Image via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

Wal­ter Kauf­mann spent 33 years (1947–1980) teach­ing phi­los­o­phy at Prince­ton. And more than any­one else, Kauf­mann intro­duced Niet­zsche’s phi­los­o­phy to the Eng­lish-speak­ing world and made it pos­si­ble to take Niet­zsche seri­ous­ly as a thinker – some­thing there was­n’t always room to do in Amer­i­can intel­lec­tu­al cir­cles.

With­out sim­pli­fy­ing things too much, Kauf­mann saw Niet­zsche as some­thing of an ear­ly exis­ten­tial­ist, which brings us to these vin­tage lec­tures record­ed in 1960 (right around the time that Kauf­mann, a Ger­man-born con­vert to Judaism, also became a nat­u­ral­ized Amer­i­can cit­i­zen). The three lec­tures offer a short primer on exis­ten­tial­ism and the mod­ern crises philoso­phers grap­pled with. Kierkegaard and the Cri­sis in Reli­gion begins the series, fol­lowed by Niet­zsche and the Cri­sis in Phi­los­o­phy and Sartre and the Cri­sis in Moral­i­ty. You can hear them right below:

Kierkegaard and the Cri­sis in Reli­gion

Niet­zsche and the Cri­sis in Phi­los­o­phy

Sartre and the Cri­sis in Moral­i­ty

Kauf­man­n’s talks are now list­ed in the Phi­los­o­phy sec­tion of our col­lec­tion of 1100 Free Online Cours­es. There you will also find cours­es pre­sent­ed by oth­er major fig­ures, includ­ing John Sear­le, Hubert Drey­fus, and Michael Sandel.

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free Online Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es, part of our col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties

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

Lovers and Philoso­phers — Jean-Paul Sartre & Simone de Beau­voir Togeth­er in 1967

The Phi­los­o­phy of Niet­zsche: An Intro­duc­tion by Alain de Bot­ton

Image by  Jörg Noller, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

All Things Shin­ing: Read­ing the West­ern Clas­sics to Find Mean­ing in a Sec­u­lar Age – This new book by Hubert Drey­fus (UC Berke­ley) and Sean Dor­rance Kel­ly (Har­vard) hit the book­shelves this week, and it cur­rent­ly ranks #56 on Ama­zon’s Top 100 List. Quite a coup for seri­ous think­ing.

Pro­fes­sor Drey­fus has taught many pop­u­lar exis­ten­tial­ism and phe­nom­e­nol­o­gy cours­es at UC Berke­ley, some of which laid the foun­da­tion for this book. Hap­pi­ly, you can find Drey­fus’ phi­los­o­phy cours­es online. And, even bet­ter, you can down­load them for free. The cours­es are list­ed below, and also in the Phi­los­o­phy sec­tion of our big col­lec­tion of Free Online Cours­es.

• Exis­ten­tial­ism in Lit­er­a­ture & Film - Stream – Hubert Drey­fus, UC Berke­ley
• Hei­deg­ger – Stream — Hubert Drey­fus, UC Berke­ley
• Heidegger’s Being & Time – Stream — Hubert Drey­fus, UC Berke­ley
• Hei­deg­ger’s Being and Time, Divi­sion II — Free Online Audio — Hubert Drey­fus, UC Berke­ley
• Man, God, and Soci­ety in West­ern Lit­er­a­ture — Free Online Audio – Hubert Drey­fus, UC Berke­ley

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Phi­los­o­phy with John Sear­le: Three Free Cours­es

What’s the Right Thing to Do?: Michael Sandel’s Pop­u­lar Har­vard Course Now Online