Karl Jaspers: A Biography--Navigations in Truth Review

Karl Jaspers: A Biography--Navigations in Truth
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Karl Jaspers: A Biography--Navigations in Truth ReviewIn general, I do not like to post negative reviews to the Amazon Web site. For Suzanne Kirkbright's work, I am making an exception. This is a very poorly written and narrated biography. Very briefly, I would like to itemize its most obvious flaws,
1. Writing. Ms Kirkbright writes in an English that is all but incomprehensible. The book reads like an inept translation. Here are the first two sentences of the book:
"In Oldenburg, where Karl Jaspers was born on 23 February 1883, the changing attitudes that shape the fabric of civilized society were all but sheltered from view. (footnote 1) During these years of Bismark's Germany, political life was in flux, for modernizing the regions in a federal, secular and unified nation appeared to exacerbate disagreement among political parties which--apart from the higher authority of Emperor Willhelm I--could have been scrutinizing Bismarck's policies of social and cultural integration. (footnote 2)"
Throughtout her book, Ms Kirkbright has trouble with standard English idioms and the use of prepositions. One has to wonder how this prose slipped passed the editorial staff at YUP.
2. Historical. Ms Kirkbright's rendering of the historical and cultural background of Jasper's place and time is substandard.
3. Narrative. This biography achieves no smooth narrative but skips around and does not build any kind of systematic portrait of anything--not the family, not Karl, not the political events.
4. Ideas. Mr Kirkbright seems to have little understanding of the ideas that circulate in Jaspers work. She seems to be culling them from secondary sources rather than from her own reading and understanding.
5. Research. Ms Kirkbright is working on a fascinating subject with many primary sources. However, she uses these sources in a very unskilled way. She has the tendency to footnote sentence after sentence, often with no serious goal.
6. Bibliographical. Her reference section is not up to contemporary scholarly standards. One rather humorous example is her reference to "The Complete Works of Plato"...in the Jowett translation. Hmmm...?
In conclusion, because of its awkwardness this book is hard to follow for a someone who simply wants to know a bit about Jaspers; for the scholar, it's probably worth a quick glance because of the value of Suzanne Kirkbright's source material.
All in all, this is a poor book that needs revision
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Karl Jaspers: A Biography--Navigations in Truth OverviewThroughout his life, German philosopher Karl Jaspers (1883–1969) recorded his experiences and reflections in diaries and correspondence. This comprehensive biography is the first to explore these extensive and candid private writings that illuminate not only Jaspers' life and relationships but also the ideas he proposed in Way to Wisdom, The Question of German Guilt, and many other published works.Suzanne Kirkbright provides a sensitive and intimate portrait of the philosopher whose work on truth, personal integrity, and the capacity for communication contrasted acutely with the erosion of such values in Germany in his lifetime. She describes how Jaspers' Jewish wife, Gertrud, influenced his thinking, the loss in 1937 of his professorship at Heidelberg University, and his relationship with such celebrated colleagues as Martin Heidegger and Hannah Arendt. Kirkbright examines the unshakeable ethical content of Jaspers' philosophy and demonstrates his unique and scrupulous personal adherence to the philosophical principles he espoused.

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