Think a Compelling Introduction to Philosophy by Simon Blackburn - Book Report/Review Example

Farzeela Faisal Research Writer Dec-27-2005 Book Report: Simon Blackburn, “Think, A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy,” Oxford University Press, oxford ‘Think’, first introduction to philosophy, is a book dealing with the psychological questions, which often comes in every human mind and life at different levels and stages, but are neglected and avoided to the utmost, as these questions are not easy to answer and the person gets confused, if attempts to satisfy his quest for answer. The purpose of the book is to answer the questions of those who believe that there are ‘the big questions’ in the universe, but who are not aware of how to approach them. This book attempts to explain those ‘big questions,’ their existence, and attempts to show their importance to those who seek more knowledge about them. The author begins by placing before the reader a persuasive and impressive argument for the further study of this idea and proceeds to apprise the reader of the ideas of the major figures in the study of philosophy such as Kant, and Descartes of fairly recent years, and their approach to the major philosophical themes. This book is a well-written and lively text which proves to be a valuable asset for anyone who desires to probe more deeply into the basic ideas of how thinking shapes out our universe, and our individual aspects within that paradigm. (Fr. Apulo Caesare) “Think” has the following contents, which we are going to discuss in detail: Introduction; Knowledge; Mind; Freewill; the Soul; God; Reason; The World and What to do; There is also a useful chapter on logic. Above all there is throughout a presentation of questions and puzzles that humans have been thinking about for many centuries, and Blackburn gives us a wonderful sense of what Descartes, Berkeley and Hume, Leibniz, Locke and Kant have thought and written about such questions. Even more thrilling perhaps is the sense he gives that the questions are just as much with us as they ever were, that anyone who thinks about them is in a dialogue with Hume and Company. On the last page he remarks that the finest thinkers have hurled themselves on these questions, only to be frustrated. Some might find this depressing, but Blackburn points out that ‘the process of understanding the problems is itself good.’ (Think, 2005a) The introduction is followed by the visions, which are created within us, help us determine and examine the difference between appearance and reality and we start making assumptions and set limitations to differentiate between the visions as to what is real and what escorts us to the imaginations and fantasies. Think, opens with the question how knowledge is derived and accumulated as intellectual capital by cultivating the questioning spirit, of asking the how and why of things. Blackburn shows that Copernicus and Galileo by wrestling with the implications of modern scientific world-view and discarding the existing models of the solar system had laid the foundation of the mechanical science of nature. Thinking is thus a continuous motion in the intellectual sphere. Though appreciative of Descartes’ skeptical approach, Blackburn prefers the empiricism of Locke and Hume for apprehending the reality of life. But to claim knowledge is claiming a sense of relationship with the world within and without. (V.N. Datta) In Chapter ‘Knowledge’ Rene Descartes theory has been discussed with all the considerations of problems, which were faced by him. Human soul, human freedom and relationship with God has been discussed in detail. The Human Soul: The definition of man as a creature is composed of body and soul and made in the image and likeness of God. Man, then, is composed of a material element (the body) and a spiritual element (the soul) not as two independent elements that happen to be joined together, but as two incomplete elements that need each other to form a complete whole, namely, the human person. If we consider this question from what we know from psychology, we have no difficulty in seeing the likeness to consist in man’s spiritual nature, his intellect and will which separates him from the rest of animal creation. The common classification of living things in this world is: plant, animal and man; and this classification is made according to the special kinds of activity that each of these grades of life is capable of. Each of these categories has a principle of life (or soul), which is the source of the activity proper to that category. For example, plant life is capable of nutrition, growth and reproduction. Animal life is capable of all the activities of plant life - plus the activity of sensation and local motion. Human life (the rational animal) is capable of all the activities of the brute animal plus the power of reasoning, of conceiving abstract ideas, and of free will. For example, a dog can recognize one individual as friendly, and another as mean; but the human mind can conceive and understand the abstract concepts of friendliness and meanness. Thus, there is a vast difference between the principle of life (the soul) in man, and that in plants and brute animals. For the soul of man is a spiritual being, created immediately by God at the moment of conception, is independent of matter, and lives on after the dissolution of the body; whereas, the principle of life in plants and brute animals is material, entirely dependent on matter, ceases in being at the death of the plant or animal. Since the soul is spiritual with no material parts, it has no size, no shape, no weight, nothing that could be observed by the senses. It cannot be measured, nor can it be divided. While the soul, in itself, is not in space, it can operate in space, in the sense that it is the spiritual source of life that vitalizes every part of the human body. It is in this sense that the soul is where it operates. (Paul A. Duffner, O.P.) Blackburn has discussed the concept of ‘Evil Demon’ with six meditations, followed with the explanation and difference between evil and God, good and bad, how it motivates human behaviors and how a human being is pressurized by the forces of evil. In the second chapter “Mind, the thinking thing tool,” the author gives a primary place to the adoption of analysis as an essential tool regarded as the goal of philosophy. This brings in close proximity of philosophy the scientific method of investigation. Analysis is in the splitting up of the whole in parts under a microscopic investigation, and thinking is a matter of taking the world to be one way or the other. (V.N. Datta) In ‘Mind’ Blackburn has discussed human mind as what it assumes to be ‘Zombie’. The zombie threat seems momentous, only because of the relatively undeveloped state of consciousness science. Theories of consciousness, not unlike zombies, are themselves mere possibilities at this point. They are infant theories, loose collections of hypotheses, advanced tentatively by their authors with a hopeful ‘maybe’ attached. Or maybe not, suggest the zombophiles. The zombie threat would naturally recede when a scientific theory of consciousness achieved a consensus through its powers of explanation, prediction, and taxonomy. The fate of zombies ultimately depends on whether Zombish can be consistently interpreted. If it can be interpreted consistently, then zombies remain possible, but no test could ever reveal whether anyone (oneself included) is speaking Zombish. Any materialist theory of consciousness is therefore already a theory in Zombish, and is equally confirmable in its human language edition (applicable to humans) and its zombie-language edition (applicable to zombies). On the other hand, if Zombish cannot be consistently interpreted, then the zombies described in Zombish are logically impossible. Either way, the search for a materialistic theory of consciousness should be untroubled by the (possible) zombies among us. (Dan Lloyd) In the third chapter, Blackburn grapples with the problem of determinism and freewill. He examines how an individual constrained by the deterministic social, cultural and political pressures makes frantic efforts to chart a free and deliberate course. Blackburn rejects the supine, lazy Sufism that reflects a passivity of outlook by submitting to divinity. The author, however, regards the bus as a ‘determined machine.’ (V.N. Datta) The sphere of discussion covering the subject human freedom and causal determinism has two poles. At the one is the idea that our will is ‘completely free’ in essence, though it may be ‘conditioned’ by the various different circumstances surrounding each person. At the other pole are the extreme doctrines of total fatalism or unalterable causal determinism. Other relevant standpoints fall somewhere between these ‘polar extremes’. Fate, an ordering and sequence of causes, since it is the connection of cause to cause which out of itself produces anything. It says all actions, deeds, and their results are predetermined, prewritten. If it is so then a question may arise, why all these then? Why these things should happen, what is the fruit of it? These questions remain unanswered by these people, some theologists have tried to answer these but those were not up to the desired. Free will, it states that “all actions deeds & outcomes are due to free will of every individual, nothing is pre determined”, and as an individual he moves according to his own will and everything is the result of his actions. If it is so then why should humans suffer, then why is his actions confined, why is he not opened to everything, why he is suffering most of the time, by nature no one wishes for sorrow or disasters, then why all bad happens to him. An answer can be quoted for this; it is because he is ignorant to good and bad, then what causes that ignorance, if everything is because of free will then why can’t that ignorance be evacuated. (Bala Arjun) Self-consciousness, soul and soul-force are the terms Blackburn examines in chapter four. Self-consciousness, another name for one’s biography, opens up a whole world of wonder and mystery. As distinct from the world without, self-knowledge or search for one’s own identity fuels our thoughts about the problems of life and death. The author is convinced that humankind has illusions for the self which thinking cannot destroy. Kant had tried to leave room for the immortality of soul because its religious dimension affects the thinking of many people in the world. (V.N. Datta) No theme has preoccupied humankind so much as God, which the author discusses in chapter five. Ontological, cosmological, design and revelation arguments are put forth to affirm the existence of God. Acquinas had considered God absolutely necessary for explaining the cosmology of the universe. The First cause argument rests on the premise that there is a cause for everything. The design notion views God as the “Wise Architect” who by his skilful engineering does not let the frame of Nature fall apart. The author emphasizes that Darwin’s Theory of Evolution knocked out the popular design idea of the universe. (V.N. Datta) Connected with the question of God is the problem of Evil. If there is God, then why does Evil exist, and why the good and the noble continue to suffer the ‘slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.’ Where is justice, and how does God dispense it? The question of evil was brilliantly raised and viewed from different angles in the section on Job in the Old Testament. The simplest answer to the question of Evil given by the gullible is that it is not God but human beings who by their ignoble deeds of commission and omission have made the world what it is. The notion of hell and paradise tries to answer the question, but in vain. Following Spinoza, Blackburn suggests that only the moral ideas and ideals are the guiding principles for leading a good and just life, regardless of the argument in favour of or against God. Whether illusion or reality, God, largely a projection of human ambitions, tends to fulfill human needs. According to the author, not rationality or scientific spirit, but blind faith justifies the existence of God. But does blind faith, the author asks, enhance the quality of life and make human problems easier to tackle by the tenacity of will power. (V.N. Datta) Chapter six and seven examine the issues relating to the processes and modes of thinking by interpreting terms such as premise, analogy and conclusion, which help us to examine some of the problems of human knowledge. The issues connected with language and logic are also raised. Blackburn focuses on some of the ideas that underline formal logic. He emphasizes how dependent we are on the brute faith in the uniformity of nature. Paradoxically, science contains within itself the device for correcting its illusions. Blackburn suggests the ways to test the variety of the data supplied by the senses on which we rest our opinions. (V.N. Datta) The last chapter, “What to do,” deals with the purpose and meaning in life. What is really the ideal life in the topsy-turvy world? To the author, technical thinking is practical, which, by adapting means to ends, settles some of the immediate issues in the light of experience. Practical thinking consists of adjusting simple obligations that we are apt to require of each other. For a meaningful life Blackburn emphasizes the cultivation of human values such as imaginative sympathy (the art of putting oneself in the place of other person), love, understanding, friendship, goodwill, appreciation of beauty and plurality of concerns for the poor and the suffering. Eventually, Blackburn relies on moral conduct as the touchstone of leading a good life directed to human welfare. There is no cant or hypocrisy in it. Essentially Blackburn is a firm and convinced humanist, who emphasizes the value of humanism as a philosophy. Thinkers like Voltaire and Bertrand Russell too had regarded humanism, the religion of humanity, as a panacea of human ills. (V.N. Datta) Humanism is a philosophy of compassion. Humanist ethics is solely concerned with meeting human needs and answering human problems, for both the individual and society, and devotes no attention to the satisfaction of the desires of supposed theological entities. It is a realistic philosophy. Humanists recognize the existence of moral dilemmas and the need for careful consideration of immediate and future consequences in moral decision-making. Humanism is in tune with the science of today. Humanists therefore recognize that we live in a natural universe of great size and age, that we evolved on this planet over a long period of time, that there is no compelling evidence for a separable ‘soul,’ and that human beings have certain built-in needs that effectively form the basis for any human-oriented value system. Humanism is in tune with today’s enlightened social thought and new technological developments. Humanists are committed to civil liberties, human rights, the extension of participatory democracy not only in government but in the workplace and education, an expansion of global consciousness and exchange of products and ideas internationally, and an open-ended approach to solving social problems, an approach that allows for the testing of new alternatives. Humanism is, in sum, a philosophy for those in love with life. Humanists take responsibility for their own lives and relish the adventure of being part of new discoveries, seeking new knowledge, exploring new options. Instead of finding solace in prefabricated answers to the great questions of life, Humanists enjoy the open-endedness of a quest and the freedom of discovery that this entails. (Frederick Edwords) Work Cited Bala Arjun, Accessed from < http://monoecho.com/three-theories/ > Dan Lloyd, Department of Philosophy, Twilight of the Zombies Fr. Apulo Caesare, Accessed from < http://www.novaroma.org/aquila/december05/08.htm > Frederick Edwords, Accessed from < http://www.jcn.com/humanism.html > Paul A. Duffner, O.P Simon Blackburn, Think. Think, 2005a Accessed from < http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/libraryprint.php?id=6 > V.N. Datta Accessed from < http://www.tribuneindia.com/2002/20021103/spectrum/book1.htm > Read More