3 comments about On Popper (Wadsworth Philosophers Series).

1. Karl Popper, simply put, is one of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth centruy. Even though Popper's writings are clearly written and accessible, Popper is also one of the easiest to misunderstand.

   Dr. Notturno's book is one of the best intro's to the world of Popper's writings that there is. First, his book is extraordinarily conversational and easy to understand. Second, Dr. Notturno has an excellent working knowledge of Popper's philosophy of critical rationalism and takes the reader step by step through Popper's thought from the ground up - first, Popper's anti-justificationism, then, conjecture and refutation, World 3, the aim of science, leading to Popper's social philosophy of piecemeal engineering and the open society.

   What really makes this book stand out though (for beginners and professionals alike) is that Notturno, since he is so well versed, keeps in mind how and why Popper's philosophy has been mis-understood in the past. Consequently, he is mindful to explain in a way that the reader can avoid misunderstanding Popper, say, as a relativist, or an advocaator of psychologism.

   As an example, most books start by focusing on Poppper's theory of conjecture and refutation or falsifiability WITHOUT first explaining how Popper gets there by way of anti-justificationism. This leads to many mistakes including the inclination to misread Popper's views by either labeling him as a skeptic or, in the opposite direction, as a logical positivist type (that Popper himself couldn't stand).

   Of course, all of this is making the book sound complex or unacessible when nothing could be further from the truth. I've read most of Popper's writings and several other 'intro' books. Dr. Notturno's is certainly one of the best AND one of the easiest to read. If you want to find out about Popper's extraordinary philosophy, read this book. As a next step, read Popper's own book "Conjectures and Refutations".




2. I fully agree with the review by Mr. Currie. If you have any interest in (the philosophy of) science and society --and as a modern citizen you should-- then this is a must read.
   
   I have read most of the works by Karl Popper, and I have been impressed by Popper's constant effort to be clear and complete when expressing his thoughts. At thousands of pages, this is a hefty read and certainly not something I would lightly recommend.
   
   Notturno's summary is outstanding. In only 100 pages of text, Notturno has managed to present a well-structured overview of Popper's entire line of reasoning. It covers not only the main points of view, but also how they relate to each other, and more importantly, how they relate and react to the ideas of others. There are no distracting diversions. All the text is to-the-point and direct. It is hard to believe that Notturno succeeded, but he did.
   
   I would like to emphasize in particular the attention paid to the Open Society (for the benefit of individual freedom) and its strained relationship to Democracy (a form of government where a change of leaders does not require violence). If you sometimes distrust or lose faith in Democracy, then Popper's notion of an Open Society could be what you have in mind. Reading the last four chapters of Notturno's "On Popper" will give you a better way of formulating your concerns and --if you are politically active-- working toward improvements, by changing the opinion of others.



3. This is a great introduction to the work of Karl Popper from a writer who clearly is very familiar with both Popper's personal life and intellectual contributions. The small book outlines nearly all of the books Popper published --- the chapters are named after Popper's books.
   
   The reader is introduced to Popper's famous falsifiable criterion as well as the more general critical rationalist program. The author also defines Popper's understanding of knowledge, dividing it into 3 separate worlds, much like Plato and Frege, but with important differences. This theory is then applied to Popper's conception of evolution and human consciousness. Perhaps most interesting, the latter part of the book discusses Popper's political philosophy. While I found this section immensely enjoyable, I also found it problematic. I think the distinction between utopian and piecemeal engineering is more complicated than Popper makes it out to be. How are we to discern a true piecemeal engineer from a false one? It seems to me that we would always run into the problem of encountering wolves clad in piecemeal clothing. While we may do all we can to encourage critical debate and experimentation, any government plan requires regulatory action. And successful action necessitates further government expansion and power making possible Popper's great fear --- dictatorship.
   
   To summarize, this book is very informative and enjoyable. Several themes are repeated throughout the book. However, I think the most important would be the emphasis on human fallibility. This has incredibly important implications for the nature of truth and the proper aim of science. One can begin to see why the philosophy of science has started to move in more relativist (and nihilist) directions.
   
   ** I am also reading other books by similar thinkers from this series. Expect reviews on Quine, Kuhn and Rorty shortly.

2 comments about John Stuart Mill: A Biography.

1. From the view of philosophy departments, Mill is frequently read as as figure in the line of traditional empiricists stretching from Locke to Russell. In that context, some of his teachings, such as the quality of pleasure and the primacy of social good seem like, well, mistakes. In fact, that's how it was presented to me in school and I'm afraid I may have passed that view on. I always wondered how a guy so smart could be so dumb. By bringing in the French connection (and Mill's intellectual environment in general), Capaldi presents the complete thinker. That's a service. Of course, given their format, no title in this series from Cambridge can be either a full scale biography or a full scale commentary.



2. Contemporary analytic philosophers tend to present a rather skewed view of Mill, ignoring the larger textual and personal context of his work. Capaldi's book goes a long way to correcting these errors.
   
   For instance, Capaldi provides strong reasons to think that Utilitarianism should be read in light of On Liberty, not vice versa, as contemporary textbooks tend to present Mill. In addition, Capaldi provides an in-depth examination of Mill's intellectual growth. He starts with Mill's early education and exposure to the philosophical radicalism of his father and Jeremy Bentham, and describes how Mill spent a large part of his life struggling to keep what he believed was good about their hedonistic utilitarianism while rejecting its inadequacies. Capaldi shows us how the style of education Mill received permanently influences Mill's manner of thinking. Capaldi demonstrates how Mill is essentially a dialectical thinker attempting to synthesize Romantic deontology with its emphasis on autonomous self-development, with empiricist ethical methodology with its emphasis on pleasure and associationist human psychology. At the same time, Capaldi illuminates the precise ways that figures like Carlyle, Hegel, Comte, Coleridge, and of course Harriot Taylor influenced Mill. Capaldi helps us learn how to read Mill, based on who Mill's audience was and the purpose of his various texts. One's view of Utilitarianism, for instance, will be radically changed in light of Capaldi's biography. This text, taken as the definitive statement of Mill's theory by most contemporary philosophers, emerges as a rather restrained attempt to defend a general class of philosophies, will Mill's own beliefs quite hidden under the surface.
   
   The picture of Mill that emerges is that of a powerful mind with continually evolving ideas. For the typical philosopher who has read at most a few of Mill's works, this book is very valuable indeed.
   
   As an aside, by way of illustrating what the reputation of Capaldi's intellectual biography is, let me relate the following. I recently had a paper defending a thesis of Mill's accepted for publication in a major philosophy journal. The reviewer asked me to make some revisions in light of this work. This book is quickly becoming the authoritative source on John Stuart Mill. In comparing Capaldi's work with that of others who have written on Mill, one gets the feeling that Capaldi is the only one taking Mill--and intellectual history--seriously.
   
   As such, I highly recommend that any philosopher interested in ethics or the history of philosophy read this.

No comments about Rousseau as Author: Consecrating One's Life to the Truth.

5 comments about I Am Alive and You Are Dead: The Strange Life and Times of Philip K. Dick.

1. Overall, this is a nice work, but it seems to be an interpretive biography, with emphasis on interpretive.
   Some may love it, depending on what kind of biography one is looking for. I would describe Emmanuel Carrere's PKD bio as melodramatic.
   
   This is the first PKD bio I've read. Emmanuel Carrere uses PKD's books as the timeline, without much emphasis on years, which can be frustrating to some (like me). Also the author's style is somewhat flowery and heavyhanded. I almost stopped reading it in the beginning because I wanted something more straight forward.
   
   The kicker is, PKD's life is so interesting to me, I got caught up in it and eventually appreciated Emmanuel Carrere's style.
   The book is appropriately titled, A Journey into the Mind of Philip K. Dick. Emmanuel Carrere was looking for motivation, not just describing events.
   
   Fortunately there are other PKD bios, which I intend to read.



2. This book is not just a biography of Philip K. Dick, famous science fiction writer; the movies Blade Runner, Total Recall and Minority Report are based on his stories. It is also an attempt to find out what made him tick, to get inside his mind. And that is a strange place to be.
   
   Dick was born in 1928, near Berkeley, California, half of a set of twins. Evidently, his mother knew little or nothing about child rearing, because Jane, his twin, died at 6 weeks of age, possibly of starvation. Her death affected Dick for his entire life.
   
   He was a big lover of classical music, and a voracious reader, especially of psychology, philosophy, and later in his life, religion. Dick never achieved his dream of becoming a "serious" novelist, though not for lack of effort. Writing science fiction simply paid the bills, until he became successful at it.
   
   His first wife was a Communist sympathizer (having an FBI file in 1950s Berkeley was practically a badge of honor), he got his second wife sent to a mental hospital, and his third wife left him, and took their young daughter, when he objected to her getting a job outside the home. Dick had a fear of being alone. Dick was a paranoid agoraphobic who was subject to panic attacks. He was, shall we say, well acquainted with the world of prescription drugs, taking them for all sorts of physical and mental ailments. On speed, he could write a novel in two weeks, without sleeping, though he knew that he would physically pay for it later. In later years, he was perceived as some sort of LSD guru, even though he took it only once. There were a couple of stints in drug rehab.
   
   As a youngster, during one of his rare trips to a movie theater, Dick was suddenly convinced that nothing existed outside the theater. The four walls and the pictures on the screen were the sum total of reality. Another time, he wondered if he was really alive, or if he was simply an android who was programmed with false memories so that he would think that he was alive. In later years, Dick turned a couple of innocent fan letters from Eastern Europe into a plot to get him behind the Iron Curtain, and keep him there.
   
   Anyone who has ever read one of Dick's novels, or seen one of the movies based on his stories, needs to read this book. For those not familiar with Philip Dick, read this as a look into the mind of a very strange person.



3. I Am Alive and You are Dead by Emmanuel Carrere has been on my books to read list for awhile. I have a weakness for biographies and autobiographies of writers, and if it's a writer who I all but worship as a god, well, all the better.
   
   Philip K. Dick is one of those writers who, once I discovered all those years ago with Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, felt compelled to read every book I could get my hands on. There are a few here and there that I have missed, but I have read the vast majority of Dick's works, and perhaps none was more haunting than Valis, particularly the author's introduction to the novel. Not having any use for religion myself, I felt a bit betrayed that a writer I idolized could have written something so strangely spiritual. It seemed like it had to be all a joke. I know exactly how those French fans felt at that science fiction conference,Carrere describes in I Am Alive and You are Dead because I have been there. If anything, though, it was Valis that made me want to read more about the life of Philip K. Dick.
   
   Carrere calls the biography he's written "a peculiar book," and says he has attempted to portrary Dick from the "inside." I can't say whether this is the result, but the book chronicles Dick's life with an empathy that seems born of a true fan, who wants to understand this writer and share his story with the world.
   
   He tells the story of Dick's decent into madness with honesty, and yet avoids passing judgment. It is a tragic story and a dark story, all the more disturbing because it is a true story and not a work of fiction.
   
   I have seen what madness can do to a person firsthand, and I'm always the last person to classify what others call crazy as insanity. Sure it sounds crazy that Jesus could appear in some girl's toilet bowl, but then millions of people go off to church each Sunday, many of them believing in things that look a whole hell of a lot like insanity - a virgin that gives birth to a semi-divine child, a person turning into a pillar of salt, a dead person disappearing from a tomb. When it comes right down to it, The Bible is full of as much weirdness as say, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. I appreciated the fact that Carrere never tried to paint a caricatureof Dick, but presented the man as he was, and showed the way he struggled to understand the seeming insanity taking over his life.
   
   Carrere also does his best to link the different epochs in Dick's life with the books he was writing at that time. He doesn't cover all his novels, but a fair number. The result is that the reader can see the inspirations behind some of the themes, and in some cases the outright autobiographical nature of the works.
   
   I have read no other biographies of Dick's life to date, and so, have nothing to compare this book with, but found it a solid and well-rounded effort. It may not be quite as page-turning as one of Dick's novels, but it is written in a way that is engaging and entertaining.



4. What's going on with these French novelists seeming to re-invent biography with their love letters to American weirdos? Michel Houellebecq wrote my favorite (non S.T. Joshi anyway) appreciation/bio of H.P. Lovecraft ever, and now here comes another in much the same vein, only more so. This is part biography, part literary criticism, and part attempt at doing just what the title suggests: inhabiting, for a short while, the mind and imagination of Philip K. Dick. I say it succeeds at all three, beautifully. Finishing it, I immediately wanted to start it again.



5. I don't know much about Philip K. Dick. I'm not a fan. But surfing the web, I came across some articles about him that intrigued me enough to want to learn more. I found myself spending about an hour on Amazon's Search Inside the Book, reading through as much of this book as I could (i.e., the first 3 or 4 pages of each chapter). Well, that wasn't enough to quench my thirst. So I bought it, and it was a book that I swallowed in one gulp -- I couldn't put it down. Fascinating stuff.
   
   Carrère is a very good writer, and this is a book that works on several levels. First, he brings to life the various phases of Dick's personality, from his nerdy adolescence, to his semi-straight 20s, to his drug-drenched 30s and 40s. The book is also very good at evoking the three distinctive eras of American culture Dick lived through: the 1950s, the 1960s, and the 1970s. Too, Carrère limns with great clarity the complex twists and turns of Dick's spiritual journey, and also offers thoughtful commentary on Dick's prolific body of writing (with some especially interesting observations on how the details of Dick's life were reflected and transformed in his fiction).
   
   All in all, a great introduction to Dick. He was a fascinating man, and this is a fascinating book. Carrère is clearly a fanboy, but he's also a very smart and talented writer, so this book far transcends typical fanboy biographies. Indeed, it's a first-rate work of literature.
   
   By way of a postscript, I liked this book so much I picked up Carrère's The Adversary -- which is a superb non-fiction thriller, another mind-blowing great read (that appears to be Carrère's specialty).

1 comments about Bertrand De Jouvenel: Conserative Liberal & Illusions Of Modernity (Library of Modern Thinkers).

1. Daniel J. Mahoney has published studies of Charles de Gaulle, Raymond Aron, and Alexander Solzhenitsyn. In his new book on Bertrand de Jouvenel, Mahoney continues his ever-widening exploration of the the religio-political question in modernity.
   
   Any of Mahoney's readers should recognize his characteristic strengths, once again in evidence here: the balanced critical judgment, the wide and deep learning, the spirited wit. What seems to have gone unremarked so far, however, is the overall outline of his project. With Aron, the secularized Jew, Solzhenitsyn the Russian Orthodox believer, de Gaulle--who perhaps was thinking of himself when he spoke to Malraux of men "whose Christian faith was dim but who were, nonetheless, not Voltaireans"--and now de Jouvenel, the firm and judicious Roman Catholic, Mahoney is exploring the ways that thoughtful men who were formed and in some cases animated by religious conviction found their bearings when the supreme ambitions of modernity issued in world war, tyranny, and genocide.
   
   In this book as in the others, Mahoney shows himself unmatched in his ability to introduce a thinker to new readers while illuminating him to old ones. Having suffered neglect for thirty years or more, de Jouvenel reappears as a worthy successor to Tocqueville--one situated, moreover, in a modernity whose grimness even Tocqueville had underestimated, and so forced to confront things Tocqueville could scarcely imagine.
   
   The book itself is compact, well designed, fairly priced--a companiable volume, as befits the humane and judicious spirit one finds inside it.

No comments about Adam Smith - Life and Times of a Political Economist (Biography).

1 comments about Hans-Georg Gadamer: A Biography (Yale Studies in Hermeneutics).

1. The author of this thick biography, Jean Grondin, has always been one of the most astute and informed commentators on the subject of philosophical hermeneutics.

   Prospective readers need not be put off by this volume's bulk (478 pages) since almost 140 pages are devoted to scholarly apparatus which most of us will ignore. That leaves only 338 pages of actual text to read (plus a few pages of pictures to enjoy). In this era of bloated biographies, we can be thankful for Professor Grondin's restraint. The average intelligent reader will probably find herself skimming chapters 2 - 5 (Gadamer's ancestry and youth) and chapters 10 - 12 (academic politics in the mid-twentieth century) thereby shortening this book by an additional 115 pages. That leaves about 200 pages of interesting reading about Gadamer, Heidegger, Nazis, poets, Habermas, Derrida, Plato, phenomenology, human finitude, etc.

   Not surprisingly, Professor Grondin does a fine job of sorting out the influences of others in the formation of Gadamer's conception of hermeneutics and in communicating the gist of his major work, TRUTH AND METHOD. Unfortunately, Grondin never gets around to telling us much about his subject's life-long enthusiasm for the arts (Why did Gadamer love Rilke's poetry? What visual artists was Gadamer excited about?).

   In short, this is a good biography of an important twentieth century philosopher, but not a great one (for a great one order Ray Monk's WITTGENSTEIN : THE DUTY OF GENIUS).

3 comments about The Thought and Character of William James (Vanderbilt Library of American Philosophy).

1. Perry's text is the original, definitive expression of William James' philosophy, outside of the writings of James -- a founder father of the philosophical genre of pragmatism, contemporary American social thought and modern psychology -- himself. Despite the multitude of books written on and about James and his ideas since, no serious student of William James should be without or ignore this one. It is the Genesis-text, as it were, of Jamesean studies.

   Perry organizes and effectively analyzes the whole array of James' diverse writings (including reprints of some tremendous and now otherwise difficult to find selections), enabling any reader to obtain a comprehensive and detailed understanding of James' philosophy. At the same time, Perry infects his analysis with a solid and enduring illustration of James's personality, without ever becoming either trite or merely philosophical biography.

   Perry's own skills as a writer are evident in such passages as the following, which is a most memorable description of the breadth and depth of Jame's character: "[James] called himself empiricist, pluralist, pragmatist, individualist, but whenever he did so he began at once to hanker after the fleshpots of rationalism, monism, intellectualism, socialist. He liked body in his philosophizing, and he hated to leave out anything that had either flavor or nutritive value. He was much more afraid of thinness than he was of inconsistency."

   In one or two places, the serious James scholar might have a difference of opinion with Perry's analysis, whether historical or philosophical, but all philosophy texts are susceptible to such criticism, and Perry's is less susceptible than most. Indeed, it will be by treating Perry's text as a sound starting place that the inexperienced or unfamiliar reader might become such an adept analyst and capable of interpreting James' life, character and thought so well.




2. Perry's text is the original, definitive expression of William James' philosophy, outside of the writings of James -- a founder father of the philosophical genre of pragmatism, contemporary American social thought and modern psychology -- himself. Despite the multitude of books written on and about James and his ideas since, no serious student of William James should be without or ignore this one. It is the Genesis-text, as it were, of Jamesean studies.

   Perry organizes and effectively analyzes the whole array of James' diverse writings (including reprints of some tremendous and now otherwise difficult to find selections), enabling any reader to obtain a comprehensive and detailed understanding of James' philosophy. At the same time, Perry infects his analysis with a solid and enduring illustration of James's personality, without ever becoming either trite or merely philosophical biography.

   Perry's own skills as a writer are evident in such passages as the following, which is a most memorable description of the breadth and depth of Jame's character: "[James] called himself empiricist, pluralist, pragmatist, individualist, but whenever he did so he began at once to hanker after the fleshpots of rationalism, monism, intellectualism, socialist. He liked body in his philosophizing, and he hated to leave out anything that had either flavor or nutritive value. He was much more afraid of thinness than he was of inconsistency."

   In one or two places, the serious James scholar might have a difference of opinion with Perry's analysis, whether historical or philosophical, but all philosophy texts are susceptible to such criticism, and Perry's is less susceptible than most. Indeed, it will be by treating Perry's text as a sound starting place that the inexperienced or unfamiliar reader might become such an adept analyst and capable of interpreting James' life, character and thought so well.




3. William James was as incongruent as his philosophy; and I don't mean this sardonically. He was a lover both of art and science; both of the unity of the whole and the plurality of parts; both of the rationalistic and the sentimental parts of life. It is always suprising to me not that he could be all these things, but how well he balanced them all. Whenever one trait would come to the forefront, James almost instinctively checked it with an equal and opposite impulse.

   This book gives us a front-row seat to watch James's balancing act up close! By my estimates, a little over half of this book's text is letters either from or to James (by frinecs such as Perice, Holmes, Dewey, Bergson, and his brother Henry). The author does a good job weaving these letters together with biographical infromation; with this mixture, he does two things. He puts James's life in the context of his philosophy (philosophies?) and puts his philosophy(-ies)in the context of his life. The best part, to me, was the author's ability to discouse on each book James wrote integrating its philosophy with the events of James's world at the time.

   As with most biographies, this one does have a tendency (too much so in my opiinion) to psychologize in ways that, to me, seem stretching. The last two chapters, for instance, on James's "Morbid Traits" and his "Benign Traits" are like a psychological summary of James, often identifying traits James posessed as ones that are hinted at in his works (particularly the Varieties of Religous Experience). While sections like these can be interesting, they can also (as these two are) become overkill. I read the rest of the book (which psychologizes but keeps it to a minimum) and skimmed these two chapters.

   Otherwise, this s a great biography. Not so intellectual as to be inaccessable to general readers, but not to watered down that we don't both learn new things about James and the philosophic landscape on every page. To put it strangely, to me, James is like a great jazz ballad - the more you come into contact with its intricacies, the more you grow to cherish it. And, I suppose that James is like jazz - emphasizing the individuality of the parts rather than a pre-determined whole. And like a good jazz tune, James's philosophy was never finished - always open ended.

   So go read the book already.

No comments about Avicenna.

No comments about On Gadamer (Wadsworth Philosophers Series).