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To BS Or Not To BS
Tread Warily
Surprising
Uncompelling
This is great discourse on a topic everyone is an expert on.

On Bullshit
Harry G. Frankfurt
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0691122946

Amazon.com

"One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit," Harry G. Frankfurt writes, in what must surely be the most eyebrow-raising opener in modern philosophical prose. "Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted." This compact little book, as pungent as the phenomenon it explores, attempts to articulate a theory of this contemporary scourge--what it is, what it does, and why there's so much of it. The result is entertaining and enlightening in almost equal measure. It can't be denied; part of the book's charm is the puerile pleasure of reading classic academic discourse punctuated at regular intervals by the word "bullshit." More pertinent is Frankfurt's focus on intentions--the practice of bullshit, rather than its end result. Bullshitting, as he notes, is not exactly lying, and bullshit remains bullshit whether it's true or false. The difference lies in the bullshitter's complete disregard for whether what he's saying corresponds to facts in the physical world: he "does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are."

This may sound all too familiar to those of use who still live in the "reality-based community" and must deal with a world convulsed by those who do not. But Frankfurt leaves such political implications to his readers. Instead, he points to one source of bullshit's unprecedented expansion in recent years, the postmodern skepticism of objective truth in favor of sincerity, or as he defines it, staying true to subjective experience. But what makes us think that anything in our nature is more stable or inherent than what lies outside it? Thus, Frankfurt concludes, with an observation as tiny and perfect as the rest of this exquisite book, "sincerity itself is bullshit." --Mary Park

Book Description

One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern. We have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves. And we lack a conscientiously developed appreciation of what it means to us. In other words, as Harry Frankfurt writes, "we have no theory."

Frankfurt, one of the world's most influential moral philosophers, attempts to build such a theory here. With his characteristic combination of philosophical acuity, psychological insight, and wry humor, Frankfurt proceeds by exploring how bullshit and the related concept of humbug are distinct from lying. He argues that bullshitters misrepresent themselves to their audience not as liars do, that is, by deliberately making false claims about what is true. In fact, bullshit need not be untrue at all.

Rather, bullshitters seek to convey a certain impression of themselves without being concerned about whether anything at all is true. They quietly change the rules governing their end of the conversation so that claims about truth and falsity are irrelevant. Frankfurt concludes that although bullshit can take many innocent forms, excessive indulgence in it can eventually undermine the practitioner's capacity to tell the truth in a way that lying does not. Liars at least acknowledge that it matters what is true. By virtue of this, Frankfurt writes, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.

Customer Reviews:

To BS Or Not To BS.......2007-06-12

When I first heard about this book, my initial reaction was to wonder why the famous professor hadn't used his prestige to write about something important, namely, sophistry. For the most part, BS is merely exaggeration--we recognize it; and we know how to deal with it. Sophistry, on the other hand, is more subtle, seductive, sneaky, and snaky. The best sophistries are not quickly recognized as the deceptions they are.

Look at all these reviews. Many serious people have written with utter seriousness about Professor Frankfurt's low-calorie confection. Which tells me that sophistry is on a roll.

I read this book twice, in order to write an essay about it. Finally, the whole tiny tome seems to boil down to a few bizarre conceits, which are themselves sophistries, most infamously: liars care more about truth than people who BS; and sincerity itself is BS. Oh, really? Not unless you simply ignore the definitions of the words. In that same world, 2 + 2 nicely rounds off to 17.

My overwhelming impression is that this is a splendid book for students majoring in philosophy and, indeed, all students of philosphy. They can deconstruct this book--boldly wading into thickets of stately language, laying rough hands on delicate nonsequiturs--and thereby become better thinkers. Think of it as a primer, a rite of passage, an inoculation.

Tread Warily.......2007-06-01

Although Mr Frankfart writes with clarity on a most unsavory topic, as a teetotalling, non-smoking Southern Evangelical born-again Christian, I strongly object to this book's vulgar, unbiblical title. I know of no televangelist who would utter such an expression, except perhaps Benny Hinn in a moment of justified righteous indignation when preaching about Catholics or caterers who forget to load smoked salmon aboard his private jet. On a positive note, however, it is reassuring to see that Amazon, in its role as a vocabulary vigilante, does not permit reviewers to write bu lls hit in their comments. Such a breach of propriety would be impossible.

Surprising.......2007-05-09

This short little book on a subject little thought of in intellectual circles provided a surprising amount of inspiration. This book is a fascinating journey into the meaning of truth, lies and BS. It was surprisingly thoughtful and like anything thoughtful it fertilized more thought. At least for me it did. I think it was worth the investment in money and time.

Uncompelling.......2007-03-22

OB is a serious bit of philosophy of language dressed up (whose clever idea was that?) for the mass market. Doubtless many an unsuspecting soul awoke on Christmas morning to discover an OB stuffer in their stocking (left by an equally unsuspecting "Claus" the night before) and to the subsequent realization that it was neither a jokebook nor a comic book, nor a book of limerics or of aphorisms, but rather a dry (and, forsooth, altogether uninspired) work of academese.

Jokes (and joking) aside, the subject of OB is interesting enough, but the treatment leaves much to be desired. OB clearly flowed from the mind and the pen of an intelligent writer, but one of the most distinguished contemporary philosophers? Really? One reads philosophy in hopeful anticipation of those "Aha!" moments when something altogether new and unexpected is revealed or when something old and familiar is shown in an entirely new light. By this simple standard, OB falls disappointingly short. It is intellectual flash with minimal substance.

This is great discourse on a topic everyone is an expert on........2007-03-10

This is great discourse on a topic everyone is an expert on.

History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)

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Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed.
Very Interesting
History as Science Fiction
Provocative, appealing and controversial
pharaohs lived in the 3rd century AD

History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
Anatoly Fomenko
Manufacturer: Mithec
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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History: Fiction or Science? Chronology 2 (Chronology)
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ASIN: 2913621058

Book Description

Recorded history is a finely-woven magic fabric of intricate lies about events predating the sixteenth century. There is not a single piece of evidence that can be reliably and independently traced back earlier than the eleventh century. This book details events that are substantiated by hard facts and logic, and validated by new astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient sources.

Customer Reviews:

Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed. .......2007-04-09

There is no doubt that history as most know it is a sham, & institution's version of History both University & Church is fradulent & inaccurate. Everything was established with an agenda, The real "Dark Ages" are now when we have access to incredible amounts of information past authorities & more important 'common folk' didn't have but our institutions & educators are slow to evolve because of what has ignorantly & arrogantly been taught for too long. This is on many subjects not just Chronology.

For anyone to question "Why would a Mathematician have anything credible to say of History?" The answer is from Dr. Fomenko's preface in the book: "It would be worthwhile to remind the reader that in the XVI-XVII century Chronology was considered to be a subdivision of Mathematics." These volumes could possibly be some of the most important works to date & should be read by everyone with an interest in History, especially professors & educators who have a duty to the public. I have read both books & must say that 'Chronology 1' has some very eye opening & revolutionary information. Even if these volumes are part true the implications are profound & opens the doors to further investigations & questions which must be done. I speak several different lanquages & must say the logic Dr. Fomenko uses with "inflection" of words & words being read from left to right in one region & right to left in another then written backwards, the removal of vowels & get down to basics of words, or different cities & locations having the same name etc. is correct. Vowel usage has always been optional & varied, actually complicating linquistics & study. The first thing one has to understand is that words never had a fixed spelling in history like we do now, the spelling of words was mutable & regional, as well as names & titles of people were vast, varied & changed, NOTHING WAS FIXED or understood linear. Matters of Life & Death as well as financial profiteering yesterday & today were & are made with ignorant, illogical & conspiratorial views of history & reality, it's time people get closer to the Truth & society collectively grow up.

Very Interesting.......2007-03-07

It is a good proposal and I believe it will mature into something even better in the future. I think it deserves to be read.

History as Science Fiction.......2007-01-10

Anatoly Fomenko has written a very intriguing book, full of pictures, charts, and computer 'proof' of his thesis: backwards of AD900 we don't really know what happened or when. Between AD900 and AD1600 there is more certainty, but there is still a lot of fuzzy ground, and things don't get reliable until we get past the 1600's where the printing press made it very difficult for the perpetrators of this timeline manipulation to change anything that had been committed to print. The Dark Ages did not happen. Books were burned for a reason. One organization has doubled the actual length of its existence by expanding the real chronology. Read why.

I had always wondered why Christ died about AD33 and yet men waited until the 11th century to form the Knights Templar, the Cathars, etc and go after the Holy Land by force. Why the 1000 year gap? Turns out there wasn't more than a 10-12 year gap and he proves it using astronomy. This also implies that the planet is not as old as we have been told, and current Christian and other creationist scientists are already championing that idea without being aware of Fomenko's book. The two groups, creationist scientists and the Russian mathematical analysts corroborate each other. Fascinating.

Of course, all this flies in the face of what we have been told traditionally is the 'proper' chronology of western civilization, and most readers will experience 'cognitive dissonance' in reading this book. It means that our history going backwards from AD1600 becomes progressively more incorrect and unreliable until it cannot be trusted at all... in the space of 700-800 years.

Naturally, the curious, open-minded reader will want to know WHO did this, WHY, and did any of the events we think of as really ancient ever happen?
Dr. Fomenko is a respected scientist/mathematician at Moscow State University who has already answered these questions to the satisfaction of his initially skeptical colleagues. Most of them are now believers, a few still refuse to believe (the usual diehards), and of course the western press has ignored Fomenko's work -- for obvious reasons when you read the book. The ones who perpetrated this chronology ruse have a lot to answer for. They are still with us. That's why this book is a well-kept secret.

I gave the book a 4-star rating because I was unable to check out some of his claims; those I checked were as he said. But if even 1/3 of his claims are true, this punches a big hole in what we think is our history, the meaning of western civilization, our educational process (for repeating the ruse as gospel), and the trustworthiness of the organization that perpetrated this ruse, well-intentioned or not.

This book relates to current research into a Young Earth paradigm, to John Keel's discoveries about our planet, and Fr Malachi Martin's insights (in his now out-of-print books). We are indeed sheep who are manipulated and kept ignorant -- for a reason. While knowing what these men have to say may be the "booby prize" (as in: 'what can you do with this knowledge?'), it will provide interesting reading. Didn't someone say: "...and the Truth will set you free."?? For you to judge if this book contains the truth.

Provocative, appealing and controversial.......2006-08-02

Fomenko has succeeded to convincingly demonstrate the misconception about what "history" factually is... It is fiction and -like we can read and judge for ourselves- no science. It indeed is "make belief" only. I "discovered" Fomenko while studying the "old" history of Al Andaluz, Spain. Having found too many contradictions in available data, having seen too many forgeries as to pretend the importance of christianity for its decline, I ventured out to find Fomenko, who convinced me that we know little if anything for sure of the epoch before the XI-century. However, the integration of the Arabic-Islamic cultural history into the heavily distorted Western fails... There are some attempts to fit "the budding new religion" (Islam) into Fomenko's scheme, but they are too weak to be taken seriously and too often focussing on Turkey as the region where things started to influence the West, which is untrue at all.
Islam certainly was no "new religion" in the X-century. That the highly cultivated Al Andaluz ruler Mohammed-I could have been "mirrored" down in time into some myth about the "illiterate" founder of Islam itself is highly speculative. Nevertheless, Fomenko convinces me about the processes that were involved in forging a christian history. Intriguing and controversial as his books are, I recommend them as to rethink our current position in time and space and simply verify what was claimed. It is a "good" book, but not for bedtime reading... Mundus vult decipi, the world wants to be cheated. Fomenko's readers will understand why.

pharaohs lived in the 3rd century AD.......2006-02-16

Traces of white wine were found in Tutankhamen's tomb however there were no record of white wine in Egypt until the 3rd century AD, 1600 years after the young pharaoh died according to the traditional chronology. http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg18925395.400
It can be interpreted as a contribution towards New Chronology theory that pharaohs lived in the 3rd century AD.

Average customer rating:

Dull but Relevant and Helpful
Pithy and Insightful
Better than "On Bull****", but...
A defense of why truth is useful
A Voice in the Wilderness

On Truth
Harry G. Frankfurt
Manufacturer: Knopf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 030726422X
Release Date: 2006-10-31

Book Description

Having outlined a theory of bullshit and falsehood, Harry G. Frankfurt turns to what lies beyond them: the truth, a concept not as obvious as some might expect.

Our culture's devotion to bullshit may seem much stronger than our apparently halfhearted attachment to truth. Some people (professional thinkers) won't even acknowledge "true" and "false" as meaningful categories, and even those who claim to love truth cause the rest of us to wonder whether they, too, aren't simply full of it. Practically speaking, many of us deploy the truth only when absolutely necessary, often finding alternatives to be more saleable, and yet somehow civilization seems to be muddling along. But where are we headed? Is our fast and easy way with the facts actually crippling us? Or is it "all good"? Really, what's the use of truth, anyway?

With the same leavening wit and commonsense wisdom that animates his pathbreaking work On Bullshit, Frankfurt encourages us to take another look at the truth: there may be something there that is perhaps too plain to notice but for which we have a mostly unacknowledged yet deep-seated passion. His book will have sentient beings across America asking, "The truth—why didn't I think of that?"

Customer Reviews:

Dull but Relevant and Helpful.......2007-06-13

I listened to the audiobook version of On Truth and was not captivated by the writing. I found it dry and not very stimulating. There are few illustrations, anecdotes or stories. The writing about truth is to the point and both philosophical and practical.

Frankfurt emphasizes the harm and effects that lies have on the liar and the victim. He also emphasizes the importance of truth to society, culture and the workplace.

This is a short book, so it is not much of an investment of time or energy and does serve to underscore the evidence and significance of truth.

Pithy and Insightful.......2007-05-31

This book simply gets right to the point. Our society, which values the useful so much, needs to look as well at the underlying affirmation of the true which follows from these values. This succinct little treatise makes the reasons for this lucid. The author maintains a pleasant balance of accessibility and depth throughout. An inexpensive addition that belongs on both the working and thinking man's bookshelf.

Better than "On Bull****", but..........2007-03-23

Frankfort's musings on the nature of bull**** (On Bull****) led him - how could they not? - to muse on the nature of truth (On Truth). Frankfort's musings on the nature of truth inspired him - considering the "surprise run-away success" of On Bull****, how could they not? - to pen a companion volume, one that is a bit fatter than its predecessor and only a trifle more interesting. The result: a decent first foray - for would-be first-forayers - into some topics that have worried generations of ethically- and metaphysically-minded thinkers. For old-hand worriers of this sort, however, OT offers little to instruct or inspire. To the extent that OT, like OB, is pitched (the former, less cynically) to a popular readership, Frankfurt's effort to (p)reach outside the academy merits credit. Little else about OT (or OB) does.

A defense of why truth is useful.......2007-02-25

Frankfurt writes a short clip about why "Truth" exists, and it is useful. He succeeds more in the latter than the former. Citing the needs of bridge builders, he states that facts (and as an extension truth) exists, and is useful. But would that really convince a post-modernist who believes it is all in the point of view, whether cultural or economic? Perhaps the bridge is a special case...

But I digress... The book defends truth as instrumental in getting through life, and finding one's boundries as a human being. Sources range from Spinoza to Shakespeare, with a poet thrown in the middle. (ok - so Shakespeare was used as a counter example)

If you're interested in the subject to read the review, go for the book. It won't take long to read, and it certaintly can't hurt.

A Voice in the Wilderness.......2007-02-05

Full disclosure: I am an attorney, not a professor of philosophy. As my profession must deal with unending loads of BS and is one that ostensibly seeks "truth," Dr. Frankfurt's latest essay was required reading. I stress essay and choose to recognize what this book accomplishes rather than what it does not. I found this volume to be a worthy introduction to an exceedingly important topic.

"On Truth" is a sequel to a famous predecessor regarding BS wherein Dr. Frankfurt uses the common vulgarity as a metaphor for the goals of our society. However, he felt that he had failed to adequately show the dangers of indifference to truth, which he defines as the hallmark of BS. His premise is that our society is based on truth sufficient to weather the increasing storms of BS but that the foundations of our culture are susceptible to the continual eroding force of BS. He argues that we need to start paying attention to truth before we lose the concept and are unable to repair the damage being done.

The Declaration of Independence began "We hold these truths to be self-evident" thus, those who went on to accomplish the American Revolution, draft and enact the Constitution, and who were generally recognized as a pretty capable bunch, did not collapse into arguments and finger-pointing about the philosophical niceties of what they were about. The self-evident truths of the founding fathers were rather like Justice Stewart's famous admission that pornography is hard to define, but "I know it when I see it." Truth is a staple of religious training--folks used to get their weekly dose in Sunday School. Thus, the decline in religious observance seems to be closely mirrored by the decline in appreciation for and understanding of truth in general. Too few commentators dare to approach the issue--the vicious attacks on those who profess any belief in truth are all too common, as is the prevailing attitude that "your truth" need not be "my truth."

Accordingly, "On Truth" is more of a warning than a summation. It is a piece of evidence, not proof of the argument. States Dr. Frankfurt: truth is of immense practicality, if we lose respect for truth we cease striving after it, we are more creatures of truth than we admit, ignorance and error have no value, lack of respect for the value of truth will ultimately cost us the very powers that give us the power to create.

Highly Recommended

The Importance of What We Care About: Philosophical Essays

Average customer rating:

The Answer
Contemplating One's Naval
Best short philosophy book of the 1980s

The Importance of What We Care About: Philosophical Essays
Harry G. Frankfurt
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Consciousness & Thought | Philosophy | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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On Bullshit
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ASIN: 0521336112

Book Description

This volume is a collection of thirteen seminal essays on ethics, free will, and the philosophy of mind. The essays deal with such central topics as freedom of the will, moral responsibility, the concept of a person, the structure of the will, the nature of action, the constitution of the self, and the theory of personal ideals. By focusing on the distinctive nature of human freedom, Professor Frankfurt is ale to explore fundamental problems of what it is to be a person and of what one should care about in life.

Customer Reviews:

The Answer.......2005-09-08

This book contains essays about personal ethics -- the decisions we make and what those decisions say about us. The author's conclusions are revealing and complex, and they lead the reader to deeper self-examination. I will re-read this book several times before I surrender it to someone else.

Contemplating One's Naval.......2005-09-01

The title intrigued. The book . . . not really a book but a group of essays, one of which provided the title . . . disappointed. Spending ten pages of fine print on the exact definition of a word left me a bit angry -- angry that I do not have the courage to toss a book that I have paid for and started to read.

Best short philosophy book of the 1980s.......2000-05-22

This book collects Frankfurt's most important essays from 1969 - 1988. It begins with "Alternative Possibilities and Moral Responsibility," the most important essay on the conditions of moral responsibility in the second half of the twentieth-century. This essay introduced "Frankfurt-style" counterexamples to the principle that to be responsible for an action (or intention, decision, etc) we must have alternatives to it, or be able to avoid it. Thirty years later, the debate about free will and moral responsibility ignited by Frankfurt's essay continues to dominate the scholarly literature. Frankfurt's reply to Peter van Inwagen in this debate is also included in the book. The second essay, "Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person," is even more important: in response to Peter Strawson, it introduced the idea that a person is a being capable of forming "higher-order volitions," and thus capable of taking volitional attitudes towards his/her own motivational states (1st-order desires, emotions, etc). This essay began a series of debates about human autonomy and the structure of the self that continue to dominate that literature in analytic philosophy. Frankfurt develops his idea that we can identify with or alienate our own first-order desires (or subjective reasons for action) in "Three Concepts of Free Action," "Identification and Externality," and "Identification and Wholeheartedness." In the remaining essays, Frankfurt introduces his concept of "caring," which is related to the higher-order will, and begins his argument that our most fully autonomous or unambiguously self-determined motives may be found in cares that involve "volitional necessity" for us, an unwillingness to let alternatives even become available. Thus we see at the end that Frankfurt's 1969 argument concerning the compatibility of responsibility and inevitability is required for his concept of the self, which is defined by its commitments or cares. Although several of these papers require philosophical training the appreciate, the essays on caring and the unthinkable will be interesting to any educated layperson. The book could be used for an advanced undergraduate seminar, and is essential for all graduate students studying moral psychology.

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The World Must Never Forget
eleanor's best book ever!
An Aryan and Jew become friends
This is a book you can not put down!
Amazing Story that takes your Breath Away.

Parallel Journeys
Eleanor H. Ayer , Helen Waterford , and Alfons Heck
Manufacturer: Aladdin
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0689832362

Book Description

She was a young German Jew.

He was an ardent member of the Hitler Youth.

This is the story of their parallel journey through World War II.

Helen Waterford and Alfons Heck were born just a few miles from each other in the German Rhineland. But their lives took radically different courses: Helen's to the Auschwitz extermination camp; Alfons to a high rank in the Hitler Youth.

While Helen was hiding in Amsterdam, Alfons was a fanatic believer in Hitler's "master race." While she was crammed in a cattle car bound for the death camp Auschwitz, he was a teenage commander of frontline troops, ready to fight and die for the glory of Hitler and the Fatherland. This book tells both of their stories, side-by-side, in an overwhelming account of the nightmare that was WWII. The riveting stories of these two remarkable people must stand as a powerful lesson to us all.

Customer Reviews:

The World Must Never Forget.......2007-03-27

The world must never forget the holocaust. Today some people espouse a theory that the nearly 12,000,000 deaths (6,000,000 of them Jews) at the hands of the Nazi party never happened. This sad, but honest, tale traces the lives of two persons who lived through that era. Helen Waterford was a Jew who experienced the atrocities first hand. Alfons Heck was a high ranking member of Hitler's youth. Both lived to tell their tales. Both met each other after the war. Both told their tales together. This book alternates chapters between the two principle characters so the reader can witness this period through eyes on both sides of the ideological conflict. This is really two books in one. Either story will challenge the mind and heart. Either one of the stories is an important read, but both placed together in this manner makes for a 5-star book. Our local middle school uses this classic in some of the literature classes. You will be richer for having read this book.

eleanor's best book ever!.......2006-08-14

WOW, what a book i would say. It's a very moving book about the memoirs of Helen Waterford and Alfons Heck during WWII.This book should be in high school history not to say only for high schoolers but 12 year olds and up.

An Aryan and Jew become friends.......2006-08-02

This book is not your usual book. It details the lives of Ayran Alfons Heck and Jewish Helen Waterford.

Alfons was a member of the Hitler Youth and fought-and even met Adolf Hitler. After the war he was depressed about the things that he and his countrymen did to the Jews and moved first to Canada and then to the U.S.

Helen is a Jew who spend part of the war hiding with her husband. They were eventually caught. Helen's husband did not survive, but Helen did, eventually moving from Holland to the U.S. with her daughter Doris.

While in the U.S Helen read some of the things Alfons wrote about and contacted him leading to a friendship and career as they travel telling their stories to students all over the place.

A very moving book!

This is a book you can not put down!.......2006-06-27

Seriously this book is impossible to stop reading once you pass a certain point. I stayed up 'til seven in the morning reading this book. Mind you I started reading that night around ten or eleven at night. It is seriously that captivating. This book tells some very important and over-all relatively unknown facts about the period surrounding WWII. It is an intriguing and captivating book that I believe every human being high school age and older should read. I also think it should be added to high school curriculums.

Amazing Story that takes your Breath Away........2006-05-03

This was a very touching and sweet story. It is amazing that someone would be that mean to take thousands of lives and destroy them. It is also amazing that [Hitler] would force kids to join the army. I would hate to serve him.

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marvelous. good gift for a cook.

Wild Raspberries
Andy Warhol , and Suzie Frankfurt
Manufacturer: Bulfinch Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0821223402

Customer Reviews:

marvelous. good gift for a cook........2003-11-25

I adore this little book, am getting copies to give to my cooking friends and have plans to frame some of the entries.

The recipes are spoofs of the intricate French recipes en vogue during the 1950's, the illustrations are brightly colored Warhol sketches and each entry is calligraphed by Andy Warhol's mother (complete with scratched-over corrections). One of my favorite recipes for an impromptu summer picnic dessert requires a portable regrigerator from Abercrombie & Fitch ...

Product Description

`History: Fiction or Science? Chronology 2` is the second volume of the most explosive and astounding tractate on history ever written - however, every theory it contains, no matter how unorthodox, is backed by rock solid scientific data. The book is easy and pleasant to read; it is well-illustrated, contains hundreds of charts, graphs and illustrations, copies of ancient manuscripts, and countless facts attesting to the falsity of the chronology used nowadays. You will be amazed to discover: - That the chronology universally accepted today and taken for granted is simply wrong; - That ALL methods of dating of ancient sources and artefacts known today are erroneous or non-exact; - That there is not a single document that could be reliably dated earlier than the XIth century; The Author refers to the Middle Ages as the Antiquity and proves mutual superimposition of the Second and the Third Roman Empire, both of which become identified as the respective kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Furthermore, he asserts that the famous reform of the Occidental Church in the XI century by Pope Gregory Hildebrand was the reflection of the XII century reforms of Byzantine emperor Andronicus who in his turn identifies with Jesus Christ. The Trojan war counted by Homer happened only as late as of the XIII century A.D. and the great poet actually lived in XIV century A.D. No stone in history of Antiquity is left unturned. Literally. This book is the beginning of a major correction to the chronology we live with.

Customer Reviews:

Check and see.......2007-06-21

I don't care what other people say of this book. Those affirmig it's fake, they hadn't ever read it. Or have some special reasons to do so. "Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see..." This book won't make you feel comfortable. It'll make you feel free. It'll make you feel you're "not the only one" to feel you'd been lied to for centuries.

Suprise! Suprise!.......2007-03-22

Here is a serie of books which turns "the whole world" upside down. I learned a lot of it and I hope that a new book from A.T. Fomenko will follow very quick. A absolute must for everybody who is interested in history or even a little bit from it.

Prescient St Augustine?.......2006-02-05

We can so far divide the New Chronology into the following three parts:

a) The verifiable theory that proves consensual chronology wrong with the aid of astronomy, statistics and mathematics;

b) The new chronology hypothesis based on a new understanding of known historical facts and the most likely logical explanation of the most obvious inconsistencies inherent in the official version of history;

c) The history conjectures, that is experimental historical reconstructions based on assumptions that the authors believe to make sense in the light of their research and linguistic parallels - void of ironclad factual support to date.

Fomenko's theory complies with the most rigid scientific standards as a whole:

It gives a coherent explanation of what we already know.

- It is consistent: independent lines of inquiry all lead to the same conclusion.

- The predictions it makes are confirmed empirically.

Fomenko goes by the following axioms:

- Chronology is the basis of history;

- Human evolution has always been linear, gradual and irreversible;

- The "cyclic" nature of human civilization is a myth, likewise all the gaps, duplicates, "dark ages" and "renaissances" that we know from consensual history;

- The accumulation of geographical knowledge as reflected in cartography is a gradual and irreversible process;

- The chronological distance between a given manuscript and the events described therein is proportional to the amount of distortions it contains;

- There is no "useless" information in authentic ancient sources.

Why the mainstream historians do not shower mathematician Academician Dr.Prof Fomenko with thanks and laurels?

The Russians:

Because Fomenko asserts that there was no such thing as the Tartar and Mongol invasion followed by three centuries of slavery, providing a formidable body of documental evidence to prove his assertion. The so-called "Tartars and Mongols" were the actual ancestors of the modern Russians, living in a bilingual state with Arabic spoken as freely as Russian. The ancient Russian state was governed by a double structure of civil and military authorities. The hordes were actually professional armies with a tradition of lifelong conscription (the recruitment being the so-called "blood tax"). Their "invasions" were punitive operations against the regions that attempted tax evasion. Fomenko proves that Russian history as we know it today is a blatant forgery concocted by a host of German scientists brought to Russia by the usurper dynasty of the Romanovs, whose ascension to the throne was the result of coup d'état, charged with the mission of making their reign look legitimate. Fomenko proves Ivan the Terrible to be a collation of four rulers, no less. They represented the two rival dynasties - the legitimate rulers and the ambitious upstarts. The winner took it all! Over some 30 years of controversy, Russian historians have made a most remarkable transition - they were initially accusing the young mathematician Fomenko of anticommunist dissident activity and attempts to deface the historical legacy of Soviet Russia; nowadays the middle-aged mathematician is accused of adhering to "pro-communist Russian nationalism" and defacing the proud historical legacy of Great Russia.

The Westerners:

Because Fomenko blows consensual Russian history to smithereens, successfully removing a crucial cornerstone from underneath the otherwise impeccable edifice of World History. Fomenko adds insult to injury, wiping out one by one the Ancient Rome (the foundation of Rome in Italy is dated to the XIV century A. D.), the Ancient Greece and its numerous poleis, which he identifies as the mediaeval crusader settlements on the territory of Greece, and the Ancient Egypt (the pyramids of Giza become dated to the XI-XV century A. D. and identified as the royal cemetery of the Global "Mongolian" Empire, no less). The civilization of the Ancient Egypt is irrefutably dated to the XII-XV century A. D. with the aid of the ancient Egyptian horoscopes cut in stone. He was the first one to decipher and date all such horoscopes, coming up with mediaeval dates in every case. English historians rage at the suggestion that the history of Ancient England was de facto a Byzantine import transplanted to the English soil by the fugitive Byzantine nobility. To reward the English historians who consider themselves the true scribes of World History, the cover of the present book portrays Tintoretto's Jesus Christ crucified on the Big Ben.

The Chinese:

Because Fomenko wipes out the Ancient History of China outright. No such thing. Full point. The compilation of the so-called Ancient Chinese History is reliably datable to the XVII-XVIII century only. It is perfectly recognizable as the Ancient European history, reworked and transcribed in hieroglyphs as yet another historical transplantation, this time performed on the Chinese soil by the loving Jesuit hands. The Chinese are the next in line to go berserk. Chinese history is inevitably bound to get both more ancient and more eventful, proportionally to the growing involvement of China in the world affairs. Chinese historians will keep on finding valid proof of prehistoric Chinese spaceflights until the Politburo orders them to shut up.

The Arabs:

Too bad. Islam with all its key figures is datable to XV-XVI century A. D. Arabic historians may find consolation in the crucial historical role of the Ottoman Empire in the XVI-XVII century. The trouble is that this empire was initially a Christian state, with Hagia Sophia identifiable as Temple of Solomon, according to Fomenko! We can only guess if the acquisition of Alexander the Great (a Macedonian and a Christian) as the founder of the Muslim World Empire will make Fomenko's theories more acceptable to the Arabic mainstream. He certainly does not spare any holy cows at all, claiming The Stone of Qa'Aba in Mecca to contain the lost Arch of the Covenant.

The Divinity:

Despite of reiterated statement that his theory is all about chronology and not Religion, Fomenko stirs up a whole condominium of wasp nests. His collection of anathemas, fatwa, and other condemnations from all parties concerned is already considerable. Little wonder, considering that the history of religions à la Fomenko looks as follows: the pre-Christian period (before the XI century and JC), Bacchic Christianity (XI-XII century, before and after JC), JC Christianity (XII-XVI century) and its subsequent mutations into Orthodox Christianity, the Catholicism, Islam, Buddhism, and so on.

According to Fomenko we know strictly NOTHING about the events that predate the X century A. D.

St Augustin was prescient when he spoke unto us: "be wary of mathematicians, particularly when they speak the truth."

Something of a disappointment.......2005-09-09

After having read the first volume of this expected series of 7 volumes I was triggered by the thesis of these authors that ancient Greek and Roman history did in fact take place in the Middle Ages. So I started studying medieval history of the Middle East - also known as Islamic history - to find out if the opponents of the ancient Greeks and Romans - the Acheamenid Persians, Sassanids, Scythians, Egyptians, etc. - also have their duplicates in medieval history. My search was disappointing: none of the many medieval Islamic dynasties seemed to correspond to the ancient middle eastern rulers.

However, I did find a close correspondence between Herodotus' Persian kings and medieval events:

- the defeat and capture of an Anatolian king - the Lydian Croesus - by the Persian conqueror Cyrus is identical to the defeat and capture of another Anatolian king - sultan Bayezid - by the Asian/Mongol conqueror Tamerlane;
- the Persian conquest of Egypt by the cruel tyrant Cambyses reds almost exactly as the Ottoman conquest of Egypt by Selim the Grim (note the nickname!);
- Darius the Lawgiver of the Persian Empire looks very much alike to Sulayman the Magnificent, the Lawgiver in Islamic history;
- Xerxes, whose main claim to fame is to be defeated by the Greeks at the naval battle of Salamis, looks like Selim II (the Sot) whose main claim to fame is to be defeated by a Spanish-Italian alliance at the naval battle of Lepanto.

I should have expected Fomenko et al. to arrive at similar conclusions, however, they claim that the Persian kings are the alter egos of the Angevin kings of Sicily whose biographies do not contain the exploits of the Persian kings.

The similiarities I indicate lead to the conclusion that Herodotus must have written his Histories at the close of the 16th century. But this is extremely late, given that Herodotus is "the Father of History", so therefore all other "ancient" histories must have been fabricated even later. Yet, the founders of modern chronology - Scaliger and Petavius - laid their foundations also at the close of the 16th century and had the full corpus of ancient histories already at their disposal.

It seems to me that Fomenko has to address these inconsistencies, maybe in the forthcoming 5 volumes?

Another critique of their book is that the correspondencies between different rulers are often based on a superficial comparison of the biographies; upon a more thorough comparison many details appear that do not correspond at all.

Finally, the authors rely heavily on the works of Gregorovius (1821-1891!!) - his medieval histories of Rome and Athens - as the source of medieval history; these works are - at least in the West - hoplessly outdated and have been superceded by more up-to-date works (for instance, Julius Norwich's trilogy on Byzantine history is not even cited).

Romulus courts Helen, Paris founds Rome, Moses goes to Troy.........2005-07-30

If you agree with Fomenko that Roman chronology is basically the foundation of the entire edifice of global chronology; you would also certainly agree that despite its numerous gaps and inconsistencies, Roman history is the best-documented field of ancient history, and thus a reference scale. But how well is the actual date of the Eternal City's foundation known?

Firstly, Rome is supposed to have been founded by the Trojans who had to flee after the fall of Troy. Some claim Rome to have been founded by Aeneas and Ulysses shortly after Troy had fallen; others are of the opinion that there was an entire dynasty that ruled for 500 years between the fall of Troy and the foundation of Rome.

Well, that's just an innocent 500 years long misunderstanding compared with what heretic Fomenko says, asserts, proves in his second volume: Second Roman Empire, Third Roman Empire, Biblical Kingdom of Israel, Biblical Kingdom of Judah, Holy Roman Empire are stories about basically same events, written from different points of view at different times. The underlying events have actually taken place during xii-xv cy. These histories have been written and perfected by multitude of highly talented humanist and clerical writers of xiii-xvi cy disguised as "ancients" with glorious names like Homer, Pluto, Thucydides etc..Chronology 2.0 beta..

Historians are kindly invited to report the bugs.

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Flawed, but best collection available
Excellent, but not as an introduction

The Essential Frankfurt School Reader
Andrew Arato
Manufacturer: Continuum International Publishing Group
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Dialectic of Enlightenment (Cultural Memory in the Present)
The Dialectical Imagination: A History of the Frankfurt School and the Institute of Social Research, 1923-1950 (Weimar and Now ; 10)
Critical Theory and Society: A Reader
Illuminations: Essays and Reflections
One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society

ASIN: 0826401945

Customer Reviews:

Flawed, but best collection available.......2005-07-29

There are, surprisingly, few solid collections of the Frankfurt School out there. This is unfortunate, since often the essays produced by these thinkers are more useful to the general reader--even a general academic reader--than the longer works. And, unfortunately, none of them are very satisfying. All of these collections lack essential essays, and all of them include numerous throw-aways that are unimportant or unuseful. And none of them have particularly helpful introductions for the uninitiated.

Nevertheless, this one is probably a better bet than the other two major collections, "Critical Theory: the Essential Readings" and "German 20th Century Philosophy: the Frankfurt School." If only because it includes Adorno's "Fetish Character of Music," which the others don't. Its principal flaw is the same as the others: the mysterious absence of Walter Benjamin's "Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." But overall, its selections are representative and give the reader a good general overview, moreso than the competition at least.

Excellent, but not as an introduction.......2001-01-09

This book was my first exploration into the Frankfurt School; although it immediately struck a chord within me, I was unprepared for the scholarly vocabularly (classic sociology, etc.) expected of the reader. Advice to the bold, impetuous novice: if you read this book, begin with the essays themselves, not the editors' introductions.

Taking Ourselves Seriously and Getting It Right

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Taking Ourselves Seriously and Getting It Right
Harry G. Frankfurt
Manufacturer: Stanford University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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On Truth
The Importance of What We Care About: Philosophical Essays
The Reasons of Love
On Bullshit
Structures of Agency: Essays

ASIN: 0804752982
Release Date: 2006-08-23

Book Description

Harry G. Frankfurt begins his inquiry by asking, “What is it about human beings that makes it possible for us to take ourselves seriously?” Based on The Tanner Lectures in Moral Philosophy, Taking Ourselves Seriously and Getting It Right delves into this provocative and original question.

The author maintains that taking ourselves seriously presupposes an inward-directed, reflexive oversight that enables us to focus our attention directly upon ourselves, and “[it] means that we are not prepared to accept ourselves just as we come. We want our thoughts, our feelings, our choices, and our behavior to make sense. We are not satisfied to think that our ideas are formed haphazardly, or that our actions are driven by transient and opaque impulses or by mindless decisions. We need to direct ourselves—or at any rate to believe that we are directing ourselves—in thoughtful conformity to stable and appropriate norms. We want to get things right.”

The essays delineate two features that have a critical role to play in this: our rationality, and our ability to love. Frankfurt incisively explores the roles of reason and of love in our active lives, and considers the relation between these two motivating forces of our actions. The argument is that the authority of practical reason is less fundamental than the authority of love. Love, as the author defines it, is a volitional matter, that is, it consists in what we are actually committed to caring about. Frankfurt adds that “The object of love can be almost anything—a life, a quality of experience, a person, a group, a moral ideal, a nonmoral ideal, a tradition, whatever.” However, these objects and ideals are difficult to comprehend and often in conflict with each other. Moral principles play an important supporting role in this process as they help us develop and elucidate a vision that inspires our love.

The first section of the book consists of the two lectures, which are entitled “Taking Ourselves Seriously” and “Getting It Right.” The second section consists of comments in response by Christine M. Korsgaard, Michael E. Bratman, and Meir Dan-Cohen. The book includes a preface by Debra Satz.

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Love and the Goals of Life
characteristically rich
Where are the reasons?
A Book to be Almost Unconditionally Loved
The Awful Truth?

The Reasons of Love
Harry G. Frankfurt
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
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On Bullshit
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ASIN: 0691126240

Book Description

This beautifully written book by one of the world's leading moral philosophers argues that the key to a fulfilled life is to pursue wholeheartedly what one cares about, that love is the most authoritative form of caring, and that the purest form of love is, in a complicated way, self-love.

Harry Frankfurt writes that it is through caring that we infuse the world with meaning. Caring provides us with stable ambitions and concerns; it shapes the framework of aims and interests within which we lead our lives. The most basic and essential question for a person to raise about the conduct of his or her life is not what he or she should care about but what, in fact, he or she cannot help caring about.

The most important form of caring, Frankfurt writes, is love, a nonvoluntary, disinterested concern for the flourishing of what is loved. Love is so important because meaningful practical reasoning must be grounded in ends that we do not seek only to attain other ends, and because it is in loving that we become bound to final ends desired for their own sakes.

Frankfurt argues that the purest form of love is self-love. This sounds perverse, but self-love--as distinct from self-indulgence--is at heart a disinterested concern for whatever it is that the person loves. The most elementary form of self-love is nothing more than the desire of a person to love. Insofar as this is true, self-love is simply a commitment to finding meaning in our lives.

Customer Reviews:

Love and the Goals of Life.......2006-08-29

This short, beautifully written book by Henry Frankfurt, Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Princeton University, is based upon lectures Frankfurt delivered in 2000 and 2001 titled "Some Thoughts about Norms, Love, and the Goals of Life." In his book, Frankfurt argues that love and the ability to love give meaning to a person's life and that the purest form of love is, ultimately self-love. By 'love', Professor Frankfurt does not mean romantic love. Rather, he characterizes love as 1. disinterested, 2.personal, 3. involving the self-identification of the lover with the beloved and 4. constraining one's action -- a person loves someone or something because he or she can't help doing so.

Frankfurt's book consists of three short chapters. The first chapter, "The Question: How shall we Live?" argues that caring and love, rather than moral behavior, gives meaning to a life and define a person's basic commitments and goals. Professor Frankfurt is not a rationalistic philosopher who extolls the power of reason to set goals. Rather, I think Frankfurt sees love as a matter of an existential commitment -- a person can't help loving what he or she loves. Love is not a question of thinking things through to conclude which subjects and persons merit one's care and concern.

The second chapter "On Love and its Reason" elaborates on the opening chapter and offers the four-fold definition of love I have summarized above. Frankfurt points out that the loves of a person define what that person is and give his or her life goals and meaning. What a person loves is prior to reasoning about one's choices, as evidenced, for Frankfurt, by one of the purest and most common forms of love, the love of a parent for his or her young children. In love, ends and means intersect, in that actions taken in furtherance of the interest of the beloved become themselves final goals rather than only insturmental goals.

In the final chapter, "The Dear Self", Frankfurt argues that the purest form of love is ultimately self-love, rejecting critiques of self-love by philosophers such as Kant. In this chapter, I think, Frankfurt basically equates self-love with self-knowledge. A person who loves himself, for Frankfurt, knows his own mind, knows what he wants and cherishes, and pursues it wholeheartedly without ambivalence. Most people don't know what they want and are plagued by competing goals which restrict severely their ability to love wholeheartedly. Franfurt characterizes such behavior as showing an inability to fully love oneself. In addition to Kant, Frankfurt in this chapter makes insightful references to St Augustine, Kierkegaard, and especially Spinoza. Frankfurt distinguishes again between morality and love as establishing the contours of a meaningful human life. For Frankfurt, a person can love someone or something wholeheartedly and yet be immoral. In addition to the philosophers Frankfurt mentions, I think there are many parallels to existential thought, especially that of Heidegger, behind Frankfurt's lucid and restrained prose.

This book will appeal to thoughtful readers who want to reflect upon and try to understand their lives and what matters to them. It shows that philosophy remains a meaningful, life-giving endeavor rather than the sterile, academic exercise seen by philosophy's detractors.

Robin Friedman

characteristically rich.......2006-02-20

This is essentially a book on the nature of practical reason. Frankfurt's central claim is that "the origins of normativity do not lie... either in the transient incitements of personal feeling and desire [as some Humeans would have it], or in the severely anonymous requirements of eternal reason [as some Kantians would have it]. They lie in the contingent necessities of love." In other words, love is "the ultimate ground of practical rationality." The title reflects Frankfurt's main ambition, which is to identify and analyze the type of reasons for action provided by love. On the way to this goal, Frankfurt raises some difficult and important questions: How important is moral theory to the theory of practical reason? How important are moral values to the age-old question of how we should live? What is the nature of love? How does it differ from things like romantic attraction? If practical reason is grounded in love, does that mean that practical reason is essentially selfish? He also provides some fascinating answers--some of which are more elaborately defended than others. To give some examples: He argues, as he has before, that morality is in a sense overrated--at least by theorists of practical reason. Moral concerns and values do not always express what is most important to us; therefore, morality is not always the most important source of reasons for action. He also claims that love is characterized by four essential features. It manifests a disinterested concern for the beloved; it is "ineluctably personal"; it involves identification with the beloved; and it imposes constraints upon the will. Surprisingly, Frankfurt argues that the purest (though not necessarily most admirable or valuable) form of love is self-love. He then goes on to argue that once we properly distinguish self-love from self-indulgence we'll be able to see that self-love is not a form of selfishness. So to ground practical reason in love is decidedly not to explain all deliberation in terms of self-centred calculation.

There are moments when it gets a little precious for my tastes, but Frankfurt's work is undeniably honest and deep. It seems driven by a genuine and earnest desire to figure things out--to say something clear, helpful, and even beautiful about things that matter to us. His prose is refreshingly jargon-free. It is certainly a work of analytic philosophy, but he distinguishes himself from many contemporary philosophers by refusing to limit himself to discussions carried on in the latest journals. This means that technical terminology is kept to a minimum, and there is virtually no name-dropping. A reader familiar with the literature in contemporary ethics and practical reason will get more out of this than a novice. But it is a virtue of Frankfurt's work (not just in this book) that anyone sufficiently curious about these matters could read and profit from it. He refers to classic authors such as Aristotle, Kant, St. Augustine, Kierkegaard, and Spinoza. But nothing he writes assumes that the reader already knows their work.

The book clearly furthers an ongoing project. For years Frankfurt has argued that freedom of the will consists in having the will one wants, and that this requires being able to wholeheartedly identify with some desires rather than others. "The Reasons of Love" continues his efforts to elaborate on and justify that basic idea. This comes out most clearly in the last half of the last chapter, where Frankfurt explains how true self-love accomplishes the "wholehearted identification" that is necessary for the "volitional unity" that enables perons to achieve the kind of freedom that's worth having. The discussion here will resonate most with readers of his other works--particularly the numerous essays on identification, caring, volitional necessity, and autonomy.

That should not scare off the uninitiated. On the contrary: just about anyone inclined to ask themselves hard questions about freedom, love, reason, and the nature of the self is likely to find reading Harry Frankfurt deeply rewarding. He's careful and precise without being technical or overly-dry. More important, he never loses sight of the stuff most of us actually care about. My sense is that those unfamiliar with Frankfurt's work will find in "The Reasons of Love" a great place to start reading one of the most interesting and important philosophers writing today.

Where are the reasons?.......2006-02-12

I don't have academic training on philosophy argument and thus the book becomes a long and winding essay that is difficult to grasp. You can read the first chapter from http://www.pupress.princeton.edu/titles/7749.html and see if this is the kind of books you would like.

A Book to be Almost Unconditionally Loved.......2004-03-03

Reasons of Love consists of three somewhat revised lectures given at University College London, in 2001. I take these lectures to be a more filled-out analysis of love and caring from his earlier articles, particularly, "Autonomy, Necessity, and Love," "The Faintest Passion," "On the Necessity of Ideals," and "The Importance of What We Care About." In a sense, Reasons of Love might be thought of as the broader applicatory story left out of these earlier essays. While I find myself disagreeing with the how parts of the story are told, it seems that he has picked out something true of the human condition that has generally been disdained, specifically self-love. This is a fascinating piece of moral philosophy and I highly recommend it.

The Awful Truth?.......2004-02-08

The decision by the author to (typically) dismiss romantic love as a defective mode of loving and to look instead to parent-young children relations and ultimately the nature of self love strikes this reader as depressing. Love that is freely chosen, freely renewed, and yet optimally persistent through nearly endless variation should I thought have engaged Prof. Frankfurt rather than incurred his suspicions as to its legitimacy. My fascination with agape, Frankfurt's major focus, extends slightly less than that with lawn darts. This almost certainly has to do with my understanding of the notion of agapistic love, drilled home by the Jesuits, as "love for x _in spite of_ x's nature." Outside of the peculiar case of the divine "regard" for man this threatens to deteriorate into mere patronization. On that note and following through rather naturally, since we are going to look so carefully at parent-infant relations as instances of love in its purest human form, perhaps some discussion of parent-adult child relations might have been in order. I mention the last in a desperate effort to take the focus off of a strangely (rather than acceptably) selfish spin on supposedly disinterested concern for another (as if _that_ inspires the beloved anyway) that strikes this reader as infecting Frankfurt's work on love generally speaking. Nice tip at the end to always maintain one's sense of humour.

There is of course a rather obvious Spinozistic spin we can put on the treatment of love in this text. (1) We cannot help but love what we love. (2) Insofar as we are confused concerning what we love (which is to say either we think we love what we do not love or we do not know what we love), we are in some sense estranged from ourselves, possibly even unfree. So (3) We should do our best to figure out what it is that we cannot help but love and subsequently wholeheartedly devote ourselves to loving it; in this way we arrive at a certain sort of psychological concord, even perhaps the highest form of freedom attainable by man. This connects up with Prof. Frankfurt's historical interest in/endorsement of a specific sort of compatibilism and may well be appealing to those who find solace in the project of "becoming what one is" (Ecce Homo).

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