Nietzsche in 60 Minutes
Nietzsche in 60 Minutes

Author: Walther Ziegler

Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand

Published: 2018-06-21

Total Pages: 166

ISBN-13: 3752803827

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Nietzsche has the reputation of being the most provocative and controversial of all philosophers. What he demanded of humanity was something tremendous: that we should develop beyond ourselves and become "overmen". Formerly, we could draw a meaning for our lives from religion. But this is no longer possible because, as Nietzsche says: "God is dead!" This brief dictum has echoed around the world. Man, Nietzsche argues, has freed himself, with the rise of the natural sciences, from all belief in a "beyond" and now has, for the first time, the chance to take his existence into his own hands. Most human beings, however, prove unable to fill the gap in their lives that the "death of God" has left. They continue to seek salvation in such new gods, or idols, as nationalism, socialism, racism, or capitalism. But instead of slipping into the blind worship of these new gods, or "godlets", we need - so argues Nietzsche - rather to trust in our own selves, allow our own "will to power" to unfold, and become "overmen". Just as flowers stretch up toward the sun and animals seek constantly after nourishment, we human beings too must struggle every day to secure our lives and render them richer and more intense. In daily life, conducting this struggle must always mean, in part, conducting it at other people's expense: whoever, for example, applies for a job as a manager and gets it will necessarily cause bitter disappointment among those who applied and failed. "One furthers one's ego always at the expense of others", writes Nietzsche. But "will to power" finds a whole series of very different forms of expression. The artist, the father of a family, the politician, the businessman, the employee, indeed every one of us individually, must find his or her own highly personal and particular path to self-development. "Become who you are!" "Nietzsche in 60 Minutes" explains his exhilarating philosophy step by step making use of some 160 of the most important passages from his works.

Great Thinkers in 60 Minutes - Volume 4
Great Thinkers in 60 Minutes - Volume 4

Author: Walther Ziegler

Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand

Published: 2023-01-11

Total Pages: 702

ISBN-13: 3756872041

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"Great Thinkers in 60 Minutes Volume 4" comprises the five Books "Schopenhauer in 60 Minutes", "Nietzsche in 60 Minutes", "Wittgenstein in 60 Minutes", "Kafka in 60 Minutes", and "Arendt in 60 Minutes". Each short study sums up the key idea at the heart of each respective thinker and asks the question: "Of what use is this key idea to us today?" But above all the philosophers get to speak for themselves. Their most important statements are prominently presented, as direct quotations, in speech balloons with appropriate graphics, with exact indication of the source of each quote in the author's works. This light-hearted but nonetheless scholarly precise rendering of the ideas of each thinker makes it easy for the reader to acquaint him- or herself with the great questions of our lives. Because every philosopher who has achieved global fame has posed the "question of meaning": what is it that holds, at the most essential level, the world together? For Schopenhauer it is the "blind will" that drives on every entity in the world. For Nietzsche it is "will to power" that urges human beings to a radical individual realization of the self. Wittgenstein, for his part, sees in language and our day-to-day "language games" the central element that marks our existence and society as a whole. Kafka, by contrast, discovered a very secret and fragile dimension of our lives: the dimension of inter-human relations and this relation's dark side. Arendt, finally, provides us, with her thesis of "the banality of evil", a marvellous insight into the morality - and amorality - of entire societies. In other words, the meaning of the world and thus of our own lives remains, among philosophers, a topic of great controversy. One thing, though, is sure: each of these five thinkers struck, from his own perspective, one brilliant spark out of that complex crystal that is the truth.

Hegel in 60 Minutes
Hegel in 60 Minutes

Author: Walther Ziegler

Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand

Published: 2016-07-08

Total Pages: 126

ISBN-13: 3741227676

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Already as a student Hegel was often reprimanded for excessive drinking and gambling and he is surely one of the most unconventional – today, one might say “coolest” – thinkers of all time. He is sometimes mockingly accused of having been drunk when he hit on his key idea of a “World Spirit”. Nevertheless, his philosophy remains fascinating and highly relevant even today. Hegel was the first philosopher to realize the full implications of the dimension of “becoming”. He can fairly be called the Charles Darwin of philosophy. Because for Hegel everything – literally everything – is in constant motion. Human life has as much the character of a process as do Nature and History. A human being comes into the world as a tiny baby and becomes a child, an adolescent and finally an adult. Likewise, human history marches onward from small beginnings. One epoch follows another. The expression “spirit of the times” that we use so casually today is in fact one we owe to Hegel’s great discovery that every epoch possesses a specific spirit that completely permeates it. This “spirit of the age” – or, as Hegel also called it, “World Spirit” – manifests itself in all the ideas held by this age’s people regarding morality, justice, art, music and architecture. But Hegel says more. A second contention central to his great philosophical discovery was that these different epochs and their “spirits” do not follow one another merely randomly and by chance but rather obey a logical principle of movement: the so-called “dialectic”. The pendulum of history swings, “dialectically”, first in one direction, then in the other. But human history is nonetheless steering its way, slowly but unstoppably, toward a great final goal. The book Hegel in 60 Minutes explains, using the best quotations from Hegel’s work and many examples, how this “dialectic”, and thus the motor of human history, is argued by him to function. Many books claim to clearly explain the ideas of the notoriously difficult philosopher Hegel. But this one really does this. All the exciting questions raised by Hegel’s fascinating philosophical vision are all answered here: at what point do we reach “the end of History”? Are we only spectators of this History, or actors in it? Who or what is the “World Spirit”? What is the meaning of life? Of what use is Hegel’s discovery to us today? The book forms part of the popular series Great Thinkers in 60 Minutes.

Kant in 60 Minutes
Kant in 60 Minutes

Author: Walther Ziegler

Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand

Published: 2016-07-08

Total Pages: 150

ISBN-13: 3741226378

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Immanuel Kant is thought to be perhaps the greatest of all philosophers. And Kant did make, in the 18th Century, two great discoveries which engage us still today. Firstly, he founded the globally acknowledged ‘categorical imperative’ in moral philosophy; secondly, he became the first philosopher to succeed in answering that question as old as humanity of how knowledge arises in our brains. In his main work, the 1000-page Critique of Pure Reason, Kant analysed the working of Man’s thinking apparatus. He posed the critical question: what can a human being know with certainty and what can he not? Working through this titanic question like a man possessed, he finally, after 11 years, produced his equally titanic answer. Our reason, he said, can provide true and certain knowledge only of that which we have already perceived through our five senses (i.e. seen, heard, smelt, tasted, or touched). For this reason one cannot prove the existence of God, say, or really have “knowledge” of Him, because He is bodiless and imperceptible. Kant thus gave researchers, for the first time, a set of logical tools which was sensationally simple and yet quite perfect, and that still remains valid today and makes all scientific results achieved worldwide mutually comparable. Every theory, however good, had thenceforth to be proven in terms of actual sense-perceptions, for example through repeatable experiments. In his second main work, the Critique of Practical Reason, he tackled the equally ambitious question: ‘what is the right way for a human being to act?’ Is there a single valid standard for morally right action? Here too Kant provided a spectacular solution that is still passionately debated, globally, today. The book Kant in 60 Minutes explains both these major works of Kant’s in a lively way, using over 80 key passages from the works themselves and many examples. The final chapter on “what use Kant’s discovery is for us today” shows the enormous importance of his ideas for our personal lives and our society. The book forms part of the popular series Great Thinkers in 60 Minutes.

Heidegger in 60 Minutes
Heidegger in 60 Minutes

Author: Walther Ziegler

Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand

Published: 2016-07-08

Total Pages: 106

ISBN-13: 3741227757

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Heidegger is without a doubt one of the most important thinkers in the history of the Western world. He called his philosophy a “fundamental ontology” because he wanted to show the very deepest foundations of Man’s understanding of himself and the world. His interest as a philosopher extended beyond the individual sciences to the underlying question of the meaning of life as a whole. His key question, then, was: “What is the meaning of Being?” But if we are to ask about the meaning of Being, and thus about the meaning of life, we must – so Heidegger argues – first look into the question of just what kind of being it is that poses such questions. This question-posing being, he says, is Man himself. Man is the only living being who can and must ask such questions. Man is constantly looking for orientation. This is why Heidegger also describes human life as a great challenge. Life does not live itself but rather requires constant decisions in order to be lived. But this also means that we can, potentially, fail to realize the meaning of our own life. Heidegger provocatively suggests that most people fail to live out their existence (as he puts it) “authentically”. He confronts us with the fact that, generally speaking, we live our lives doing “the things you’re supposed to do”. “You’re supposed” to go to school, then to university, to get a well-paid job, to take an annual holiday – and so this is what we do, how we live our lives. Instead of living authentic lives of our own, we stay within the tracks made safe and worn by others. But how do I know what life would be authentically mine? How do I make out the life that I am “destined” for? The book Heidegger in 60 Minutes uses key passages quoted from Heidegger’s own works to explain the philosopher’s famous “existential analysis” in a clearly comprehensible way. It takes the reader on an adventurous journey to the deepest structures of his or her own existence. There will surely be few readers of the chapters on the “’care’ character of human existence” or “anxiety in the face of nothingness” who will not recognize something of their own life-experience in the “existential” structures laid bare by Heidegger. In the chapter on “what use Heidegger’s discovery is to us today” it is then shown how broadly and topically relevant Heidegger’s thoughts still are for our personal lives and for the society of the 21st Century. The book forms part of the popular series Great Thinkers in 60 Minutes.

Smith in 60 Minutes
Smith in 60 Minutes

Author: Walther Ziegler

Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand

Published: 2016-07-08

Total Pages: 102

ISBN-13: 374122765X

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It was, of all people, to a Scottish philosopher of morality that there fell the role of intellectual forefather of capitalism. It was Adam Smith who was the first to recognize and describe, in 1776, the basic principle of the market economy. His magnum opus, The Wealth of Nations, is still looked on today as “the Bible of capitalism”. And indeed, for a period of ten years it was, after the Bible itself, the most-translated book on earth. Smith created the “magic formula” of the free play of supply and demand and his theory of “the invisible hand” spread like wildfire around the world, remaining still today the core of the capitalist market model. What is more, Smith provided a philosophical justification for capitalism in the form of a theory of human nature: Man, he argued, is by nature egoistic and self-interested. And nothing suits such a being so well as a market economy, because it gives everyone the chance to increase their wealth. But this, in the end, benefits all, since each of us, working at improving his or her own quality of life, is led willy-nilly, as if by an “invisible hand”, to promote also the welfare of society as a whole. Do egoistic energies really tend to be transformed into social prosperity in this way? How does the market model work? Can one really simply let the economy run its course? Is capitalism “natural”? The book Smith in 60 Minutes explains the incisive theories of this philosopher and economist in a clear and comprehensible way, using over 50 key passages from Smith’s own works. The final chapter on “what use Smith’s discovery is for us today” discusses both the triumphal progress of Smith’s market model and the catastrophic crises that capitalism’s triumph has brought with it. A thorough knowledge of Smith is indispensable for politicians, bankers and economic policy leaders. But really anyone who lives in a market economy – and there are few, today, who don’t – should be familiar with Smith’s basic ideas. The mechanism of the “invisible hand” and the free play of supply and demand are more than just theories. They form the very heart of the capitalist world and it is indispensable to know the economic and philosophical foundations of the social order in which we live. The book forms part of the popular series Great Thinkers in 60 Minutes.

Freud in 60 Minutes
Freud in 60 Minutes

Author: Walther Ziegler

Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand

Published: 2016-07-08

Total Pages: 97

ISBN-13: 3741227706

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The Viennese physician and psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud moved from hypnotizing his patients to interpreting their dreams and discovered thereby the hitherto unexplored dimension of the unconscious mind. Each of us, argued Freud, has hidden wishes, desires, and drives which influence our actions below the level of our awareness. A great role is played here, already from childhood on, by sexual desire and pleasure. The nursing infant still lives entirely by the “pleasure principle”, taking everything into his mouth, crying when he wants something, and laughing when he is satisfied. But he must soon learn to obey the rules set by his parents, teachers and society in general. The infantile “pleasure principle” is brutally superseded by the “reality principle”. This is an experience we all must undergo. But it is also one which sometimes leads to grievances and traumatization, as do other aspects of the development of our sexuality and of our relationships. Freud was a doctor and practiced a revolutionary method of treatment: psychoanalysis. He was the first to discover that the way people experience their own lives is often to be traced back to experiences which cannot, indeed, be altered but can be emotionally re-evaluated. Furthermore, Freud impressively explains how our “psychical apparatus” functions day to day and how we process in every second, with lightning speed, our drives, thoughts and perceptions. It was with good reason that the readers of the New York Times voted Freud the most important thinker of the 20th Century. The small book Freud in 60 Minutes explains Freud’s new and revolutionary perspective on human life step by step, by means of many examples and over forty quotes from Freud’s own works. Because all the key components of his theory – from the “oral stage”, the Oedipus Complex, the conflict of the drives, sublimation, repression, resistance, symptom-formation, transference, right on to the therapy itself – interlock with one another. In the second part of the book it is asked: “Of what use is Freud’s discovery to us today?” It is astounding how important and helpful his insights can be for forming and directing our own lives, provided they are applied rightly. The book forms part of the popular series Great Thinkers in 60 Minutes.

Marx in 60 Minutes
Marx in 60 Minutes

Author: Walther Ziegler

Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand

Published: 2016-07-08

Total Pages: 114

ISBN-13: 3741227692

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Never before or since has a single philosopher produced such a tremendous effect as Karl Marx. His great vision of a society without private property was heeded worldwide and had huge historical effects. Allegiance to his ideas was proclaimed by revolutionaries, parties, governments and states. Marxism spread all around the globe. Marxist revolutions occurred in countries as different as Russia, China, Vietnam, Cuba, Nicaragua and Mozambique as well as many others, until at one point almost a third of humanity were living under communism. But some hundred years after Marx’s death the communist world that he had inspired fell apart. After the fall of the Iron Curtain many claimed that Marx had been entirely in error and that the sole viable economic system is really capitalism after all. It was hoped that democracy, market economy, and a fair distribution of wealth could all be combined together. But this optimism did not last long. The global economic and financial crises of recent decades have profoundly shaken belief in the power of the market to regulate itself. It has become ever clearer that capitalism does indeed display the structural flaws that Marx described in his main work, Capital. Certain of Marx’s predictions, such as the forming of powerful economic monopolies and the ever-growing gulf between rich and poor, have already come true. Others can be seen approaching on the horizon of current social developments. His acute critique of capitalism is, then, more relevant today than ever. There is no question but that Marx still has a lot to say to us. The book Marx in 60 Minutes explains in clear and perspicuous terms, using some seventy key quotations from Marx’s works, such topics as the materialist philosophy of history, the doctrine of “base and superstructure”, Marx’s critique of religion, and the analyses developed in Capital of “surplus value”, capital accumulation, and the immiseration of the workers. In the second part of the book, entitled “Of what use is Marx’s discovery to us today?”, Marx’s insights are applied to the present situation. The book forms part of the popular series Great Thinkers in 60 Minutes.

Rousseau in 60 Minutes
Rousseau in 60 Minutes

Author: Walther Ziegler

Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand

Published: 2016-07-08

Total Pages: 113

ISBN-13: 3741227625

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Rousseau possessed a brilliant mind and one that questioned every accepted value and idea. Whatever most were “for”, Rousseau was always “against”! He was against monarchy, against the church, against the status quo, against inequality, against traditional education, against marriage, and (of course) against technical progress and the destruction of Nature. Today we might call Rousseau a “professional rabble-rouser”. His contrariness was his trademark. He spent most of his life as a quasi-vagrant or a refugee. Sometimes it was the church, other times the government of one country or another that he had to flee from. But all arrest warrants were in vain. Through books like The Social Contract his radical demand for democracy prepared the ground for the French Revolution, and his famous discourses on Man’s loss of contact with, and destruction of, Nature made him a pioneer also of ecological thought. He even founded a revolutionary new philosophy of education which we know today as the “anti-authoritarian” approach to child-rearing. The book Rousseau in 60 Minutes explains the thinker’s core ideas, exemplified by over 70 quotations from his works. The seed for these ideas was planted one day when he was on in his way to see his friend Diderot in prison, reading a copy of the newspaper Mercure de France as he went. It announced a competition for the best essay on whether scientific and artistic progress had made people morally better. All the competitors answered “yes”. Except Rousseau. His answer was that Man is naturally good and became wicked only through being “socialized” and “civilized”. This provocative thesis won him the prize and brought him Europe-wide fame. Because he had hereby become the first philosopher to recognize the key problem of the whole modern world. The “noble savage” ran free through the woods, but we pass our days in cramped offices and forfeit, each day, more of our instincts and our freedom. But above all, Rousseau pointed out, modern Man lives always “in and for the gaze of other people”. That is to say, we tend to dissolve more and more into the “mainstream”. Is Rousseau right here? Have we conformed too far? Have we forfeited our instincts? And above all: What can we do about it? The book forms part of the popular series Great Thinkers in 60 Minutes.

Adorno in 60 Minutes
Adorno in 60 Minutes

Author: Walther Ziegler

Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand

Published: 2020-03-26

Total Pages: 106

ISBN-13: 375046023X

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Adorno is one of the most charismatic thinkers in philosophical history. The bald-headed professor in horn-rimmed glasses gave our modern civilization a fatal diagnosis - perhaps the most fatal one conceivable: we may have raised ourselves through science, capitalism and techniques of state administration to the position of masters over Nature and brought this latter under our control; but we have, precisely thereby, also enslaved ourselves. We have become in the end manipulated victims of the mass consumer society that we ourselves created. All our lives are lived in delusions whose shell we cannot penetrate. "Wrong life cannot be lived rightly": this famous dictum of Adorno's symbolizes, still today, modern Man's uncertainties and contradictions. On the one hand we Westerners enjoy, thanks to capitalism, unprecedented medical and technical blessings; on the other, we feel we're losing ourselves, becoming slaves. Many people sell their labour-power all day and then spend the evening in front of the TV which dangles before them a happy and adventurous world that is long since lost to them. Are we all completely manipulated? Has the Enlightenment project of freeing Man, through reason and science, from superstition really, as Adorno claims, turned into its opposite? Is he right in thinking that science itself is leading us into the danger of a new barbarism? Adorno gives extremely exciting and original answers to these questions. The book "Adorno in 60 Minutes" explains, step by step, his main works, aided in this by over 50 direct quotations from them. In the last chapter "Of What Use is Adorno's Discovery for Us Today?" it is shown what burning relevance his Critical Theory has for the personal life of every one of us today. The book is published as part of the popular series "Great Thinkers in 60 Minutes".