The Harvard Classics: A Free, Digital Collection

in Harvard, History, Literature, Philosophy | July 5th, 2011

Dur­ing his days as Har­vard’s influ­en­tial pres­i­dent, Charles W. Eliot made a fre­quent asser­tion: If you were to spend just 15 min­utes a day read­ing the right books, a quan­ti­ty that could fit on a five foot shelf, you could give your­self a prop­er lib­er­al edu­ca­tion. The pub­lish­er P. F. Col­lier and Son loved the idea and asked Eliot to assem­ble the right col­lec­tion of works. The result wasa 51-vol­ume series pub­lished in 1909 called Dr. Eliot’s Five Foot Shelf. Lat­er it would sim­ply be called The Har­vard Clas­sics.

You can still buy an old set off of eBay for $399. But, just as eas­i­ly, you can head to the Inter­net Archive and Project Guten­berg, which have cen­tral­ized links to every text includ­ed in The Har­vard Clas­sics (Wealth of Nations, Ori­gin of Species, Plutarch’s Lives, the list goes on below). Please note that the pre­vi­ous two links won’t give you access to the actu­al anno­tat­ed Har­vard Clas­sics texts edit­ed by Eliot him­self. But if you want just that, you can always click here and get dig­i­tal scans of the true Har­vard Clas­sics. Please note that the first two vol­umes appear at the bot­tom of the page. And, in case you want to deep­en your lib­er­al edu­ca­tion yet fur­ther, don’t for­get to check out our col­lec­tion 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties. Also spend some time with these oth­er resources: 800 Free eBooks for iPad, Kin­dle & Oth­er Devices and 1,000 Free Audio Books: Down­load Great Books for Free.

A big h/t to @eugenephoto

Texts in the Har­vard Clas­sics col­lec­tion (cour­tesy of Wikipedia):

Vol. 1: FRANKLIN, WOOLMAN, PENN
His Auto­bi­og­ra­phy, by Ben­jamin Franklin
The Jour­nal of John Wool­man, by John Wool­man (1774 and sub­se­quent edi­tions)
Fruits of Soli­tude, by William Penn
Vol. 2. PLATO, EPICTETUS, MARCUS AURELIUS
The Apol­o­gy, Phae­do, and Crito, by Pla­to
The Gold­en Say­ings, by Epicte­tus
The Med­i­ta­tions, by Mar­cus Aure­lius
Vol. 3. BACON, MILTON’S PROSE, THOS. BROWNE
Essays, Civ­il and Moral, and New Atlantis, by Fran­cis Bacon
Are­opagit­i­ca and Trac­tate of Edu­ca­tion, by John Mil­ton
Reli­gio Medici, by Sir Thomas Browne
Vol. 4. COMPLETE POEMS IN ENGLISH, MILTON
Com­plete poems writ­ten in Eng­lish, by John Mil­ton
Vol. 5. ESSAYS AND ENGLISH TRAITS, EMERSON
Essays and Eng­lish Traits, by Ralph Wal­do Emer­son
Vol. 6. POEMS AND SONGS, BURNS
Poems and songs, by Robert Burns
Vol. 7. CONFESSIONS OF ST. AUGUSTINE, IMITATIONS OF CHRIST
The Con­fes­sions, by Saint Augus­tine
The Imi­ta­tion of Christ, by Thomas á Kem­p­is
Vol. 8. NINE GREEK DRAMAS
Agamem­non, The Liba­tion Bear­ers, The Furies, and Prometheus Bound, by Aeschy­lus
Oedi­pus the King and Antigone, by Sopho­cles
Hip­poly­tus and The Bac­chae, by Euripi­des
The Frogs, by Aristo­phanes
Vol. 9. LETTERS AND TREATISES OF CICERO AND PLINY
On Friend­ship, On Old Age, and let­ters, by Cicero
Let­ters, by Pliny the Younger
Vol. 10. WEALTH OF NATIONS, ADAM SMITH
The Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith
Vol. 11. ORIGIN OF SPECIES, DARWIN
The Ori­gin of Species, by Charles Dar­win
Vol. 12. PLUTARCH’S LIVES
Lives, by Plutarch
Vol. 13. AENEID, VIRGIL
Aeneid, by Vir­gil
Vol. 14. DON QUIXOTE, PART 1, CERVANTES
Don Quixote, part 1, by Cer­vantes
Vol. 15. PILGRIM’S PROGRESS, DONNE & HERBERT, BUNYAN, WALTON
The Pil­grim’s Progress, by John Bun­yan
The Lives of Donne and Her­bert, by Iza­ak Wal­ton
Vol. 16. THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS
Sto­ries from the Thou­sand and One Nights
Vol. 17. FOLKLORE AND FABLE, AESOP, GRIMM, ANDERSON
Fables, by Aesop
Chil­dren’s and House­hold Tales, by Jacob and Wil­helm Grimm
Tales, by Hans Chris­t­ian Ander­sen
Vol. 18. MODERN ENGLISH DRAMA
All for Love, by John Dry­den
The School for Scan­dal, by Richard Brins­ley Sheri­dan
She Stoops to Con­quer, by Oliv­er Gold­smith
The Cen­ci, by Per­cy Bysshe Shel­ley
A Blot in the ‘Scutcheon, by Robert Brown­ing
Man­fred, by Lord Byron
Vol. 19. FAUST, EGMONT, ETC. DOCTOR FAUSTUS, GOETHE, MARLOWE
Faust, part 1, Egmont, and Her­mann and Dorothea, by Johann Wolf­gang von Goethe
Dr. Faus­tus, by Christo­pher Mar­lowe
Vol. 20. THE DIVINE COMEDY, DANTE
The Divine Com­e­dy, by Dante Alighieri
Vol. 21. I PROMESSI SPOSI, MANZONI
I Promes­si Sposi, by Alessan­dro Man­zoni
Vol. 22. THE ODYSSEY, HOMER
The Odyssey, by Homer
Vol. 23. TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST, DANA
Two Years Before the Mast, by Richard Hen­ry Dana, Jr.
Vol. 24. ON THE SUBLIME, FRENCH REVOLUTION, ETC., BURKE
On Taste, On the Sub­lime and Beau­ti­ful, Reflec­tions on the French Rev­o­lu­tion, and A Let­ter to a Noble Lord, by Edmund Burke
Vol. 25. AUTOBIOGRAPHY, ETC., ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES, J.S. MILL, T. CARLYLE
Auto­bi­og­ra­phy and On Lib­er­ty, by John Stu­art Mill
Char­ac­ter­is­tics, Inau­gur­al Address at Edin­burgh, and Sir Wal­ter Scott, by Thomas Car­lyle
Vol. 26. CONTINENTAL DRAMA
Life is a Dream, by Pedro Calderón de la Bar­ca
Polyeucte, by Pierre Corneille
Phè­dre, by Jean Racine
Tartuffe, by Molière
Min­na von Barn­helm, by Got­thold Ephraim Less­ing
William Tell, by Friedrich von Schiller
Vol. 27. ENGLISH ESSAYS: SIDNEY TO MACAULAY
Vol. 28. ESSAYS: ENGLISH AND AMERICAN
Vol. 29. VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE, DARWIN
The Voy­age of the Bea­gle, by Charles Dar­win
Vol. 30. FARADAY, HELMHOLTZ, KELVIN, NEWCOMB, ETC
The Forces of Mat­ter and The Chem­i­cal His­to­ry of a Can­dle, by Michael Fara­day
On the Con­ser­va­tion of Force and Ice and Glac­i­ers, by Her­mann von Helmholtz
The Wave The­o­ry of Light and The Tides, by Lord Kelvin
The Extent of the Uni­verse, by Simon New­comb
Geo­graph­i­cal Evo­lu­tion, by Sir Archibald Geikie
Vol. 31. AUTOBIOGRAPHY, BENVENUTO CELLINI
The Auto­bi­og­ra­phy of Ben­venu­to Celli­ni
Vol. 32. LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS
Essays, by Michel Eyquem de Mon­taigne
Mon­taigne and What is a Clas­sic?, by Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve
The Poet­ry of the Celtic Races, by Ernest Renan
The Edu­ca­tion of the Human Race, by Got­thold Ephraim Less­ing
Let­ters upon the Aes­thet­ic Edu­ca­tion of Man, by Friedrich von Schiller
Fun­da­men­tal Prin­ci­ples of the Meta­physic of Morals, by Immanuel Kant
Byron and Goethe, by Giuseppe Mazz­i­ni
Vol. 33. VOYAGES AND TRAVELS
An account of Egypt from The His­to­ries, by Herodotus
Ger­many, by Tac­i­tus
Sir Fran­cis Drake Revived, by Philip Nichols
Sir Fran­cis Drake’s Famous Voy­age Round the World, by Fran­cis Pret­ty
Drake’s Great Arma­da, by Cap­tain Wal­ter Bigges
Sir Humphrey Gilbert’s Voy­age to New­found­land, by Edward Haies
The Dis­cov­ery of Guiana, by Sir Wal­ter Raleigh
Vol. 34. FRENCH AND ENGLISH PHILOSOPHERS, DESCARTES, VOLTAIRE, ROUSSEAU, HOBBES
Dis­course on Method, by René Descartes
Let­ters on the Eng­lish, by Voltaire
On the Inequal­i­ty among Mankind and Pro­fes­sion of Faith of a Savo­yard Vic­ar, by Jean Jacques Rousseau
Of Man, Being the First Part of Leviathan, by Thomas Hobbes
Vol. 35. CHRONICLE AND ROMANCE, FROISSART, MALORY, HOLINSHEAD
Chron­i­cles, by Jean Frois­sart
The Holy Grail, by Sir Thomas Mal­o­ry
A Descrip­tion of Eliz­a­bethan Eng­land, by William Har­ri­son
Vol. 36. MACHIAVELLI, MORE, LUTHER
The Prince, by Nic­colò Machi­avel­li
The Life of Sir Thomas More, by William Rop­er
Utopia, by Sir Thomas More
The Nine­ty-Five The­ses, To the Chris­t­ian Nobil­i­ty of the Ger­man Nation, and On the Free­dom of a Chris­t­ian, by Mar­tin Luther
Vol. 37. LOCKE, BERKELEY, HUME
Some Thoughts Con­cern­ing Edu­ca­tion, by John Locke
Three Dia­logues Between Hylas and Philo­nous in Oppo­si­tion to Scep­tics and Athe­ists, by George Berke­ley
An Enquiry Con­cern­ing Human Under­stand­ing, by David Hume
Vol. 38. HARVEY, JENNER, LISTER, PASTEUR
The Oath of Hip­pocrates
Jour­neys in Diverse Places, by Ambroise Paré
On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Ani­mals, by William Har­vey
The Three Orig­i­nal Pub­li­ca­tions on Vac­ci­na­tion Against Small­pox, by Edward Jen­ner
The Con­ta­gious­ness of Puer­per­al Fever, by Oliv­er Wen­dell Holmes
On the Anti­sep­tic Prin­ci­ple of the Prac­tice of Surgery, by Joseph Lis­ter
Sci­en­tif­ic papers, by Louis Pas­teur
Sci­en­tif­ic papers, by Charles Lyell
Vol. 39. FAMOUS PREFACES
Vol. 40. ENGLISH POETRY 1: CHAUCER TO GRAY
Vol. 41. ENGLISH POETRY 2: COLLINS TO FITZGERALD
Vol. 42. ENGLISH POETRY 3: TENNYSON TO WHITMAN
Vol. 43. AMERICAN HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS
Vol. 44. SACRED WRITINGS 1
Con­fu­cian: The say­ings of Con­fu­cius
Hebrew: Job, Psalms, and Eccle­si­astes
Chris­t­ian I: Luke and Acts
Vol. 45. SACRED WRITINGS 2
Chris­t­ian II: Corinthi­ans I and II and hymns
Bud­dhist: Writ­ings
Hin­du: The Bha­gavad-Gita
Mohammedan: Chap­ters from the Koran
Vol. 46. ELIZABETHAN DRAMA 1
Edward the Sec­ond, by Christo­pher Mar­lowe
Ham­let, King Lear, Mac­beth, and The Tem­pest, by William Shake­speare
Vol. 47. ELIZABETHAN DRAMA 2
The Shoe­mak­er’s Hol­i­day, by Thomas Dekker
The Alchemist, by Ben Jon­son
Phi­laster, by Beau­mont and Fletch­er
The Duchess of Mal­fi, by John Web­ster
A New Way to Pay Old Debts, by Philip Massinger
Vol. 48. THOUGHTS AND MINOR WORKS, PASCAL
Thoughts, let­ters, and minor works, by Blaise Pas­cal
Vol. 49. EPIC AND SAGA
Beowulf
The Song of Roland
The Destruc­tion of Dá Der­ga’s Hos­tel
The Sto­ry of the Vol­sungs and Niblungs
Vol. 50. INTRODUCTION, READER’S GUIDE, INDEXES
Vol. 51. LECTURES
The last vol­ume con­tains six­ty lec­tures intro­duc­ing and sum­ma­riz­ing the cov­ered fields: his­to­ry, poet­ry, nat­ur­al sci­ence, phi­los­o­phy, biog­ra­phy, prose fic­tion, crit­i­cism and the essay, edu­ca­tion, polit­i­cal sci­ence, dra­ma, trav­el­ogues, and reli­gion.

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Stephen Fry on Philosophy and Unbelief

in Comedy, Philosophy, Religion | July 4th, 2011

Come­di­an Stephen Fry has the clas­sic British intel­lec­tu­al voice, much like philoso­pher Bryan McGee. It turns out that he knows some­thing about phi­los­o­phy, and this clip is a short­ened ver­sion of a longer video called “The Impor­tance of Unbe­lief.”

A more gen­tle ver­sion of George Car­lin, Fry’s views appear heart­felt while par­tak­ing of seri­ous irony. He claims that in order to prop­er­ly appre­ci­ate our present lives, “even if it isn’t true, you must absolute­ly assume that there is no after­life.” Choos­ing his posi­tions to argue as much for their rhetor­i­cal audac­i­ty as any­thing else, he argues for poly­the­ism in favor of monothe­ism, and he treats the issue of the divine pres­ence in nature by ref­er­enc­ing the life cycle of a par­a­sitic worm. He seems an apt voice to add to the new athe­ist debates, at least as amus­ing as Dawkins and much more­so than Sam Har­ris. This clip is added to our col­lec­tion of 250 Cul­tur­al Icons.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Stephen Fry: What I Wish I Had Known When I Was 18

Stephen Fry Gets Ani­mat­ed about Lan­guage

Mark Lin­sen­may­er runs the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life phi­los­o­phy pod­cast and blog. He also per­forms with the Madi­son, WI band New Peo­ple.

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The “Ask Sam Harris Anything” Hour

in Philosophy, Religion | June 30th, 2011

Sam Har­ris — he wrote the best­sellers The End of Faith and Let­ter to a Chris­t­ian Nation. He’s also one-fourth of the New Athe­ist quar­tet infor­mal­ly called The Four Horse­men (where you’ll also find Richard Dawkins, Christo­pher Hitchens and Daniel Den­nett.) And he has most recent­ly argued that neu­ro­science can even­tu­al­ly answer all moral ques­tions. Sam Har­ris is very much a pub­lic intel­lec­tu­al. He’s out there and in the mix. And he’s now answer­ing ques­tions from Reddit.com users. Give Har­ris 54 min­utes and he’ll tell you how to pro­mote pub­lic ratio­nal­i­ty, why med­i­ta­tion can change your life, and much, much more …

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Christo­pher Hitchens Answers Red­dit User Ques­tions

Richard Dawkins Plays the Piano: “Earth His­to­ry in C Major”

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The Ayn Rand Guide to Romance

in Life, Philosophy | June 14th, 2011

Can Ayn Rand tell us some­thing about achiev­ing a deeply sat­is­fy­ing rela­tion­ship? It’s hard to imag­ine. She was noto­ri­ous­ly churl­ish, dumped friends and allies who did­n’t give her works pos­i­tive reviews, and cheat­ed on her hus­band with a man 24 years her junior, then even­tu­al­ly expelled the young Nathaniel Bran­den from her intel­lec­tu­al cir­cle. And heck, she even made her hus­band wear a bell on his shoe, to warn her about his com­ings and goings.

But, no mat­ter, you have to sep­a­rate the phi­los­o­phy from the per­son … or so many acolytes of flawed thinkers have argued. Right fans of John Edwards? All three of you? So here you have it, The Self­ish Path to Romance, a love man­u­al based on Ayn Rand’s Objec­tivist phi­los­o­phy. The video almost screams par­o­dy, but it’s appar­ent­ly not. You can snag a copy of the book on Ama­zon here…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ayn Rand Helped the FBI Iden­ti­fy It’s A Won­der­ful Life as Com­mu­nist Pro­pa­gan­da

In Her Final Speech, Ayn Rand Denounces Ronald Rea­gan, the Moral Major­i­ty & Anti-Choicers (1981)

Flan­nery O’Connor: Friends Don’t Let Friends Read Ayn Rand (1960)

Ayn Rand Argues That Believ­ing in God Is an Insult to Rea­son on The Phil Don­ahue Show (Cir­ca 1979)

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230 Cultural Icons: A New Collection

in Film, History, Literature, Music, Philosophy, Psychology | June 13th, 2011


Time to roll out a new media col­lec­tion — a big col­lec­tion of Cul­tur­al Icons. Here you will find great writ­ers, daz­zling film­mak­ers and musi­cians, bril­liant philoso­phers and sci­en­tists — fig­ures who have changed our cul­tur­al land­scape through­out the years. You’ll see them in video, or hear their voic­es in audio.

The list cur­rent­ly fea­tures 230 icons, all speak­ing in their own words. The col­lec­tion will inevitably grow as we add more mate­r­i­al, or as you send sug­ges­tions our way. For now, how about we whet your appetite with 10 favorites? Then you can rum­mage through the full col­lec­tion of Cul­tur­al Icons here.

(Note: Down the road, you can access this col­lec­tion by click­ing “Cul­tur­al Icons” in the top nav­i­ga­tion bar.)

Sal­vador Dali - Video – Sur­re­al­ist artist appears on “What’s My Line?” (1952)

John­ny Depp - Video – The ver­sa­tile actor reads a let­ter from Gonzo jour­nal­ist Hunter S. Thomp­son.

Anne Frank - Video – It is the only known footage of Anne Frank, author of the world’s most famous diary, and it’s now online.

Pat­ti Smith — Video — The “god­moth­er of punk” recalls her friend­ship with artist Robert Map­plethor­pe.

Quentin Taran­ti­no - Video – Pulp Fic­tion direc­tor lists his favorites films since 1992.

Leo Tol­stoy – Video – Great footage of the last days of the tow­er­ing Russ­ian nov­el­ist. 1910.

Mark Twain – Video – America’s fabled writer cap­tured on film by Thomas Edi­son in 1909.

Andy Warhol - Video – In 1979, Warhol cre­at­ed pub­lic access tele­vi­sion pro­grams. In this episode, he chats with Bian­ca Jag­ger & Steven Spiel­berg.

Tom Waits - Video – The raspy singer reads “The Laugh­ing Heart” by Charles Bukows­ki.

Vir­ginia Woolf — Audio — Record­ing comes from a 1937 BBC radio broad­cast. The talk, enti­tled “Crafts­man­ship,” was part of a series called “Words Fail Me.” The only known record­ing of her voice.

Get the rest here. Don’t miss us on Face­book and Twit­ter!

 

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10 Famous Philosophers in Words and Images

in Philosophy | June 6th, 2011

The Chron­i­cle of High­er Edu­ca­tion has post­ed a nice set of por­traits called “Gallery of Minds,” fea­tur­ing images of 10 world-famous philoso­phers, includ­ing Richard Rorty, David Chalmers, and renowned philoso­pher and art crit­ic Arthur Dan­to, who also wrote a com­pelling intro­duc­tion. Dan­to focus­es on the visu­al artistry of the series’ pho­tog­ra­ph­er Steve Pyke, a long-time staff mem­ber at the New York­er, but we found the great thinkers’ own state­ments — their answers to the “why” of their cho­sen pur­suits — equal­ly, if not more, com­pelling. Here is MIT’s fem­i­nist meta­physi­cian Sal­ly Haslinger:

Giv­en the amount of suf­fer­ing and injus­tice in the world, I flip-flop between think­ing that doing phi­los­o­phy is a com­plete lux­u­ry and that it is an absolute neces­si­ty. The idea that it is some­thing in between strikes me as a dodge.

And Robin Jesh­ion, best known for a the­o­ry of sin­gu­lar thought which she calls Cog­ni­tivism, has this to say:

Phi­los­o­phy’s dis­tin­guish­ing val­ue? For me, it resides not so much in the big ques­tions’ mul­ti­far­i­ous answers, them­selves, nor, alas, in wis­dom attained through the exact­ing process of answer­ing them, but rather in how it invari­ably reminds us how lit­tle we real­ly do know. Phi­los­o­phy is, or should be, hum­bling — and is, for this, ennobling.

Final­ly, per­haps our favorite ‘mis­sion state­ment,’ from Jer­ry Fodor, the cog­ni­tive sci­en­tist who has worked out the­o­ries on the archi­tec­ture of the mind:

To the best of my rec­ol­lec­tion, I became a philoso­pher because my par­ents want­ed me to be a lawyer. It seems to me, in ret­ro­spect, that there was much to be said for their sug­ges­tion.

via @brainpicker

Relat­ed Con­tent:

275 Cul­tur­al Icons: Great Artists, Writ­ers & Thinkers in Their Own Words

Down­load Free Cours­es from Famous Philoso­phers: From Bertrand Rus­sell to Michel Fou­cault

 

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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Leo Strauss: 15 Political Philosophy Courses Online

in Online Courses, Philosophy | May 23rd, 2011

strauss-large

In 1949, Leo Strauss, the Ger­man-Jew­ish emi­gré, land­ed at The Uni­ver­si­ty of Chica­go, where he spent decades teach­ing and writ­ing on polit­i­cal phi­los­o­phy, espe­cial­ly the polit­i­cal thought of the Ancients. Strauss’ think­ing skewed con­ser­v­a­tive, and if he was some­times con­tro­ver­sial while alive, he has become only more so in death (1973). Nowa­days he’s con­sid­ered right­ly or wrong­ly the “intel­lec­tu­al god­fa­ther of the neo-con­ser­v­a­tive polit­i­cal move­ment,” if not an “intel­lec­tu­al force behind the Bush admin­is­tra­tion’s plan to invade Iraq.” Although Strauss com­ment­ed occa­sion­al­ly on con­tem­po­rary pol­i­tics (Harper’s has more on that), he spent most of his time work­ing through major philo­soph­i­cal texts, and through his com­men­taries, devel­op­ing his own philo­soph­i­cal posi­tions, which were gen­er­al­ly hos­tile to the Enlight­en­ment project and mod­ern individualism/liberalism.

Strauss was unques­tion­ably an influ­en­tial fig­ure even if he still divides us, and now, cour­tesy of U. Chica­go, you can lis­ten to 15 of his phi­los­o­phy sem­i­nars online. They were record­ed between 1959 and 1973, and some rep­re­sen­ta­tive titles include Montesquieu’s The Spir­it of the Laws (a course that Paul Wol­fowitz took dur­ing the ear­ly 70s), Niet­zsche’s Beyond Good and Evil, Hobbes’ Leviathan, and Hegel’s The Phi­los­o­phy of His­to­ry.

More sem­i­nars will be com­ing online. For now, we have cat­a­logued all 15 exist­ing sem­i­nars in the Phi­los­o­phy sec­tion of our big col­lec­tion of 1100 Free Online Cours­es.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Wal­ter Kaufmann’s Lec­tures on Niet­zsche, Kierkegaard and Sartre (1960)

Phi­los­o­phy with John Sear­le: Three Free Cours­es

Exis­ten­tial­ism with Hubert Drey­fus: Four Free Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es

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The Existential Star Wars: Sartre Meets Darth Vader

in Film, Philosophy | May 10th, 2011

A few weeks ago we direct­ed you to a won­der­ful three-part BBC doc­u­men­tary about mod­ern phi­los­o­phy called Human, All Too Human, adding that we con­sid­ered the chap­ter on Jean-Paul Sartre the most sat­is­fy­ing of the three.

Now we give you a light-heart­ed chas­er for that doc­u­men­tary’s strong spir­its: The French philoso­pher’s teach­ings as inter­pret­ed by the sci­ence fic­tion over­lord Darth Vad­er. Per­haps more than any oth­er 20th cen­tu­ry supervil­lain, the dis­graced Jedi knight trag­i­cal­ly and per­fect­ly embod­ies the Sar­tri­an notion that “Free­dom is what you do with what has been done to you.”

For those who might con­sid­er the Jok­er a bet­ter can­di­date, we humbly sub­mit that with the Jok­er, it’s more of a Niet­zschean thing.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Down­load 90 Free Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es and Start Liv­ing the Exam­ined Life

The Phi­los­o­phy of Kierkegaard, the First Exis­ten­tial­ist Philoso­pher, Revis­it­ed in 1984 Doc­u­men­tary

Wal­ter Kaufmann’s Lec­tures on Niet­zsche, Kierkegaard and Sartre (1960)

via Roger Ebert’s Jour­nal

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly

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