Category Archives: Non-Fiction

Monogamy by Adam Phillips

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Monogamy is a short book by the English psychotherapist Adam Phillips. It contains 121 extremely brief chapters on what Phillips calls “the only serious philosophical question” for some of us (the fortunate or affluent). Phillips is given to exaggeration and paradox, but that’s o.k. 

Below are some of his observations on being monogamous, with occasionally flippant responses:

(39)  “If you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ve got nowhere to go. Which is one of the reasons why couples sometimes want to be totally honest with each other.” Because they have nowhere else to go or don’t want anywhere else to go?

(62)  “It is no more possible to work at a relationship than it is to will an erection or arrange to have a dream.” Yet doing something on purpose, like smiling, can sometimes make us happier.

(69)  “There is always someone else who would love me more, understand me better, make me feel more sexually alive. This is the best justification we have for monogamy — and infidelity.” Since there will always be someone better, you might as well stop searching. Or not.

(75)  “From the child’s point of view, the mother is — as the father will soon be — a model of promiscuity. She has a thousand things to do. She knows other people.” Yes, she was quite a disappointment that way.

(98)  “If we don’t choose monogamy, our fate will be isolation or the chaos of impersonality.” Or both.

(111)  “Familiarity may increase our affection, our respect, even our time for other people, but it rarely increases our desire for them.” As the song says, how can I miss you if you won’t go away?

(115)  “One way of loving people is to acknowledge that they have desires which exclude us; that it is possible to love and desire more than one person at the same time. Everyone knows that this is true, and yet we don’t want the people we love to start believing it about themselves”. It might be possible, but not everyone believes it is.  (4/1/13)

Sketch for a Systematic Metaphysics by D. M. Armstrong

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D. M. Armstrong is one of the leading philosophers of the past 50 years. He is an Australian mostly known for his writings on metaphysics. This is a short, well-written, relatively easy to understand summary of his metaphysical system.

Armstrong is a materialist or physicalist, who believes that nothing exists except space-time and its contents. He further holds that the world is made up of contingent states of affairs (or facts) and that states of affairs are made up of particulars and universals (e.g. protons and their mass). Laws of nature concern relations between types of states of affairs. 

Universals are only identifiable through empirical means. They only exist if they are exemplified or instantiated. This means that a given number exists if and only if there is a group of particulars that instantiates that number. The number 2 exists, for example, since Mars has 2 moons. Numbers that are not exemplified in this way are mere possibilia. On this basis, however, all but the very largest numbers exist, since any particulars may comprise a group, for example, the group consisting of my desk and the planet Mars instantiates the number 2 (this is called a “mereological sum”).

Armstrong discusses the existence of mind in his final chapter. He endorses an identity theory of mind — mental events and processes are identical to physical events and processes in the brain. He also endorses an identity theory of perception, but wasn’t quite clear to me what he meant by this. Armstrong admits that his theory of the mind faces three particular problems: the existence of consciousness (by which he means “our unmediated access to (some) of our own mental processes”), qualia (secondary qualities like color and taste) and intentionality (how thought and language are “about” something that might not exist). 

Armstrong is more troubled about qualia and intentionality than consciousness. I’m more troubled by qualia than consciousness or intentionality. If the redness of an apple isn’t actually part of the apple, and there’s nothing red inside our heads either, where is the redness at anyway? Armstrong considers his blue mouse pad: “Perception presents us with the blueness as an objective property of something in the world and I think we should accept this, accept that the blue colour is in the world qualifying the pad… I want to identify the colour surface with what the physicists tell us is going on there”. Maybe that’s true, but I’m not convinced.  (3/30/13)

History Man: The Life of R. G. Collingwood by Fred Inglis

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History Man is the biography of R. G. Collingwood, a 20th century English philosopher best known for his work on the philosophy of history and aesthetics. Collingwood has been called “the best known neglected thinker of our time”. Although he was Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy at Oxford, he stood apart from the main flow of 20th century Anglo-American philosophy. For example, he criticized some academic philosophers for engaging in philosophical parlor games instead of dealing with real-world issues, such as the rise of fascism in Europe. 

In addition to teaching philosophy for many years, Collingwood did historical and archaeological research, especially on the history of Roman Britain. He emphasized the importance of a contextual approach to philosophy in which earlier thinkers are understood to be answering questions of their own time, not necessarily the same questions that current philosophers are interested in. 

Collingwood deserves to have his biography written, since he lead a more active life than most academic philosophers. Unfortunately, he died after a series of strokes at the age of 53. History Man does a decent job of telling Collingwood’s story, but is relatively weak as an explanation of his philosophy. The author is a professor of cultural studies, not a philosopher. The book is marred by some idiosyncratic syntax that requires occasional re-reading, but enlivened by the author’s cultural and political observations.  (3/26/13)

Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America by David Hackett Fischer

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This is a monumental book. In 900 pages, Professor Fischer tells the story of the four major migrations from Great Britain to colonial America. In chronological sequence, he describes the Puritans from East Anglia who settled in Massachusetts; the cavaliers and their indentured servants from the south of England who settled in Virginia; the Quakers from the north Midlands who came to the Delaware Valley; and the people of Northern Ireland, Scotland and the north of England who came to Appalachia and the inland South.

Fischer describes these four subcultures in great detail, discussing among other things their marriage, child-rearing, culinary, linguistic, religious, architectural and political practices. He explains their ideas of liberty, the clothes they wore, the names they gave their children, and their thoughts on education.

The surprising thing is not how different these groups were, but how their differences remained fairly constant through the years, even to the present day. For example, the Puritans valued public education; the aristocrats who came to Virginia only valued education for themselves, not their servants. The Quakers opposed violence; the settlers who came from the borderlands of England and Scotland to Appalachia considered violence a normal part of life. 

The last part of the book traces American history after the revolution, showing how the Electoral College map has usually reflected the cultural traditions of these founding groups. Given the history of these four British folkways in America, it is no surprise that the North is better educated and less violent than the South. Fischer points out that the South has supported every war America ever fought, regardless of who we were fighting or why.  (2/19/13)

L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America’s Most Seductive City by John Buntin

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Southern California became an interesting, fast-growing place after they started making movies in Hollywood and drilling oil wells wherever possible. The population boomed and so did crime. L.A. Noir tells the story of crime, crime-fighting and police corruption in Los Angeles between 1920 (when L.A. had become bigger than San Francisco) and 1992 (when Rodney King was beaten and 54 people died in a riot).

The book tells this story by focusing on the parallel careers of Mickey Cohen, a well-known local gangster, and William Parker, L.A.’s most famous police chief. They each had their good points, but Mickey Cohen was a thug and Chief Parker was a misguided right-winger. Los Angeles improved after they were both gone.  (2/14/13)