Category Archives: Non-Fiction

Walking the Tightrope of Reason: The Precarious Life of a Rational Animal by Robert Fogelin

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It’s a long title for a short book about how difficult it is to be completely rational. 

Professor Fogelin begins by arguing that it is irrational to ignore the law of non-contradiction (we should never maintain that P and not P). However, he then shows that our beliefs are rarely completely consistent and that complete consistency is not even a reasonable goal.

Fogelin suggests that the rules we follow, such as the rules of language, logic, ethics and law, in fact, all of the rules that govern our lives, are “dilemma-prone”. Yet these rules are perfectly acceptable if we apply them in a “serious, purposive manner”. It is also crucial that we test our conclusions against experience — ideas need to be tested against something other than other ideas. He concludes that skeptical doubts can never be eliminated, but that skepticism has a role to play in limiting fanaticism (what Hume called “enthusiasm”). 

The helpful lesson of this book (helpful for philosophers anyway) is that the quest for certainty is a waste of time, even dangerous, since it can distract us from more important intellectual pursuits. It is good enough to be rational without aiming for complete and perfect rationality.  (6/3/11) 

Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community and War by Nathaniel Philbrick

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The Pilgrims sailed to America on the Mayflower in 1620. Mayflower tells the story of the voyage but mainly concerns what happened after the Pilgrims landed. The story ends in 1676 with the conclusion of King Philip’s War between the English and the American Indians (also known as Indians and Americans). 

I didn’t know that the Pilgrims were supposed to land near the Hudson River, not in Massachusetts (that famous meal might have been in Hoboken, New Jersey). I also didn’t know that the Pilgrims landed on Cape Cod and spent a month there before settling in Plymouth. Or that most of them died of starvation and disease. Or that there was a second ship (the Fortune), the arrival of which doubled the population of Plymouth. Or that the Puritans considered marriage to be a civil ceremony, not a religious one, since the Bible doesn’t mention ministers conducting weddings. 

I did know that many of the Pilgrims lived in Holland before coming to America and that they came to America seeking religious freedom for themselves, not for other people. They wanted everyone to practice religion as they did. 

I kept wanting to tell the Indians to be careful. It is surprising to read how much the Indians did for the Pilgrims, how many Indians converted to Christianity, and how many of them were willing to fight with the Pilgrims against other Indians. If only they had known that they were going to be overrun by their new neighbors. But that result was probably inevitable, since America was such a tempting target for colonization by the English, French, Spanish and Dutch. 

The book is unnecessarily long and contains too much detail, too many names, and too many comings and goings. The most interesting character in the book is Benjamin Church, who is considered the unofficial founder of the US Army Rangers. He was an Indian fighter who learned from the Indians and treated them with respect and compassion. 

The Pilgrims were lucky to survive. It might have been better if they hadn’t, since the Indians (the Americans) were in some ways more honorable and civilized than they were. (5/23/11)

The Sources of Normativity by Christine M. Korsgaard

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Professor Korsgaard argues that ethical normativity or value results from autonomous agents like ourselves reflecting on what we ought to do and then endorsing a rational course of action, i.e., a course of action based on reasons we can truthfully endorse. This is “reflective endorsement”. Actions and the reasons for those actions are good if they are well-considered and promote our “practical identity”, the conception of ourselves as valuable beings with lives worth living. And since we value our own humanity, we should value the humanity of others as well. 

Korsgaard says that obligations only exist in the first-person perspective: “in one sense, the obligatory is like the visible: it depends on how much of the light of reflection is on”. She also believes that we are subject to moral laws that we ourselves create (until we as individuals change those laws).  

She admits, however, that her argument will fail to convince someone who is completely skeptical about morality. She does not provide a non-moral foundation for morality (who could?). What Korsgaad does provide is an explanation of the role morality plays in our lives and how trying to be moral contributes to our self-image as proper human beings. 

Included in the book are responses from four well-known philosophers. I thought that their criticisms were more sensible and understandable than Korsgaard’s replies.  (5/2/11)

The Jamestown Project by Karen Ordahl Kupperman

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I thought this was a book about Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in America. It is actually about much more than that. 

Kupperman describes the history of European exploration, trade and colonization with the Muslim world, Africa and North and South America. She puts Jamestown in its historical, cultural and political context. She quotes an amazing number of primary sources (with their original, often surprising spelling) to show what the English thought of the American Indians, what the American Indians thought of the English, what the Virginia Company wanted the Jamestown settlers to accomplish, what the Jamestown settlers wanted (and rarely got) from the Virginia Company. She explains that Jamestown was only one of many attempts to start a colony in America, that the Indians were quite familiar with Europeans before the Jamestown settlers arrived, and that Captain John Smith had a very interesting life before he met Pocahontas.

Most of the colonists died from disease and starvation. Some were killed by the Indians and some preferred living with the Indians. Kupperman argues that Jamestown eventually proved to be a success because it showed that colonies would only prosper if the colonists had personal incentives to succeed, for example, the prospect of owning their own land. The powerful people who put money into the colonies wanted to find a quick route to China, or gold and silver, or to convert the Indians to Christianity. The people who made the colonies succeed had simpler goals.  (4/29/11)

Logicomix: an Epic Search for Truth by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos Papadimitriou

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This is an entertaining, fast-moving graphic novel (a very thick comic book) that tells the story of Bertrand Russell’s attempt to provide logical foundations for mathematics and also find a path to absolute certainty about the world. It is presented in the form of a public lecture given by Russell, in which Russell talks about his life and the recent history of mathematics and logic.  

The authors admit that this is a work of fiction, since some of the history has been changed for dramatic purposes or ease of exposition. But the work of great mathematicians, logicians and philosophers, including Cantor, Frege, Poincare, Hilbert, Wittgenstein, Godel and Turing, is accurately summarized. One theme in the novel is the apparent association between logical and mathematical skill and insanity. 

There are also interludes that feature the authors and artists working on the book — an act of self-reference that fits very nicely with the main theme of the novel — and attending performances of Greek tragedy in Athens.  

In general, the writing is better than the artwork, in particular because the characters’ facial expressions lack subtlety.  

There is also a helpful addendum that describes some of the main characters and concepts (one of the authors is a professor of computer science at Berkeley). This is how Godel’s proof of the Incompleteness Theorem is summarized: “Godel proved his Incompleteness Theorem by creating … a statement that … essentially says, in the language of arithmetic, ‘this statement is unprovable’. Any consistent axiomatic theory in which one can formulate such a statement must be necessarily incomplete: for either this statement is false, in which case it is both false and provable, contradicting the consistency of the axiomatic system, or true, in which case it is both true and unprovable, establishing its incompleteness“.  (4/15/11)