Reviews for Modern Philosophy: An Introduction and Survey

The average rating for Modern Philosophy: An Introduction and Survey based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-09-03 00:00:00 Jo Alexa How does one view the following two paragraphs? “The concept of life, therefore, has been appropriated by philosophers in their search for the ‘true individual’. The heap is an arbitrary individual; even the table is one thing only so long as our interests require it to be. But when it comes to the dog, the cat or the human being, their unity and identity seem to belong to them quite independently of the way they are classified. It is part of the nature of Moggins that she is one cat; and the criteria for counting cats are given by the theory of felinity.” Well I had no problem with that but this one which follows on? “I have referred to two marks of the ‘true’ or substantial individual: unity and identity. There is an organisation which makes it non-arbitrary that this part and that part belong to ‘one’ being; and also non-arbitrary that this thing at one time is the ‘same’ as that thing as another. Life – or at least animal life – promises something that philosophers have always prized and never clearly obtained, namely criteria of unity and identity, and in particular criteria of ‘identity over time’.” This surely can be read several ways? And I’m not even sure if I agree with it but I have an excuse; I’m not a philosopher. “Skimming” through this book now, however, it looks a good educational tool for me. I don't believe that Goodreads is good for me. I already had a lot of books before coming across this "online Library" and now I find that I'm in the midst of a veritable bookshop. I've always had eclectic tastes but with the advent of Kindle, there’s another enticement that my brain cannot control. I’m often finding books at home that I’ve either read, partially read or not read at all and this book comes in the middle category. I actually only looked at this today after coming across an excellent discussion between two GRs readers, when I turned my computer on and had a “quick” look into GRs for “my fix” before starting a translation. I see that I purchased this hardback on 22 April 1994 and the only reason I did that was because Descartes, at the time, had unexpectedly sprang to mind. I recalled studying Descartes at university in my French Studies programme. So I began this book and really it was all too much for my mind to handle at the time. Too many theories, if I recall and I guess not enough evidence in these statements, some of which were quite incomprehensible to me. There's also the factor of the vagaries of the human mind. Aren’t we lucky as human beings that we have this ability to reason. There are so many viewpoints on philosophy that are discussed from Aristotle, Plato, Descartes, Hegel, Kant and many others through to Roger Scuton et al. So where does one start? I recall skim reading through this book at the time and now I feel it is appropriate to read it. Perhaps it will be better in the winter when I’m relaxed, with a glass of Burgundy at my side and the romantic glow of the log fire. Will I be enlightened? Well, I’ll have to find that out and I do believe that Roger Scruton is the person to do that. I’ve rated this a three until I can re-evaluate the book.

Review # 2 was written on 2016-09-28 00:00:00 Linda Miller Roger Scruton’s Modern Philosophy is, in a strange way, the funniest work of serious philosophical commentary I’ve ever read. This survey is organized thematically, so the chapters have headings like Soul, Mind, Time, Science, God, Death, etc. That is one part of the book’s humor. With almost comical erudition, Scruton just keeps coming with insights on every painfully complex issue confronted by philosophers from Descartes to Rorty. It’s astounding that at some point he doesn’t gag and croak on his own brilliance. Through 500 pages of exposition he simply never yields! Is God possible or impossible? Is time real or an illusion? How did Kant deal with Hume’s Law? (How did Hume deal with Hume’s Law?) Why is it impossible to superimpose a left hand on a right hand even in four-dimensional space? (What is four-dimensional space?) Why is it unreasonable to fear death and doubt immortality? The indefatigable Scruton sifts through thousands of arguments on the finer points of freedom, free will, and “the” will…the finite and the infinite…process and becoming…. There’s an inherent intellectual suspense in this tome, deriving from its chapter by chapter virtuosity. What is process? What is becoming? What is a number? Why isn’t zero a number? What is now since now is not the same now as it was when I began typing this sentence and you began reading it? Scruton’s more easily appreciated humor—and more intentional—emerges when he writes about the likes of Heidegger, Foucault, Derrida, Sartre, etc. He freely despises these “Continental” rogues and impostors. Heidegger gets battered the worst as a kind of mad German mystic. The problem with the others, running from existentialism through deconstructionism, is that their devious, busy little minds worked very, very hard to undermine humanity’s faith in all previous thought, institutions, and the possibility of just, collective human cooperation and mutual understanding. “Nothingness, [Sartre] tells us, lies coiled in the heart of Being, like a worm.” Dear me! And interpretation, says Nietzsche, godfather to the deconstructionists, is a function of power, not truth. The text therefore, any text, says Derrida, is a tissue of the reader’s imagination, not the author’s. Let’s call this book laborious but not labored fun, a steep hike through the hills of what you think but don’t know why you think it. Scruton is the author, despite Derrida’s views, of fifty books. Obviously, he’s a little mad himself, never sleeps, corresponds with everyone about everything, reads every philosophical journal at the speed of light, and on more than one occasion enjoys expressing solemn awe at the brilliance of Aristotle, Kant, and the Lawful Hume.