Great Philosophers

Scrutinizing 10 philosophers from Epicurus to Hegel, Jaspers, the famed German existentialist (1883-1969), extracts the living essence of each philosopher's wisdom in these higly individualistic critiques. For Jaspers, Giordano Bruno, the Italian wandering scholar burnt at the stake by the Inquisition, is the founder of modern pantheism, while Democritus, the ancient Greek atomist, showed that ``it is possible to live, without God, in tranquillity, serene and active.'' Jaspers also discusses the egalitarianism of philosophical poet Xenophanes; Empedocles as a self-styled prophet and savior; Aristotle's pursuit of truth through the intellect; religious mystic Jakob Boehme; and the systems of Leibniz and Schelling. Translated from the 1981 German edition of Jaspers's posthumous writings, this searching study complements the first two volumes of The Great Philosophers which were published in the 1960s. (Nov.)