Monthly Archives: May 2013

The Fall by Albert Camus, translated by Justin O’Brien

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Two men meet in a bar in Amsterdam. One of them, Jean-Baptiste Clamence, talks for the rest of the book. The other man is never named. He occasionally speaks but his words never appear. The Fall is a monologue, in which Clamence talks to his new acquaintance about the hypocrisy, foolishness and self-deception of the human race. 

Clamence eventually identifies himself as a “judge-penitent”. He used to be a lawyer in Paris. Now he occupies himself by striking up conversations with strangers who come into the bar. He then confesses his various misdeeds, including his failure to intervene in a woman’s suicide back in Paris. This is the penitent part of his new occupation. Having made his own confession, he thinks that he has the right to judge the rest of humanity. And judging the rest of humanity allows other people to share the guilt. Hence, his role as judge-penitent.

I often didn’t understand what Clamence was saying. But reading The Fall did have an effect. Near the end of the book, Clamence remarks that “we are odd, wretched creatures, and if we merely look back over our lives, there’s no lack of occasions to amaze and horrify ourselves”. He suggests to his new acquaintance: “Admit that you feel less pleased with yourself than you felt five days ago” (when their conversation began). 

I feel a little less pleased with myself after reading The Fall. Not because I am newly aware of any of my serious misdeeds (no news there). Rather because Clamence explains at one point how good it used to make him feel to do nice things for other people, like helping to push a stalled car. Such actions seem less significant when we consider how much we enjoy performing them. I might be less pleased with myself the next time I give someone directions or push a stalled car.  (2/21/12)

The Outfit by Richard Stark

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Richard Stark (whose real name is Donald Westlake) has written twenty novels about Parker, a very tough guy who steals for a living. The Outfit is the third novel in the series. In this one, the Outfit (aka the Organization or the Syndicate) wants Parker dead, but Parker isn’t easy to get rid of. 

Parker quickly disposes of the guy sent to kill him and then comes up with a plan to get the Outfit off his back. The plan has two parts: (1) Parker and his fellow thieves will steal a lot of money from the Outfit and (2) Parker will replace the head of the Outfit with somebody who will agree to leave Parker alone if Parker and his pals stop stealing from the Outfit. The plan works.  (2/15/12)

The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles

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I didn’t like the movie (with Debra Winger and John Malkovich). But neither did Paul Bowles. After reading an article about the novel in the NY Review of Books, it sounded interesting. It was. I just had to keep in mind that the American couple who travel to North Africa in the late 1940s both lean toward the self-destructive, that the woman in particular is rather insane, and that the Sahara can do strange things to people’s minds. 

This was the author’s first novel. It’s beautifully written. Especially good are the descriptions of the characters’ unspoken thoughts, in particular, what runs through one character’s mind when he is delirious with fever.  (2/12/12)

The Scientific Revolution by Steven Shapin

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Historians refer to the changes brought about by such luminaries as Galileo, Descartes, Bacon, Boyle and Newton in the 16th and 17th centuries as the “Scientific Revolution”. The science of the Greeks and Scholastics was replaced by something that looks like science as it’s practiced today.

The theme of this book is that the “Scientific Revolution” wasn’t as clear-cut as historians and philosophers often imply. The scientists of the time disagreed about how science should be conducted. For example, some questioned the value of experimentation. If an experiment contradicted received opinion, many concluded that the experiment was performed incorrectly. Robert Boyle thought that scientists should perform many experiments and describe them in great detail. He never expressed “Boyle’s Law” (pV = k) in mathematical terms. Isaac Newton thought that a single experiment was good enough to allow the mathematical formulation of a law of nature. 

Science was also generally considered to be the “handmaiden of religion”. Showing that nature operated like a vast machine was thought to be evidence of God’s supernatural powers and wisdom. We had to wait for Darwin to show how “mere chance” could write a chapter in the Book of Nature.  (2/9/12)

Relativism by Maria Baghramian

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Relativism is, roughly speaking, the idea that statements can be true or actions can be right for one person and not another, because people have different points of view, possibly because they grew up in different cultures or live in different societies. So you and I might be in similar circumstances, but if you belong to the Mafia, it might be right for you to beat up your competition, although it wouldn’t be right for me to do the same thing. 

There are many kinds of relativism. Professor Baghramian considers relativism about truth, rationality, logic, concepts and morality. She says that “we can admit one of the philosophical intuitions informing relativism: that our encounters with the world, our beliefs and judgments, are always perspectival” (p. 313). But she argues that some perspectives are better than others. The morality of the Red Cross is better than the morality of the Mafia, not just from her point of view or the Red Cross’s point of view, but in some objective, non-relativistic sense. 

Baghramian calls her view “pluralism”. She acknowledges the existence of various points of view, and agrees with the relativist that there is no way to choose between some of them, but believes that our common humanity allows us to see that some points of view are clearly better than others. 

I think that Professor Baghramian would agree that we cannot say that one perspective is better than another one, without speaking from some perspective or other. That’s why I think that “perspectivism” might be preferable to pluralism (and relativism). We each have our own physical perspective, and each of us can employ many different perspectives, that is, consider the world from different points of view.

From my single physical perspective, I can evaluate an idea from the perspective of morality, physics, practicality, simplicity, rationality or personal satisfaction. But any perspective can only be evaluated from some other perspective(s). That doesn’t mean that some perspectives are objectively better than others. But it does mean that we can offer reasons for preferring one to another.  (1/24/12)