What is Man? [First ed.] 0070333165, 9780070333161

Table of contents :
NOTES ON THE COLOR PHOTOGRAPHS

I THE QUESTION - 49
1.“What is man? The question comes from the Bible, and Kant said that all of philosophy could be reduced to it.”

II HOW CAN THE QUESTION BE ANSWERED? - 52
2. “What is man? is an invitation to reflection on man’s lot.” Nietzsche: “Only that which has no history is definable.” Ortega: “Man... has no nature; what he has is—history.”
3. Alternatives to the historical approach.
4. “Self-knowledge.”
5. “Practical knowledge.”
6. “Taste.”
7. “Touchstones.”
8. “Our intelligentsia is for the most part blind to what is not verbal.”
9. “A book on this problem should not give the false impression that there is one true solution.”

III VARIATIONS ON THREE THEMES - 61
10. “All flesh is grass” (Isaiah 40), “like the leaves” (Iliad).
11. “Men’s doings are not worthy of great seriousness, and yet...” (Plato).
12. “The most famous choral ode in Sophocles should also be seen as a variation on our theme.”
13. “The Buddha... the knowledge of our mortality spells liberation.” “Our first theme: Man is ephemeral, but...” “Even flowers are ephemeral, but ...”
14. “Our second theme is the radical inequality of men.”
15. “The inegalitarian theme was developed in Christianity as in Hinduism in ways which are so brutal that it is no wonder many humane people have jumped to the conclusion that the only decent course is to embrace egalitarianism, asserting that, appearances notwithstanding, all human beings are fundamentally equal.”
16. “Our third and last theme... Man is a wolf to man.”
17. Seneca and Nero.

IV SHAKESPEARE, PASCAL, NIETZSCHE - 73
18. Shakespeare.
19. Pascal.
20. Nietzsche.

V ECCE HOMO - 113
21. Paradigmatic individuals change our perception of what it means, or could mean, to be human.”
22. Adam, Cain, Abraham.
23. “More than any individual before or after him, Moses revolutionized man’s image of man.”
24. Samson. “What is man? A being that can triumph over desperate conditions by choosing to die—and how to die.”
25. Saul and David.
26. “Man’s growth through suffering... one of the most important legacies of the Hebrew Bible and easily as important as the three themes we explored earlier.” The Suffering Servant and Job.
27. “Aeschylus’ Prometheus, Sophocles’ Oedipus, and Plato’s Socrates.” “Never before had the refusal to bow before wanton, vastly superior power gained such expression... in Athens the gods never recovered. Sophocles’ Oedipus is a much richer, more complex figure.”
28. “Socrates... was a new type of man—a theologian might say, a new Adam.”
29. “Goethe... radically changed Western man’s conception of the artist ... as a representative of humanity.” “Plutarch suggests that it is quite proper... not to transfer our esteem for a work to its maker.” Shakespeare.
30. “Rembrandt’s self-portraits represent a truly revolutionary achievement.”
31. “Goethe's influence... the theme was how one becomes oneself.... To be human takes time and involves development.”
32. “The entrepreneurs who made it from rags to riches do not add much to the lessons taught by Napoleon and Lincoln.” “A man who also adds something to the understanding of the pictures: Vincent van Gogh.”
33. “Heads of the people.” “Pictures which will rouse serious thoughts.” “I prefer painting people’s eyes to cathedrals.” “Portraiture with the thoughts, the soul of the model in it.”
34. “The power to see the reality in which they live.”
35. “I do not intend to spare myself... In a few years I must finish a certain work.” “Life is not long for anybody, and the problem is only to make something of it.” “The duty to disregard public opinion.” “I would never do away with suffering.”
36. “Easy to add parallels between van Gogh and Nietzsche, but one crucial difference should be stressed.”
37. “The example of van Gogh’s self-portraits and letters shows how much words can add to images.... The relationship is... more nearly like that of a piano and a cello playing a Beethoven sonata.”

VI VIEWS AND IMAGES - 130
38. “Much of humanity lives at the limits, as millions do in Benares and in Calcutta. Through most of history it seemed reasonable to assume that this was man’s lot.” “Distinguish three dimensions of life at the limits.”
39. “Attitudes toward death... as part of a larger syndrome... as is shown in Time is an Artist.”
40. “We should have a reason for living.” “There is no better way to rouse us from aimless drifting than facing up to life at the limits and irrevocable time.”
41. “What might be meant by saying that all men are equal.
42. “Are all artists equal?” “Is all water equal?”
43. “The egalitarian point is not really that men are equal but that they ought to be.” “Be clear about what this prescription involves.”
44. “Economic inequality.”
45. “Equality of opportunity is either a hollow cliché or a pernicious goal.”
46. “The images in this volume.”
47. “A philosopher who creates images... a contradiction in terms...?” “The notion that photography turns everything into objects, alienates man from his world, and dehumanizes men...” “How photography can reveal the ‘You.’ ”

EPILOGUE: DEATH AND SURVIVAL - 140
48. “Descend into the depths of one aspect of man’s lot that fuses our three central themes: life at the limits, irrevocable time, and the question, What is man?”

BIBLIOGRAPHY - 146