B . O . O . K . . R . E . V . I . E . W . S |
Most popular writing doesn't appeal to me [likewise television and movies]. I enjoy books that entertain my brain by engaging it in journeys of discovery in areas of natural science, philosophy, and/or theology. I recognize that some novels entertain while teaching the nuances of law or politics or war-making, but I would rather "consider the ravens" than how Hitler took Denmark. Graham Mackintosh, who has authored two outstanding wilderness travel books (which I review below), says: "Be careful what you read, books have a lot to answer for." He's right of course, yet I don't think he'd mind if I offered this variation: 'be careful what you think of what you read', it seems clear that Paul the Apostle was right to extol: "Test everything. Hold on to the good." The sad reality is that most people don't question or test much at all. Not really. Like drones they turn on the television and submit their brains to Hollywood, Madison Avenue, Wall Street, MTV, ESPN, Rush Limbaugh, Howard Stern, or whatever else is currently popular to esteem, and shrink into a popularly esteemed myopia. For my part, I have no such interest... here are a few books that I recommend. | ![]() ![]() __(environmental nonfiction) ![]() ![]() __(adventure & wilderness) ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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* PHILOSOPHY. Philosophy most literally
means 'the discipline(s) of love (philos)'. What is loved by
the philosopher is the art and science of the critical analysis of thought
and perception. Reading great Philosophy is intellectually invigorating,
although sometimes difficult. It may broaden horizons of thought, it may
seek to constrict them. It would be foolish to ignore those issues which
color (or discolor) perception and understanding. The basic principles and
the nature of the arguments are usually not difficult to grasp. One who
is interested in any of the sciences (social, physical, political, etc)
should read enough philosophy to understand ideas well enough to render
informed evaluations of those ideas which philosophical assumptions press
into every discipline and diversion of the human race, and into the "knowledge"
and world view of every human being of modest or higher intelligence --
whether he is cognizant of this or not. Philosophy resides at the core of
one's ideas and prejudices, is what he (perhaps blindly) calls "common
sense" and is the eye through which he views the world. Ultimately,
philosophy must underlie anything that is studied or thought to be "known."
Republic, Plato.
It has been said that all philosophic work of the past 2400 years stands
as footnotes to Plato's writings. 'Do the ends justify the means? What is
justice? Whom does it serve? Who should serve as its guardians? Is it absolute
or relative?'
Plato's protagonist is his old teacher, Socrates. The arguments are presented
as dialogues and thus embody a literary aspect different from many, although
certainly not all, subsequent philosophical writings. His object is "no
trivial question, but the manner in which a man ought to live." The
answers are seen to point to the manner in which a utopian society should
be operated.
As a storied mountain calls to a climber from afar, Plato calls to the student
of the art of thinking. This is why we read Plato, for the "neo-Platonists"
-- Plotinus, Augustine, Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, Whitehead, Gödel,
and others -- have certainly propounded improved philosophy. But it is Plato
on whom they improve. Most thinkers (perhaps especially most mathematicians
and logicians) yet agree with Plato, at least insofar as his understanding
of "form" -- often adapted or restated as: ideas / perfection
/ consciousness / mind / or, 'the thing in itself'.
Plato's realm of [what he calls] "forms" acknowledges the mysterious,
yet logically necessary, existence of non-material reality. In Republic
he views this as the realm of reference in constructing his understanding
of an ideal society. We find in the work of subsequent thinkers (and within
Plato's Republic as well) that this non-material reality is perhaps more
easily recognized in purer considerations of reason, aesthetics, mathematics,
music, love, spiritual experience, and ultimately in consciousness itself,
than in idealized human social institutions. Mathematics, for example, although
readily practiced in material ways, is not itself material. Thus the understanding
of the purity of reason as opposed to the synthetic (and uncertain) nature
of empiricism, arises from the work of Plato.
Modern readers should rightly find that Plato regards the State too highly;
in pursuit of an ideal State his supposedly improved citizen is highly restricted
and censored. His "utopian" citizens are automatons, bred by the
State; unsanctioned infants are "disposed of." Where his ideas
are wrongly developed, they are in fact important ideas, i.e., they are
issues deserving serious examination. Should the ruling class be restricted
to philosophers? Plato says yes, that wisdom and intellectual insight are
more desirable in leaders than are either birthright or popularity. Of course
we, in the democratic West, tend to see this idea as totalitarianism, but
it remains an interesting argument.
Although the product of polytheistic culture, Plato is leery of the tangled
accounts of the gods received from the poets, Homer, Hesiod, etc. His view
of the divine -- that "the chief good" has one eternal, unchanging
and surpassingly superior form -- which he also calls "Providence",
hints strongly of the common ground which was to emerge between neo-Platonism
and monotheism. Like Plato's proverbial cave dwellers, we perceive this
transcendent entity through poorly understood "shadows" of the
actual truth. Beside its philosophical, literary, political, and theological
aspects, Republic is also important as a treatise on psychology, in fact
the science of mind seems to have progressed very little beyond Plato's
insights. Books 5-7 are particularly fascinating.
The Metaphysics,
Aristotle.
You should first note that, when choosing a volume such as this, the quality
of the translation is of primary importance. In my experience, one of three
publishers who consistently offer outstanding translations of classic philosophical
and literary texts is Penguin Classics. To avoid poor translations, please
notice reviewer complaints about volumes offered by certain other publishers.
In this work, Aristotle first exposes what he finds to be the logical errors
of earlier thinkers. Although he recurrently trains his fire even on his
old teacher, Plato, Aristotle's system of thought does not finally escape
Platonism. This volume presents several major undertakings, [1] Aristotle's
logic, [2] his systematic definitions and arguments as to the nature and
priority of "substance", relative aspects of actuality, potentiality,
process, differentia, unity and multiplicity, and [3] his theology (First
Philosophy). From Book Gamma: "There must be some one science that
gives an account of all... and that also gives an account of substance...
of that which is one qua that which is one and of that which is qua that
which is... The shortcoming of current examinations of these topics is not
their failure to be philosophy, but the priority of substance, on which
the current philosophical consensus has no view. There are affections peculiar
to [quantification as being quantification]... in the same way there are
peculiarities of that which is just qua that which is. And it is the truth
about these that the philosopher is after." While Aristotle is often
said to be the ideological godfather of so-called positivism (a particularly
dogmatic species of materialism), he would reject the title. So-called positivists
tend to proudly insist that they reject metaphysics. The obvious problem
with this assertion is that it is itself metaphysical (as Aristotle would
immediately point out). Throughout most of the history of systematic thought,
metaphysics has been seen as the supreme discipline (Isaac Newton, the greatest
of physicists and mathematicians, found physics and mathematics to be less
fascinating than theology, as had Rene Descartes and Blaise Pascal). But
the Enlightenment brought with it a rather paranoiac suspicion of pure reason,
and especially of First Philosophy. Aristotle would strongly disapprove;
"It is, however, vital not to overlook the question of what it is to
be a thing and the definitional account of how it is what it is. If we leave
these out, scientific inquiry is mere shadow boxing." (Epsilon 1)
Some discourses of The Metaphysics are surprisingly readable, some are quite
esoteric, some are puzzling (perhaps even to Aristotle?). Are Socrates and
what-it-was-to-be Socrates identical? The author seems to think yes, at
least in some sense. The exhaustive attempts to define essence, substance,
and yes, definition itself (in Books Zeta and Eta), serve to demonstrate
why many presume to avoid metaphysics. Those who call themselves positivists
probably won't read this particular work of Aristotle, perhaps claiming
even to be proud that they didn't "waste" their time with it.
Indeed, some discussions seem merely confusing. Book Kappa revisits arguments
and questions introduced earlier, and Aristotle presents his fully developed
theology, at times elegant and at times incongruent, in the final chapters
of Lambda. For the student of philosophy this remains an important book,
one that is foundational to the science of being, metaphysics.
Walden, Henry David
Thoreau.
Thoreau is sometimes classified as
a "nature writer", but his reflections extend into economics,
politics, health, recreation, aesthetics, moral issues of personal character,
fidelity to principle and self discipline, and to the very nature of reality
and perception. He was a dominant figure in the Idealist school of philosophy
labeled Transcendentalism. Emerson called Thoreau the truest American. This
because of his passionate respect for the dignity of the individual. Years
before the Emancipation Proclamation or the Civil War, more than a century
before the American civil rights movement or the global push for 'human
rights', there was Thoreau's Resistance to Civil Government,
which is commonly re-titled Civil Disobedience. (Mahatma Gandhi
acknowledged Thoreau's influence on his life as did Martin Luther King,
Jr.). Several decades before the environmental movement was born and ecological
awareness began to seep into public consciousness, while John Muir was but
an infant, there was Walden. On issues of human dignity, moral consistency,
environmental responsibility, even diet and health, he was as an unappreciated
light in a gray world of small thinking. In his short life, he had rather
few readers and was generally thought of as being a nutty malcontent, as
has been the case for so many thinkers of antiquity and of today.
"The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul
to be bad," states Thoreau, who like other great Idealist thinkers
insists that Truth and the crowd generally stand in opposition to one another.
Solitude being the state in which one can "discern his proper objects,"
Thoreau's record at Walden Pond is a wonderful account of such discernment.
In his opening treatise on economy, Thoreau says that philanthropy is esteemed
so highly only because we are so selfish. It is in his less provocative
yet careful analysis of objects of nature that Thoreau delights his reader.
His account of a battle between an army of red ants and an army of black
ants is meticulous and absolutely wonderful. This great work of American
writing and philosophy is an invitation to hear the music of "a different
drummer."
"Our whole life is startlingly moral. There is never an instant's truce
between virtue and vice. Goodness is the only investment that never fails."
The Enneads, Plotinus. My review of this book is posted at amazon.com.
The Mind of God: The Scientific Basis for a Rational
World, Paul Davies.
Davies, a theoretical and mathematical
physicist, examines issues in philosophy of science, finding that the ideas
of Plato, Augustine, Kant, and other thinkers of ages past, have a fascinating
relevance to recent discoveries and physical theories. [I review this title
under the Science category / genre].
Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, Immanuel Kant.
Kant's foundational work for his extensive examination of ethics and reason.
I picked up a copy in the Harvard book store (no, I was just visiting),
perhaps inheriting it from a business or law student who might by now be
struggling to ignore whatever he or she once learned of ethics (sorry --
I'm sure that's not the case...). Much as Einstein would one day struggle
to establish physical principles independent of observational considerations,
Kant undertakes to construct a philosophy of ethics "which does not
permit itself to be held back any longer by what is empirical." Kant
himself might not have liked the analogy involving special relativity, but
clearly science embraces his concept of universal law. Says Kant, "...
wisdom -- which consists more in doing and not doing than in knowing --
needs science, not in order to learn from it, but in order that wisdom's
precepts may gain acceptance and permanence." Hard to argue with that.
Kant sets forward his categorical imperative -- "I should never act
except in such a way that I can also will that my maxim should become a
universal law." He proceeds to illustrate and defend the imperative.
The writing is extremely dense (by which I mean deliberate and exacting,
not ill conceived). He anticipates and answers detracting arguments. Some
of his critics may not recognize that their objections have been dealt with
(and Kant seems to anticipate even this). So is Kant right? Yes, or at the
least mostly yes. If on some point he may be rebutted, he still wins the
war, so to speak. So-called moral relativists will obviously disagree with
his central premise, yet Kant remains one of the most influential philosophers
of any age.
"We find that the more a cultivated reason devotes itself to the aim
of enjoying life and happiness, the further does man get away from true
contentment. Because of this there arises in many persons, if only they
are candid enough to admit it, a certain degree of... hatred of reason."
Logic, Immanuel Kant.
"Many persons find fault with all subtlety, because they cannot attain
it. But in itself it always does honor to the understanding and is even
meritorious and necessary, as long as it is applied to an object worthy
of observation."
Between Plato's "pure reason" and Stephen Hawking's cosmological
"horizons" stands Immanuel Kant, reaching out across the annals
of critical thought, intent on disciplining the human mind in its pursuit
of truth.
"All nature actually is nothing but a nexus of appearances according
to rules; and there is nothing at all without rules. When we believe that
we have come across an absence of rules, we can only say that the rules
are unknown to us." With these words, Kant begins his examination of
the relationship of cognition and logic, seeking to reduce the science of
thought to rules of pure reason. The history of the science of logic has
produced a rather short list of so-called greats -- Aristotle, Leibniz,
Wolff, Kant. Logic may be defined as the [fairly concise] science of all
other sciences, and as Kant points out, not many giants or revolutionaries
are needed. What the science of logic always lacks is simply this -- persons
who are cognizant of it.
To this end Kant offers his Logic, published in 1800 as a text
for his philosophy students.
Squeezing large ideas into small words is always a great difficulty when
the pursuit is one of exactitude. If this isn't immediately self-evident
then Kant's extensive focus on definitions make this aspect of logic painfully
clear. He acknowledges the limitations of the human mind in its separateness
from pure truth, asking, "What can man, as man, know at all?"
The problem of language is a very large part of the human mind's difficulty
and is addressed by Kant in the constant offering of definitions and comparisons
of definitions. Thus portions of the text are tiring, but put on your "thinking
cap" and hang in there. Kant abruptly steps from the tedious dictionary
of Kant into brilliant sequences of reason that will excite the understanding
and sensibility of the reader. I repeatedly found myself thinking: "Yes
-- that's exactly right, I wouldn't have known how to articulate that relationship
so clearly." The notoriously difficult Kant can become surprisingly
translucent. I enjoyed this book beyond my expectations, and Kant even tells
me why this is the case: "Our understanding is so organized that it
finds satisfaction in mere insight, even more than in the utility arising
from it. Plato had already observed this. Man herein ... sees what it means
to have understanding. Men who lack this sense must envy animals."
As the work is largely a struggle with words, it is not surprising that
the translators' introduction is so lengthy. It is also quite helpful, exploring,
for example, Kant's indebtedness to Leibniz.
Discourse on Method and the Meditations, Rene Descartes.
Can anything be known to be certain? This is a more difficult question than
most people might recognize. Rene Descartes says yes and presents us with
one of the most elegant thought experiments in the history of philosophy.
We begin by calling into doubt all claims of "knowledge"; believing
nothing that cannot be affirmed with absolute certainty: Imagine now that
an all-powerful, all-knowing being might exist external to that which we
can experience with our senses, i.e., external to the material world (recall
that we can neither know this nor know otherwise). Imagine further that
this extra-material entity may be a devious trickster, messing with my mind,
perhaps to amuse a twisted sense of humor. Because the possible trickster
would exist external to the access of scientific scrutiny, I could, in my
state of absolute skepticism, never know whether this sadistic consciousness
is at work, not only in the material world, not only in my conscious perception
of the material world, but in fact in the perceptions of all other conscious
beings as well (if they actually exist, that is). Thus all scientific proofs
might be mere illusion and there could be no means of determining this.
In other words, if all material objects and all subjects of thought are
inherently uncertain, and this is indeed a logical conclusion at this point
in our consideration, what then could be known with certainty? Is then the
only absolute certainty this universal and impenetrable uncertainty? Could
it ever be truly known that anything exists apart from the possibility of
the trickster? Only one thing: that [without regard to whether or not it
is being deceived] the mind of the thinker must exist, for otherwise there
is not even the illusion that our consideration is happening. Thus the only
thing that I may know beyond any doubt is that my mind does exist. Cogito
ergo sum, i.e., "I think, therefore I am." This singular certainty
is not without further implications. For while we have established that
consciousness (i.e., mind) is more certain to exist than is matter, we don't
know why this should be true. Or do we? Descartes says that there is a reason
we must reach this conclusion and presents his ontological argument for
the existence of a perfect and beneficent Mind beyond material constraints
and uncertainty (that mind being God).
Whether or not Descartes believed he had "proved" the existence
of God is not a very interesting point (apparently he thought so). As Pascal
pointed out, such proof -- or disproof -- is not possible within the inherent
limits of human investigations (Pascal found nature and reason to powerfully
infer God's existence in a probabilistic sense, while "scientific"
proofs must be uncertain, uncertainty being the nature of corporeal existence).
What Descartes did "prove" is that the idea of an extra-cosmic
mind is a rational conclusion (and is rational to a greater extent than
any phenomenological observation that we might assume to be "true").
Some claim to rebut Descartes' ontology citing his geometric analogy, which
was based in the 'Cartesian' paradigm which he defined. This is no great
difficulty however, another mathematical illustration might have been developed
had Descartes knowledge of 21st century mathematics. In fact, Descartes
asserts that his conclusion does not rest on his understanding of geometry
(which was about to be overtaken by Newton's mathematics). He believes that
he could provide "an infinity" of allegories to illustrate his
ontology. Here we find an expression of how Descartes' struggle with vanity
leads to some hasty proffers (finite beings cannot wholly examine an infinity,
even if we accept the existence of such). Many other thinkers, who agreed
with some of Descartes arguments, quickly took umbrage with his more disputable
statements. Descartes then rebutted these rebuttals. In fact some of these
arguments continue today. Such is Descartes' importance to [some say "modern"]
philosophy.
There are still other interesting aspects to these essays: Descartes' method
(which is sound), his interest in medicine, physiology, neurology, his anticipation
and analysis of "artificial intelligence" (three centuries before
science fiction writers 'invented' the idea). Also interesting is the author's
plea to the public (the work is clearly addressed to a general readership
and not to his nemesis, the Jesuits, as some reviewers mistakenly suggest).
Noticeably struggling to maintain his humility, the brilliant Descartes
asks to be left to his work in physics. Rather than taking precious time
to explain and defend his theories, he wishes to be left alone to focus
on his work, asking to be judged and explained by it after his death.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas A. Kuhn.
Princeton philosopher of science, Thomas Kuhn examines the methodology and
psychology of the conceptual structures (i.e., "paradigms") which
underlie the work of science, and constitute "a strenuous and devoted
attempt to force nature into the conceptual boxes supplied by professional
education." My review of this
book is now posted at amazon.com.
An Introduction to the Metaphysics of St. Thomas
Aquinas, Thomas Aquinas.
The One and the many, and the analogicity
of Being:
Essence and existence. Aquinas develops
Aristotelian metaphysics, the "transcendental" science of being
(note that the term 'transcendental' as used by Thomas is quite different
than the same term as used by Kant). Thomas' thought is among the densest
of all philosophers', and is, for the modern student, perhaps more difficult
to grasp than is the work of Kant. A reader unfamiliar with philosophy should
not initiate his study with Thomas. For the student [at least] somewhat
grounded in existentialist reasoning, this compilation serves as a concise
introduction to Thomist metaphysics/ natural theology/ first philosophy.
Translated and compiled by professor of philosophy, James F. Anderson, this
volume is especially valuable in that Thomas Aquinas' work is so capacious
and intimidating that one doesn't otherwise know how to approach it.
Thomas [and Averroes] reintroduced Aristotle to Western thought and Thomist
scholasticism has illuminated the path from the 13th century to the 20th,
he was perhaps the greatest intellect of the Middle Ages. Anderson's edition
may be best means of introducing oneself to St. Thomas Aquinas.
Provocations, Soren
Kierkegaard.
Compilation of selected spiritual writings
by the Danish philosopher. [Many must consider Kierkegaard's views to be
counter-intuitive -- so much so that they seem provocational. But his passion
for the concepts of objective uncertainty, subjective truth, and 'existence'
as an active state of "being and becoming" are ideas that presaged
(by a century) the difficult truths revealed by quantum theory. He was also
a provocational Christian theologian. I review this title under the Spirituality
category / genre].
The Works of Philo,
Philo of Alexandria.
Significant philosophical aspects;
[I review this title under the Spirituality category / genre].
Confessions, Augustine
of Hippo.
Significant philosophical aspects;
[I review this title under the Spirituality category / genre].
Pensees, Blaise Pascal.
"Knowledge has two extremes which meet; one is the pure natural ignorance
of every man at birth, the other is the extreme reached by great minds who
run through the whole range of human knowledge, only to find that they know
nothing... but it is a wise ignorance which knows itself. Those who stand
half-way... pretend to understand everything... they get everything wrong."
My review of this book is posted at
amazon.com.
The Abolition of Man,
C.S. Lewis.
Ethics and relativism. My review of
this book is posted at amazon.com.
The Universe Next Door: A Basic Worldview Catalog. James W. Sire.
"Few people have anything approaching an articulate philosophy -- at
least as epitomized by the great philosophers. Even fewer, I suspect, have
a carefully constructed theology. But everyone has a worldview. . . In fact,
it is only the assumption of a worldview -- however basic or simple -- that
allows us to think at all."
Sire gives his reader a significant, albeit "basic", unpacking
of several so-called worldviews (a worldview being a presupposed, "more
or less coherent frame of reference for all thought and action"). In
a highly approachable 200 pages, we find valuable foundational expositions
into eight (or 12, if we count specific variants) such frameworks. The author's
examinations of Christian theism, deism, naturalism / nihilism, and the
ideological spawns of nihilism (including New Age and appeals to Hindu monism
and to Zen Buddhism), are obviously not exhaustive. Note the word "Basic"
in the book's subtitle. The reader, whatever his worldview, will likely
find a point of disagreement with the author. But in its systematic conciseness
and scope, you aren't likely to find any other volume that does what this
one does in exposing the universe(s) "next door". Reference notes
are extensive, for those who wish to dig deeper. The book (this review is
of the third edition) well deserves its continued interest and has been
used as a college text in philosophy, comparative religion, history, and
English literature courses.
Most of Sire's insights are well considered: "[W]hen Nietzsche says
'truth is a mobile army of metaphors' or conventional 'lies,' he is making
a charge which implicitly claims to be true but on its own account cannot
be." This is one of those rare books you may want to read again at
a later date. . .
This of positivism: "If the mind is strictly a 'naturally' produced
brain-machine, then human thought is ultimately determined by prior causal
mechanisms, which, to fit the philosophic demand of naturalism, were accidental
(not intelligently purposed) events, then what is human thought? If 'the
brain secretes thought as the liver secretes bile' (Pierre Jean Georges
Cabanis), what can be said of what the brain 'secretes'? We see that whatever
thought essentially is, it is inherently referenced to specific events,
to the exclusion of other possible histories to which it is not referenced.
In other words, human thought is merely the accidental 'secretion' of accidental
histories; that is to say human thought is programmed by natural evolution
and has no other reference, and can thus posses little epistemological integrity.
As Nietzsche argued, no human thought could be known to resemble truth,
and even if it did we could not distinguish this 'truth' from the usual
delusions. If the mind is strictly a 'naturally' produced brain-machine,
all thought must be assumed to be delusional. Thus, the positivist/naturalist/materialist
must arrive at the conclusion that human thought is delusional 'bile'. Positivism
thus commits suicide."
Return to Reason: A Critique of Enlightenment Evidentialism
and a Defense of Reason and Belief in God,
Kelly James Clark.
An overview of the reformed epistemological
argument. My [rather lengthy] review of this book is posted as a "featured review" as well as at amazon.com.
G. W. Leibniz, Philosophical Texts (Oxford Philosophical
Texts), Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.
Leibniz is indeed one of the most important and influential of philosophers
and also one of the least examined, perhaps even among students of philosophy.
He is most known for his contributions to mathematics, theology, and physics
while his philosophical views are most often perceived through Voltaire's
popular, but rather superficial mocking of his arguments regarding "possible
worlds." But Leibniz' "best of all possible worlds" view
is more subtle and robust than Voltaire was willing to see. The argument
is not that the world is perfect -- certainly not if taken from any single,
topical point of view, but that "in producing the universe [God] chose
the best possible design, in which there was the greatest variety, together
with the greatest order." One may dispute Leibniz' general view and/or
aspects of his justification of it, but as Leibniz developed the argument
along the lines of possibility, contingency, and necessity, it is difficult
to see how one would logically disprove it. It has had to be enough for
detractors to declare that they disagree with, or dislike the argument.
The famous argument is a recurring thread and summation in this Oxford Philosophical
Texts volume edited by Woolhouse and Francks. Here is certainly a book that
belongs in the library of any student of philosophy. As is noted in the
editor's introduction, a recent biographer has written of Leibniz -- "Even
if he had only contributed to one field, such as law, history, politics,
linguistics, theology, logic, technology, mathematics, science, or philosophy
his achievement would have earned him a place in history. Yet he contributed
to all these fields, not as a dilettante but as an innovator able to lead
the specialists." But even in the reasoning of such a magnificent mind
there are problems and weaknesses (which tells us a great deal about philosophy
and the human mind!). I won't explore the main difficulties that I found.
I share one of the concerns expressed by Antoine Arnauld in his correspondence
with Leibniz, as well as a few others.
Leibniz draws first from classical schools of thought, the Pythagoreans,
Platonists, and Peripatetics (while wise ancient philosophers will always
need rehabilitation, they "were not so far from the truth, nor so ridiculous
as the common run of our new philosophers suppose."). He mostly rejects
the Scholastics as well as the popular influences of European thought, Hobbes
and Spinoza. With modification, he rehabilitates Aristotle's "entelechies,"
which become his "monads" (from the Greek, 'monas', meaning unity,
or that which is one). A monad is the universe "from a point of view".
Matter is understood as phenomena, not substance. Substance (for example
number or mind) is irreducible, matter is a composite. Leibniz' view is
amenable to Pythagoras and in many ways to both quantum theory (in the "quarks
and gluons" model, the "solidity" of matter is merely a phenomena
of the gluon force, and voids in space-time are not exactly voids) and to
so-called string theories. One might say it is amenable to grand unification
theory as well. Leibniz also hinted bluntly of Einstein's Relativity, repeatedly
stating that there is no such thing as a physical state of absolute rest,
motion, or time, as they are all "relativities." Newton, for all
his genius, got that wrong.
I could go on and on, there are many pregnant themes in this collection
of essays, articles, and correspondence (for example, "the present
is big with the future"). Trying to keep this brief, I will simply
suggest you read Leibniz (but do not skip the excellent introduction in
this volume). Histories place him in Newton's shadow, which is unfortunate;
as a philosopher, he certainly does not belong there. As regards the comparisons,
Leibniz' mathematics was more elegant, his physics more far-sighted, his
theology better by almost any standard. It seems he had a nicer personality
too. His influence on such divergent thinkers as Kant, Russell, and Plantinga
indicates his continuing importance.
The Consolation of Philosophy, Boethius. My review of this book is posted at amazon.com.
The Question of God: C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex, and the Meaning of Life, Armand M. Nicholi Jr. My review of this book is posted at amazon.com.
Problems of Knowledge: A Critical Introduction
to Epistemology, Michael Williams.
Epistemological optimism critically
defended.
The subtitle, "a critical introduction to epistemology," is precisely
descriptive of this volume. I'd say it is somewhat beyond an introduction
-- and it is nothing if not critical (but of course any serious consideration
of epistemology must be). The discourse throughout tackles the problem of
skepticism, both classical (Agrippan) and modern (Cartesian). As Williams
states in the introduction, "Once we become aware that even our most
cherished views can be challenged, there is no going back to a pre-critical,
traditionalist outlook. This is why concern with knowledge is no longer
optional. . . Scepticism is the skeleton in Western rationalism's closet:
an argumentatively sophisticated attack on rationalism itself. It represents
the extreme case of a tradition of critical inquiry reflexively applied.
From the very beginnings of Western philosophy, there has been a counter-tradition
arguing that the limits of reason are much more confining than epistemological
optimists like to think. . . If scepticism cannot be refuted, the rational
outlook undermines itself."
Once familiar with the arguments of philosophical skepticism, it seems they
are but modestly more "sophisticated" than those of mere practical,
I might say "methodological", skepticism. All skepticism, practical
or philosophical, is rather highly intuitive; one needn't be a stark, raving
genius to understand Descartes' description of the problem of external ('objective')
knowledge. As it turns out, skepticism is built on the same foundational
assumptions as is the most pervasive model of epistemological theory --
Foundationalism. At first blush, the "foundational" theory of
knowledge might seem like the appropriate model with which to defend knowledge
from philosophical skepticism. But Foundationalism fails on two levels;
it neither overcomes skepticism nor can allow for epistemological risk-taking
(which can have obvious merit). It can be argued that the difficulty of
foundationalism may be that it is atomistic -- might a holistic theory fare
better? A holistic line of attack is the so-called Coherence theory, but
this approach, while conceived as being less vulnerable than Foundationalism,
appeals to the same rational underpinnings as Foundationalism and, yes,
Philosophical Skepticism. The problems, in all cases, are analyzed in the
first 12 chapters.
After a diagnostic treatment of the foundational assumptions of Philosophical
Skepticism, the epistemology (theory of knowledge) for which Williams finally
argues is the so-called Contextual theory. While Contextualism rejects the
assumptions of Foundationalism and its quarreling cousins, it allows, within
a "default and challenge" framework, for immediate knowledge,
a methodology of fallibilism (i.e., falsification), and epistemological
risk-taking. A deflationist approach to knowledge, contextualism is neither
atomistic nor strictly holistic. It is critical to notice that Contextualism
is not mere epistemological Relativism, as Williams says, "the relativist,
like the sceptic, is a disappointed foundationalist."
The author finally cautions that he has not offered the final word on these
problems. But the treatment is obviously much more thorough than it appears
in my brief review, and while I question a few of Williams assertions (very
few actually), as an epistemological optimist (and a 'practical' rather
than 'philosophical' skeptic), I suggest that he's pretty much gotten it
right. The book is well worth your time if you are interested in the theory
of knowledge (and if you have any interest in defending your beliefs/judgments,
you should be).
An Essay on Anaxagoras, Malcolm Schofield. My review of this book is posted at amazon.com.
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* NATURE (environmental
nonfiction). Some authors that I read (and review briefly below) are commonly
lumped among "nature writers." Within the genre ("nature
writing") are many works that I can't read (I've tried) because they
are shaky New Age shamanism. I won't waste words on them. To someone unfamiliar
with books containing trees, whales, or wildness in it's myriad forms, the
writing of Jack London might be a nice place to start, perhaps Ernest Hemingway's
The Old Man and the Sea -- but please don't get stuck in this
'man-versus-nature' bravado schtick! If, like me, you prefer nonfiction
-- try any of the following books by Farley Mowat; Never Cry Wolf,
The Snow Walker, A Whale for the Killing, they will be a most refreshing
change after all those 'nature tried to kill me' stories that are ever popular.
... and you'll be ready for Leopold and Muir ...
A Sand County Almanac And Sketches Here and There, Aldo Leopold.
(The "Almanac" has been published
several ways during the past fifty years, I strongly recommend the book
with this specific title, published by Oxford University Press. It includes
Thinking like a Mountain, The Land Ethic, and other important
essays)
"Our ability to perceive quality
in nature begins, as in art, with the pretty. It expands through successive
stages of the beautiful to values as yet uncaptured by language." -
from Leopold's Sketches
Scientist, educator, forester, philosopher, writer -- Aldo Leopold
appears to many as something of an enigma. In his earlier writings, Leopold
was a very different man than we find in this volume. I've read many of
those writings and cannot recommend most of them. In Leopold's own words:
"I was young then, and full or trigger-itch." This insightful
classic is a gentle, scholarly, fatherly collection of essays, observations
and stories. Like Thoreau's Walden, it is revered, loved and widely imitated.
...
"Only the mountain has lived long enough to listen objectively to the
howl of a wolf. ... The cowman who cleans his range of wolves does not realize
that he is taking over the wolf's job of trimming the herd to fit the range.
He has not learned to think like a mountain. Hence we have ... rivers washing
the future into the sea."
The Mountains of California, John Muir.
"God's glacial-mills grind slowly, but they have been kept in motion
long enough in California to grind sufficient soil for a glorious abundance
of life ... In so wild and so beautiful a region [was spent my day], every
sight and sound inspiring, leading one far out of himself, yet feeding and
building up his individuality."
Muir was the consummate man in nature. Anyone who is indifferent to Muir's
writing may simply be indifferent to wonderment itself. I have no doubt
that if Muir were placed in a room with the great kings and generals and
tycoons and empire builders of history, he would appear singularly as a
man among men. Unimpressed with their pomp and bluster about rotting empire,
he might soon command more attention than they, and many would be happily
listening to Muir in spite of their self importance. Why? He would have
the most interesting things to say, in the most humble and charming way.
... (in fact Muir was sought out by the great politicians and philosophers
of his day)
"Few indeed, strong and free with eyes undimmed with care, have gone
far enough and lived long enough with the trees to gain anything like a
loving conception of their grandeur and significance ..."
My First Summer in the Sierra, John Muir. My review of this book is posted at amazon.com.
Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs, Wallace Stegner.
"Easterners are constantly being surprised and somehow offended that
California's summer hills are gold, not green. We are creatures shaped by
our experiences; we like what we know, more than we know what we like. ...
Sagebrush is an acquired taste."
Stegner taught writing at the University of Wisconsin and at Harvard, but
he had a strong sense of place and his place was the West. He accepted a
position at Stanford University where he spent many years, and became, what
many consider to be, 'the dean of Western writing' (by which we do not mean
that he wrote "Westerns"). In this volume, Stegner sacks the Hollywood
myths, and addresses the far more fascinating realities of the West. Featured
here is a studied and caring investigation of what lies between the 98th
meridian and the Pacific Ocean; of the land's great beauty and vulnerability
to human foolishness. The compilation of essays also includes the author's
reflections on his own life and work in the West, and examines critically
the work of several significant literary "witnesses" of the American
West. He reminds the reader of what criticism is: "A critic ... is
not a synthesizer but an analyzer. He picks apart, he lifts a few cells
onto a slide and puts a coverglass over them... His is a useful function
and done well, ... may even give the reader the illusion of understanding
both the product and the process. But ... whatever they can analyze has
to be dead before it can be dissected ... most critical analysis explains
everything but the mystery of literary creation."
If you enjoy the works of John Steinbeck or Norman Maclean, or the powerful
but fragile beauty of western lands, the essays collected in the Lemonade
Springs are highly recommended.
Wolf Willow, Wallace
Stegner.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Wallace
Stegner grew up on the prairie frontiers of North Dakota, Saskatchewan,
and Montana, and in the mountains of Utah. As is indicated by the subtitle,
this volume combines history, a memoir, and historical fiction. Readers
who have spent significant time on the snow swept northern steppes may find
a small part of themselves, and of this land, in Wolf Willow.
...
"On those miraculously beautiful and murderously cold nights glittering
with the green and blue darts from a sky like polished dark metal, when
the moon had gone down, leaving the hollow heavens to the stars and the
overflowing cold light of the Aurora, he thought he had moments of the clearest
vision ... In every direction ... the snow spread; here and there the implacable
plain glinted back a spark - the beam of a cold star reflected in a crystal
of ice." (The scene evokes in me a powerful memory, as I recall often
standing alone on just such "murderously cold" snow blanketed
prairies and gazing into those "miraculously beautiful" night
skies.)
The Reenchantment of Nature, Alister McGrath.
The book presents an important thesis but it isn't perfect, there is some
repetition especially in the introduction, first two and last two chapters,
but no more so than one finds in the writings of Richard Dawkins (whom McGrath
takes to task). Dawkins has famously stated and restated some obviously
challengeable views, views that he himself takes for granted and has not
critically examined. McGrath, with Oxford doctorates in both theology and
molecular biophysics, is highly qualified to address Dawkins' polemics.
The author states that this book has a twofold thesis: "to persuade
Christians that they ought to be taking nature a lot more seriously, and
anyone concerned with nature that they ought to be taking Christianity a
lot more seriously than they have to date. But above all, this book aims
to set out the intellectual excitement of engaging with nature and recovering
that lost sense of wonder." Although he wanders back and forth between
his two stated objectives, McGrath does make his points, and does so without
the historical disconnection (and skewed take on Christian ethos) that arises
in Lynn White's influential 1967 essay, or the inattentive preaching of
Richard Dawkins. As someone who reads more than a little on the issue of
the gathering ecological crisis, this reader can vouch that the anti-theistic
themes to which McGrath responds have been too often asserted and too seldom
challenged. As McGrath argues, the 'Christianity is destroying nature' assertion
(E O Wilson being one example among many) is misguided, or worse.
Theism (i.e., Judaism, Christianity, Islam, theistic Hinduism, Sikhism,
Baha'ism) asserts that humans are liable stewards of planet Earth and that
nature is to be revered for its divinely assigned significance; it is quite
a different viewpoint that insists that humanity is a quasi-ultimate, yet
purposeless, accident of "blind" mechanism and that all of nature
is but an assemblage of meaningless 'selections'. In this view, whatever
significance Nature 'has' is fleetingly assigned to it by (Enlightened?)
"Humanism". It is this historically recent and relativistic version
of ethics (i.e., Enlightenment modernism, scientism, nihilism, atheism,
postmodernism, so-called 'humanism') that has denied ontological reflection
and has ideologically underwritten the large-scale rape and pillage of our
planet. Throughout much of the twentieth century, the world witnessed, most
notably in the Soviet Union, the extent to which an atheistically dominated
society will render nature a mere economic commodity, significant first
and last for its humanistic quotient. Lynn White accused Christianity of
being the most dangerously anthropocentric philosophy of human history --
but it is cold scientism (not to be confused with science) which boasts
of "unweaving the rainbow" and demands that humans answer only
to human "scientific" wisdom (see again E O Wilson). It is this
philosophy that has spent the past century blindly unweaving Earth's ozone
layer. Christianity hasn't made "greenhouse gasses" -- scientific
"genius" has. To speak this way, Dawkins says, is just so much
belligerent, 'anti-science' screed, but it is simply an unfettered observation.
In the theistic view, nature must be respected for its intrinsic significance;
in the 'Enlightened' atheistic, and postmodern views, nature must be respected
essentially because it suits humanity's material interests and intellectual
curiosity to do so (there is nothing 'higher').
As to Dawkins paranoiac defenses of (what he calls) science: adducing science's
limits and/or scientist's miscues, does not equate to 'anti-science'. Not
unless one directly equates science itself with human foolishness. That
would be an irrational leap, and McGrath, a trained scientist, certainly
does not suggest such equivalence. It seems that very few would. Dawkins
does battle with a theistic 'boogie-man' malignancy that exists primarily
in his own mind. Why?
In debunking a demagogue of atheism of Dawkins' stature, McGrath will be
a very unpopular figure in certain circles. His book "Dawkins' God",
not yet available in the US at this writing, will predictably draw the wrath
of the smug, 'Enlightened' crowd. So far, McGrath seems to be flying beneath
the radar of those who will pathologically reject his arguments. Perhaps
this will change, his thesis here surely warrants a broad hearing. This
is a book that needed to be written (incidentally, McGrath is kinder to
Dawkins, if not Dawkins' ideas, than I may have suggested in this review).
Certainly the book could be better. Likely 20 pages could have been eliminated
(my Doubleday hardcover edition is 186 pages) while improving the readability
of the text. The author's two stated thematic objectives might have been
better separated or developed as two books. Nonetheless I rate it as better
than four stars, simply because McGrath presents, in a restrained and erudite
manner, a set of strong arguments that must be heard.
Desert Solitaire,
Edward Abbey.
Irascible, outspoken Ed Abbey has been
called "the Thoreau of the American West." That title overstates
the significance of Abbey's writing. Personable, sometimes self-contradictory,
always engaging, he has also been called a voice crying in the wilderness.
To those fascinated by the lessons of nature, Desert Solitaire is something
of a fringe classic. ... (you may find several Abbey quotes in my web site,
I cite him with some caution; he was a hard-line Libertarian who seemed
to hate conservatives, liberals, politicians, scientists, religion, God,
the press, pacifists, the military, new technology, capitalists, socialists,
vegetarians, hunters, ranchers, urbanites, critics - and on and on; in spite
of all that venom he actually liked people, was a border-line nut case that
spoke his mind freely, was often right and occasionally 'hit the nail on
the head' ... the fact that I cite this book and select certain quotes from
him should not imply that I endorse his narrow libertarian philosophy or
cynicism)
The Abstract Wild,
Jack Turner.
Deep ecology.
The modern paradigms of economics,
science, philosophy, social science, and conservation strategies are here
critically scrutinized. Turner takes no prisoners, assailing even those
institutions and organizations that are near and dear to most environmentalists.
Of course, some of his points might be argued against, but this reader finds
himself to be most often in agreement with the author. The outdoor "fun
hog" whose views of nature are those of Outside magazine
(and of a great number of commercial interests which encourage the consumption
of nature as a means of self-pleasuring), will find no comfort here. At
the very least this book is serious food-for-thought for anyone who loves
and attempts to understand the wild.
"Once everything is abstracted into commensurate units and common value,
economic theory is useful. If the value of one kind of unit (computer chips)
grows in value faster than another kind of unit (board-feet), economic theory
says translate board-feet into money into computer chips. In ordinary English:
Clear-cut the last redwoods for cash and buy Intel stock. If you don't like
deciding the fate of redwoods by weighing the future of Intel, then you
probably won't like economics."
Dakota: A Spiritual Geography, Kathleen Norris.
"I prize the hiddenness of Dakota,
...[places] that in all likelihood few humans have ever walked... Dakotans
know why they like living here, where life is still lived on a human scale...
One moonlit night late in the fall, my husband and I left Rapid City and
traveled the two hundred miles home seeing fewer than fifteen vehicles and
well over a hundred antelope. Most days I take a long walk at sunrise ...
There's no sound to speak of except for wind and birdsong. I can hear a
car coming from miles away." The subtitle here is "a spiritual
geography" -- the book is roughly 20 percent northern prairie geography
and 80 percent Norris' fascination with asceticism and monasticism. The
book's great appeal to me centers on the fact that I spent my youth on these
prairies and I recognizes this landscape of drifting snow and lonely, abandoned
buildings. The spirituality here is interesting but (for me, at least) wears
thin like the aging boards on a wind-bent barn. The life apart may be, in
many ways, the spiritual easy-life, too easily romanticized. You'll find
better books addressing meditative and practical spirituality. Perhaps I
judge too harshly, you'll also find far worse. Within the scope of the physical
and metaphysical landscapes considered, the book is an important one and
Norris succeeds in wresting words from wells deeper than mere language.
"'All flesh is grass' [as Isaiah states] is a hard truth... it has
real meaning for people who grow grass, cut it, and go out every day in
winter to feed it to cows. They watch that grass turning into flesh... They
can't pretend not to know that their flesh, too, is grass."
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek,
Annie Dillard.
My review of this book is posted at
amazon.com.
A Timbered Choir, the Sabbath Poems 1979-1997, Wendell Berry.
My review of this book is posted at
amazon.com.
Life is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition, Wendell Berry.
My review of this book is posted at
amazon.com.
The Flight of the Red Knot: A Natural History Account of a Small Bird's Annual Migration from the Arctic Circle to the Tip of South America and Back, Brian Harrington, Charles Flowers. My review of this book is posted at amazon.com.
The Lorax, Dr. Seuss
This wonderful children's story, which flows beautifully even as it exposes
some of the uglier truths of humanity's myopia, must be on any short list
of great books for kids. Environmental ethics presented in a captivating
story, with colorful pictures and clever, evocative words. It's been a favorite
of mine for over thirty years. Full of Dr. Seuss' funest inventionary verbiage.
Read it to your kids -- and don't be a Onceler.
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* SCIENCE. Anyone interested in science should recognize the
very real difference between science as presented in the commercial entertainment
media, and science as described by the working scientist. Do not expect
to find "good" [accurate, careful, dispassionately critical] science
in television 'science' shows or in popular magazines or in newspaper articles.
These accounts frequently take a "tabloid" snapshot of an issue,
sometimes amounting to simplistic paradigm worship (and are weak even by
this noncritical standard) or to blatant titillations. The difference between
sound, working science and the pop-science of entertainment products is
self-evident to the reader of good science books, and I'll not explain it
here -- apart from this exempli gratia: "good" science
always attempts to examine opposing theories honestly and in some depth
(analytical minds are compelled to do this); you will not find this in the
pop-science products. It is also true that the science reporting of many
popular magazines and newspapers appeals to headlines-oriented sensationalism,
to what might be called half-truths, and to poorly supported generalizations.
Good science writing is often highly technical. Science is "systematized
thinking" applied to the interrogation of nature. Specificity is important.
Such writing should contain significant amounts of data --
observation, quantification, calculation -- if it doesn't, it may be dubious
science. Because the writers purpose is often to make a case for his understanding
or hypothesis, he will, of course, not limit himself to a dry collection
of data. Collections of data are very useful, I have several such books
to help me identify plants, birds, or stars; they don't generally attempt
to 'sell' a way of thinking or a hypothesis, and they don't make for "page-turners"
or best-sellers. Thus most of the appeal of 'popular' science books, to
the average reader, is the authors interpretations of data (which is to
say the adeptness with which he integrates his logic and philosophical conjecture
into the text), and his ability to write (which is to say his ability to
entertain and/or persuade). So we find that Science is not an island unto
itself. Without sensitivity to logic, mathematics, philosophy of science,
history of science, and even psychology, the reader of science books will
often not be in a position to evaluate what he is reading. Solution: read
more. Science is an ongoing search, not an end. As Einstein said: "All
our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike ..."
Science then, while it does not present us with the whole of reality, seeks
to make us less 'childlike'.
Thirty Years that Shook Physics, George Gamow.
Quantum Theory as artfully revealed
by one of its developers.
The first three decades of the twentieth century saw
history's most concentrated burst of human knowledge of nature. The world
described by the greatest of scientists, Isaac Newton, changed quickly to
a very strange and startling world described notably by Planck, Einstein,
Bohr, Pauli, Schrodinger, Heisenberg, Dirac, Fermi, and a few others. George
Gamow was one of these individuals. His lucent knowledge of the important
ideas of the quantum theories and of the men who developed these ideas,
makes for very interesting reading.
In his "Thirty Years that Shook Physics," Gamow the physicist
is also found to be Gamow the artist -- his excellent drawings augment the
narrative -- and Gamow the light hearted humorist. Because of the author's
close friendships with Bohr and Pauli (and to a lesser extent, Dirac) the
reader will meet not only the thoughts of these characters, but the characters
themselves. It seems that quantum physicists like to have fun too. The book
concludes with an illustrated text of a play composed and performed at the
1932 Copenhagen conference, although it can be followed it is something
of an 'inside joke', if you will.
The book was written in 1965 and Gamow, noting difficulties with quantum
theory, expected to see a new and equally radical revolution in physical
theories before the end of the century. Although quantum theory has been
hugely successful in its application, a new theory is still anticipated.
[M-theory?] This book is an excellent account of the emergence of quantum
theory, presented in the words of one of its principals.
The Matter Myth: Dramatic Discoveries
that Challenge Our Understanding of Physical Reality, Paul Davies and John Gribbin.
Quantum physics, nonlinear phenomena
and systems, string theory, philosophy of science.
"It is fitting that physics --
the science that gave rise to materialism -- should also signal the demise
of materialism. ...the new physics has blown apart the central tenets of
materialist doctrine in a sequence of stunning developments. ...in the abstract
wonderland of the new physics it seems that only mathematics can help us
to make sense of nature." Physicists Davies and Gribbin, two of sciences
most prolific writers, discuss the reasons for the impending death of the
materialist paradigm which took an almost absolute grip on the philosophy
of science immediately after the publication of Newton's Principia.
In fact they state that (whether or not it is widely recognized) the reductionists'
"mechanistic" paradigm is now dead. The problem is not that mechanistic
Newtonian science is "wrong" but rather that it addresses only
a limited representation of actual truth. The book also contains excellent
descriptions of things like white dwarfs, neutron stars, and the difficulties
in developing a quantum theory of gravity. Theories of wormholes, strings,
and GUTs are well presented. The final chapter indulges in speculation about
"exotic (non-carbon based, non-DNA based) biologies" -- which
the authors concede should not be taken seriously -- and about the difficulties
with ideas of "spontaneous generation" and "extra-terrestrial
intelligence". The authors proceed to set aside their own cautions
and speculate on these ideas, making the final chapter an exercise in science
fiction. Otherwise a very good book.
Wrinkles in Time,
George Smoot.
Astrophysics, cosmology, inflation
theory, and an adventure in scientific method.
Smoot's book chronicles the excitement,
frustrations, and adventure of the work of science, focusing on his careful
efforts and eventual triumph with the COBE (Cosmic Background Explorer)
satellite project. Stephen Hawking calls Smoot's observations "the
scientific discovery of the century, if not all time". The reader easily
comes to identify with the author and his work -- "In the predawn darkness,
not far away, fifteen years of work were sitting atop many tons of high
explosives. If it blew to bits, what would I do? ... I had seen the [Delta]
rocket close up, and had been aghast at how decrepit it looked, rusting
here and there... Our professional life's work was on top of that thing.
We didn't say a word, only silent prayers."
The author explains well the theories, predictions, discoveries, and conundrums
of cosmology. The explanation of Guth's inflation theory is particularly
lucid. In summarizing the startling discoveries of recent astrophysical
observation, Smoot reposes in the wonder of the created order with these
words: "[Steven] Weinberg muses... 'The more the universe seems comprehensible,
the more it also seems pointless.' I must disagree with my old teacher.
To me the universe seems quite the opposite of pointless... The more we
learn, the more we see ... there is an underlying unity to the sea of matter
and stars and galaxies ... we are learning that nature is as it is not because
it is the chance consequence of a random series of meaningless events; quite
the opposite."
The Language of Mathematics: Making the Invisible
Visible, Keith J. Devlin.
Devlin: "The particular topics I have chosen are all central themes
within mathematics... But the fact is, I could have chosen any collection
of seven or eight general areas and told the same story; That mathematics
is the science of patterns, and those patterns can be found anywhere you
care to look for them, in the physical universe, in the living world, or
even in our own minds. And that mathematics serves us by making the invisible
visible."
At this writing it has been more than a few years since my last class in
mathematics. But I liked math as a student and still do, even at the point
that notation and degree of abstraction begins to hurt my head, so to speak,
I still like it. There is a solidity and a beauty in mathematics that eclipses
the empirical sciences. It is not only the practical applicability, logical
purity, and beauty of mathematics that interest me, it is also its very
immateriality. As Devlin states, "music exists not on the printed page,
but in our minds. The same is true for mathematics; the symbols on a page
are just a representation of the mathematics."
This is a wonderful book. Before 1900, mathematics could be wholly categorized
within about a dozen subjects. While advances are still being made in some
of these older disciplines -- Devlin discusses how developments in number
theory are being applied to encryption for such purposes as banking security
-- there are now at least 60-70 somewhat distinct disciplines of mathematics.
The author reveals the logical foundations, history, and current applications
of number theory, mathematical logic, the calculus, relativistic geometry,
topology, and probability. Applications of mathematics to such seemingly
far-flung fields as linguistics, electrodynamics, and astrophysics are briefly
but aptly considered. He introduces us to the patterns and progressions
of perceptive minds, from the Pythagoreans, Platonists, and Peripatetics,
to Pascal and Penrose, with glances at Galileo, Gauss and Godel. [Okay,
enough alliteration ... just having a little fun with patterns; and patterns,
as Devlin instructs, is precisely what mathematics is all about.]
Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to
Evolution, Michael J. Behe.
Biochemistry, complexity and information
coding in biological systems.
The hallowed dictums of popular science-whimsy collide
heavily with the observed and quantified realities of biochemistry; and
the elegant realities are quite amazing indeed. Behe, a working research
biochemist and professor of biochemistry, invites the reader into the sophisticated
, lilliputian world of life's chemistry. Upon close examination of several
"molecular machines" (complex biochemical cascade systems such
as immune systems), the neo-Darwinian insistence that these systems developed
gradually stands in unsupported defiance of real-world chemistry and relevant
calculations. Behe then invites the reader into the evolutionary literature
on the origin of these systems, where is found silence, vague whimsical
assertions, hazy imprecision, falsified ideas, more unsupported assertions,
and finally, more silence. The mechanistic molecular evolution of complex
biochemical systems is an idea that is shown to avoid specificity, avoid
numbers, even avoid naming the chemicals involved. The rare attempts at
specificity are shown to undermine the premise. Behe points out that "when
such critical questions are ignored we leave science and enter the world
of Calvin and Hobbes." If you're interested in biology and have read
Richard Dawkins (or Stuart Kauffman), you should read this book as counterpoint
(and Lee M. Spetner's Not By Chance, as well). Setting aside
issues of mechanical neo-Darwinism versus Intelligent Design, the book is
a wonderful revelation of how life works (and how it doesn't).
The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection:
The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life, Charles Darwin.
Darwin's famed "long argument" is often claimed to explain all
things biological. Can this be true, given that it cannot explain the categorical
existence of 'biology'? Is the book more accurately seen as philosophy or
as science? It is certainly an interesting book. My review is posted at
amazon.com.
A Brief History of Time,
Stephen W. Hawking. (expanded tenth anniversary edition)
Quantum physics, relativity, uncertainty,
and theory of quantum cosmology.
Hawking ponders "the end of physics" and
in the process has "sold more books on physics than Madonna has on
sex." This is not a difficult read (contrary to what you may have heard
about it). Complex ideas are rendered easy to grasp, that's good writing.
Within a few minutes a reader will understand, for example, the basic difference
between 'matter' particles and force carrying particles. The first test
of good writing is lucidity, and here Hawking excels. At least in his consideration
of quantum theory. His brief examination of various explanations for the
universe demonstrates why there is not now thought to be a scientifically
acceptable alternative to the big bang model. Which big bang model is the
question. His so-called "no boundaries" inflationary model references
to "imaginary time" but does not contradict the concept of "real"
space-time having a beginning. In fact he does a fairly adequate job of
describing why it must.
Hawking is a philosophical positivist, by which we mean he sees a strong
materialism as a replacement for metaphysics. The positivist view is that
a complete physical description of the world is possible (a 'Theory of Everything'
and thus the end of physics). Although positivism sees physical science
as providing the only "knowledge" worth the "knowing",
it also must assert that it can never be known that scientific knowledge
resembles a metaphysical or ontological "truth". Where metaphysics
(the science of being) is denied, "reality" must also be removed
from intellectual pursuit. A consistent system of scientific knowledge is
the ultimate goal, not "truth". This view runs contrary to the
realist and so-called neo-Platonist view preferred by many mathematicians
and physicists (Godel, Schrodinger, Einstein, and Hawking's friend Roger
Penrose, for example), who are no less committed to material reductionism
as methodology, but who assert that metaphysical considerations play into
a true reality. In the realist's view, reality exists, whether reductionistic
science can unveil it or not. What is most curious in this volume is that
Hawking, the positivist, argues for a cosmological model whose foundations,
he concedes, are "metaphysical". Confused? At this point perhaps
you should be. Fortunately, Hawking is generally not philosophically dogmatic.
In fact, the good professor generally likes to hedge his bets, especially
when it comes to the "big" questions.
Its seems to Hawking that we have but two potential explanations for the
fine-tuning of the universe: a) God's omniscience and will; or b) the so-called
weak anthropic principle. The anthropic principles are "explanations"
generally seen as logically lacking explanatory power, but the author looks
for a means of making the weak principle seem less, well, goofy. With his
"no boundaries" proposal, Hawking aspires to find alternatives
to an omniscient Law-giver/designer, if in fact, such alternatives can be
found (the operative a priori aesthetic generally being that they must be
found, and so we again dance with metaphysics). The "no boundaries"
proposal ultimately appeals to the weak anthropic principle, that's the
WAP, not the SAP or the FAP (it is easily argued that all are CR__). The
anthropic principles are an awkward assemblage of a posteriori musings,
each in its own way tautologically stating that things are as we observe
them because this is the way things are. In Hawking's words, the appeal
to imaginary time and to the WAP is "put forward for aesthetic or metaphysical
reasons." Its truth or falsity "cannot be deduced" and "exists
only in our minds." So much for any denial of metaphysics! Hawking's
exploratory 'alternative' to a creator is not much of an alternative (the
"just because", dumb-luck WAP). The principle of economy (Ockham's
Razor) favors God. Hugely. Although it is often mentioned, Hawking's "no
boundaries" inflationary theory has not won many converts among physicists.
It's difficult to find much room for science in it. The idea that the universe
is physically 'self-contained' is hardly a radical idea, and the "why"
questions persist in all models, including inflationary ones. Something
more like Guth's inflationary model is generally favored (in part perhaps,
because it avoids such pretensions as inventing its own metaphysic). Although
he suggests that it can, Hawking's proposal certainly doesn't get rid of
God, in fact Hawking demonstrates a fundamental ignorance of theology (see
Polkinghorne). Among the book's flaws: the author waves the magic wand of
"macromolecules" as he whistles past the graveyard of abiogenesis
theories. Among the book's more interesting investigations: black holes,
ideas of wormholes in space-time, and the practical difficulties of time
travel. In the end we are always led to the question, 'what does it all
mean?' Hawking concludes with statements that are poetically lofty but philosophically
dubious, at best arguable, and certainly metaphysical. Nonetheless, it's
a book read by almost everyone interested in science, cited often by other
physicists (even if mainly as a curiosity), and well worth the couple of
evenings it will take to read. "A lot of prizes have been awarded for
showing that the universe is not as simple as we might have thought,"
says Hawking. Give him a prize, I say.
The Mind of God: The Scientific Basis for a Rational World,
Paul Davies.
Mathematical physics, theory of quantum
cosmology, philosophy of science.
Davies is a professor of mathematical physics who has
worked on theoretical models of quantum cosmology and has pursued studies
into what kinds of universes might be described by suggesting the most minute
alteration(s) of nature's constants. He is also a scholar well versed in
philosophy and in the philosophical aspects of scientific thought. Why does
science work, the author asks. Why is physical reality so wonderfully defined
by the 'mindscape' of aesthetics and mathematics? Do the great minds of
ages past, Plato, Augustine, Leibniz, Kant, help us with these questions?
The title invokes a well known phrase from Albert Einstein's musings and
refers to the mind-bending specificity and genius that underlies the physical
world. Says Davies: "I belong to the group of scientists who do not
subscribe to a conventional religion but nevertheless deny that the universe
is a purposeless accident. Through my scientific work I have come to believe
more and more strongly that the physical universe is put together with an
ingenuity so astonishing that I cannot accept it merely as a brute fact.
There must, it seems to me, be a deeper level of explanation. Whether one
wishes to call that deeper level 'God' is a matter of taste and definition.
Furthermore, I have come to the point of view that mind -- i.e., conscious
awareness of the world -- is not a meaningless and incidental quirk of nature,
but an absolutely fundamental facet of reality."
Davies, like Einstein, is particularly fascinated with the fundamental question
of why nature should be knowable at all; why science itself is inevitable.
That this is the condition of man and of our universe presents us with implications
we cannot ignore. The committed philosophical materialist and the hip and
happening atheist may find this book to infer conclusions that are difficult
to accept; it may challenge fundamental assumptions. The impenetrable opaqueness
to science of certain mysterious realities has been described by Erwin Schrödinger
and in more recent years by Oxford mathematician Roger Penrose, as well
as a great many others. Even the most ardent philosophical reductionist
must admit the reality of mystery, especially when we consider the deepest
explanatory bases. Logically, there must be limits to what science can "know"
about the deepest explanation, about why there is "something rather
than nothing." Truths impervious to empiricism? Truths impervious to
rationalism? Can it be? It can, and as is implied by Gödel's incompleteness
theorem, this is not so surprising. Davies, like Penrose, is more thoughtfully
sober than brashly confident in his consideration of physics' popular Holy
Grail, the widely promised "Theory of Everything."
A thoughtful consideration of beauty and boundaries, of "the mystery
at the end of the universe" -- I found the book totally engrossing.
One of many fascinating considerations was the mysterious theorems of the
Indian mathematical savant, S. Ramanujan. This is one of those rare books
-- perhaps too good to be read only once.
A Tour of the Calculus,
David Berlinski.
Mathematics, history of mathematics
and the tools of physical theory.
An artful and extraordinarily literate
romp through the history of mathematical thought and the emergence of one
of science's must fundamental tools, the calculus devised by Newton and
by Leibniz. Berlinski's mathematics is well paced and at times humorous
-- a little like having Groucho Marx as a math teacher [as in this remark]...
"The constant, power, and root functions are included in the vast archipelago
of polynomial functions, the term polynomial unaccountably suggesting Polynesia
and so drawing a lovely but lunatic verbal association between the nature
of these functions and their name." At other times he paints wistful
word pictures on the imagination to illustrate what might otherwise be more
opaque ideas. Advanced mathematics is after all a quite exacting discipline
and there's plenty of that here as well, but the author isn't insistent
that the reader completely understand all the math. The idea
here is to see mathematics as a thing not only of utility but of great beauty,
and of mystery as well. One needn't completely understand a hummingbird
to see it's beauty. An unusual book by a clever writer enraptured with his
subject. If you've ever thought that math (and mathematical science) might
be just a little bit fun, might posses beauty and expose transcendent truths,
then you might enjoy this book. But be forewarned, this is
not a book to make learning of the calculus 'easy' and it is not 'light
reading.' It is engaging, illuminating, invigorating, [that's my opinion,
many would disagree]. The author is as taken with words as he is with numbers
and may at times cause the reader to struggle with each.
Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the
System of the World, David Berlinski.
Newton. Physics and mathematics. History
of science.
Bookstore shelves sag with with biographies
of desperately uninteresting pop culture icons, self obsessed tycoons, and
hollow celebrities. The tedious "rich and famous". But not all
biography is so empty. "Isaac Newton is the largest figure in the history
of western science, his influence both inescapable and immeasurable... Newtonian
mechanics is not only the first, but the greatest of scientific theories...
it embodies a combination of simplicity and scope still denied any other
scientific theory... Despite the brilliance of his reflected light, he himself
stands where I suspect he wished to stand -- in the shadows." Like
any work of Berlinski must be, this is an uncommon experience of mathematics
and disciplined thought, presented in an effusion of verbal chromatics.
A more widely accessible work than his A Tour of the Calculus.
"Like Einstein, his spiritual heir and only equal, Newton viewed
mathematics as an instrument. In thinking about the calculus, Newton was
already thinking beyond the calculus, planets in motion and falling objects
moving across the enormous corridors of his mind."
The Elegant Universe,
Brian Greene.
Superstring theory as TOE.
Greene, a leading string theorist, lucidly explains
the central aspects of Einstein's relativity and of quantum theory -- both
strong theories -- and how they conflict with each other. The implication:
nature requires a deeper explanation. Philosophical reductionists and idealists
(so-called Platonists, if you prefer) agree on this much, but disagree on
the fundamental question of how "ultimate" any theory of physics
can actually be. Early in this volume, Greene states an affinity for the
reductionist's view that an ultimate theory of everything should
"not require or even allow for a deeper explanatory base." Regarding
the idea that an ultimate and final explanation lies within the access of
scientific endeavor, he concedes that "some agree... some don't."
As the book progresses into superstring theory, topology, Calabi-Yau spaces,
eleven (or more) dimensions, space-time tearing, and cosmological considerations,
the approach is one of generally cautious methodological reductionism,
the sound scientific approach with which philosophical idealists will have
little if any disagreement. In the two concluding chapters, Greene assumes
a reflective and circumspect sobriety with an increasingly Platonic tone.
The literary quality of the book is strong, the science as rigorous as most
readers would want. "Ultimate" or not, a deeper explanation of
nature is required. In Greene's words, "string theory is the only way
we know of to merge general relativity and quantum mechanics." The
book is an excellent presentation of the history and current state of string
theories, including M-theory. But a truly "ultimate" theory? The
case for that claim is clearly unconvincing, as it must be. Greene recognizes
this and, in the end, the ardent philosophical reductionist, i.e. one who
believes that ultimate explanations must be mechanistic and accessible to
science, may be disappointed. Admitting that the reductionist's faith in
a mechanistic TOE may prove to be naive, "brash posturing," he
reflects, "the history of science teaches us that each time we think
that we have it all figured out, nature has a radical surprise in store
for us that requires significant... changes in how we think the world works."
As Leibniz' cutting logic yet illustrates, the question of "how"
the world works may be the ultimate question which can be addressed by science,
but it is not the ultimate question. The idea that a physical theory of
everything might be understood as the fully 'ultimate answer' is not a logically
defensible claim, but rather a problematic article of faith. Again to his
credit, Greene explains this.
The mysterious and complex world of string theory is not easily translated
from its native language, that of mathematics. But with its mathematical
model of the elusive graviton, string theory presents physics with an opportunity
to reconcile relativity and quantum theory. Greene writes wonderfully and
does an admirable job of bringing strings to the non-physicist.
Not By Chance, Lee
M. Spetner.
Complexity, information theory and
genetics. My review of this book is posted at amazon.com.
Among Whales, Roger
Payne.
Cetaceans: up close and personal. My
review of this book is posted at amazon.com.
Reaching for the Sun: How Plants Work, John King.
Plants, from photosynthesis to pharmaceuticals.
My review of this book is posted at amazon.com.
Relativity: The Special and General Theory, Albert Einstein.
Einstein explains relativity. My review
of this book is posted at amazon.com.
The Hidden Face of God: How Science Reveals the
Ultimate Truth, Gerald L. Schroeder.
Quantum physics, information theory,
cosmology and teleological theology.
Noted Israeli physicist Gerald Schroeder presents a
compelling case that our universe is readily reducible to simply this --
an immaterial wisdom. "The solidity of iron is actually 99.9999999999999
percent startlingly vacuous space made to feel solid by ethereal fields
of force having no material reality at all." And what is that tiny
portion of an "atom" of matter that we describe as supposedly
being "matter", that is, the quarks and electrons? They are incredibly
precise (i.e., specified) packets of 'frozen' energy, highly tuned to interact
with these highly tuned "ethereal fields." It seems that such
objects are essentially intellectual constructs, as are all the "objects"
of the so-called particle zoo. We call "something" a quark (or
a photon, electron, etc) essentially because we can assign a certain mathematical
behavior to "it". But what is "it"? Apart from saying
that "it" is specified information, nobody knows. Within the quantum
mechanical framework, these "objects" are essentially mathematical
objects. As Einstein told us, what we call "matter" is merely
condensed ("frozen") energy. And it turns out that energy is merely
information. But what incredibly elegant information it is! (If it were
not, neither people nor stars nor any "material" thing could exist).
The materialist paradigm of our age is perhaps uneasy with the revelation
that "matter" is but an elegant creation of a nonmaterial and
extra-cosmic entity. Should one object to the idea of a divine Creator,
he cannot make the "problem" go away -- mathematics is, after
all, not "material"! From whence, then, do we receive it? Why
should we have an "Elegant Universe"? Philosophical pre-commitments
seek a "blind" non-thing as an explanation, actually demanding
a clumsy series of explanations other than the theist's Creator. (Interestingly,
this approach is mislabeled "reductionism" and/or "positivism"!)
"Consider the 'coincidences'" of nature's wisdom, asks Schroeder,
and explanations other than a wise Creator "must seem a bit forced,"
even to the atheist.
The only detraction that I will offer is that the author subscribes to a
kind of 'process theology'. Overall, this may be a minor problem. Schroeder's
central thesis is itself elegant (and modestly eloquent, and yes, obvious
to anyone who isn't psychologically pre-committed to rejecting it out of
hand).
Ideas and Information,
Arno Penzias.
Computability and creativity. My review
of this book is posted at amazon.com.
The Emperor's New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds,
and the Laws of Physics, Roger Penrose.
Physics, computability and consciousness.
Roger Penrose, "one of the world's most knowledgeable
and creative mathematical physicists," presents in his 1989 Emperor's
New Mind one of the most intriguing and substantive popularizations of mathematical
logic and physical theory that has ever been published. As a reader of many
books written by scientists, I will say that few compare with this one.
Penrose wrestles with what he sees as some of science's most inadequate
or poorly developed (although popularly accepted) ideas. As certain physical
theories are found wanting, his grapplings extend to some of the deepest
questions of metaphysics. Of the deepest questions, Penrose says, "To
ask for definitive answers to such grandiose questions would, of course,
be a tall order. Such answers I cannot provide; nor can anyone else, though
some may try to impress us with their guesses." While he speaks respectfully
of individuals with whom he has certain differences of opinion, the "some"
in that statement might be taken to be Hawking, Dawkins, Dennett, to suggest
a few. The author here tends toward a more humble and questioning approach.
Penrose's puzzlings are complex and his positions are sometimes misrepresented
by even his admirers. A case in point may be the fact that he finds cosmic
inflation theories to have less explanatory power than others claim for
them -- this doesn't mean he necessarily rejects inflation, rather he doubts
claims that inflation actually helps explain the specialness of the early
universe. Positivists may be disposed to discount the problem but there
appears to be good reason for Penrose's skepticism. However this is not
treated in this volume.
Rigorously building a case against the fundamental arguments for strong
AI, Penrose begins with what for him is to ultimately be 'le coup de grâce',
considerations and arguments from mathematical logic. If the human mind
works non-algorithmically, then we know of no way to digitize/program its
processes. The mind does in fact function non-algorithmically, a fact demonstrated
without much difficulty. It learns in intuitive, non-linear, and mysteriously
creative ways. The idea that some non-algorithmic approach might achieve
a program equivalent to the human mind is not supported by any "useful"
(or better) physical theory and is not mathematically tenable. Strong AI
is thus relegated to a mere ideological preference and to sci-fi. In his
mathematical considerations, Penrose is most interested in the work of Turing
and Gödel and in the Platonic essence of mathematics itself. Concluding
that the human mind cannot be reduced to an algorithm (or any set of algorithms),
Penrose next questions whether the mind might be reducible physically. Here
he finds the questions and answers less well defined than he has in mathematics.
His tour of classical and quantum physics features interpretations and ideas
that many readers may have not encountered (which makes the text fun). The
problem of "correct quantum gravity" (that is, the incompleteness
[or incorrectness?] of relativity and quantum theories) is one that Penrose
and other theoreticians have struggled with for decades. Penrose wonders
if this mysterious and conspicuously missing physical theory might be related
to the also conspicuously missing science of mind ("the mind-body problem").
This speculation on his part is the theme also of his more recent books.
As Erwin Schrödinger (like Einstein and Gödel, Platonists all)
seems to be one whose ideas are of particular interest to Penrose, I will
cite Schrödinger's view: "Consciousness cannot be accounted for
in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot
be accounted for in terms of anything else." But Penrose doesn't quite
argue this view, although it would seem an obvious conclusion from his best
arguments! Here is a classic example of how we may know something without
knowing everything: we can know that the human mind cannot be reduced to
an algorithm -- or algorithm of algorithms -- and yet it is not known that
we can even know what exactly mind is. Particularly so if, as Schrödinger
says, mind is irreducible.
The chapter on cosmology is excellent, as one might expect of a Roger Penrose.
The consideration of the "specialness" of the initial [cosmological]
conditions and of the relationship of this specialness to the second law
of thermodynamics is also fascinating as it is precisely the second law
that lends the "arrow of time" its apparent non-symmetrical aspect
-- in other words, defines physical "reality" as we experience
it. In this sense, the second law connects the human mind to the cosmos
(which is interesting but does nothing to help us "reduce" mind).
Penrose suggests, and I cannot find any reason to disagree, that all scientific
theories can be assigned to one of three broad categories, which he calls:
(1.) SUPERB, (2.) USEFUL, (3.) TENTATIVE. All SUPERB theories (there are
roughly a dozen) stand within the purvey of physics, and: "It is remarkable
that all the SUPERB theories of Nature have proved to be extraordinarily
fertile as sources of mathematical ideas. There is a deep and beautiful
mystery in this fact: that these superbly accurate theories are also extraordinarily
fruitful simply as mathematics. No doubt this is telling us something profound
about the connections between the real world of our physical experiences
and the Platonic world of mathematics." Over time, theories (particularly
those that do not feature such mathematical beauty) may tend to move between
the categories. Theories held to be SUPERB for centuries have dropped completely
from the current categories, theories have faded and re-emerged. . . "we
should not be too complacent that the pictures that we have formed at any
one time are not to be overturned by some later and deeper view."
Some readers will not like the fact that, after extensive rumination on
very difficult and deep questions (like "what is mind?"), the
author doesn't conclude with a pretense that he, or anyone else, has definitive
answers. This reader appreciated the integrity of Penrose's questionings
and of his conclusions (or lack of conclusions). I will misappropriate one
of Penrose's terms -- as a text examining mathematics, physics, and the
human mind, this volume is SUPERB.
The Large, the Small and the Human Mind, Roger Penrose.
Physics, computability and consciousness.
My [rather lengthy] review of this book is posted as a "featured review" as well as at amazon.com.
The Quantum World,
John C. Polkinghorne.
Quantum physics, the superposition
principle, and the interface of the quantum and classical worlds.
"It is not possible in a modest book like this to clarify everything,"
says Polkinghorne. Although this may be an obvious truism, his modest book
is a little dynamo. In this wonderfully concise exposé, Polkinghorne
reveals the fundamental tenets of quantum physics. Roger Penrose called
this "a delightful book written at a popular level but without any
misleading over-simplification." Excellent popularizations from Hawking,
Penrose, and Davies followed in the wake of this 1984 volume. These subsequent
books generally aspire to a broader focus (i.e., they include discussions
of classical physics, cosmology, and metaphysics, topics which Polkinghorne
barely touches upon) and to a broader readership. TQW features smaller type
(10 pt), less leading/spacing, and few illustrations, making it seem relatively
small, however it will take about as long to read as Hawking's Brief History
of Time.
Polkinghorne learned quantum theory "straight from the horses mouth,
so to speak", which is to say from Paul Dirac, and if you only read
a few books on quantum mechanics, this should be one of them. (I will go
so far as to say if you only read one it should be this one, but if the
reader has no previous foundation in the topic, this volume may be rather
tough to digest.) The explanation of the superposition principle is presented
with economy and as much clarity as can be brought to such an esotericism.
Even if you've no previous knowledge of quantum superpositioning, Polkinghorne
will equip you to startle your classically minded friends with Schrödinger's
fabled dead/alive cat analogy.
The discussion of the problems with each of the interpretations that have
been suggested for quantum theory is very good, as direct and studied as
any you will likely find. Of the Bohr interpretation (and of philosophical
positivism): "There is a way of proceeding in conceptual matters whose
method is to define away any inconvenient difficulty. All the really tricky
questions are declared meaningless, despite the fact that they are sufficiently
well comprehended to give rise to perplexity." (p72)
Like most mathematical physicists, John Polkinghorne is rapt with the deep
mystery at the interface of quantum mechanics and the classical world of
Newton and Einstein. Like Feynman, he is more fascinated by what we don't
know about the world than impressed with what we, in some sense, do "know."
He brings great clarity and honesty to the nature of what we do 'know' --
"quantum systems exhibit an unexpected degree of togetherness. Mere
spatial separation does not divide them from each other. It is a particularly
surprising conclusion for so reductionist a subject as physics. After all,
elementary particle physics is always trying to split things up into smaller
and smaller constituents with a view to treating them independently of each
other. I do not think that we have yet succeeded in taking in fully what
quantum mechanical non-locality implies about the nature of the world."
(p76) " Even the classical certainties of laboratory apparatus present
us with a mystery when we recognise that we do not fully comprehend how
they arise from the quantum substrate of which they are composed."
(p80)
Conclusions: The more mathematically gifted will want to utilize the appendix
but little will be lost to the reader who does not. Here is a soberly studied
offering that questions, entertains, and educates in the best tradition
of Gamow, Feynman, and Penrose. This outstanding book should be in the library
of every science reader, and has this reader's highest recommendation.
The Neptune File: A Story of Astronomical
Rivalry and the Pioneers of Planet Hunting, Tom Standage.
History of mathematical astronomy and
the discovery of solar and extra-solar planets.
I devoured this book in three big bites (that's not the way most good science
books can be read). From the shockingly superior optics of William Herschel
to the elegant mathematics of John Couch Adams to the extra-solar planets
discovered in the late 1990s to the techniques being now developed to find
planets orbiting other stars -- its all fascinating. In the end, most of
what you thought watching Star Trek had taught you about distant worlds
is sacked. "The idea that planetary systems around other stars will
be broadly similar to our own solar system is no longer tenable. Indeed,
as more planets are discovered, it is our solar system itself that starts
to seem more and more unusual."
If you don't read science books and don't know why anybody would, this book
might just change your mind. Highly recommended.
Powers of Ten, Morrison
and Morrison, Eames and Eames.
Scale and the use of exponential notation
to describe nature. My review of this book is posted at amazon.com.
The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James.
Neurologist, psychologist and philosopher
William James' famous empirical treatment of religious experience.
"This sense of the world's presence,
appealing as it does to our peculiar individual temperament, makes us either
strenuous or careless, devout or blasphemous, gloomy or exultant, about
life at large; and our reaction, involuntary and inarticulate and often
half unconscious as it is, is the completest of all our answers to the question,
'What is the character of this universe in which we dwell?' It expresses
our individual sense of it in the most definite way. Why then not call these
reactions our religion, no matter what specific character they may have?
Non-religious as some of these reactions may be, in one sense of the word
'religious,' they yet belong to the general sphere of the religious life,
and so should generically be classed as religious reactions. 'He believes
in No-God, and he worships him,' said a colleague of mine of a student who
was manifesting a fine atheistic ardor; and the more fervent opponents of
Christian doctrine have often enough shown a temper which, psychologically
considered, is indistinguishable from religious zeal." _ My review of this book is posted at amazon.com.
The Privileged Planet,
Guillermo Gonzalez.
Astrophysics and teleology: The Drake
equation and the so-call Copernican Principle collide fatally with a vast
array of geophysical, meteorological, astrophysical, quantum mechanical,
and cosmological quantifications. What has been called the 'anthropic cosmological
principle' seems increasingly to have it's gaze directed toward the 'pale
blue dot' that is humanity's home planet. My review of this book is posted
at amazon.com.
How to Build a Time Machine, Paul Davies. My review of this book is posted at amazon.com.
About Time: Einstein's Unfinished Revolution, Paul Davies. My review of this book is posted at amazon.com.
Superforce, Paul
Davies.
The best of P.C.W. (Paul) Davies' early books, in fact one of the best physics
popularizations ever published. My
review of this book is posted at amazon.com.
Other Worlds, Paul Davies. My review of this book is posted at amazon.com.
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* TRAVEL
(adventure/wilderness travel). Except in instances
where the traveler is completely intimate with the place, good travel writing
is primarily about place, not the traveler. The story is of the traveler
only in so far as the place reveals or changes him. The places I am interested
in are wild, so I won't be reviewing (or reading, for that matter) books
about trips to Paris or Disneyland. (more, and perhaps slightly more detailed
reviews when I get around to it)
Into A Desert Place,
Graham Mackintosh.
A British "every man" who describes himself as being a self absorbed
couch potato, walks alone around the rugged and remote coastlines of Baja
California. The self-deprecating honesty and insight is unusual and refreshing.
He persists through heat and drought, rock slides and dangerous tides, scorpions
and thorny plants, daunting geological impediments, rattlesnakes, and sharks
-- yet the story is more 'man in nature' than the more common and inane
'man against nature.'
Mackintosh's sensitivity to the lands he interacts with is fascinating,
particularly given that he is afoot in a 'wild' land a hemisphere from his
home, in an environment foreign to his previous life. "I didn't need
anyone to tell me what was right and wrong. The land was sacred to me. I
was a part of it. I wasn't one of a million careless tourists with their
trucks, bikes and polluting toys. I was one in a million. The desert was
special and my needs were special. There was no conflict. ... The sense
of being special to a special place was very much part of the exhilaration
and the experience. ... Yet, to put it into words was to distort it. The
feeling was the reality and the mystery. It saddened me to think that I
might never be able to share it with another person. 'In what concerns you
much,' wrote Thoreau, 'know that you are alone in the world.'"
Relevant recountings of historical events are woven into the narrative,
as are the author's spiritual musings. The whole-heartedness with which
Mackintosh merges into a new landscape is complimented by the friendships
which he easily forges with the ranchers and fishermen of rural and wild
Baja, and their families. As a journal of wilderness travel, this may be
one of the best books written in the twentieth century.
Journey with a Baja Burro, Graham Mackintosh.
Fourteen years later, Mackintosh, now a San Diego family man, is again drawn
from the common world to a most uncommon journey. This time trekking southward
in mountainous inland Baja with a pack burro. [I have had the great pleasure of meeting Graham Mackintosh and
talking with him about his earlier book and about this one. For what it's
worth, I found him to be the same gentle pilgrim that we meet in his writings.]
"There was something very compelling and liberating about surrendering...
From now on there would be no Mitsubishi, no Microsoft, no modem, no modern
world, and maybe no home or wife -- just [the burro] and me, my goal, my
God, and the good, simple people of Baja California," muses Mackintosh
in a moment of introspective single-mindedness. Something that I enjoy about
his observations, thoughts, and interests, if how often they closely resemble
my own; one example being his delight in the company of a certain species
of bird which I also particularly enjoy -- and which never fails to exhibit
and inspire a certain indescribable joy -- the black phoebe.
As in his earlier book, Into A Desert Place, frequently recurring samplings
of the history of Baja (and Alta) California, including the accomplishments
and abuses of the Spanish missionaries, are well related and seamlessly
augment the story. Mackintosh labels himself 'a poor Christian and a worse
Catholic' and, for this reader, many of the books finer moments center in
the author's spiritual questionings, insights, struggles, perhaps heresies,
visionary experiences, and graceful redemptions. "Behind the cool,
hard, smooth rock, I sensed that there was another reality close at hand.
That's how far I had come! I had seen the solid, indubitable forms of the
great mountains and valleys dissolve into extraordinary visions; and at
times I had almost felt myself dissolving into the world... I sensed it
wasn't just an illusion. For a few precious moments, I had been freed from
my hobbles. I had looked and stepped beyond... The journey... seemed, in
part, a vital preparation for a much bigger journey to come."
The Snow Walker,
Farley Mowat.
Canada's poet-biologist-sociologist,
Farley Mowat, is the almost invisible traveler in this journey across the
snow swept northern barrens. He illuminates a place which most of us will
never know. From its land forms to its creatures to the lives and thoughts
of its native peoples. An engrossing collection of storytelling that could
only be the product of the writers intimacy with place.
"The northern people are happy when snow lies heavy on the land. They
welcome the first snow in autumn, and often regret its passing in the spring.
Snow is their friend. Without it they would have perished or -- almost worse
from their point of view -- they would long since have been driven south
to join us in our frenetic rush to wherever it is that we are bound."
The Maine Woods,
Henry David Thoreau.
Few could be the equal of Thoreau in
making an account of wilderness travels: "The Jesuit missionaries used
to say, that, in their journeys with the Indians in Canada, they lay on
a bed which had never been shaken up since the creation, unless by earthquakes.
It is surprising with what impunity and comfort one who has always lain
in a warm bed in a close apartment ... can lie down on the ground without
a shelter, roll himself in a blanket ... in a frosty, autumn night ... and
even come soon to enjoy and value the fresh air."
The pace of the book is slow but rich in natural wonder: "Once, when
we were listening for moose, we heard, come faintly echoing ... a dull,
dry, rushing sound, with a solid core to it, yet as if half smothered under
the grasp of the luxuriant and fungus-like forest, like the shutting of
a door in some distant entry of the damp and shaggy wilderness. If we bad
not been there, no mortal had heard it. When we asked Joe in a whisper
what it was, he answered, 'Tree fall.' There is something singularly grand
and impressive in the sound of a tree falling in a perfectly calm night..."
Travels in Alaska,
John Muir.
My review of this book is posted at
amazon.com.
Notes from the Century Before: A Journal from British
Columbia, Edward Hoagland.
"Swaying and bucking as on a life
raft, we scraped over a further series of ridges and peaks. This was the
highest flying we had done; we were way up with the snow so that the cabin
was cold. But the sunlight washed the whole sky a milky blue. Everywhere,
into the haze a hundred miles off, a crescendo of up-pointing mountains
shivered and shook. A cliff fell away beneath us as we crossed the lip.
... There was no chance to watch for game; the plunging land was life enough.
It was a whole earth of mountains, beyond counting or guessing at, colored
stark white and rock-brown. To live is to see, and although I was sweating
against my stomach, I was irradiated. These were some of the finest minutes
of my life." My review of this
book is posted at amazon.com.
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* SPIRITUALITY. There are two basic philosophical perspectives
from which to consider the universe and what might exist beyond it. One
view is that of philosophical materialism; a belief that all that exists
is matter and its motion. This is the atheistic world view. Contrary to
popular dogma, it is a view that has severe difficulties in logic and in
the light of scientific progress. The principle of Causality begs an explanation
for matter, energy, and information -- these are effects -- what is the
First Cause? Physical evidence increasingly infers an Intelligence that
transcends matter, thus defining atheism as a belief -- a faith -- even
more than is theism. It cannot be otherwise. The ultimate doctrine of the
atheistic faith is that nothing (except perhaps "self") has meaning.
This too presents a logical difficulty -- if human thought is without meaning,
then human ideas of materialism are without meaning, and thus do not commend
themselves to the sober thinker. Such a depressing world view has lead to
the impromptu 'religions' of modern Western invention -- Scientism and Gaiaism,
and to 'New Age' movements. Of course there is another way to understand
and experience 'reality'. The way inferred by nature -- that matter is a
manifestation of a greater Truth that extends beyond the four dimensions
which confine us; that nature is an invention of the ultimate Truth; that
matter is a product of Mind. This mysterious but intellectually honest world
view is that of the philosophical idealists, most notably monotheists, people
not conflicted or threatened by the designation -- "believers".
While modern science pursues its search for "the mind of God,"
this has always been the quest of the sincere Christian theist. He is drawn
to the search. The search must be challenging -- the Mind that
invented quantum physics and biochemistry must seem more mysterious than
are quantum physics and biochemistry. And there is another difficulty. The
seeker ventures to subdue the commonly understood "self," to actually
break free of this self. This is the invitation to the constant challenge
and joy of a personal theology. As the psalm says, "Deep calls to deep."
The Giving Tree,
Shel Silverstein.
This is a wonderful children's book (ages 4-8). The gentle benevolence of
a tree is economically contrasted to the destructive self obsessions of
a child. The child grows older but remains a foolish child insomuch as he
is blinded by his restless selfishness. The lesson here will be obvious,
or at least it should be: the ugly, insatiable desperation of self-focus
as opposed to the gracious beauty of love and selflessness. Silverstein
presents an important and compelling counterpoint to the me-ism, consumerism
and self obsessiveness that naturally appeal to children, especially in
affluent cultures, and which many children can never escape even in small
measure. A tree is the perfect allegory for this lesson. If you only read
a half dozen books to your child, this should be one of them. Adults would
do well to contemplate this story as well. Very, very highly recommended.
Show Me God, Fred
Heeren.
Cosmology and Christianity. Non-presuppositional
Apologetics.
Science writer Fred Heeren delivers
a thorough, yet concise and very readable, presentation of recent findings
in astronomy and cosmology, interviewing Nobel laureates, several of the
most prominent people in astrophysics and cosmology (Smoot, Jastrow) and
theoretical physics (Guth, Hawking), and perusing the ideas of leading mathematical
physicists (Penrose, Davies, Barrow). While it is a fascinating look at
the current state of physical science, it is also a deeply thoughtful treatise
on the spiritual implications of our emerging knowledge. We find ourselves
in an amazing universe, carefully and "finely tuned" and as Smoot
says "perfectly orchestrated" with unimaginable precision by a
"super intellect" [Einstein's description]. A genuinely skeptical
consideration of the attempts to 'explain' our existence within these inexplicable
parameters in any mechanistic (materialistic) way (e.g. the anthropic principles)
is found to be irrational, illogical, unscientific, "fundamental goofiness
of human nature." "Many skeptics aren't skeptical enough. Most
people who call themselves skeptics are really just skeptical about one
side of an issue...", states Heeren. "Some of the world's greatest
people of faith started out as the world's greatest skeptics ... Logic can
lead us to the very threshold of faith, but then it is up to the human spirit
to make a choice."
While many might accept that extensive evidence for an intelligently designed
universe is best explained, in fact is only explained, by the
very real existence of an Intelligent Designer, they often claim skepticism
that the Designer is the personal God that Christians claim him to be. But
is the idea of a disinterested Creator really logical? "What kind
of God best explains the facts," asks Heeren. Can the care which we
observe in the implementation of this universe be consistent with a Creator
who doesn't care? This book is for the skeptic, for the scientist, for the
honest agnostic, for the Christian believer, for the interested seeker of
truth. "You aren't a real skeptic if you don't examine the evidence
for yourself."
Mere Christianity,
C.S. Lewis.
By any measure, this is a classic work of twentieth century apologetics.
While Heeren (the book reviewed above) presents the cosmological and design
arguments, and deals with them largely as non-presuppositional arguments,
Lewis does an effective job of exploring
the moral argument and then moves forward into presuppositional arguments.
You may or may not agree with Lewis -- many fundamentalists struggle with
his positions, as of course do atheists -- but anyone
interested in questions of God's existence and nature will do himself a
favor in reading this book.
Discussing his own journey from atheism to Christianity, Lewis relates:
"... in the very act of trying
to prove that God did not exist -- in other words, that the whole of reality
was senseless -- I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality
-- namely my idea of justice -- was full of sense. Consequently atheism
turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should
never have found that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light
in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know
it was dark. Dark would be without meaning."
The Joyful Christian,
C.S. Lewis.
Apologetics, exegetics, meditations.
My review of this book is posted at amazon.com.
The Problem of Pain,
C. S. Lewis.
My review of this book is posted at
amazon.com.
Celebration of Discipline, Richard J. Foster.
A substantive 'tour' of the Christian disciplines -- study, meditation,
service, simplicity, and so on. In its first printing this book quickly
became a Christian classic. Foster draws on the thoughts and counsels of
Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Kierkegaard, Merton, Bonhoeffer, Kelly, Wesley,
and many others, and the thoughtful pilgrim will here find both practical
instruction and reflective inspiration. Of the discipline of study Foster
says: "It soon becomes obvious that study demands humility. Study simply
cannot happen until we are willing to be subject to the subject matter...
Study is an exacting art...Most people assume that because they know how
to read words they know how to study. This limited grasp of the nature of
study explains why so many people gain so little from reading books."
This volume is a beautiful study of how to live the Christian life, understanding
and embracing its "exacting art".
Freedom of Simplicity,
Richard J. Foster.
Foster wonders if he is the right person to write this book, and indeed
who would be. (It seems clear that he was exactly the right person.) Our
culture is at war with simplicity. Material neediness is almost demanded
of us. We need new stuff -- techno-toys, fashions, cars, amazing new whatnot.
Says Foster: "Stress the quality
of life above the quantity of life. Refuse to be seduced into defining life
in terms of having rather than being. Cultivate
solitude and silence. Learn to 'listen to God's speech in his wondrous,
terrible, gentle, loving, all-embracing silence'... Value music, art, books,
significant travel. If you are too busy to read, you are too busy... Learn
the wonderful truth that to increase the quality of life means to decrease
material desire..." Foster leads the reader to understand that Christian
simplicity is not merely a reinvention of self focus, a stripped-down version
of self indulgence. It is both carefully inward-looking and thoughtfully
outward-looking, always seeking to need only One. This is not the Christianity
that the skeptic will find easy to assail, but rather the type of human
concerns illuminated by Christ: "A million hogs in Indiana have superior
housing to a billion humans on this planet."
Provocations, Soren
Kierkegaard.
"There is a tremendous danger
in which we find ourselves by being human, a danger that consists in the
fact that we are placed between two tremendous powers. The choice is left
to us. We must either love or hate, and not to love is to hate. So hostile
are these two powers that the slightest inclination towards the one side
becomes absolute opposition to the other. Let us not forget this tremendous
danger in which we exist. To forget is to have made your choice." To
Kierkegaard, self confident rationalism was an inadequate window on truth
-- was in fact an egotistical self-deception. His seemingly counter-intuitive
insistence that objective thought is inherently incomplete and uncertain
has been supported in our post-modern age by principles of quantum theory.
But he was less interested in being "right" than he was in existing,
which for Kierkegaard meant being ready for decisive action. For him, 'actions
speak louder than words,' and decision embodies greater truth than does
detached rationalism. He exposes the sacred cows of "Christendom"
as rotting corpses. He provokes. The thinking Christian need not agree with
Kierkegaard on all fronts, so to speak, but he should not avoid these provocations.
As counter-point to common, sugar coated, and silly versions of religion,
they must be considered. It is when Kierkegaard writes of love and of forgiveness
that he is most profound; his words might have to be read more than once
to be understood, but it is powerful stuff worthy of the effort.
"... if your life expresses the little you have understood, you speak
more powerfully than all the eloquence of orators."
Letters and Papers from Prison, Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
"... the power of some needs the folly of others. It is not that certain
human capacities, intellectual capacities for instance, become stunted or
destroyed, but rather that the upsurge of power makes such an overwhelming
impression that men are deprived of their independent judgment, and -- more
or less unconsciously -- give up trying to assess the new state of affairs
for themselves. The fact that the fool is often stubborn must not mislead
us into thinking that he is independent. One feels in fact, when talking
to him, that one is dealing not with the man himself, but with slogans,
catchwords and the like, which have taken hold of him. He is under a spell,
he is blinded..." My review of
this book is posted at amazon.com.
Living Faith, Jimmy Carter.
"No matter what we seek in life, we are more likely to find it if we
are not self-centered but concentrate on something or someone outside ourselves."
I doubt that I could be tempted to read a book authored by any political
leader of my time -- or any time -- with [as of now] perhaps one exception.
As a man of great intellectual curiosity, spiritual insight, and ethical
depth, Jimmy Carter is a most uncommon leader; one who continues to make
meaningful contributions to the welfare of humanity and who continues to
offer thoughts worth considering. In this volume, a spiritual thread binds
President Carter's consideration of economic, social, political, humanitarian,
scientific, philosophical, religious, and very personal issues.
Confessions, Augustine
of Hippo.
"A masterpiece beyond classification."
Augustine on Augustine, philosophy, sex, science, skepticism,
scholarship, rhetoric, vanity, humility, foolishness, wisdom, reason, the
human perspective, exegetics, time, and the attributes of God. 'Confessions'
is truly one of the great works of western literature and the [Oxford World's
Classics] translation by Henry Chadwick beautifully retains this literary
quality (and is extensively and helpfully footnoted). Written and published
circa 398-400 AD, Augustine's autobiographic Confessions is an important
theological treatise. It is also historically significant in its revelation
of a faltering Roman society and of the convergent thinking of Judeo-Christian
theology and neo-Platonic philosophy. While many of the discussions are
centered on a culture from which we are 1600 years removed, they are surprisingly
relevant to a western society that we see is not so different.
Very interesting are Augustine's discussions of the physical characteristics
and boundaries of 'time' -- in fact since about 1930, our 'scientific' understanding
of time is, in some important aspects, identical to Augustine's. This is
a subject with which every theist should be familiar ['time' is on their
side, so to speak], yet, like others more concerned with what's on TV tonight,
most are woefully ignorant. Of further interest (from the standpoint of
apologetics) is Augustine's destruction of "linguistic paradoxes"
which atheists and agnostics claimed (and still do claim) to prove God's
non-existence. These arguments, which Augustine calls "jokes",
must be waged against an erroneous characterization of "god".
The arguments defeat only a temporally bounded "god", a humanized
'smarty-pants' version of God, which is something that, by definition, God
is certainly not. The supposed 'paradox' arguments prove merely that no
human-like being could be God, that nothing fully contained by space-time
could be God, that no finite consciousness could be infinite (i.e., omniscient,
omnipotent, omnipresent, and unchanging). In other words: not God equals
not God. That humans pose such feeble arguments against God, and think them
profound, is an example of what Augustine calls "learned ignorance."
Augustine's exegesis of Genesis 1 is very well considered, and supported,
and varies vastly from so-called literalist interpretations. Much like Philo
400 years earlier, Augustine concludes that the language of Genesis 1 is
carefully constructed so as to make a fully "literal" understanding
of Creation unknowable. Although less than is its Creator, the acts of Creation
are a wonderful mystery beyond "slower minds." While he clearly
holds scripture to be without error, Augustine says that error-prone human
minds are quick to over-simplify, misunderstand, and misrepresent the mysteries
of an infinite God so far beyond the minds of men. Augustine understands
Genesis 1 as both an introductory and advanced study of theology, and not
as a text for 'Creation Science'. He points out that if references to God
Himself in Genesis 1 are interpreted as literal descriptions, we must accept
within the text ideas about God which cannot be reconciled to reason or
Biblical theology. These relational references to God require spiritual
and not physically literal understanding or else we must accept God to be
bounded in space and time, a sloppy theology which cannot be reconciled
to the scriptural Deity. By contrast, a spiritual [as opposed to a 'scientific']
interpretation, illuminates the nature of being and the will of "the
One." Augustine says that any exegesis but that of spiritual allegory
is fraught with logical difficulty within the theology of scripture and
without. Aware of the depth of many Christian's commitment to what they
consider to be a literal interpretation of these texts, he states that his
only desire is to seek Truth and that he does not wish to quarrel or debate,
as no sincere interpretation fails to acknowledge the primacy, sovereignty,
and grace of the Creator. No sincere exegetic stands in conflict with the
teachings of Christ -- however, conflict over interpretation is an exercise
in the vanities of humans trying to prove they are "right" and
such conflict might easily violate Christ's commandment of Love. He cites
5 different interpretations of Genesis 1:1 and asks seekers of truth to
bring humility, not pride or comfort or esteem for popular ideas or religious
traditions to the study of scripture. "Spiritual persons ... exercise
spiritual judgment," says Augustine, and not "notions which they
hold because of their familiarity with the fleshy order of things."
While the "literalist" exegesis tends to claim that its alternative
is to reject the inspiration of scripture and perhaps the very existence
of the Creator, the "spiritual" exegetic holds the Creator and
His works, including divine inspiration, to be beyond logical refutation,
beyond human vanity, perhaps beyond human understanding, causing, and then
entering space-time and the material world from [infinitely] without. Eight
centuries later, Aquinas was to express a similar exegesis of Genesis 1.
In Augustine, we find a man confronted with error: that of others, and his
own shortcomings as well. We find a man much like David or Solomon; a burning
intellect certain of its own inadequacy and "hungering and thirsting"
for Truth. A prolific writer, Augustine is one of the most influential thinkers
in western history, his thoughts being important to any study of theology,
philosophy, or cosmology. His Confessions is the story of a prominent [African]
Roman educator's spiritual journey to Christianity, and has been rightly
called "a masterpiece beyond classification."
The Works of Philo,
Philo of Alexandria, translated by C.D. Yonge.
Extensive 2000 year old exegesis of
Genesis and Exodus.
The writings of Philo Judaeus (Philo of Alexandria,
c20 BC - c50 AD) are important to the historical examination of late Second
Temple Judaism, the religious 'world' into which Christ came. A prominent
scholar and exegete, Philo's writings are considered the most thorough and
most representative documents illuminating Hellenistic Judaism. Philo is
interesting to Christians because, like Saul of Tarsus (Paul the Apostle),
he was a Pharisee, a student and interpreter of Hebrew Scripture. (The Pharisees
were a scholarly rabbinical sect particularly known for their studies of
the Pentateuch. Their exegetic work was esteemed such that they were held
by many to be the spiritual "rulers" of Judaism. The Torah commentators
who wrote the Talmud were Pharisees. They are generally criticized by Christians
but it should be noted that they shared some important beliefs with Christians,
namely the priority of the immaterial to the material, the promise of the
Messiah, the existence of angelic beings, and of the Divine gift of eternal
existence for those who enter a right relationship with God. The Pharisees
famously opposed Jesus, but it is also known that a number of them became
Christians. Philo however, who spent most of his life in Alexandria, and
died c.50 AD, likely had little or no contact with Jesus' followers.) Not
only a Hebrew scholar but a noted scholar within Alexandrian academe, Philo
is an interesting expositor of Greek philosophy and mathematics of the period,
showing a great fondness for Euclidean geometry and number theory. However,
the exegesis of the scriptural Creation account and of the special laws
and the Decalogue is the author's central focus. This complete and unabridged
volume is no trivial work, perhaps only approached by the most serious-minded
student.
From Philo's examination of the Creation account we learn that [two millennia
ago] leading scholarship did not hold Genesis 1 to be a literal (i.e., scientific)
accounting. Philo expresses certainty that Genesis 1 can only be rightly
understood as spiritual allegory. "Literal" interpretations of
Moses' language [within Genesis 1] must produce a god with a localized body,
nostrils, mouth, hands, etc., wholly incompatible with the incorporeal God
revealed in scripture (and required by reason, what kind of matter could
the Maker of matter be made of?). The Creation account is rather understood
as describing the relationship of Creator and creation -- God's intimacy
("hovering", Gen 1:2) and God's ultimacy ("over" the
abyss, Gen 1:2). Philo's rejection of literal interpretations is often strongly
worded: "let us take care that we are never filled with such absurdity..."
and "let not such fabulous nonsense ever enter our minds."
We note that the ideas contained in modern philology are often not the concepts
which were understood in earlier ages. For example, "the heavens and
the earth" was understood [at least by some] to mean three-dimensional
space itself plus time -- as "the heavens", and the constituents
of the matter contained within space and time -- as "the earth".
Thus Genesis 1:1 speaks of creation ex nihilo, everything from nothing [interestingly,
as does the inflationary big bang theory]. The creation of light, the "separation"
of light and darkness; God's "breath", "image", "likeness",
speech, sight -- all of these expressions are understood as spiritual revelations
into the nature of God's relationship to his creation (and not as a science
text). The modern fundamentalist "literal" interpretation of Genesis
1 tends to overlook significant theological and philological indicators
and ignores ancient expositors like Philo, Origen, Augustine, and Aquinas,
disingenuously [or ignorantly] claiming that interpretations other than
the supposed "obvious" one are modern inventions. Philo examines
several allegorical interpretations in depth. Of comparisons of man to God,
Philo states: "Moses says that man was made in the image and likeness
of God. And he says well; for nothing that is born on earth is more resembling
God than man. And let no one think that he is able to judge of this likeness
from the characters of the body: for neither is God a being with the form
of a man, nor is the human body like the form of God; but the resemblance
is spoken of with reference to the most important part of the soul, namely
the mind: for the mind which exists in each individual has been created
after the likeness of that one mind which is in the universe as its primitive
model, being in some sort the god of that body which carries it about and
bears its image within it."
No Future Without Forgiveness, Desmond Tutu.
". . . to go beyond retributive justice to restorative justice, to
move on to forgiveness, because without it there was nor future."
This is a beautiful book, the work of a beautiful mind. Tutu, retired Anglican
archbishop and Noble laureate, presents his reflections on the work of South
Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission and on his personal insights
and problems as the Chair of the TRC. The Commission was conceived as a
tool in South Africa's transition from an oppressive apartheid regime to
an open constitutional democracy. The lessons are important ones to learn
in a world where human abuses continue in many forms and in many parts of
the world.
Mans capacity for cynical self-obsession, paranoiac blindness to that which
he perceives as being outside himself, and for the kind of abuse that arises
between himself and his external world -- including his fellow beings, is
difficult to come to grips with. Tutu discuses this with as much compassion
and dignity as anyone likely can. Something dark lurks near the will of
man, manifesting opportunistically, often unacknowledged, in fact unnoticed.
Yet, in perceiving it clearly, wisdom informs us that we must resist too
easily becoming holier-than-thou; we're not all that pure ourselves. As
Tutu reminds us, many times, "there, but for the grace of God, go I."
The temptation is to respond in kind, injustice for injustice, violence
for violence, and obviously, many do respond in this way. There is a better
way.
Justice, charity, and finally forgiveness, speak to us too, and wisdom will
not turn a deaf ear. The TRC was established to, among other things, bring
to light the hidden abuses of South Africa's recent history. Many of the
violent crimes in question were sadistic, deeply disturbing, and of course,
covert. The evidence and details of these atrocities would not be feasible,
in most cases, for prosecutors to obtain, meaning that violent crimes and
conspiracies would remain untreated. Resentment and suspicion would fester,
probably resulting in still more violence. Another result would be that
a sound basis for reparation could not be developed. By offering amnesty
to perpetrators, many shrouded truths were brought to light, apologies were
offered (in many cases sincere no doubt), in the African way of "ubuntu"
forgiveness was often gifted (which is amazing), and the wronged found a
measure of healing. It simply could not have happened in a setting significantly
different than the TRC. "After all, forgiveness, reconciliation, reparation
were not the normal currency in political discourse." Here is certainly
a model for a conflict-riddled world.
"As related in the Old Testament, the prophet Elisha and his servant
were surrounded by a host of enemies. But the prophet remained strangely
calm and somewhat unconcerned while his servant grew ever more agitated.
The prophet asked God to open the servant's eyes and the servant then saw
that those who were on their side were many times more than those against
them. We South Africans have experienced this in our lives -- that the forces
of good turn out to be many times more than the forces of evil." p202.
Tutu writes with great care, qualifying and clarifying his thoughts, such
that he is often given to writing Dostoevsky-sized sentences (50-60+ words).
I do not have a problem with this, but it may be distracting to some readers
who are used to reading lighter fare. Without reservation, I highly recommend
this volume to anyone with an interest in human relations and justice, psychological
well-being, conflict resolution, and/or spiritual growth.
The Case for Christ: A Journalist's
Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus, Lee Strobel.
New Testament Apologetics.
A small pantheon of books, and the controversial 'Jesus Seminar,' purport
to falsify the Christian New Testament. Some of the arguments point to plainly
extant differences between the Gospels, and, claiming them to be irreconcilable,
suggest that the New Testament is unreliable. Some of the arguments are
more obviously dubious -- for example Charles Templeton's novel, Act
of God, popularizes the argument that Jesus Christ is not even mentioned
by noted [non-Christian] historians of the first and early second centuries;
Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger. As a matter of record, and of extensive
scholarship, Templeton's suggestion is simply wrong. Lee Strobel, former
investigative journalist and legal editor for the Chicago Tribune,
and former atheist turned Christian cleric, directly confronts these arguments,
interviewing recognized scholars in ancient histories, archeology, ancient
languages and literature, paleography, even psychology. The sum of the evidence
will fascinate anyone interested in the question of historical Christianity's
empirical validity. On a few peripheral points I may respectfully disagree
with Strobel's apparent assertions, and that's okay -- the conclusion is
sound: no body of ancient writings has been as rigorously preserved, is
as internally consistent, or is as well corroborated in non-sympathetic
while historically conterminous records, as is the New Testament. There
is solid content here for anyone with honest questions about the truth of
Christ's unique existence and claims, but the the writing style becomes
tiring and is probably not the most effective approach to a work of apologetics.
The author's method of argument starts strong but becomes an arguable issue
in itself.
The Case for Faith: A Journalist Investigates the Toughest Objections to Christianity, Lee Strobel.
An interaction of belief and doubt.
[An abbreviated, introductory case is presented -- certainly not "The"
Case -- but this is a somewhat better book than Strobel's similar 'The Case
for Christ'] For more thorough and scholarly examinations of these ideas,
you might want to look into the works of Richard Swinburne, Alvin Plantinga,
and William Dembski, among others. My review of this book (The Case for
Faith) is posted at amazon.com.
Inside the Mind of Unchurched Harry and Mary, Lee Strobel.
Strobel's strongest and most practical
volume to date. This was the first Strobel volume which I read, and having
subsequently read 2 1/4 others, I must say that his style has worn rather
thin. . .
Wisdom of the Sadhu,
Sadhu Sundar Singh, compiled and edited by Kim Comer.
"If you want to see the world of the spirit, you must look with spiritual
eyes. ... science deals with material reality. In this realm, however, you
can only apply the wisdom that arises from love and reverence. In a certain
sense, all of space and time is spiritual. God's presence pervades everything.
Thus all people live in the spiritual world. Each of us is a spiritual being
clothed in a mortal body ... we either turn joyfully toward the light, or
rebelliously toward the darkness." -- Sadhu Sundar Singh, from the
parable of the scholar.
As an angry young Sikh distraught over his mother's death, Sundar Singh
was preparing to take his own life when he experienced a visionary encounter,
not with Krishna, but with Christ. He became a Sadhu, a wandering mystic,
not pursuing a hermit-like existence, but traversing the jungles and high
mountain passes to appear in remote villages and lend assistance and care
to the poor and disease stricken, and to counsel spiritual seekers. In the
early twentieth century, Singh led the life of a first century apostle.
Western Christians will find Sundar Singh's parables and dialogues wonderfully
lacking in western conventions. He eloquently describes the intellectual
futility of trying to wage logical arguments against God's existence, his
allegorical explanation of the Trinity is better than most, his teaching
that there is but One source of peace, love, and understanding is the bedrock
of Christianity (and all monotheism).
In Sadhu Sundar Singh we find a true Christian mystic, a student, a servant,
a holy man. His ministry and teachings became known to millions, he was
admired by hundreds of thousands, and loved by tens of thousands whose lives
he touched. His life and teachings also caused certain interests to despise
him and attempts were made on his life. He disappeared, alone in the high
Himalayas, in 1929.
Singh was not a writer, he produced six small books (which contained much
of the material used in this compilation), perhaps solely because admirers
urged him to. Yet he offers an elegant economy of words, using familiar
objects of the natural world as illustrations for his allegories and parables.
His "warning to the West" remains a telling indictment of the
spiritual numbness of Western materialism and of western "Christians"
who embrace the doctrines of culture more dearly than the teachings of Christ.
When, during a trip to Europe, Singh was chided for not being more concerned
with twentieth century science, he asked his questioner to what he referred.
"Natural selection, you know, survival of the fittest," blustered
the questioner. "Ah," Singh responded, "but I am more interested
in divine selection, and the survival of the unfit."
A Simple Path, Mother
Teresa of Calcutta.
The book is perfectly titled. Mother Teresa's biographical information is
minimal and the book does not canonize her. Apart from introducing the thoughts
of volunteers who work with the Missionaries of Charity, her own words are
few. What we find are simple views of a simple path, and beauty in simplicity.
This is the not the story of a famous nun, it is the story of a way of seeing
one's world and of living without self-focus. Mother Teresa, and those who
work in the missions that she and others have established and conducted,
convey an attractive invitation to service to others. The path has been
set before us in the Gospels of Matthew (25:34-40) and Luke (10:30-37).
This small volume contains no rancorous sectarian, philosophical, or theological
arguments. The themes are peace, love, joy, and fearless devotion to the
welfare of others. The simple path is well summarized in the words of St
Francis of Assisi:
"Lord grant that I seek rather to comfort than to be comforted,
To understand than to be understood;
To love than to be loved . . ."
The book makes little mention of the opposing worldview, but I briefly will.
The opposite worldview is the ever-popular celebration of slavery to self.
There are, of course, many variations on this theme. One notices how offended,
even angered, the culture of self can be when it is rejected, in this case
by Mother Teresa. Articles and books have been published which denigrate
her, and she has been called a hypocrite. I doubt she terribly cared. A
sign on the wall of Shishu Bhavan children's home in Calcutta reads in part:
"People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered,
Love them anyway
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives,
Do good anyway . . .
The good you do will be forgotten tomorrow,
Do good anyway . . ."
Amazing Grace, Kathleen
Norris.
"Growing to mature adulthood requires us to reject the popular mythology
-- that life is simply handed to us; that love is easy, quick, fated, and
romantic; that death is a subject to be avoided altogether. Learning to
love is difficult, because it takes not only devotion but time, and ours
is a fast food culture." My review
of this book is posted at amazon.com.
The Imitation of Christ,
Thomas a Kempis.
"Trust neither in your own knowledge nor in the cleverness of any human
being; rather, trust in God's grace, for it is He who supports the humble
and humbles the overconfident."
My review of this book is posted at
amazon.com.
The Evidential Power of Beauty: Science and Theology
Meet, Thomas Dubay.
"The genuine atheist who knows full well what he is rejecting (not
simply half-educated people who discard not the real God but their fancied
caricatures) seems unable to be rid of a preoccupation with the Lord he
has rejected. How much such people suffer only God knows, but their experience
of both life and death must be terrifying, especially if they permit themselves
some quiet thought."
My review of this book is posted at
amazon.com.
Habits of the Mind: Intellectual Life As a Christian
Calling. James W. Sire.
This from chapter six: "In short, we often lack the courage to check
out the challenge, to wrestle with the possibility that our own belief needs
serious modification or rejection or replacement. . . Such courage is, of
course, a Christian virtue. Consider what it rests on: the existence of
a God who knows the truth about everything and who wants us to know the
truth as well. . . If our cherished beliefs are false, we do well to rid
ourselves of them. . . Courage is also needed if you discover something
. . . that proves odd to others but true to you. The problem is greater
yet when what you come to think of as true is not just odd but seen as 'heretical'
within your own 'cognitive community'."
And this: "Without [humility] every virtue begins to become a vice.
A passion for truth becomes a certitude that we . . . now possess it. .
. Lack of humility -- arrogance -- is, in fact, one of the most frequent
charges against intellectuals. Sometimes this charge can not be avoided
. . . The real problem, however, is not the charge that you are arrogant
but the distinct possibility that you actually are. Self-examination is
always in order." My review of
this book is posted at amazon.com.
No Man is an Island,
Thomas Merton.
My review of this book is posted at
amazon.com.
The Inner Experience: Notes on Contemplation, Thomas Merton.
My review of this book is posted at
amazon.com.
The Life of Moses,
Gregory of Nyssa.
My review of this book is posted at
amazon.com.
The Divine Conspiracy,
Dallas Willard.
"Strangely, we seem prepared to learn how to live from almost anyone
but [Jesus the teacher]. We are ready to believe that the 'latest studies'
have more to teach us about love and sex than he does, and that Louis Rukeyser
knows more about finances. 'Dear Abby' can teach us more about how to get
along with our family and co-workers, and Carl Sagan is a better authority
on the cosmos. We lose any sense of the difference between information and
wisdom, and act accordingly." (p55) My
review of this book is posted at amazon.com.
The Faith of a Physicist,
John C. Polkinghorne.
The well known theoretical physicist
and Anglican cleric argues for a bold (and carefully studied) embrace of
teleological inference (i.e., natural theology) and for a comparably bold
confidence in Christ's resurrection and his teachings, including an ultimate
"eschatological destiny." My review of this book is posted as
a "featured review" as well as at amazon.com.
The Pursuit of God, A.W. Tozer.
Tozer on the way of 'the scribe' as opposed to that
of 'the prophet': " . . .the scribe tells us what he has read, and
the prophet tells us what he has seen. The distinction is not an imaginary
one. Between the scribe who has read and the prophet who has seen there
is a distance as wide as the sea. We are overrun today with orthodox scribes,
but the prophets, where are they? The hard voice of the scribe sounds over
evangelicalism, but the church waits for the tender voice of the saint who
has penetrated the veil and has gazed with inward eye upon the wonder that
is God. And yet, thus to penetrate . . . into the holy Presence, is a privilege
open to every child of God." My
review of this book is posted at amazon.com.
Origen: An Exhortation to Martyrdom, Prayer, and Selected
Works, Origen of Alexandria.
My review of this book is posted at
amazon.com.
The City of God, Augustine of Hippo.
My review of this book is posted at amazon.com.
Soul Survivor: How My Faith Survived the Church, Philip Yancey.
My review of this book is posted at amazon.com.
Quarks, Chaos & Christianity: Questions to
Science and Religion, John Polkinghorne.
My review of this book is posted at
amazon.com.
The Incomparable Christ,
John R. W. Stott.
My review of this book is posted at
amazon.com.
Understanding the Bible,
John R. W. Stott.
My review of this book is posted at
amazon.com.
Interpreting the Old Testament: A Guide for Exegesis, Craig C. Broyles.
Highly academic, extremely insightful
and useful. I'll post a review at amazon.com.
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Afoot and Afield in San Diego County, Jerry Schad.
Trail information. (I have posted a
review of this book at amazon.com)
A Flora of San Diego County, California, R. Mitchel Beauchamp.
Botany, as you may have guessed from
the title... (I have posted a review of this book at amazon.com)
National Audubon Society Field Guide to Trees:
Western Region, Elbert Luther Little.
Trees of western North America. (I
have posted a review of this book at amazon.com)
National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American
Birds: Western Region, Miklos D. F. Udvardy,
et al.
Birds of western North America. (I
have posted a review of this book at amazon.com)
Q Is for Quantum: An Encyclopedia of Particle Physics, John Gribbin.
An encyclopedia of particle physics. (I have posted a review of this book
at amazon.com)
The Handy Physics Answer Book, P. Erik Gundersen.
A handy resource with concise answers to many of the interesting questions
of physics. (I have posted a review of this book at amazon.com)
Words Fail Me, Patricia
T. O'Conner.
As the subtitle says: "What everyone
who writes should know about writing." (I have posted a review of this
book at amazon.com)
* FICTION. Although
there is much excellent fiction, I have not read much of this type of writing
for several years now. In general, it does not intrigue me. Not while so
much of the fascinating unknown is, at least in some sense, "knowable".
As the physicist Hugh Ross has written, "God has left the curtains
open. He invites us to look in." Yet, where fiction is the playground
for wrestling with the big questions of existence, it rises far above most
of the popular genre and, on occasion, stands with the greatest of humanity's
artistic and intellectual works...
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions. Edwin A. Abbott.
"Something-which-you-do-not-as-yet-know":
Two-dimensional "worlds" exist within ours, if only in a somewhat
pragmatic sense. If we imagine some "thing" intellective within
such a world, then we have little difficulty seeing that our humble narrator,
Mr. A. Square, might be such a world's most insightful oddball. The book
is a classic exposition in basic geometry, but it is more than this. Abbott
uses mathematics to make some very telling observations about human minds
and psychologies.
Edwin Abbott (1838-1926) was a clergyman and a math geek. He was an educator,
an expositor of English literature and New Testament studies, a notable
headmaster, and the author of something like 40 books on widely varied themes.
Today you will probably have a difficult time finding any of his other volumes,
but Flatland is said to have never been out of print since it was first
published in 1884.
No need to retell A. Square's big adventures here, other than this bit of
dialog between our two-dimensional thinker and his three-dimensional visitor/teacher
(Square is given to thoughts of still higher-dimensional worlds):
"SPHERE. But where is this land of Four Dimensions?
[A. Square]. I know not: but doubtless my Teacher knows.
SPHERE. Not I. There is no such land. The very idea of it is utterly inconceivable."
Abbott offers his allegory of physical and conceptual limits with an economy
of word and thought that is nothing less than extraordinary. A great many
volumes, five to ten times as large, conclude having said far less than
this little parable. Read it. You will take from it what you are willing
to take. If you find little or nothing here, you are indeed a citizen of
Flatland.
Utopia, Thomas More.
Nowhereland: Communism's blueprint
or just an imaginative sociological-political fairytale? I'll post a review
at amazon.com.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien.
"Classic" epic fantasy.
My daughter tells me I should occasionally read fiction. "To be more
'well rounded'," she says. She asked me to read Tolkien's The
Lord of the Rings. I had tried reading Tolkien about thirty years
ago. I just couldn't -- too many odd, invented proper nouns. And worse.
Elves, dwarfs, Hobbits, trolls, orcs, Barrow-wights, Dark Riders, wizards,
Rangers, a Balrog ("This is a foe beyond any of you"), and even
more mysterious beings? Be serious -- not worth the effort, I thought.
Well, I read The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.
I had difficulty making my peace with those strange place names and those
stranger character names, yet I pressed on. Eventually I found a pretty
good story. In truth, I believe the story is something beyond the genre-pioneering
work of epic fantasy that critics generally consider Tolkien's Rings
books to be. There are certain philosophical and spiritual themes as well.
This strong undercurrent is not difficult to find, yet the reader need not
recognize it (I'm guessing that many do not) to enjoy the adventurous journey,
as Frodo warns his friends: "You speak of danger, but you do not understand.
This is no treasure-hunt, no there-and-back journey. I am flying from deadly
peril into deadly peril."
Some say the story beneath the story is one of environmental stewardship
(I don't know, this wasn't a burning issue in Tolkien's England). Others
tend toward the theistic themes of providence (an abstracted 23rd Psalm?)
or the relentless conflict between virtue and evil. Some cite social or
even political themes -- a bit of a reach on the latter, I'd say. Only a
servant of the Dark Lord would deny the theistic themes. The story is rich
and deep enough to support all of these ideas, and too much may be made
of them; if Tolkien had wished to pen a philosophical dissertation he would
have done so. The Fellowship is the first of the highly imaginative
Rings trilogy. A good book, even if fiction will never be a
genre with which I spend a high percentage of my reading time.
The Brothers Karamazov,
Fyodor Dostoevsky.
The finest fiction ever written? Some would say so. There is a great deal
of philosophical argument and psychological investigation in these great,
rambling discourses. There is mystery, murder, intrigue, obsession, romantic
entanglement, and courtroom drama. But first, of the drudgery...
Ya ne govoryu po russki... Alexei is Alyosha is Lyoshechka. Ivan is Vanechka.
Dmitri is Mitya is Mitka is Mitenka. Agrafena Alexandrovna is Grushenka
is Grusha. The elder Zosima is rather a saint. Not only because of his patience,
humility, gentleness, and refusal to judge others, but because we must know
him only by this one name! Perhaps it's not all that bad, by the time you
are, say, 400 pages into our story (about half way through), you will have
made your peace with such nuances. Some readers will be troubled by the
length of sentences and of paragraphs, typically sentences may contain 6
to 12 commas, they're huge. The exclamatory devices in many dialogues seem
[to this reader] to be 'over the top', so to speak, as if Dostoevsky, in
his mind's eye, was seeing his story played-out on stage. Perhaps this is
just my ignorant perspective.
Enough detraction. The Brothers Karamazov is said to be a master's masterpiece.
I will not argue, in this regard, with those who know such things far better
than I. Dostoevsky digs deep into the psyche of his central characters,
and sometimes the peripheral characters as well. Perhaps more so than any
other great novelist. Each of these characters becomes startlingly complex
(in many cases we might even say schizophrenic). For example, we meet a
monk known for his resolute silence, who suddenly just won't shut-up. Of
the Karamazov's, Fyodor and Dmitri are pathological slaves to their self-focused
passions, although in Dmitri we come to find a surprising glimmer of possibility.
(If you are close to someone terribly like Fyodor, you have my sympathy).
The restrained and calculating Ivan is hardheaded and hard-hearted, and
to his own demise, his calculating is rather blinded by his over confidence
and sense of his own intelligence. The spiritual pilgrim, Alexei -- gentle,
humble, careful, encouraging, and in a sense fearless -- is the author's
hero, is everyone's rock in the storm, seems burdened only by other's burdens.
Apart from the author's ability to plumb the depths of the human soul, this
reader was surprised at the sophistication and integrity of the Russian
legal and judicial processes in the 1870's. I won't disclose the story any
further except to note that Dostoevsky intended to further examine his characters
in subsequent volumes, but died somewhat suddenly preparing this work for
publication.
In its philosophic and psychological aspects, this book remains insightful
and relevant. Dostoevsky modestly considered himself a dabbler in philosophy.
But who isn't? Philosophy is, after all, the love of thought, not the perfect
mastery of it, and Dostoevsky emerges as a thinker of greater stature than
he conceived himself. He is often included in the 'short list' of great
moral philosophers (with Plato and Kierkegaard, for example), and of the
great existentialists (with Kierkegaard and Nietzsche).
The central existentialist question, that is of the existence of God, is
examined not only in the conversations between Ivan (a professing atheist)
and his brother Alexei, but is an enigma for Ivan even in his private moments,
perhaps especially in his moments of delirium. In his "The Grand Inquisitor,"
Ivan argues a case against God from the existence of evil and injustice.
This is the classic Enlightenment argument that there is no God because
God 'wouldn't do it that way.' One problem with an argument citing evil
and injustice is that it must posit a cognition of goodness and of justice.
How do we explain such a cognition if there is no God? If there is no God
there is nothing 'higher' to which our passions must answer, excepting perhaps
the passions of others. In other words, "all is permitted." Yet
we sense that this simply isn't the case. It seems that having weighed the
argument from the existence of pain and suffering, Dostoevsky holds it to
be the troubled rantings of finite man shaking his fist at the Infinite.
But we can only surmise this, as Dostoevsky's masterpiece simply stops...
Do svidanya.
Good advice: I've heard it said that for every "new" book that one reads, he should read an "old" one as well. It turns out that perhaps "there is nothing new under the sun" (as Solomon said 3,000 years ago!). Some thoughts may have been presented more cogently twenty [or two hundred, or two thousand] years ago than they are in a "new" volume. Its worth finding out. Its fun finding out. Kill your television. |