This review will appear in Philosophy in Review.
John R. Searle
Freedom & Neurobiology: Reflections on Free Will, Language, and Political Power
New York: Columbia University Press, 2007, pp. 113
ISBN 0-231-13752-4 Hb $25-50, £15.50
John Searle has made important contributions to a number of subfields of philosophy, including philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of the social sciences. Although the title of his latest book may elicit the expectation that it treats the very interesting and relatively unexplored question of how neurobiological theories of free will might affect our understanding of political power, in fact the two topics are kept entirely separate from each other.
This volume contains versions of two lectures that were originally delivered and published in France. The first, ‘Free Will as a Problem in Neurobiology’ presents Searle's attempt to lay out what might be called a ‘roadmap towards peace’ between the neurobiological approach to the study of mind and the doctrine of metaphysical human free will. The second lecture, ‘Social Ontology and Political Power’ summarises the ideas about the ontology of social reality he developed earlier in The Construction of Social Reality (1997) and applies them to the analysis of the notion of political power. The two lectures are preceded by a thirty-five page introduction (‘Philosophy and the Basic Facts’), which sets out to show how they fit into Searle's larger project of creating the framework for a comprehensive and naturalistic philosophical system, that is to say, a system whose solutions to philosophical problems are solidly based on the results of research in the empirical sciences.
I was disappointed by this book. Eric Kandel's blurb on its back cover claims that it provides ‘a broad introduction to the complete Searle’, and many, no doubt, hoped that Freedom & Neurobiology would serve as a continuation and update of Searle's very well received 1984 Reith Lectures (published under the title Minds, Brains, and Science). In fact, while the book can be useful as a comprehensive outline of his ideas for people who are already well acquainted with his work, it is much too dry and sketchy to serve as an introduction for the uninitiated. There is little evidence in it of the imaginative thinking that gave the world the 'Chinese Room' thought experiment. It is difficult to assess the arguments that Searle makes in this book because they are so often incomplete or absent, replaced with bibliographical pointers to his other, more substantial books.
For all Searle's talk about naturalism, he has practically nothing to say that is related to actual developments in neurobiological science. The book could have been just as easily written back in the old days when philosophers made furtive references to ‘c-fibers’ in the hope of making materialist theories of mind sound more scientific. Tellingly, Searle writes: ‘The solution to the philosophical mind-body problem seems to me not very difficult. However, the philosophical solution kicks the problem upstairs to neurobiology, where it leaves us with a very difficult neurobiological problem’ (p. 40). Unlike his nemesis (Daniel Dennett), Searle has nothing to tell us about how neurobiology might actually go about solving this, its very difficult problem.
On a more positive note, at least the book does give us a tantalising glimpse of the direction in which Searle would like to go to find a solution to the problem of the material brain giving rise to a metaphysically free will. He seems to think that there is no real difference between compatibilism and the idea that freedom is merely an illusion, rejecting both ideas while admitting that ‘most neurobiologists would feel that this is probably how the brain actuallyworks’ (p. 62). His ultimate argument against such views is evolutionary: ‘An enormous biological price is paid for conscious decision making … To suppose that this plays no role in inclusive fitness is not like supposing the human appendix plays no role. It would be more like supposing that vision or digestion played no evolutionary role’ (p. 70).
How, then, can a material brain give rise to a metaphysically free consciousness? Searle borrows Richard Penrose's suggestion that the indeterminancy found in nature by the standard interpretation of quantum mechanics can serve as the theoretical deus ex machina that creates a place for freedom in nature. Searle is well aware that the sheer randomness associated with quantum indeterminancy cannot serve as a direct model for the indeterminate yet responsible free will he associates with conscious human agency. He suggests that while the indeterminancy associated with micro-quantum level descriptions of the brain will carry over to the holistic ‘system level’ where consciousness and freedom are to be found, the randomness of the micro-quantum level will fail to make that passage. How does random indeterminancy at the micro level become non-random indeterminancy at the macro level? Searle does not tell us. Perhaps he believes it is another question best left for scientists to ponder.
Berel Dov Lerner
Western Galilee College,
Akko, Israel, bdlerner@gmail.com
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Terence Cave: How to Read Montaigne
This review will appear in Practical Philosophy
Terence Cave
How to Read Montaigne
London: Granta Books, 2007, pp. x + 133
ISBN 1-86207-944-1 (pb),£ 11.95
This volume of Granta’s How to Read series deals with an unusual author in an unusual way. Michel de Montaigne was a 16th century French aristocrat who devoted almost all of his literary efforts to the writing, expanding, and rewriting of one book – Les Essais. Although he came to be identified as an advocate of Pyrrhonist scepticism, Montaigne has never found a solid place in the canonical history of western philosophy. Since the Essais is not a play, a book of poetry, or a work of fiction, it is somewhat difficult to define its place in the history of French literature.
Cave’s approach to the Essais can be disappointing for the conventional philosophical reader. True to the common format of the How to Read series, the chapters of his book are built around close readings of passages written by the author under discussion. Naturally, the passages chosen from the Essais treat specific topics, such as travel, conversation, philosophical scepticism, and so on. However, Cave has deliberately avoided giving any kind of overview of Montaigne’s opinions on the traditional questions of philosophy. Most strikingly, even though Cave admits the central role of Pyrrhonist scepticism in the Essais, he tells us very little about Montaigne’s epistemological views and basically nothing about the arguments supporting those views.
Cave asks us to approach the Essais not as a work of philosophy, but rather ‘as a work that seeks above all to devise cognitive strategies: strategies of reflection capable of handling not only the abstract business of thinking but also the frictions that arise from living in the real world, whether from religious or ethical restraints, illness, sexuality, or relations with other people’ (p. 4). He uses the term cognitive to capture ‘Montaigne’s enduring preoccupation with thought as an experience to be studied and documented non-judgmentally and non-didactically; his elaboration of a mode of writing that meets this requirement, and the value of the Essais as a book to think with’ (p.5).
In practice, I understand, this approach means that each passage from the Essais must be read as serving one or more of the following functions: it can be a specimen of thought presented as grist for Montaigne’s observational and analytical mill, or as an apology for the kind of open-ended thought that Montaigne enjoys analysing, or as a bit of actual analysis of the thinking process. In keeping with this interpretive strategy, Cave does not think that Montaigne was actually unorthodox in his religious beliefs. Rather, his apparently heretical discussions on belief are actually just set-pieces of the kind of free-wheeling thought that Montaigne is interested in analysing. It was not a burning need to resolve epistemological issues that brought Montaigne to adopt Pyrrhonist scepticism.Rather, that brand of agnostic skepticism usefully grants intellectual legitimacy to the kind of balanced and open-ended processes of internal deliberation that Montaigne was keen to investigate.
To be fair, it should be said that Cave’s book is well written and it does offer the reader a good deal of useful background for reading the Essais. However, I cannot help but wonder whether he might have fallen victim to a hyper-sophisticated version of a subterfuge planned long by Montaigne himself. Somewhat notoriously, Leo Strauss insists that we must always struggle to pierce through the veil of irony and rhetorical distractions used by philosophical writers to hide their unorthodox views from the eyes of potential persecutors. Cave claims that, ‘Just as Montaigne is not out to state a philosophical position in the Essais, so too he avoids asserting religious belief, or indeed talking about divine questions at all’ (p. 47). What better way for a heterodox thinker to distance himself from his heretical doctrines than to pretend that he is merely concerned with the process of thinking itself and not with the content or conclusions of that process?
Berel Dov Lerner
Western Galilee College,
Akko, Israel, bdlerner@gmail.com
Terence Cave
How to Read Montaigne
London: Granta Books, 2007, pp. x + 133
ISBN 1-86207-944-1 (pb),£ 11.95
This volume of Granta’s How to Read series deals with an unusual author in an unusual way. Michel de Montaigne was a 16th century French aristocrat who devoted almost all of his literary efforts to the writing, expanding, and rewriting of one book – Les Essais. Although he came to be identified as an advocate of Pyrrhonist scepticism, Montaigne has never found a solid place in the canonical history of western philosophy. Since the Essais is not a play, a book of poetry, or a work of fiction, it is somewhat difficult to define its place in the history of French literature.
Cave’s approach to the Essais can be disappointing for the conventional philosophical reader. True to the common format of the How to Read series, the chapters of his book are built around close readings of passages written by the author under discussion. Naturally, the passages chosen from the Essais treat specific topics, such as travel, conversation, philosophical scepticism, and so on. However, Cave has deliberately avoided giving any kind of overview of Montaigne’s opinions on the traditional questions of philosophy. Most strikingly, even though Cave admits the central role of Pyrrhonist scepticism in the Essais, he tells us very little about Montaigne’s epistemological views and basically nothing about the arguments supporting those views.
Cave asks us to approach the Essais not as a work of philosophy, but rather ‘as a work that seeks above all to devise cognitive strategies: strategies of reflection capable of handling not only the abstract business of thinking but also the frictions that arise from living in the real world, whether from religious or ethical restraints, illness, sexuality, or relations with other people’ (p. 4). He uses the term cognitive to capture ‘Montaigne’s enduring preoccupation with thought as an experience to be studied and documented non-judgmentally and non-didactically; his elaboration of a mode of writing that meets this requirement, and the value of the Essais as a book to think with’ (p.5).
In practice, I understand, this approach means that each passage from the Essais must be read as serving one or more of the following functions: it can be a specimen of thought presented as grist for Montaigne’s observational and analytical mill, or as an apology for the kind of open-ended thought that Montaigne enjoys analysing, or as a bit of actual analysis of the thinking process. In keeping with this interpretive strategy, Cave does not think that Montaigne was actually unorthodox in his religious beliefs. Rather, his apparently heretical discussions on belief are actually just set-pieces of the kind of free-wheeling thought that Montaigne is interested in analysing. It was not a burning need to resolve epistemological issues that brought Montaigne to adopt Pyrrhonist scepticism.Rather, that brand of agnostic skepticism usefully grants intellectual legitimacy to the kind of balanced and open-ended processes of internal deliberation that Montaigne was keen to investigate.
To be fair, it should be said that Cave’s book is well written and it does offer the reader a good deal of useful background for reading the Essais. However, I cannot help but wonder whether he might have fallen victim to a hyper-sophisticated version of a subterfuge planned long by Montaigne himself. Somewhat notoriously, Leo Strauss insists that we must always struggle to pierce through the veil of irony and rhetorical distractions used by philosophical writers to hide their unorthodox views from the eyes of potential persecutors. Cave claims that, ‘Just as Montaigne is not out to state a philosophical position in the Essais, so too he avoids asserting religious belief, or indeed talking about divine questions at all’ (p. 47). What better way for a heterodox thinker to distance himself from his heretical doctrines than to pretend that he is merely concerned with the process of thinking itself and not with the content or conclusions of that process?
Berel Dov Lerner
Western Galilee College,
Akko, Israel, bdlerner@gmail.com
Friday, January 25, 2008
Lee McIntyre: Dark Ages: The Case for a Science of Human Behavior
My review will appear in Philosophy in Review
Lee McIntyre Dark Ages: The Case for a Science of Human Behavior. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: MIT Press 2006. Pp. xx + 144. (Paper: ISBN: 0-262-13469-1)
Lee McIntyre is a man on a mission. He has written a book which is not a monograph on the philosophy of the social sciences, but rather a manifesto and a call to arms. We must save the social and behavioral sciences in time for the social and behavioral sciences to save us! Our technologically modern world is still plagued by the ancient societal ills of crime, war, poverty, etc. However, McIntyre is convinced that with a bit of pluck and methodological purity, the human sciences can become genuinely predictive. Once that happens, human beings will be able to cure society’s ills with the help of evidence-based, rational, and scientifically valid policies. Appropriately, Dark Ages is written with painstaking concern for clarity and is addressed to a rather broader reading public than would be usually associated with the MIT Press.
According to McIntyre, the human sciences are currently in a very sorry state. While the natural sciences have largely thrown off the shackles of cultural dogmas, research and theory-building in the social and behavioral sciences are still held back by religious and ideological prejudice. He mostly cites examples of the pernicious effects of liberal political correctness, which stymies the search for innate gender and ethnic differences (as illustrated by the reception of Hermstein and Murray’s book, The Bell Curve) and which blindly attacks any methodologically sound research that might undermine liberal policy dogmas (such as Gary Kleck’s work on guns and violence in America). More generally, people simply try to avoid serious confrontations with ideas – such as the thesis that freedom of the will is an illusion – that challenge their fundamental human self-worth. McIntyre does not offer his own speculations on any of these emotionally-charged topics, but rather insists that we must wait upon the self-correcting process of scientific discovery to give us answers.
McIntyre further claims that the human sciences have suffered because they have failed to adopt the self-critical empiricist methodology that has propelled the natural sciences to greatness. He retells the story of the “cold fusion” fiasco of 1989 as an example of how the validity of scientific knowledge is preserved by the constant vigilance of researchers who seek the empirical falsification of proposed hypotheses. Unfortunately, such attempts at falsification are rarely made in the human sciences.
Some might claim that the quest for predictive human sciences faces obstacles with which the predictive natural sciences did not have to contend. McIntyre counters by employing historical examples to demonstrate that the natural sciences had to overcome the same kinds of methodological and societal barriers as face the social sciences today. Early modern physics and astronomy had to free themselves of a disciplinary mind-set which eschewed empirical testing and sought truth through sheer intellectual speculation. The authority of Aristotle, Scripture, and Church doctrine blocked the way towards genuine advances. McIntyre devotes half a chapter to recounting Galileo’s battle for the heliocentric model of the universe as an illustration of how the natural sciences prevailed over the kinds of biases and methodological weaknesses that still plague the social sciences today.
Another challenge comes from the philosophy of the social sciences. Some philosophers claim that it is impossible to describe human psychology in terms of the kinds of explanatory laws which make possible the scientific prediction and control of natural phenomena. McIntyre is well aware of this trend of thought; he has devoted an entire earlier book, Laws and Explanations in the Social Sciences: Defending a Science of Human Behavior to the examination and critique of such claims. In what should have been the most philosophically interesting section of the book, McIntyre spends a mere fifteen pages describing and dismissing what he counts as the five major arguments made against the possibility of a predictive social science: A) The subject matter of the human sciences may appear to be overwhelmingly complex, but McIntyre assures us that the natural sciences have successfully studied complex systems. B) “Human behavior is part of an open system” (27) and thus determined by a potentially infinite array of factors, but this claim must itself be proven, and in any case science can handle open systems. C) Critics may say that “it is impossible to be objective about our own behavior” (28), but the natural sciences have also had to contend with illegitimate biases and interests. D) It is often impossible to perform controlled experiments in the social sciences, but that is also true of geology and astronomy. E) If people have free will, their behavior cannot be predicted. McIntyre replies that the hypothesis of human free must itself be subjected to empirical testing.
Many academic philosophers will be disappointed by McIntyre’s short list of objections and his quick treatment of them. However, it must be said in his defense that this is a book intended for a lay audience and that a fuller version of his arguments can be found in his earlier publications. Leaving those philosophical issues aside, a few other aspects of the book remain troubling. McIntyre over-dramatizes the policy failures of modern western societies. We simply do not suffer from many of the ancient social problems: no one dies of famine in western democracies, the rule of law is generally respected, people can travel across the countryside without fear of bandits, and illiteracy has been largely eradicated. McIntyre’s treatment of contemporary religion (including the surprising claim that, “It is an empirical question whether God exists” (54)) is weak and seems out of place. Perhaps this was an attempt to hitch his agenda to the neo-secularist bandwagon? (Sam Harris contributed a complimentary blurb to the book’s back cover) He also seems unconcerned about the danger that once armed with purportedly rigorous human sciences, governments might be tempted to interfere more deeply in the lives of citizens – for their own good, of course. Unfortunately, determination of the proper balance between social utility and individual freedom is not a problem that even a genuinely predictive social science would be able to solve on its own.
Berel Dov Lerner
Western Galilee College, Israel
Lee McIntyre Dark Ages: The Case for a Science of Human Behavior. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: MIT Press 2006. Pp. xx + 144. (Paper: ISBN: 0-262-13469-1)
Lee McIntyre is a man on a mission. He has written a book which is not a monograph on the philosophy of the social sciences, but rather a manifesto and a call to arms. We must save the social and behavioral sciences in time for the social and behavioral sciences to save us! Our technologically modern world is still plagued by the ancient societal ills of crime, war, poverty, etc. However, McIntyre is convinced that with a bit of pluck and methodological purity, the human sciences can become genuinely predictive. Once that happens, human beings will be able to cure society’s ills with the help of evidence-based, rational, and scientifically valid policies. Appropriately, Dark Ages is written with painstaking concern for clarity and is addressed to a rather broader reading public than would be usually associated with the MIT Press.
According to McIntyre, the human sciences are currently in a very sorry state. While the natural sciences have largely thrown off the shackles of cultural dogmas, research and theory-building in the social and behavioral sciences are still held back by religious and ideological prejudice. He mostly cites examples of the pernicious effects of liberal political correctness, which stymies the search for innate gender and ethnic differences (as illustrated by the reception of Hermstein and Murray’s book, The Bell Curve) and which blindly attacks any methodologically sound research that might undermine liberal policy dogmas (such as Gary Kleck’s work on guns and violence in America). More generally, people simply try to avoid serious confrontations with ideas – such as the thesis that freedom of the will is an illusion – that challenge their fundamental human self-worth. McIntyre does not offer his own speculations on any of these emotionally-charged topics, but rather insists that we must wait upon the self-correcting process of scientific discovery to give us answers.
McIntyre further claims that the human sciences have suffered because they have failed to adopt the self-critical empiricist methodology that has propelled the natural sciences to greatness. He retells the story of the “cold fusion” fiasco of 1989 as an example of how the validity of scientific knowledge is preserved by the constant vigilance of researchers who seek the empirical falsification of proposed hypotheses. Unfortunately, such attempts at falsification are rarely made in the human sciences.
Some might claim that the quest for predictive human sciences faces obstacles with which the predictive natural sciences did not have to contend. McIntyre counters by employing historical examples to demonstrate that the natural sciences had to overcome the same kinds of methodological and societal barriers as face the social sciences today. Early modern physics and astronomy had to free themselves of a disciplinary mind-set which eschewed empirical testing and sought truth through sheer intellectual speculation. The authority of Aristotle, Scripture, and Church doctrine blocked the way towards genuine advances. McIntyre devotes half a chapter to recounting Galileo’s battle for the heliocentric model of the universe as an illustration of how the natural sciences prevailed over the kinds of biases and methodological weaknesses that still plague the social sciences today.
Another challenge comes from the philosophy of the social sciences. Some philosophers claim that it is impossible to describe human psychology in terms of the kinds of explanatory laws which make possible the scientific prediction and control of natural phenomena. McIntyre is well aware of this trend of thought; he has devoted an entire earlier book, Laws and Explanations in the Social Sciences: Defending a Science of Human Behavior to the examination and critique of such claims. In what should have been the most philosophically interesting section of the book, McIntyre spends a mere fifteen pages describing and dismissing what he counts as the five major arguments made against the possibility of a predictive social science: A) The subject matter of the human sciences may appear to be overwhelmingly complex, but McIntyre assures us that the natural sciences have successfully studied complex systems. B) “Human behavior is part of an open system” (27) and thus determined by a potentially infinite array of factors, but this claim must itself be proven, and in any case science can handle open systems. C) Critics may say that “it is impossible to be objective about our own behavior” (28), but the natural sciences have also had to contend with illegitimate biases and interests. D) It is often impossible to perform controlled experiments in the social sciences, but that is also true of geology and astronomy. E) If people have free will, their behavior cannot be predicted. McIntyre replies that the hypothesis of human free must itself be subjected to empirical testing.
Many academic philosophers will be disappointed by McIntyre’s short list of objections and his quick treatment of them. However, it must be said in his defense that this is a book intended for a lay audience and that a fuller version of his arguments can be found in his earlier publications. Leaving those philosophical issues aside, a few other aspects of the book remain troubling. McIntyre over-dramatizes the policy failures of modern western societies. We simply do not suffer from many of the ancient social problems: no one dies of famine in western democracies, the rule of law is generally respected, people can travel across the countryside without fear of bandits, and illiteracy has been largely eradicated. McIntyre’s treatment of contemporary religion (including the surprising claim that, “It is an empirical question whether God exists” (54)) is weak and seems out of place. Perhaps this was an attempt to hitch his agenda to the neo-secularist bandwagon? (Sam Harris contributed a complimentary blurb to the book’s back cover) He also seems unconcerned about the danger that once armed with purportedly rigorous human sciences, governments might be tempted to interfere more deeply in the lives of citizens – for their own good, of course. Unfortunately, determination of the proper balance between social utility and individual freedom is not a problem that even a genuinely predictive social science would be able to solve on its own.
Berel Dov Lerner
Western Galilee College, Israel
Peter Osborne: How to Read Marx
My review will appear in Practical Philosophy
Peter Osborne
How to Read Marx
London: Granta Books, 2005
ISBN1862077713 (pb), pp. vii + 136 pp.
Peter Osborne’s book follows the customary format of the How to read Series. Each of its chapters consists of a passage from Marx’s oeuvre followed by a discussion that is intended to both explicate the passage and to introduce broader issues of Marx’s thought. The purpose of the present book appears, however, to be somewhat different from that of others in the series. How to Read Marx might be more aptly titled How to Read Marx Correctly. While the other How to Read books serve as introductions to the thinkers to which they are devoted, Osborne’s book seems to assume that his audience already posses a basic - if flawed – acquaintance with Marx’s writings. As a result, he fails to give a systematic overview of Marx’s thought. In fact, Osborne consciously avoids overtly systematic interpretation, rather, he wishes “to present Marx’s writings as an ongoing process of investigation, rather than a doctrine” (pg. 6). Instead of explaining Marx from the ground up, he points out the varying rhetorical and historical factors that must be taken into account when reading different texts that Marx authored and he further tries to show us that Marx remains relevant in the age of globalization, that Marx can be read philosophically, that Marx was more innovative than we might have realized, and why Marx the father should not be held responsible for the sins of his Soviet children.
The book opens with a chapter on the “fetishism of commodities”, as set forth in a passage from Capital. Osborne takes pains to explain the historical background of the term “fetish” as it was used in Enlightenment accounts of non-western societies and in Marx’s own writings. He warns us against finding Freudian overtones in Marx’s use of the term. All of this is very well, but what exactly is fetishistic about commodities? Osborne tells us that a commodity’s “use-value” and “exchange-value” are mysteriously related, and that the work that goes into producing commodities is simultaneously both “concrete labour” and “abstract labour.” What he fails to do is to lead the reader through a single down-to-earth example of the production and marketing of a specific commodity in order to demonstrate how all of these theoretical concepts apply to the real world. The recurrent failure to flesh-out highly abstract ideas further undermines the book’s usefulness as a genuinely introductory text.
The next two chapters deal with passages from the “Theses on Feuerbach” and The German Ideology. Osborne uses these texts to explain Marx’s idiosyncratic materialism and how it developed during the course of his life. He tells us that the “Theses on Feuerbach” should be read as belonging to the genre of literary “fragments” as developed in German Romanticism and as an early example of a “posthumously published philosophical notebook” similar to Nietzsche’s Will to Power, Benjamin’s Arcades’ Project and Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations. Osborne assures us that, “If the theoretical content of these texts is dense, at times to the point of enigma, the form of their incompleteness is nonetheless crucial for projecting a unity to the bodies of work to which they are appended’ (pg. 26). I am afraid that statements like this may well leave people who are acquainted with the authors mentioned no less confused than the philosophical neophytes who hope to gain an inkling of what Marx had to say about our world. Be that as it may, we come to understand that Marx’s new materialism is rooted in the standpoint of living, social, human beings who interact with material nature and with each other, rather than in the standpoint of an inactive, isolated scientific observer of material nature. We also learn that Marx’s standpoint is inherently historical, because when our needs move us to interact with nature, the technologies we develop in order to undertake that interaction generate new sets of needs in a recurring historical process. Although the ideas dealt with in these chapters are of considerable philosophical interest, Osborne once again fails to work hard enough to make the concepts involved readily and precisely understandable.
Chapter four uses a passage from The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts as the textual anchor of a discussion of Marx’s notion of alienation as set against its Hegelian background. Chapter five presents excerpts from the early Notebooks on Epicurean Philosophy (1839) and from the introduction to the “Contribution to Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right” in order to consider Marx’s developing views on the respective roles of philosophy and the proletariat in the emancipation of humanity. Chapter six, built upon another excerpt from The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, explains that the emancipation heralded by Marx consists of communism – not, as Osborne is careful to tell, the “communism” of state socialism, but rather a truly emancipatory communism. This is a communism “which abolishes private property [especially privately owned means of production – BDL] in such a way as to move humanity to a more advanced stage of historical development” (pg. 79) by managing to preserve the advances that lay hidden and alienated in the capitalist system. Chapter six is devoted to the Communist Manifesto, and deals largely with literary questions surrounding the genre of manifestos in general and the rhetorical considerations that must be taken into account when reading them. Chapter seven treats a remarkable passage from Capital which is written in the first person as the plea or complaint of a worker against his employer. Chapter nine deals with another section from Capital, this time one concerning the problem of “original accumulation” (the question of how capitalists amass the “start-up” capital needed for economies to “take off”). The basic thesis is that this “original” wealth is acquired through violent and underhanded means rather than through thrift and personal virtue. The final chapter discusses a sample of Marx’s pot-boiling journalistic writing. The passage in question deals with the affects of British colonialism on India. Osborne takes the opportunity to soften (but not to entirely excuse) the political incorrectness of Marx’s views on non-Western societies.
In conclusion: there is much of interest in this book for people who have some acquaintance with Marx; it might find a useful place on the reading lists of some undergraduate courses. However, I do not think it can succeed as a stand-alone introductory text.
Berel Dov Lerner
Western Galilee College,
Akko, Israel, bdlerner@gmail.com
Peter Osborne
How to Read Marx
London: Granta Books, 2005
ISBN1862077713 (pb), pp. vii + 136 pp.
Peter Osborne’s book follows the customary format of the How to read Series. Each of its chapters consists of a passage from Marx’s oeuvre followed by a discussion that is intended to both explicate the passage and to introduce broader issues of Marx’s thought. The purpose of the present book appears, however, to be somewhat different from that of others in the series. How to Read Marx might be more aptly titled How to Read Marx Correctly. While the other How to Read books serve as introductions to the thinkers to which they are devoted, Osborne’s book seems to assume that his audience already posses a basic - if flawed – acquaintance with Marx’s writings. As a result, he fails to give a systematic overview of Marx’s thought. In fact, Osborne consciously avoids overtly systematic interpretation, rather, he wishes “to present Marx’s writings as an ongoing process of investigation, rather than a doctrine” (pg. 6). Instead of explaining Marx from the ground up, he points out the varying rhetorical and historical factors that must be taken into account when reading different texts that Marx authored and he further tries to show us that Marx remains relevant in the age of globalization, that Marx can be read philosophically, that Marx was more innovative than we might have realized, and why Marx the father should not be held responsible for the sins of his Soviet children.
The book opens with a chapter on the “fetishism of commodities”, as set forth in a passage from Capital. Osborne takes pains to explain the historical background of the term “fetish” as it was used in Enlightenment accounts of non-western societies and in Marx’s own writings. He warns us against finding Freudian overtones in Marx’s use of the term. All of this is very well, but what exactly is fetishistic about commodities? Osborne tells us that a commodity’s “use-value” and “exchange-value” are mysteriously related, and that the work that goes into producing commodities is simultaneously both “concrete labour” and “abstract labour.” What he fails to do is to lead the reader through a single down-to-earth example of the production and marketing of a specific commodity in order to demonstrate how all of these theoretical concepts apply to the real world. The recurrent failure to flesh-out highly abstract ideas further undermines the book’s usefulness as a genuinely introductory text.
The next two chapters deal with passages from the “Theses on Feuerbach” and The German Ideology. Osborne uses these texts to explain Marx’s idiosyncratic materialism and how it developed during the course of his life. He tells us that the “Theses on Feuerbach” should be read as belonging to the genre of literary “fragments” as developed in German Romanticism and as an early example of a “posthumously published philosophical notebook” similar to Nietzsche’s Will to Power, Benjamin’s Arcades’ Project and Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations. Osborne assures us that, “If the theoretical content of these texts is dense, at times to the point of enigma, the form of their incompleteness is nonetheless crucial for projecting a unity to the bodies of work to which they are appended’ (pg. 26). I am afraid that statements like this may well leave people who are acquainted with the authors mentioned no less confused than the philosophical neophytes who hope to gain an inkling of what Marx had to say about our world. Be that as it may, we come to understand that Marx’s new materialism is rooted in the standpoint of living, social, human beings who interact with material nature and with each other, rather than in the standpoint of an inactive, isolated scientific observer of material nature. We also learn that Marx’s standpoint is inherently historical, because when our needs move us to interact with nature, the technologies we develop in order to undertake that interaction generate new sets of needs in a recurring historical process. Although the ideas dealt with in these chapters are of considerable philosophical interest, Osborne once again fails to work hard enough to make the concepts involved readily and precisely understandable.
Chapter four uses a passage from The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts as the textual anchor of a discussion of Marx’s notion of alienation as set against its Hegelian background. Chapter five presents excerpts from the early Notebooks on Epicurean Philosophy (1839) and from the introduction to the “Contribution to Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right” in order to consider Marx’s developing views on the respective roles of philosophy and the proletariat in the emancipation of humanity. Chapter six, built upon another excerpt from The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, explains that the emancipation heralded by Marx consists of communism – not, as Osborne is careful to tell, the “communism” of state socialism, but rather a truly emancipatory communism. This is a communism “which abolishes private property [especially privately owned means of production – BDL] in such a way as to move humanity to a more advanced stage of historical development” (pg. 79) by managing to preserve the advances that lay hidden and alienated in the capitalist system. Chapter six is devoted to the Communist Manifesto, and deals largely with literary questions surrounding the genre of manifestos in general and the rhetorical considerations that must be taken into account when reading them. Chapter seven treats a remarkable passage from Capital which is written in the first person as the plea or complaint of a worker against his employer. Chapter nine deals with another section from Capital, this time one concerning the problem of “original accumulation” (the question of how capitalists amass the “start-up” capital needed for economies to “take off”). The basic thesis is that this “original” wealth is acquired through violent and underhanded means rather than through thrift and personal virtue. The final chapter discusses a sample of Marx’s pot-boiling journalistic writing. The passage in question deals with the affects of British colonialism on India. Osborne takes the opportunity to soften (but not to entirely excuse) the political incorrectness of Marx’s views on non-Western societies.
In conclusion: there is much of interest in this book for people who have some acquaintance with Marx; it might find a useful place on the reading lists of some undergraduate courses. However, I do not think it can succeed as a stand-alone introductory text.
Berel Dov Lerner
Western Galilee College,
Akko, Israel, bdlerner@gmail.com
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Nicholas Royle: How to Read Shakespeare
My review will appear in Practical Philosophy.
Nicholas Royle
How to Read Shakespeare
London: Granta Books, 2005
ISBN-1-86207-730-4 (pb), pp. xii + 130
Of the books I have seen so far from Granta’s How to Read series, the Shakespeare volume is the most directly engaged in teaching its audience how to read texts. Nicholas Royle is not interested in working out what Shakespeare thought about any particular issue; rather, he seeks to help us recognize some of the ways that Shakespeare uses and manipulates words in order to create various effects. Although the author has written extensively on literary theory (including, among other works, a book on Derrida) the present book is blessedly uninterested in that topic. Instead of talking about talking about how to read Shakespeare, Royle never strays far from the actual words and passages from Shakespeare which are under discussion. Neither does he offer any abstract arguments for the validity of the interpretive strategies that he uses. Instead, we are tacitly invited to pragmatically judge his methods by their fruits; those who find Royle’s readings enlightening will no doubt follow in his footsteps. I personally found most of what he says agreeable, although he may occasionally read too much into certain details of the texts (if one is allowed to suggest that Shakespeare may be over-interpreted!). Some readers may also be annoyed when Royle indulges in a bit of his own faux-Shakespearian word play.
Each chapter of the book works like a microscope, zooming in and out on its subject at different degrees of magnification. At one level, a chapter is devoted to a particular play; at another level, it contains a close reading of a particular passage from that play; and finally, each chapter examines the role of a particular word as it appears in the passage, in the play, and throughout the Shakespearian oeuvre. Chapter seven, for example, discusses Antony and Cleopatra. More particularly, it analyzes a bit of dialogue that takes place between Antony and his loyal follower, Eros, which is found in act four, scene fourteen of that play. There Antony describes how, when looking at a cloud, we might see in it a “blue promontory with trees upon’t that nod unto the world.” Royle zooms in on the word “nod,” explicating its use in the passage against the background of its use in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Julius Caesar, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Other chapters treat passages from The Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, Hamlet, Othello, and Macbeth.
There is certainly much to be gained from this short book and it does inspire one to read or reread the works it discusses. Clearly this is what Royle hopes for, and he ends his book with a few useful pages of “Suggestions for Further Reading,” which describe editions of the plays, critical works, philological works, biographies, and websites that can all be of help and interest to budding Shakespearian scholars.
I do have two inter-connected quibbles with this book, both of which probably reflect my own preference for philosophy over literary criticism. Royle appears at times to be guilty, simultaneously, of both over-interpretation and under-interpretation of the texts he discusses. On the one hand, he finds great significance in the way Shakespeare uses particular words in different contexts. On the other hand, he rarely comes up with much in the way of clear conclusions about exactly what Shakespeare is trying to achieve or express by using words as he does. Lacking definite theses, the discussion sometimes descends (or ascends, according to taste) into a free-wheeling interpretive improvisation.
Royle writes in his introduction that, “My principle aim is to register and explore the strangeness [Royle’s emphasis] of Shakespeare’s writing… - its capacity to surprise and alter our sense of the world” (pg. 3). The book does reveal all manner of word-play and strangeness in Shakespearian texts, but there is a danger here: any natural human use of language can be shown to be quite strange and ambiguous when placed under a sufficiently powerful exegetical microscope.
Does Shakespeare merely want to play verbal tricks on us, or is he actually trying to say something? Royle offers some direction regarding certain themes that we should be looking out for. He points, for instance, to the tendency of Shakespeare’s dramatis personae to reflexively allude to the fact that they are merely actors in a play. However, while readers of his book will come away with new appreciation of Shakespeare’s language, they will not have gained any real understanding of his importance for western culture. Royle has convinced me; Shakespeare’s language is stranger than I had thought. However, it was not strangeness of language that inspired T. S. Eliot to write, “Dante and Shakespeare divide the modern world between them, there is no third.” To understand Shakespeare’s greatness, we must look beyond this book.
Berel Dov Lerner
Western Galilee College,
Akko, Israel
Nicholas Royle
How to Read Shakespeare
London: Granta Books, 2005
ISBN-1-86207-730-4 (pb), pp. xii + 130
Of the books I have seen so far from Granta’s How to Read series, the Shakespeare volume is the most directly engaged in teaching its audience how to read texts. Nicholas Royle is not interested in working out what Shakespeare thought about any particular issue; rather, he seeks to help us recognize some of the ways that Shakespeare uses and manipulates words in order to create various effects. Although the author has written extensively on literary theory (including, among other works, a book on Derrida) the present book is blessedly uninterested in that topic. Instead of talking about talking about how to read Shakespeare, Royle never strays far from the actual words and passages from Shakespeare which are under discussion. Neither does he offer any abstract arguments for the validity of the interpretive strategies that he uses. Instead, we are tacitly invited to pragmatically judge his methods by their fruits; those who find Royle’s readings enlightening will no doubt follow in his footsteps. I personally found most of what he says agreeable, although he may occasionally read too much into certain details of the texts (if one is allowed to suggest that Shakespeare may be over-interpreted!). Some readers may also be annoyed when Royle indulges in a bit of his own faux-Shakespearian word play.
Each chapter of the book works like a microscope, zooming in and out on its subject at different degrees of magnification. At one level, a chapter is devoted to a particular play; at another level, it contains a close reading of a particular passage from that play; and finally, each chapter examines the role of a particular word as it appears in the passage, in the play, and throughout the Shakespearian oeuvre. Chapter seven, for example, discusses Antony and Cleopatra. More particularly, it analyzes a bit of dialogue that takes place between Antony and his loyal follower, Eros, which is found in act four, scene fourteen of that play. There Antony describes how, when looking at a cloud, we might see in it a “blue promontory with trees upon’t that nod unto the world.” Royle zooms in on the word “nod,” explicating its use in the passage against the background of its use in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Julius Caesar, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Other chapters treat passages from The Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, Hamlet, Othello, and Macbeth.
There is certainly much to be gained from this short book and it does inspire one to read or reread the works it discusses. Clearly this is what Royle hopes for, and he ends his book with a few useful pages of “Suggestions for Further Reading,” which describe editions of the plays, critical works, philological works, biographies, and websites that can all be of help and interest to budding Shakespearian scholars.
I do have two inter-connected quibbles with this book, both of which probably reflect my own preference for philosophy over literary criticism. Royle appears at times to be guilty, simultaneously, of both over-interpretation and under-interpretation of the texts he discusses. On the one hand, he finds great significance in the way Shakespeare uses particular words in different contexts. On the other hand, he rarely comes up with much in the way of clear conclusions about exactly what Shakespeare is trying to achieve or express by using words as he does. Lacking definite theses, the discussion sometimes descends (or ascends, according to taste) into a free-wheeling interpretive improvisation.
Royle writes in his introduction that, “My principle aim is to register and explore the strangeness [Royle’s emphasis] of Shakespeare’s writing… - its capacity to surprise and alter our sense of the world” (pg. 3). The book does reveal all manner of word-play and strangeness in Shakespearian texts, but there is a danger here: any natural human use of language can be shown to be quite strange and ambiguous when placed under a sufficiently powerful exegetical microscope.
Does Shakespeare merely want to play verbal tricks on us, or is he actually trying to say something? Royle offers some direction regarding certain themes that we should be looking out for. He points, for instance, to the tendency of Shakespeare’s dramatis personae to reflexively allude to the fact that they are merely actors in a play. However, while readers of his book will come away with new appreciation of Shakespeare’s language, they will not have gained any real understanding of his importance for western culture. Royle has convinced me; Shakespeare’s language is stranger than I had thought. However, it was not strangeness of language that inspired T. S. Eliot to write, “Dante and Shakespeare divide the modern world between them, there is no third.” To understand Shakespeare’s greatness, we must look beyond this book.
Berel Dov Lerner
Western Galilee College,
Akko, Israel
Harry G. Frankfurt: The Reasons of Love
My review will appear in Practical Philosophy.
Harry G. Frankfurt
The Reasons of Love
Princeton and London: Princeton University Press, 2004
ISBN0691126241 (pb), pp. 135.
This slim and elegantly written volume should be of obvious interest to anyone interested in the application of philosophy to sorting out the problems of life. After all, the first of its three chapters is actually titled, ’The Question: “How Should We Live?”’ More precisely, the book discusses how people should organise their desires, interests, and loves in the light of Frankfurt’s celebrated two-tiered model of human volition. The model could be crudely described as: human beings are motivated by immediate, first-order desires to have and do things in the world, as well as by reflexive second-order desires to possess specific first-order desires. Frankfurt’s main message is that in order to be healthy, effective, and happy human beings, it is necessary for there to be things and/or people whom we love in a wholehearted way. Surprisingly, self-love ends up having an essential role to play in the achievement of this volitional wholeness.
Frankfurt begins by distinguishing caring about something from merely desiring or preferring something, and even from ‘taking something to be intrinsically valuable’ (p. 12). Mobilising his model of volition, Frankfurt explains that we care about something when we both desire it and also have an enduring second level desire to continue desiring it. Such caring infuses our world with meaning, but the ultimate objects of our care are not themselves determined by further rational considerations or ulterior motives: ‘Formulating a criterion of importance presupposes possession of the very criterion that is to be formulated. The circularity is both inescapable and fatal’ (p. 26).
The next chapter investigates a concept very close to that of caring, i.e., ‘love’. The love Frankfurt is talking about can arise from an appreciation of the beloved’s special virtues or as the result of a natural psychological tendency, as in parental love. However, those are just contingent facts about the psychological impetus of love. We do not directly control our love or select its objects; rather our love for those objects is itself that which ultimately grounds and shapes our dispositions and conduct. The object of love is loved not merely for its valuable characteristics (if it does have any) or as a means for attaining some other thing of importance; it is cherished for its own sake and cannot be substituted. When we love a person, we identify with him or her. If we do not love at all we risk profound and debilitating boredom. When we do love we can overcome the ’inhibitions and hesitancies of self-doubt’ (p. 65) and become free to pursue an active life devoted to the objects of our love.
The final chapter develops Frankfurt’s most surprising thesis, that is, that self love is the conceptually purist and most important form of love. It is pure because it so clearly fits the criteria of love (i.e. we care about ourselves for our own sake, we identify with ourselves, etc.). It is important because Frankfurt does not understand self-love to be an expression of crass egocentrism. When I love someone else, I identify with them and care about them and thus love what they love. Similarly, self-love demands love of that which the self loves. What is this further object which the self loves? Through a somewhat suspicious dialectical move, Frankfurt tries to show that it cannot simply be the self all over again; it must be an external object. He claims that it is my self-love which drives me to ‘get a life’ (to borrow a colloquial expression) and this requires, according to Frankfurt, that I learn to love things and people besides myself. The remainder of the chapter treats the pathologies of will which occur when we cannot manage to identify with ourselves (an essential element of self-love), that is, when we fail to successfully reconcile conflicts between our loves for different objects. It is only when we can love objects outside ourselves wholeheartedly that we can genuinely love ourselves; it is our self-love which motivates us to seek wholehearted love of objects outside ourselves.
While by any account The Reasons of Love is well worth reading, I would like to mention three aspects of the book which might draw criticism. First of all, Frankfurt repeatedly downplays the importance of moral values in our lives. He is concerned with the wholeheartedness of our care, love, and action and is not very interested in whether the things we care about and the deeds we perform are morally commendable. Secondly, he is very wary of romantic love and would much rather talk about parental love for children. Thirdly, the ‘suspicious dialectical move’ mentioned above is suspicious. The god of Aristotle got along fine just thinking about his own thinking (at least in book 12 of the Metaphysics). Why can’t self-love be satisfied by loving the object of the self’s own self-love? In other words: why wouldn’t someone be able to infuse his life with meaning by becoming the sole member of a mutual admiration society?
Berel Dov Lerner
Western Galilee College,
Akko, Israel,
bdlerner@gmail.com
Harry G. Frankfurt
The Reasons of Love
Princeton and London: Princeton University Press, 2004
ISBN0691126241 (pb), pp. 135.
This slim and elegantly written volume should be of obvious interest to anyone interested in the application of philosophy to sorting out the problems of life. After all, the first of its three chapters is actually titled, ’The Question: “How Should We Live?”’ More precisely, the book discusses how people should organise their desires, interests, and loves in the light of Frankfurt’s celebrated two-tiered model of human volition. The model could be crudely described as: human beings are motivated by immediate, first-order desires to have and do things in the world, as well as by reflexive second-order desires to possess specific first-order desires. Frankfurt’s main message is that in order to be healthy, effective, and happy human beings, it is necessary for there to be things and/or people whom we love in a wholehearted way. Surprisingly, self-love ends up having an essential role to play in the achievement of this volitional wholeness.
Frankfurt begins by distinguishing caring about something from merely desiring or preferring something, and even from ‘taking something to be intrinsically valuable’ (p. 12). Mobilising his model of volition, Frankfurt explains that we care about something when we both desire it and also have an enduring second level desire to continue desiring it. Such caring infuses our world with meaning, but the ultimate objects of our care are not themselves determined by further rational considerations or ulterior motives: ‘Formulating a criterion of importance presupposes possession of the very criterion that is to be formulated. The circularity is both inescapable and fatal’ (p. 26).
The next chapter investigates a concept very close to that of caring, i.e., ‘love’. The love Frankfurt is talking about can arise from an appreciation of the beloved’s special virtues or as the result of a natural psychological tendency, as in parental love. However, those are just contingent facts about the psychological impetus of love. We do not directly control our love or select its objects; rather our love for those objects is itself that which ultimately grounds and shapes our dispositions and conduct. The object of love is loved not merely for its valuable characteristics (if it does have any) or as a means for attaining some other thing of importance; it is cherished for its own sake and cannot be substituted. When we love a person, we identify with him or her. If we do not love at all we risk profound and debilitating boredom. When we do love we can overcome the ’inhibitions and hesitancies of self-doubt’ (p. 65) and become free to pursue an active life devoted to the objects of our love.
The final chapter develops Frankfurt’s most surprising thesis, that is, that self love is the conceptually purist and most important form of love. It is pure because it so clearly fits the criteria of love (i.e. we care about ourselves for our own sake, we identify with ourselves, etc.). It is important because Frankfurt does not understand self-love to be an expression of crass egocentrism. When I love someone else, I identify with them and care about them and thus love what they love. Similarly, self-love demands love of that which the self loves. What is this further object which the self loves? Through a somewhat suspicious dialectical move, Frankfurt tries to show that it cannot simply be the self all over again; it must be an external object. He claims that it is my self-love which drives me to ‘get a life’ (to borrow a colloquial expression) and this requires, according to Frankfurt, that I learn to love things and people besides myself. The remainder of the chapter treats the pathologies of will which occur when we cannot manage to identify with ourselves (an essential element of self-love), that is, when we fail to successfully reconcile conflicts between our loves for different objects. It is only when we can love objects outside ourselves wholeheartedly that we can genuinely love ourselves; it is our self-love which motivates us to seek wholehearted love of objects outside ourselves.
While by any account The Reasons of Love is well worth reading, I would like to mention three aspects of the book which might draw criticism. First of all, Frankfurt repeatedly downplays the importance of moral values in our lives. He is concerned with the wholeheartedness of our care, love, and action and is not very interested in whether the things we care about and the deeds we perform are morally commendable. Secondly, he is very wary of romantic love and would much rather talk about parental love for children. Thirdly, the ‘suspicious dialectical move’ mentioned above is suspicious. The god of Aristotle got along fine just thinking about his own thinking (at least in book 12 of the Metaphysics). Why can’t self-love be satisfied by loving the object of the self’s own self-love? In other words: why wouldn’t someone be able to infuse his life with meaning by becoming the sole member of a mutual admiration society?
Berel Dov Lerner
Western Galilee College,
Akko, Israel,
bdlerner@gmail.com
Mark Wrathall: How to Read Heidegger
My review will appear in Practical Philosophy.
Mark Wrathall
How to Read Heidegger
London: Granta Books, 2005
ISBN-13: 987-1-86207-766-9 (pb), pp. viii + 135.
This book offers introductory accounts of several central themes from Being and Time and from Heidegger’s later writings. As is the custom in the How to Read series, each chapter begins with a selection from a primary source (in this case, an English translation of a primary source). Given the notorious obscurity of Heideggerian texts, Mark Wrathal can hardly be blamed for not really equipping his readers with the tools and background implied by the series’ title. At best his readers will be able to discern some kind of a connection between the quoted passages and Wrathall’s explanations.
The book opens with a programmatic introduction that treats the question of how Heidegger should be approached by today’s reader. Wrathall is tired of the analytic/continental split in contemporary philosophy. Following the lead of writers such as Hubert Dreyfus, he wants to present Heidegger as a philosopher who can speak to the analytic tradition and who can serve as a corrective to its overly scientistic tendencies.
The first six chapters are devoted to themes from Being and Time. Chapter one begins with a quick introduction to Heidegger’s phenomenological method and moves swiftly on to Heidegger’s vision of human beings as Dasein (entities for whom being is itself an issue) who can live in Eigentlichkeit, the authenticity achieved by Dasein when “it has become its own” (pg. 14). Although Eigentlichkeit does involve a kind of individual autonomy, Wrathall is careful to point out how Heidegger’s recognition of the limits placed upon our choices by the world contrasts with Sartre’s more radical view of a completely unencumbered human freedom. This leads naturally into chapter two, which describes Heidegger’s replacement of the Cartesian self/world dichotomy with the idea that Dasein is always already existing in a world. Heidegger insists that we do not relate to the world primarily as a collection of objects for our dispassionate observation, but rather we encounter the world as “that wherein all of our actions make sense” (pg. 28), a world containing (among other things) the immediately intelligible tools and materials with which we execute our projects. Unfortunately, Wrathall does not make it sufficiently clear to the reader that Heidegger is far from being a lone voice of anti-Cartesian dissent among twentieth century philosophers. Chapter three discusses how our moods and emotional attitudes inform our experience of the world, while chapter four concludes the discussion of Dasein’s world with an account of “understanding” and “interpretation.” In this context, these terms refer to our modes of grasping and making sense of the world, which are themselves integral to the practical business of existing in that world (as against purely intellectual theorizing about the world).
Chapters five and six complete Wrathall’s treatment of Being and Time with a return to issues of authenticity. First we are told about Heidegger’s das Man, the omnipresent “one” of “that’s what one does,” which represents the unquestioned societal norms that threaten the authenticity of the individual. Next comes an explanation of Heidegger’s dark insistence that one’s attitude towards one’s own mortality is essential for the achievement of authenticity.
The book’s remaining four chapters treat some of Heidegger’s most celebrated later essays. A chapter on “The Origin of the Work of Art” unpacks the claim that art reveals the truth about its subjects. The discussion of On the Way to Language deals with the way ordinary language serves as the orienting underpinning for the way we live our lives. Discussions of “The Question Concerning Technology” and “Building, Dwelling, Thinking” offer opportunities to explore Heidegger’s critique of modern technological existence.
All-in-all Wrathall has given us a quite readable and useful introduction to Heidegger’s thought. If only the Master himself had written so clearly! My only real qualm concerning this book is its nearly complete lack of critical perspective. While some pages are devoted to describing and denouncing Heidegger’s attachment to Nazism, Wrathall basically treats it as something of a tragic aberration, a terrible misapplication of a critique of modernity which is in itself basically sound.
Heidegger is the kind of philosopher who offers pronouncements rather than arguments. This makes it difficult to know even how to begin criticizing his work. By the time people manage to eke out meaning from his forbidding prose, they often have little energy left to consider whether what he says is actually true. As a result, expositors of Heidegger – especially those writing introductory expositions – bear a special responsibility to their readers to mention some of the main criticisms that have been directed against his work.
Berel Dov Lerner
Western Galilee College
Akko, Israel
Mark Wrathall
How to Read Heidegger
London: Granta Books, 2005
ISBN-13: 987-1-86207-766-9 (pb), pp. viii + 135.
This book offers introductory accounts of several central themes from Being and Time and from Heidegger’s later writings. As is the custom in the How to Read series, each chapter begins with a selection from a primary source (in this case, an English translation of a primary source). Given the notorious obscurity of Heideggerian texts, Mark Wrathal can hardly be blamed for not really equipping his readers with the tools and background implied by the series’ title. At best his readers will be able to discern some kind of a connection between the quoted passages and Wrathall’s explanations.
The book opens with a programmatic introduction that treats the question of how Heidegger should be approached by today’s reader. Wrathall is tired of the analytic/continental split in contemporary philosophy. Following the lead of writers such as Hubert Dreyfus, he wants to present Heidegger as a philosopher who can speak to the analytic tradition and who can serve as a corrective to its overly scientistic tendencies.
The first six chapters are devoted to themes from Being and Time. Chapter one begins with a quick introduction to Heidegger’s phenomenological method and moves swiftly on to Heidegger’s vision of human beings as Dasein (entities for whom being is itself an issue) who can live in Eigentlichkeit, the authenticity achieved by Dasein when “it has become its own” (pg. 14). Although Eigentlichkeit does involve a kind of individual autonomy, Wrathall is careful to point out how Heidegger’s recognition of the limits placed upon our choices by the world contrasts with Sartre’s more radical view of a completely unencumbered human freedom. This leads naturally into chapter two, which describes Heidegger’s replacement of the Cartesian self/world dichotomy with the idea that Dasein is always already existing in a world. Heidegger insists that we do not relate to the world primarily as a collection of objects for our dispassionate observation, but rather we encounter the world as “that wherein all of our actions make sense” (pg. 28), a world containing (among other things) the immediately intelligible tools and materials with which we execute our projects. Unfortunately, Wrathall does not make it sufficiently clear to the reader that Heidegger is far from being a lone voice of anti-Cartesian dissent among twentieth century philosophers. Chapter three discusses how our moods and emotional attitudes inform our experience of the world, while chapter four concludes the discussion of Dasein’s world with an account of “understanding” and “interpretation.” In this context, these terms refer to our modes of grasping and making sense of the world, which are themselves integral to the practical business of existing in that world (as against purely intellectual theorizing about the world).
Chapters five and six complete Wrathall’s treatment of Being and Time with a return to issues of authenticity. First we are told about Heidegger’s das Man, the omnipresent “one” of “that’s what one does,” which represents the unquestioned societal norms that threaten the authenticity of the individual. Next comes an explanation of Heidegger’s dark insistence that one’s attitude towards one’s own mortality is essential for the achievement of authenticity.
The book’s remaining four chapters treat some of Heidegger’s most celebrated later essays. A chapter on “The Origin of the Work of Art” unpacks the claim that art reveals the truth about its subjects. The discussion of On the Way to Language deals with the way ordinary language serves as the orienting underpinning for the way we live our lives. Discussions of “The Question Concerning Technology” and “Building, Dwelling, Thinking” offer opportunities to explore Heidegger’s critique of modern technological existence.
All-in-all Wrathall has given us a quite readable and useful introduction to Heidegger’s thought. If only the Master himself had written so clearly! My only real qualm concerning this book is its nearly complete lack of critical perspective. While some pages are devoted to describing and denouncing Heidegger’s attachment to Nazism, Wrathall basically treats it as something of a tragic aberration, a terrible misapplication of a critique of modernity which is in itself basically sound.
Heidegger is the kind of philosopher who offers pronouncements rather than arguments. This makes it difficult to know even how to begin criticizing his work. By the time people manage to eke out meaning from his forbidding prose, they often have little energy left to consider whether what he says is actually true. As a result, expositors of Heidegger – especially those writing introductory expositions – bear a special responsibility to their readers to mention some of the main criticisms that have been directed against his work.
Berel Dov Lerner
Western Galilee College
Akko, Israel
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