Come on, Cranberry, why not give it a second try. I read it along, long time ago (bugger, am I that old already 
) and enjoyed it very much then 
. Well, maybe I should read it again one of these days …
Cheers
Claus
Did you read the original German version?
I hear it’s much easier to get through than any of the English versions, but I can’t read German too well at this point…
Well, I can’t judge stuff I don’t understand and haven’t
studied, and I’m convinced some of these people were
really good philosophers. But I don’t like rhetoric or
inflated terminology. I have a passion for clarity.
But every strength is a kind of weakness, and
every sight a sort of blindness, so I figure there are
things these guys are saying that are best
said as they say them.
I understand Sartre pretty well. I think husserl is
very good and I’ve read some Brentano that was
quite good. The whole idea of intentionality is
very important–do you know John Searle’s
book Intentionality? He kept saying that
phenomenology is the part of analytic philosophy
that deals with intentionality; analytic philosophy
is the part of phenomenology that does
everything else.
I have some grasp of Heidegger, as does
most everybody who took LSD, in a way.
There is a map we impose on reality
that identifies things as useful; it
masks what’s there. When it is taken
away one sees what’s really there.
Sartre in Nausea, sitting in a park, sees a tree without
cognizing it as a tree, remember?
I know that was a mescaline trip, in fact.
Checked with Hazel Barnes, who translated
Being and Nothingness into English.
Mescaline.
But Heidegger seems to say this stuff in
the most inflated sort of way.
Will you say what you like about this stuff?
As you seem to know something about
both traditions, the analytic and the continental.
Did you read the original German version?
I hear it’s much easier to get through than any of the English versions, but I can’t read German too well at this point…
I studied this book in high school, not that I can claim to comprehend it. It’s a little thick. But, you kind of have to expect it given the subject.
I’m not sure it’s the fault of the translation that it’s difficult. It’s more the fact that it’s spiritual writing. The insight that leads to spiritual writing intended to communicate the insight to others isn’t an everyday thing. People don’t have those kinds of insights all that often; if they did, there would be no disciples following great masters. And it wouldn’t take the disciples so darned long to get the picture.
Buber wouldn’t need to be writing if everyone just naturally understood and got the point of everything he has insight about. He’s writing because he understands or sees something that others do not.
The problem is that spiritual understandings are a little weird. Their concepts aren’t easily pinned down or explained. There is a huge conceptual leap between the everyday world and Buber’s mind. For him to bring us to the point where we can see what he’s seeing, he has to do a lot of talking around and picture-painting.
He can’t just tell us directly, because we don’t have a conceptual framework for it. We’d never understand. The best he can do is paint the scenery, fill in the characters, and hope that by doing so we will be able to have the insight on our own. So, that’s what he’s doing. All that rambling about is setting up a situation in which you may be able to perceive his insight.
I’m not sure that anyone can just “get through it.” If anyone claims to have done so, it may be that they missed the point entirely. It’s not descriptive writing based on facts, after all. It’s not a travelogue or technical manual for a toaster. It’s not likely to be any more revealing for you in German, either.
The best ploy would be to read it in a slow, meditative manner. Accept that it’s spiritual writing and read it in the manner suitable for that. Try reading small sections–like about a page–slowly, allowing them to rest on your consciousness and float around in your mind’s space in such a way that your mind can make the necessary connections. Roll the words around in your mind. Hold phrases in your consciousness. Let it seep in.
Might be that nothing will appear to happen for a while, but it’ll be there under the surface. Eventually, if you’re relaxed about it, you should start making the connections.
Yeah, I did, and I can imagine, it’s much harder to get through in a translated version. Lucky me for once … 
Claus
That was a book someone gave me and I glanced through it and gave it away. I wasn’t in the mood for so much thought. I’d just finished a massive tome by Hans Kung which drained me for awhile.
I actually read Durant’s book as well as all of his history books. I’ve got a friend who is an avid philosophy buff. I asked him about Buber and he gave me the “cliff notes” version.
Ah, so mind-altering drugs are the key to philosophy, eh? 
No wonder I don’t get anywhere on coffee, white sugar, and chocolate. 
Clarity in a logical positivist kind of way?
Poor me. I’ve never done any drugs (besides the ones the shrink gives me, of course), or alcohol, and I don’t do meat, sugar, or caffeine. I must not be fit for philosophy. 
But I am naturally crazy…that should count for something.
This always counts for something…
I’ve always found the majority of translations to be poor since the translators tend to be scholars and not honest to goodness writers.
Given your vegetarianism and whatnot it stands to reckon you would be more inclined towards the eastern philosophies. Ever give any of them a try? One of my all time favorites is “think on these things” by Jiddu Krishnamurti. Great book.
Well, yes and no. Yes in that the positivists were
trying to be clear. They said what they
said as clearly and straightforwardly as they
could; no, in that I work in
metaphysics and also medical ethics,
stuff they would have considered non-sense.
Also I have a lot of respect for the
history of philosophy, which they didn’t.
Logical positivism was actually still in
when I started studying philosophy;
thank god that’s over!
For me clarity consists in saying things
as simply and clearly as I can, and supporting
what I say by arguments that are as straightforward
and on the surface as possible–so that if
there is a fallacy, it will be visible to the
reader.
About drugs and philosophy, I read Simone de Beauvoir’s
The Prime of Life, which is her auto-biography of
her years between about 20 and 35, ending with
the liberation of Paris. She meets Sartre when they
are about 22. It’s a wonderful book, they were
young, they would go
to a city by train and then walk around all night,
feeling that they would best understand the city
that way; long bicycle trips, just wonderful stuff.
Sartre had a friend at the Sorbonne
who was doing research on mescaline, the
book relates. People were having ecstatic
experiences, tripping through fields of
imaginary wild flowers. So the friend
invited Sartre to come over and try
some. Sartre had what may be the first
recorded bad mescaline trip–he was pursued by
crustacea, principally lobsters.
For the next several years, Sartre was haunted
by the idea that he was being pursued by
lobsters. Sometimes when he and Simone
were walking about a city at night, he
thought that lobsters were after him.
He figured he was going insane, but
managed to get control of himself
and put the idea out of his mind.
Well, when I read Nausea, the passages about
the tree that is this sinous brown thing,
I put two and two together. I know
Hazel Barnes, the translator of Sartre’s
Being and Nothingness, and asked her.
Yes, she said. It was a description of
a mescaline trip.
Sartre got some philosophical and
literary mileage out of his experience,
lobsters aside.
I’ll look for it. I’m not really inclined toward Eastern philosophies and religions because they tend to differ with my beliefs. I think vegetarianism, equality, and pacifism are Christian virtues. I never have understood the difference between philosophy, psychology, and religion anyway. They’re all the same thing in my book.
I try not to pick and choose, although it’s impossible to a certain point.
Can you elaborate why vegetariansim is in that list? Just curious.
What do you mean by equality? Just so I’m on the same page.
i did not even know martin buber was a philosopher. i knew him as the guy who did those beautiful translations/collections of chassidic stories. is it the same guy? or am i showing my complete ignorance? the chassidic stories are awesome and not at all hard to read. also have universal appeal.
regarding kushner, his message tends to rub some people the wrong way because it is very hard to hear. if i understood him correctly, some human suffering, maybe most, is not a punishment but an inevitable consequence of the way the world works. e.g. in order to have the world we do, it had to be set in motion according to natural laws. and these laws mean that sometimes there will be tidal waves.
meir
2 things. I had to read Karl Rahner’s “On the Trinity”, translated from German into English, in my theology program. That was an adventure. I got some of it, but I’d occasionally encounter passages that I’m convinced caused permanent nerve damage.
I read Kushner’s Bad Things/Good People book years ago. I have long had an interest in the problem of evil. I didn’t think it was a perfect solution–I don’t think a perfect solution exists. But I’m sympathetic to the basic premise, at least as I understood and remember it. Natural evils, such as disasters, he understands as an inevitable part of the design of the world and the universe. His idea of God, I think, is that God does not intervene in events so much as through human hearts.
I just forwarded your response to my daughter- she’s doing graduate work in philosophy- it happens in every family-- Mom, Dad, I’m a philosphy major 