Time of the Magicians
Wittgenstein, Benjamin, Cassirer, Heidegger, and the Decade that Reinvented Philosophy
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Narrated by:
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Rhett Samuel Price
About this listen
“[A] fascinating and accessible account.... In his entertaining book, Mr. Eilenberger shows that his magicians’ thoughts are still worth collecting, even if, with hindsight, we can see that some performed too many intellectual conjuring tricks.” (Wall Street Journal)
A grand narrative of the intertwining lives of Walter Benjamin, Martin Heidegger, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Ernst Cassirer, major philosophers whose ideas shaped the 20th century
The year is 1919. The horror of the First World War is fresh for the protagonists of Time of the Magicians, each of whom finds himself at a crucial juncture. Benjamin is trying to flee his overbearing father and floundering in his academic career, living hand to mouth as a critic. Wittgenstein, by contrast, has dramatically decided to divest himself of the monumental fortune he stands to inherit, in search of spiritual clarity. Meanwhile, Heidegger, having managed to avoid combat in war by serving as a meteorologist, is carefully cultivating his career. Finally, Cassirer is working furiously on the margins of academia, applying himself to his writing and the possibility of a career at Hamburg University.
The stage is set for a great intellectual drama, which will unfold across the next decade. The lives and ideas of this extraordinary philosophical quartet will converge as they become world historical figures. But as the Second World War looms on the horizon, their fates will be very different.
©2020 Wolfram Eilenberger (P)2020 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“[T]his comprehensive and well-informed treatment deserves credit for bringing four major philosophers down from the heights of abstraction.” (Publishers Weekly)
"[Eilenberger] patiently draws these four intellectual magi out of the shadows of their writings, which often tend toward complete opacity. The result is not a book of academic philosophy but rather an intellectual history that largely succeeds in bringing philosophy to life." (The New York Times Book Review)
"Wolfram Eilenberger’s survey of high thoughts and low politics among German-language philosophers of the 1920s is a salutary tale for today, not just a gripping panorama of century-old dreams and feuds.... Eilenberger shows flair in knitting complex ideas into the fabric of his sages’ lives and times." (The Economist)
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Kundera brilliantly examines the work of such important and diverse figures as Rabelais, Cervantes, Sterne, Diderot, Flaubert, Tolstoy, and Musil. He is especially penetrating on Hermann Broch, and his exploration of the world of Kafka's novels vividly reveals the comic terror of Kafka's bureaucratized universe. Kundera's discussion of his own work includes his views on the role of historical events in fiction, the meaning of action, and the creation of character in the postpsychological novel.
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Informative and Inspiring
- By Mo on 11-27-21
By: Milan Kundera, and others
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Secular Buddhism
- Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World
- By: Stephen Batchelor
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 8 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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As the practice of mindfulness permeates mainstream western culture, more and more people are engaging in a traditional form of Buddhist meditation. However, many of these people have little interest in the religious aspects of Buddhism, and the practice occurs within secular contexts such as hospitals, schools, and the workplace. Is it possible to recover from the Buddhist teachings a vision of human flourishing that is secular rather than religious without compromising the integrity of the tradition?
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Good, but repetition of old material
- By Ludwig on 02-25-18
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The Courage to Create
- By: Rollo May
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 4 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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What if imagination and art are not, as many of us might think, the frosting on life but the fountainhead of human experience? What if our logic and science derive from art forms rather than the other way around? In this trenchant volume, Rollo May helps all of us find those creative impulses that, once liberated, offer new possibilities for achievement. A renowned therapist and inspiring guide, Dr. May draws on his experience to show how we can break out of old patterns in our lives.
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May takes on the Creative Act
- By Lowball on 01-16-19
By: Rollo May
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Deep Thought
- 42 Fantastic Quotes That Define Philosphy
- By: Gary Cox
- Narrated by: Richard Mitchley
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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As Douglas Adams points out, if there is no final answer to the question "what is the meaning of life?" 42 is as good or bad an answer as any other. Indeed, 42 quotes might be even better! Gary Cox guides us through 42 of the most misunderstood, misquoted, provocative, and significant quotes in the history of philosophy, providing witty and compelling commentary along the way.
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Best philosophy intro ever
- By Fabian on 04-14-18
By: Gary Cox
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Modern Man in Search of a Soul
- By: Carl Jung
- Narrated by: Christopher Prince
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
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Modern Man in Search of a Soul is the classic introduction to the thought of Carl Jung. Along with Freud and Adler, Jung was one of the chief founders of modern psychiatry. In this book, Jung examines some of the most contested and crucial areas in the field of analytical psychology: dream analysis, the primitive unconscious, and the relationship between psychology and religion.
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Could have almost been an automated text reader
- By Chicken Love on 04-24-15
By: Carl Jung
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Irrationality
- A History of the Dark Side of Reason
- By: Justin E. H. Smith
- Narrated by: Jeff Harding
- Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins
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Discovering that reason is the defining feature of our species, we named ourselves the “rational animal”. But is this flattering story itself rational? In this sweeping account of irrationality from antiquity to today - from the fifth-century BC murder of Hippasus for revealing the existence of irrational numbers to the rise of Twitter mobs and the election of Donald Trump - Justin Smith says the evidence suggests the opposite.
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A good brain workout
- By ThomasC on 04-09-19
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The Hedgehog and the Fox (Second Edition)
- An Essay on Tolstoy's View of History
- By: Isaiah Berlin, Henry Hardy - editor, Michael Ignatieff - foreword
- Narrated by: Peter Kenny
- Length: 2 hrs and 37 mins
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"The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing." This ancient Greek aphorism, preserved in a fragment from the poet Archilochus, describes the central thesis of Isaiah Berlin's masterly essay on Leo Tolstoy and the philosophy of history, the subject of the epilogue to War and Peace. Although there have been many interpretations of the adage, Berlin uses it to mark a fundamental distinction between human beings who are fascinated by the infinite variety of things and those who relate everything to a central, all-embracing system.
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The Fox Who Tried To Be A Hedgehog
- By Rich S. on 12-14-21
By: Isaiah Berlin, and others
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The Mind That Is Catholic
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- Narrated by: Tim Lundeen
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James V. Schall is a treasure of the Catholic intellectual tradition. A prolific author and essayist, Schall readily connects with his readers on sundry topics from war to friendship, philosophy, politics, and to ordinary everyday living. In his newest work, The Mind That Is Catholic, he presents a retrospective collection of his academic and literary essays written in the past 50 years.
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Profound Insights
- By Considerable on 10-17-14
By: James V. Schall
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C. S. Lewis - A Life
- Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet
- By: Alister E. McGrath
- Narrated by: Robin Sachs
- Length: 13 hrs and 57 mins
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In honor of the 50th anniversary of C. S. Lewis' death, celebrated Oxford don Dr. Alister McGrath presents us with a compelling and definitive portrait of the life of C. S. Lewis, the author of the well-known Narnia series. For more than half a century, C. S. Lewis’ Narnia series has captured the imaginations of millions. In C. S. Lewis - A Life, Dr. Alister McGrath recounts the unlikely path of this Oxford don, who spent his days teaching English literature to the brightest students in the world and his spare time writing.
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Awakening my curiosity and desire to read more!
- By Pearl Glacier on 03-13-13
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Philosophy: 100 Essential Thinkers
- The Ideas That Have Shaped Our World
- By: Philip Stokes
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
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This engaging and accessible book invites the listener to explore the questions and arguments of philosophy through the work of 100 of the greatest thinkers within the Western intellectual tradition - covering philosophical, scientific, political, and religious thought over a period of 2500 years.
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Unpretentious, honest, with a big picture
- By Mike S. on 05-29-17
By: Philip Stokes
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At the Existentialist Café
- Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails
- By: Sarah Bakewell
- Narrated by: Antonia Beamish
- Length: 14 hrs and 39 mins
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Paris, 1933: Three contemporaries meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse. They are the young Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and longtime friend Raymond Aron, a fellow philosopher who raves to them about a new conceptual framework from Berlin called phenomenology. "You see," he says, "if you are a phenomenologist, you can talk about this cocktail and make philosophy out of it!"
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Consistent look at incoherent philosophy
- By Gary on 06-19-16
By: Sarah Bakewell
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There Is a God
- How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind
- By: Antony Flew, Roy Abraham Varghese - contributor
- Narrated by: Jonathan Cowley
- Length: 5 hrs and 41 mins
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In There Is a God, one of the world's preeminent atheists discloses how his commitment to "follow the argument wherever it leads" led him to a belief in God as Creator. This is a compelling and refreshingly open-minded argument that will forever change the atheism debate.
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Disappointing
- By Rebekah Hull on 08-03-21
By: Antony Flew, and others
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The Chief Washington Correspondent for the New York Times presents a richly detailed, news-breaking, and conversation-changing look at the unprecedented political fight to fill the Supreme Court seat made vacant by Antonin Scalia’s death - using it to explain the paralyzing and all but irreversible dysfunction across all three branches in the nation’s capital.
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Who Ate the First Oyster?
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Who wore the first pants? Who painted the first masterpiece? Who first rode the horse? Who invented soap? This madcap adventure across ancient history uses everything from modern genetics to archaeology to uncover the geniuses behind these and other world-changing innovations. With a sharp sense of humor and boundless enthusiasm for the wonders of our ancient ancestors, Who Ate the First Oyster? profiles the perpetrators of the greatest firsts and catastrophes of prehistory.
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What listeners say about Time of the Magicians
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- fvardy
- 07-12-23
Comically awful narration.
The level of ignorance and ineptness exhibited by the narrator is one for the ages. If I were the author, I’d sue the producer for defamation. You could not make this up. Only in America…
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- Han Zuilhof
- 03-11-24
Incoherent collection of 4 philosophers
Trying to combine the thoughts of 4 rather diverging thinkers is a Herculean task. It certainly proved too much for the author: there is only some faint attempt by linking sentences at the end of chapter to shift from one philosopher to another, and apart from them living at the same time, there was no reason to place these descriptions in one book.
There is also quite some divergence is style: Benjamin is treated with lots of (rather uninteresting) personal details - his life lacks systemization, his works as well, and the author is unable to explain why his works are so important that he deserves to be treated on the same level also Heidegger, Wittgenstein and Cassirer.
In addition, Heidegger is treated with too much reverence, expressed for one thing by not translating some of his German, as if this cannot be expressed properly in English. So the mumbo-jumbo of Dasein & Angst is repeated as if it was Arabic in the Quran or some holy text.
The descriptions of the thoughts of Wittgenstein and Cassirer are better - for me that of Cassirer taught me a lot. Also that he is simply not half as important as W and H, and thus: worthy to be treated in same level?! In these times, Husserl, Russell, members of the Wiener Kreiss were all highly active - any of them could have raised the level of this book.
In short: perhaps nice for some superficial biographical details (about the love live of some of these men), but if that is not your interest, then you’re better off with some other philosophical biographies.
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- TFC323
- 05-24-21
dense content, terrible narration
the narrator was almost comically bad, and the pronunciation basically random, in every one of the languages encountered
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4 people found this helpful
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- sly
- 01-19-22
Excellent book, appalling narrator
Excellent content, appalling narrator. Very disappointed. It is worse than text to speech. Much of the meaning is lost due to his total lack intonation.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Jennifer
- 02-06-23
Detailed exploration of the decade
Fair treatment, detailed, and insightful. Knowing this biography gives clearer insight into their philosophies. Can be a bit high-minded at times for the non-specialist.
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- chetyarbrough.blog
- 08-20-23
WAR
"Time of the Magicians" is particularly interesting because it tells the stories of four philosophers after WWI when Hitler is beginning his rise to power. The primary focus of "Time of the Magicians" is on Ludwig Wittgenstein and Martin Heidegger. Eisenberger's book is a fascinating glimpse into the lives of storied philosophers and the impact on their understanding of life which appears based on their experience in the "Great War" and the buildup to WWII. War is hell by any definition, but it gave philosophers focus for understanding the meaning of life. Sadly, that understanding did not change the perfidy of Martin Heidegger or the future course of history.
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- M. R. James
- 09-07-20
A brilliant, entertaining, enlightening book
Wow, such a great pleasure to listen to this audible book, I had to restrict myself to only one hour per day, to stretch it out and fully digest this very enjoyable and dense book. I was not very conversant with philosophy prior to reading this book, but I am now inspired to continue to explore philosophical ideas. This book seamlessly weaves biographical stories of the four philosophers with their philosophies and the cultural milieu of the time. It is a deep, educational and very satisfying book.
The translation seemed very fluid, with no awkward phrases that are so common in other German books in translation.
The narration was close to perfect and significantly added to my understanding of the book. I’m not at all sure I would have been able to read it in print, but the narration kept me fascinated. The narrator does mispronounce some German and other foreign words, but his narration is so good, I could overlook them
I loved it!
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7 people found this helpful
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- The Masked Reviewer
- 04-29-21
Face cross-examination of 4 representative voices
This is a quality production in every aspect, covering one of if not THE most significant moment of modern philosophy. Highly recommended work.
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- Anyone
- 08-20-23
Magnificent
A biography that also serves as a philosophy textbook that is accessible to the mid level philosophy student. It really opens up these philosophers and brings them into context in the presentation with our own world of philosophy today. Also, confirms all of my distaste for Heidegger and gave me a new view into Wittgenstein. Cassirer is someone I'm now much more interested in reading in depth.
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- Jan Goericke
- 10-11-20
Narrator cannot read German
This is an awesome book! I really liked how history and philosophy were interwoven in the story. The narrator was excellent in English, but his German reading was unintelligible even for a native German speaker.
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12 people found this helpful