Democracy Café

Anyone who has read any of my books (e.g. Six Questions of Socrates, Socrates Cafe, A Child at Heart, among others) knows that no one played more of a pivotal role in my decision to dramatically change my life in 1996 and establish Socrates Cafe philosophical inquiry gatherings the world over than the late philosopher and scholar Walter Kaufmann, longtime professor at Princeton. Kaufmann, who died at age 59, led an incredibly productive, meaningful and somewhat iconoclastic professional life. I am far from the only person whose own life has been forever altered by Kaufmann's works and deeds, imbued with a decided Socratic sensibility. Now, 37 years after Professor Kaufmann's untimely death in 1981, Dr. Stanley Corngold, Professor Emeritus of German and Comparative Literature at Princeton, has written a sweeping and majestic book -- 'Walter Kaufmann: Walter Kaufmann: Philosopher, Humanist, Heretic.' I had the honor to speak for nearly an hour with Dr. Corngold, a celebrated Kafka scholar, about his tour-d