A Guide to Philosophy in Six Hours and Fifteen Minutes (10 page)

*
Gombrowicz uses the term
numen
, hereafter translated as
noumenon, –a
.
[Translator’s note.]

†
Psina, Gombrowicz’s little dog.

*
In this passage,
corpusculaire
and
ondulatoire
, respectively, refer to “particles” and “waves,” properties of light in physics.
[Translator’s note.]

*
Stefan Zeromski (1864–1925), Polish novelist and dramatist.

*
Isa Neyman was a friend of Gombrowicz’s who sometimes attended his philosophy lectures.

*
Kant’s hometown, Königsberg (today, Kaliningrad, Russia), was claimed by the Poles, who called it Królewiec.
Schopenhauer was from Danzig, which was also claimed by the Poles under the name of Gdánsk.
Nietzsche, as well, even though born in Röcken in Prussian Saxony, was deluded by the idea, apparently unfounded, that his ancestors were Polish noblemen (“I am a pure-blooded Polish gentleman,”
Ecce Homo
, 1888).

*
Gombrowicz’s wife, Rita, is Canadian.

Table of Contents

A Guide to Philosophy in Six Hours and Fifteen Minutes

First Lesson

Kant 1724–1804

Second Lesson

Kant: The Categories

Third Lesson

Kant

Fourth Lesson

Schopenhauer

Fifth Lesson

Sixth Lesson

Hegel

Hegel/KierkegaardKierkegaard’s Attack

Existentialism

Existentialism

Freedom in Sartre

The View of Others

Heidegger

Existentialism (Heidegger)

Marx 1818–1883

Revolution

Realization of Marxism

Marxism

Nietzsche

About the author