perspective. only fools or ideologues see consensus as a goal of thought!!!