Walter Arnold Kaufmann

Four brilliant essays examine Kierkegaard, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Buber. Each is seen in a new perspective (the appreciation of Tolstoy, for example, is eye-opening). One chapter contrasts Nietzsche with the leading existentialists, and another explores the reception of existentialism in the United States. Throughout, the author's thrust is critical and constructive and never merely expository. [Back cover].

"A Meridan book."

A proposal for a new and liberating human ethic: creative autonomy.

In these studies of the relationships between poetry, religion, and philosophy, and of the background and development of existentialism, Walter Kaufmann has produced a book which is challenging and important on many different levels. --

Princeton professor examines current orthodoxies of the day, including positivism and existentialism, giving his views on thinkers such as Plato, Aquinas, Kant, Bultmann, Niebuhr, Freud, and others.