The Wonder of the Human Person- Some Books to Ponder III

1. A Little History of Philosophy by Nigel Warburton, Yale University Press, 2012

This book is a delightful, interesting, rewarding and entertaining read.  As its title suggests, it is a light read that brings the reader right into the heart of the main points of the history of Western Philosophy.  It is also an enlightening and informative read as Warburton possesses a lightness of touch that belies or disguises a marvellous depth of knowledge.  The wonder of this book is that it is at once both entertaining and informative.  This is Warburton's strength as an author, and he is a wonderful teacher and lecturer.  One note on the back cover of my edition puts it succinctly: "He has a special gift for defusing complexity." 

Warburton gives us a potted history of philosophy in forty chapters, each of which deals with a major philosopher, occasionally two.  The titles of each chapter are succinct as they pose the central question or problem treated in each chapter.  As a lover of Socrates - who could not be? - the chapter title "The Man Who Asked Questions" is apt, to say the least. Socrates was a man who was fearless and who never failed to ask the necessary and awkward questions of anyone, commoner or noble, and he was singularly unafraid of the consequences of what he was convinced was the only way to the truth.  He also taught that the unexamined or unquestioned life was not worth living.  Before reading this chapter I never knew that Socrates had three sons.  The second chapter is on "true happiness" and tells us of Aristotle's quest for "eudaimonia".  I have already alluded to Aristotle's notion of "eudaimonia" in these pages, a Greek word that translates as "flourishing" which is the title of Maureen Gaffney's self-help book upon which I wrote a brief note earlier in these pages.  One could continue in this vein and describe each chapter, but such would be ridiculous and would destroy the prospective reader's interest in ever acquiring this read.  I will mention one other chapter only, Chapter 14 on the Scottish philosophers John Locke and Thomas Reid, which I found especially interesting as it deals with the nature of selfhood, a topic on which I wrote a short thesis for an M.A. in Human Development recently.  The question of "what makes someone the same person over time" is the crux of this chapter.  The philosophy of Thomas Reid was a real find for me recently as I had already come across him concerning my recent academic work. Once again, Warburton writes in a wonderfully clear way.  One learns with such ease from him. His blog page is accessible here 

2.  The Choice of Hercules  by A.C. Grayling, Phoenix, 2008

I first came across A.C Grayling through my elder brother Gerard who was and is an avid reader of The Guardian newspaper.  Grayling struck me from the off as a wonderful writer with an almost angelic style.  Also, the range of issues he was able to write on astounded me. I went on to buy many of his books as a result of this initiation.  I'll append their titles below as a footnote to this short post.  Grayling's personal website can be accessed here and his Guardian site here.  The Choice of Hercules deals with the traditional philosophical question that Socrates, Plato and Aristotle were concerned with, viz., "What is the "good life" or the life of virtue?  Simply put, how should we live our lives to make them meaningful or authentic, to use two very modern words as descriptors of life.  The title of this book is very well chosen and is apt to a singular extent because our author believes that the choice offered to Hercules, namely whether to pick the Good Life, which I write in uppercase letters here to stress the life of Duty and Responsibility, or the good life, in lower case letters to indicate the choice of a life lived at the whim of our pleasures.  Once again these ancient myths offer powerful ways into deep significant questions and choices.  Somewhere, in the book Grayling argues, and I agree thoroughly, that Jesus' temptation in the desert is a parallel version of Hercules' choice.

I love Grayling's honesty and humility in his introduction in disabusing our minds from the outset of his own fulfilling the high ideals represented in his musings and ponderings on what the Good Life may be.  The following sentence, I consider wise and understanding: "The consolation for us all is this: that what really matters is the attempt, and when we judge people most generously, what we honour is their aspirations, not only their successes; for if the latter alone counted, how few human beings would merit anything but pity and scorn." (p.2) Again, Grayling is an atheistic humanist and states explicitly that he believes "the case for the humanistic outlook is overwhelming." (p. 5).  One would expect no less honesty and authenticity from any good writer, much less a philosopher of Grayling's standing. However, the book is never preachy in the sense that he would wish to convert us readers to his opinions. In short, this book is in no sense evangelical for the atheistic cause.  He wisely and well presents his case to us his readers.  He also reminds us early in the book (p. 6) that there is "no single prescription" for the good life, but that his aim is to provide a general account of common characteristics that make for a good life.

Here is a wonderfully sobering thought that he states with boldness and simplicity on the consequences of staying in a patently destructive relationship: "Life really is too short - less than a thousand months long, to repeat and repeat [our obvious mistakes] - to delay grasping the chance of being involved in making it good to be alive for oneself and different others, others with whom one has a better chance of being a better person, and able to give and do better things." (p. 39).

Grayling is insightful on the positive effects of The Enlightenment (p. 43-45) and succinct on Kant's influence thereon.

I have already mentioned that my mother is at present in the last stages of dying, and I have found reading chapter 3, "When Darkness Falls" lucid, insightful and uplifting. This is philosophy in its traditional role as a therapy or healing or, indeed, as a way of coping with life and of dealing with all its deeper issues.   Grayling is also an angelic writer and a master of the well-crafted sentence, e.g., "To live is to contract for loss." (p. 51)  Here we have a succinct sentence of a mere seven words, but it expresses so much depth of thought, which, needless to say, he expands on quite quickly. The paragraph which ensues is rounded off with the same sentence I have just quoted above. What a wonderfully adroit stylistic approach, one that the reader would expect more from a creative writer or poet, than from a philosopher.  However, this is not surprising for this reader as Grayling is a widely read scholar and a skilled literary stylist.  In short, the particular paragraph to which I am here referring carries the punch of a great poem. Another apt phrase, I believe, is his expression "the frail bonds of our life's constructions." Poetry and philosophy, philosophy and poetry in one!

There is obviously more than I have recounted above in this wonderful book, but I hope that the little I have said will inspire you to read it.