Kaufmann was raised aLutheran.[4] At age 11, finding that he believed neither in theTrinity nor in the divinity ofJesus, he converted toJudaism.[4] Kaufmann subsequently discovered that his grandparents were allJewish.[4] Being both descended from Jews and a convert to Judaism placed Kaufmann in real danger inNazi Germany. In 1939 Kaufmann emigrated to the United States and began studying atWilliams College.[2][4]Stanley Corngold records that there he "abandoned his commitment to Jewish ritual while developing a deeply critical attitude toward all established religions."[2]
Kaufmann graduated from Williams College in 1941, then went toHarvard University, receiving anMA degree in Philosophy in 1942.[3] His studies were, however, interrupted by the war.[5] He enlisted with theUS Army Air Force, was placed at Camp Ritchie and is one of manyRitchie Boys who would go on to serve as interrogators for theMilitary Intelligence Service in Europe. Kaufmann specifically performed interrogations in Germany.[2]
Kaufmann became a citizen of the United States in 1944.[5]
In 1947 he was awarded his PhD by Harvard.[2][3] His dissertation, written in under a year, was titled "Nietzsche's Theory of Values."[2] That same year he joined the Philosophy Department at Princeton University.[3] Although he would hold visiting appointments in both the US and abroad, he would remain based at Princeton for the rest of his academic career.[5][3] His students over the years included Nietzsche scholarsFrithjof Bergmann,[6]Richard Schacht,[7]Ivan Soll[8] andAlexander Nehamas.[2]
Kaufmann wrote a good deal on theexistentialism ofSøren Kierkegaard andKarl Jaspers. Kaufmann had great admiration for Kierkegaard's passion and his insights onfreedom,anxiety, andindividualism.[11] Kaufmann wrote: "Nobody before Kierkegaard had seen so clearly that the freedom to make a fateful decision that may change our character and future breeds anxiety."[12] Although Kaufmann did not share Kierkegaard's religious outlook and was critical of hisProtestant theology, Kaufmann was nevertheless sympathetic and impressed with the depth of Kierkegaard's thinking:
I know of no other great writer in the whole nineteenth century, perhaps even in the whole of world literature, to whom I respond with less happiness and with a more profound sense that I am on trial and found wanting, unless it were Søren Kierkegaard.[13]
Kaufmann edited the anthologyExistentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre. Kaufmann dislikedMartin Heidegger's thinking, along with his unclear writing.[14]
Kaufmann is renowned for his translations and exegesis ofNietzsche, whom he saw as gravely misunderstood by English speakers, as a major earlyexistentialist, and as an unwitting precursor, in some respects, to Anglo-Americananalytic philosophy. Michael Tanner called Kaufmann's commentaries on Nietzsche "obtrusive, self-referential, and lacking insight",[15] butLlewellyn Jones wrote that Kaufmann's "fresh insights into ... Nietzsche ... can deepen the insights of every discriminating student of literature,"[16] andThe New Yorker wrote that Kaufmann "has produced what may be the definitive study of Nietzsche's ... thought—an informed, scholarly, and lustrous work."[17]
It is evident at once that Nietzsche is far superior to Kant and Hegel as a stylist; but it also seems that as a philosopher he represents a very sharp decline — and men have not been lacking who have not considered him a philosopher at all — because he had no “system.” Yet this argument is hardly cogent. Schelling and Hegel, Spinoza and Aquinas had their systems; in Kant’s and Plato’s case the word is far less applicable; and of the many important philosophers who very definitely did not have systems one need only mention Socrates and many of the pre-Socratics. Not only can one defend Nietzsche on this score — how many philosophers today have systems? — but one must add that he had strong philosophic reasons for not having a system.[18]
Kaufmann also sympathized with Nietzsche's acerbiccriticisms of Christianity. However, Kaufmann faulted much in Nietzsche, writing that "my disagreements with [Nietzsche] are legion."[19] Regarding style, Kaufmann argued that Nietzsche'sThus Spoke Zarathustra, for example, is in parts badly written, melodramatic, or verbose, yet concluded that the book "is not only a mine of ideas, but also a major work of literature and a personal triumph."[20]
Kaufmann described his ownethic and his ownphilosophy of living in his books, includingThe Faith of a Heretic (1961) andWithout Guilt and Justice: From Decidophobia to Autonomy (1973). In the former work he advocated living in accordance with what he proposed as the four cardinal virtues: "humbition" (a fusion ofhumility and ambition),love,courage, andhonesty.[21]
'Nietzsche's Admiration for Socrates",Journal of the History of Ideas, v. 9, October 1948, pp. 472–491. Earlier version: "Nietzsche's Admiration for Socrates" (Bowdoin Prize, 1947; pseud. David Dennis)
"Goethe and the History of Ideas",Journal of the History of Ideas, v. 10, October 1949, pp. 503–516.
"The Hegel Myth and Its Method",Philosophical Review v.60, No. 4 (October 1951), pp. 459–486.
Review ofNietzsche and Christian Ethics by R. Motson Thompson,Philosophical Review v. 61, no. 4 (October 1952), pp. 595–599.
"Hegel's Early Antitheological Phase",Philosophical Review v. 63, no. 1 (January 1954), pp. 3–18.
"Nietzsche and Rilke",Kenyon Review, vol. 17, no. 1, 1955, pp. 1–22.
“Kierkegaard.”The Kenyon Review, vol. 18, no. 2, 1956, pp. 182–211.
"Jaspers' Relation to Nietzsche", in Paul Schilpps, ed.,The Philosophy of Karl Jaspers (New York: Tudor, 1957), pp. 407–436.
"The Faith of a Heretic",Harper's Magazine, February 1959, pp. 33–39. Reprinted inExistentialism, Religion, and Death (New York: New American Library, 1976).
"Existentialism and Death",Chicago Review, XIII, 1959, pp. 73–93 also in Herman Feifel (ed.)The Meaning of Death, New York: The Blakiston Division / McGraw-Hill, 1959, Revised version printed inExistentialism, Religion, and Death (New York: New American Library, 1976).
Preface toEurope and the Jews: The Pressure of Christendom on the People of Israel for 1900 Years, 2d ed, by Malcolm Hay. Boston: Beacon Press, 1961.
"A Philosopher's View", inEthics and Business: Three Lectures. University Park, Pa., 1962, pp. 35–54. Originally presented at a seminar sponsored by the College of Business Administration of the Pennsylvania State University on March 19, 1962.
"Nietzsche Between Homer and Sartre: Five Treatments of the Orestes Story",Revue Internationale de Philosophie v. 18, 1964, pp. 50–73.
"Buber's Religious Significance", fromThe Philosophy of Martin Buber, ed. P. A. Schilpp and Maurice Friedman (London: Cambridge University Press, 1967) Reprinted inExistentialism, Religion, and Death (New York: New American Library, 1976).
"The Reception of Existentialism in the United States",Midway, vol. 9 (1) (Summer 1968), pp. 97–126. Reprinted inExistentialism, Religion, and Death (New York: New American Library, 1976).
Foreword toFrau Lou: Nietzsche's Wayward Disciple, by Rudolph Binion. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1969.
Introductory essay,AlienationRichard Schacht, Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1970
"The Future of Jewish Identity",The Jerusalem Post Magazine August 1, 1969, pp. 607. Reprinted inCongressional Bi-Weekly, April 3, 1970; inConservative Judaism, Summer 1970; inNew Theology no. 9, 1972, pp. 41–58, and inExistentialism, Religion, and Death (New York: New American Library, 1976.)
Foreword toAn Introduction to Hegel's Metaphysics, byIvan Soll. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1969.
"Beyond Black and White",Midway, v. 10(3) (Winter 1970), pp. 49–79. AlsoSurvey no. 73 (Autumn 1969), pp. 22–46. Reprinted inExistentialism, Religion, and Death (New York: New American Library, 1976).
"Hegel's Ideas about Tragedy" inNew Studies in Hegel's Philosophy, ed.Warren E. Steinkraus (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1971), pp. 201–220.
"The Death of God and the Revaluation", in Robert Solomon, ed., Nietzsche: A Collection of Critical Essays (New York: Anchor Press, 1973), pp. 9–28.
"The Discovery of the Will to Power", in Robert Solomon, ed.,Nietzsche: A Collection of Critical Essays (New York: Anchor Press, 1973), pp. 226–242.
Foreword inTruth and Value in Nietzsche: A Study of His Metaethics and Epistemology by John T. Wilcox. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1974
"Nietzsche and Existentialism",Symposium: A Quarterly Journal in Modern Foreign Literatures, v. 28(1) (Spring 1974), pp. 7–16. Reprinted inExistentialism, Religion, and Death (New York: New American Library, 1976).
"Hegel's Conception of Phenomenology" inPhenomenology and Philosophical Understanding, Edo Pivcevič, ed., pp. 211–230 (1975).
"A Preface to Kierkegaard", in Søren Kierkegaard,The Present Age and Of the Difference Between a Genius and an Apostle, trans. Alexander Dru, Harper Torchbooks, pp. 9–29. Reprinted inExistentialism, Religion, and Death (New York: New American Library, 1976).
"On Death and Lying", Reprinted inExistentialism, Religion, and Death (New York: New American Library, 1976).
"Letter on Nietzsche",Times Literary Supplement 1978 (3960): 203.
"Buber's Failures and Triumph",Revue Internationale de Philosophie v. 32, 1978, pp. 441–459.
"Buber: Of His Failures and Triumph",Encounter 52(5): 31–38 1979.
^Kaufmann, Walter Arnold (1963).The Faith of a Heretic. Garden City: Doubleday. pp. 304–305,304–329.OL13574757M.My own ethic is not absolute but a morality of openness. It is not a morality of rules but an ethic of virtues... The first lacks any single name but is a fusion of humility and aspiration. Humility consists in realizing one's stark limitations and remembering that one may be wrong. But humility fused with smugness, with complacency, with resignation is no virtue to my mind. What I praise is not the meekness that squats in the dust, content to be lowly, eager not to stand out, but humility winged by ambition. There is no teacher of humility like great ambition. Petty aspirations can be satisfied and may be hostile to humility. Hence, ambition and humility are not two virtues: taken separately, they are not admirable. Fused, they represent the first cardinal virtue. Since there is no name for it we shall have to coin one-at the risk of sounding humorous: humbition.
^British edition entitledThe Owl and the Nightingale (1960)
^Pacifica Tape Library (1971).Pacifica Programs Catalog.Pacifica Radio Archives. p. 27.Walter Kaufmann, with the assistance of Dennis O'Brian, reads three satanic excerpts from his book "Critique of Religion and Philosophy." The sections are titled "Satan and a Theologian," "Satan and a Christian," and "Satan and an Atheist." 77 min.
Pickus, David. "The Walter Kaufmann Myth: A Study in Academic Judgment",Nietzsche-Studien 32 (2003), 226–58.
Ratner-Rosenhagen, Jennifer. "'Dionysian Enlightenment': Walter Kaufmann'sNietzsche in Historical Perspective",Modern Intellectual History 3 (2006), 239–269.
Sokel, Walter. "Political Uses and Abuses of Nietzsche in Walter Kaufmann's Image of Nietzsche",Nietzsche-Studien 12 (1983), 436–42.
