Volume 11, Number 2 · August 1, 1968
After the Fall
By J.M. Cameron
Philosophical Faith and Revelation
by Karl Jaspers
Harper and Row (Religious Perspectives Series), 368 pp., $15.00
Augustine of Hippo: A Biography
by Peter Brown
California, 463 pp., $10.00
The layman's notion of what a philosopher ought to be differs greatly from that of the professional and academic student or practitioner. Karl Jaspers is an excellent example of the layman's philosopher. His remarks sound deep and strange and yet in some indefinable way informative. They reverberate and they console. He seems to be talking about how the world is and how a man ought to live. If we move from the philosopher to the man, placed in the context of history and the German nation, then we find him a person of noble character. His record vis-à-vis the Nazis is creditable, quite unlike the record of the other notable German existentialist philosopher (more admired by some at least of the professionals), Martin Heidegger. He is interested in everything. He has written an informative work on Nietzsche. To judge from the number of his works translated into English, or at least into a kind of English—this is not to criticize translators who are given a virtually impossible task—he is read widely in England and the United States.
Review, 4270 words
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