Well, yes, but German philosophy is famously obscurantist. Like, “German philosophy” is the paradigmatic example of “continental philosophy which is impenetrable and which, one strongly suspects, is barely saying anything at all even once you get past all the layers of bizarre formulations and idiosyncratic terminology”. So it’s no surprise that you’d be disappointed!
Well, I was hoping that given the combination of both widespread popularity and reputation for subtlety/nuance/ineffability (and insistence by at least some of my friends and acquaintances who had read the english translations and got lots of value out of them) that this would be one domain where I would be exposed to a particularly high gradient of value, so it was a surprise to me!
Like, the thing that was most surprising to me is that I did get value out of the english translations I read. Like, I think a bunch of the things were reasonably useful, and not just nonsense, but extracting that usefulness was substantially easier in the english version than the german version.
Well, I was hoping that given the combination of both widespread popularity and reputation for subtlety/nuance/ineffability (and insistence by at least some of my friends and acquaintances who had read the english translations and got lots of value out of them) that this would be one domain where I would be exposed to a particularly high gradient of value, so it was a surprise to me!
Like, the thing that was most surprising to me is that I did get value out of the english translations I read. Like, I think a bunch of the things were reasonably useful, and not just nonsense, but extracting that usefulness was substantially easier in the english version than the german version.