(Author) Seiji Takeda: Professor, Meiji Gakuin University
(the Author of)
1: Introduction to Philosophy for Knowing Myself, Chikuma Gakugei Bunko (Chikuma Shobo, 1993)
2: What is Philosophy? Iwanami Junior Shinsho (Iwanami Shoten, 2002)
3. Introduction to Nietzsche, Chikuma Shinsho (Chikuma Shobo, 1994)
4: Introduction to Heidegger, Kodansha Sensho (Kodansha, 1995)
5: Adventures in Modern Thought Chikuma Scholarly Library (Chikuma Shobo, 1992)
All of Mr. Takeda’s books are full of flavor. He takes a philosophical approach to finding solutions to his problems by starting from his daily life. He believes that the starting point of philosophy is to know oneself and enrich one’s life, and he wrestles with a variety of theories. He persistently tries to find out how the philosophers who came before him tried to explain the same problems as he does, and traces them back to the very foundations of his way of thinking.
Mr. Takeda explains representative philosophical theories, focusing on contemporary thought, in an easy-to-understand manner, but since he is dealing with philosophy, he follows a rather difficult path. The only way to reach the conclusion is to solve the problem by oneself.
However, if you walk along the path with the author, something will remain in you. That is the philosophical way of thinking. And eventually, the reader would like to think about his own problems by reading the original book (or even in the original language) if possible. This is the charm of his books.
@Memorable sentences from the books above
-Philosophy is a way of thinking that is useful when one’s life is in trouble.
-Modern philosophy has found very fundamental principles by means of long-lasting relays. It should be noted, however, that it has hardly become the intellectual wealth of us moderns.
-Nietzsche: The essence of goodness lies in how richly and deeply one savors life. But man has not yet created the meaning of life.
-In our time, Nietzsche is regarded as the greatest source of modern thought.
– But what we are seeing now, a century later, is the fall of Marxism and the restoration of Nietzsche in modern thought.
-French post-modernist thought had as its central motif this very discomfort with Marxism.
– There are three pillars of Nietzsche’s thought: the critique of lusantism, the overthrow of all previous values, and the overcoming of nihilism, that is, the creation of values.
-Art is, in Nietzsche’s view, something that encourages life itself, which is full of suffering, rather than making humans escape from life.
-Heidegger is often referred to as the greatest philosopher of the 20th century.
-Incidentally, Marxism, Freudianism, phenomenology, and Heidegger’s ontological philosophy were the four cornerstones of 20th century modern thought (to which we can add Saussure’s linguistics and Wittgenstein’s logic).
– Man is a being who is looking for possibilities, a being who also objects to his own existence, so to speak.
-Human beings need to take the attitude that they will not hide death as a terrible possibility, but will face it as their own.
– Only by taking the first step toward death can human beings understand others as co-existing in the true sense of the word, and have the possibility of relating to each other while encouraging their inherent existential potential.
-It is easy for anyone to simply acquire a lot of knowledge, but it is extremely difficult to think for oneself from the simplest picture of the problem.
-The fundamental and final question for everyone is simply what to do with his or her own unique life.
-Heidegger says that facing death as a freedom towards one’s own possibility, rather than fleeing from it, is the only way to liberate human beings who are bound by worldly existence.
-Existence is the act of human beings constantly understanding their own way of being, and not giving up the possibility of living in a new way.
-Desires for art, love, ideals, and the like can be described as desires that move towards transcendence, away from the everyday.
-I want to reduce philosophy to something that could be learned by ear.
