Customer Reviews

The Making of a Philosopher: My Journey Through Twentieth-Century Philosophy

5 star:		(3)
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2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Philosophers are rarely, far too rarely, given to write a treatment of their field for the general public. Far too many "introductory" philosophy texts claim, in the preface or the intro, that this is a book for neophytes, for philosophical hatchlings waiting to dive off the tree, for "absolute beginners" when, by the third chapter, they're deep into metacognition or technical theories or truth. More often they skim deep subjects, and the skimming only produces useless mist that leaves the beginner dumbstruck and asking "so when do I learn the meaning of life?"

This book is thankfully not at the level described above. True, it treats some subjects way too briefly, but it at least does so in a way that will probably whet the appetite, not totally confound. McGinn states his intention clearly in the book (and no, I don't care about "Author's Intentionality" or the "Death of the Author", at least not now) to write a popular philosophical work. That he has attempted this is admirable. Unfortunately, the most likely reader of this work will be philosophers or academics, which are precisely the people who probably shouldn't read it. Colin McGinn may be "famous" but he's not too famous outside of academia. I have yet to meet anyone outside of "philosophical circles" that's heard of him. The testimony from Oliver Sacks may help, but most likely people looking for more than what's here will pick up the book, be disappointed that it's too cursory, and accuse McGinn of self-congratulation (he is a bit self-congratulatory in places, but one has to make philosophy seem worthwhile while one is attempting to sell it).

All of this is too bad, because the book does succeed in many places in making the "philosophical life" sound at least intriguing, challenging, and worthwhile. Insiders already know the life, and so that part of the book will probably be lost on them.

Some of the more interesting passages deal with politics in academia. Those who flew to academia to escape the politics of corporate life and business did not escape as completely as they thought. In academia you get put in your place. In academia there is nepotism, cronyism, pointless squabbles over who gets what position and why, and the always dreaded budget looms and threatens your projects, positions, and teaching loads. McGinn shows glimpses of this part of academia throughout the book. His run in with Micheal Dummett (who he claims ran him down in front of colleagues, though we obviously don't hear Dummett's side) and his depressing falling out with Oxford are just two salient examples.

Overall the book is a fast read, except for some passages that get a little more into the nitty gritty of technical details (but not too much). This book will not teach you how to be a philosopher, nor will it teach you philosophy (except at a very microscopic level). It may inspire you to look into philosophy, or to read St. Anselm, or Chomsky, or Saul Kripke, or Wittgenstein. Maybe some readers can relate with McGinn's "philosophical seduction" by the writings and life of Bertrand Russell (Russell did have an uncanny knack for writing books that make readers feel intelligent just for reading them; he is very seductive), but these readers will not be newcomers. After all, McGinn claims in the last chapter that Jennifer Aniston has never heard of Russell, or even Descartes for that matter, which is surprising (who hasn't heard of the "I think therefore I am" guy?).

McGinn has some healthy messages for the institution of philosophy. One of them is that philosophy should not be a science. 20th century philosophy, particularly Russell's philosophy - as a negative example - and the "linguistic turn" have suggested this. If philosophy were to become a science then scientists would truly be correct when they claim that philosophy is redundant. A second message is that certain philosophical questions may simply be beyond the human cognitive domain (McGinn's philosophy was rewarded with the moniker "mysterian" for this claim). Whether this is true or not it is a position to be considered when answering philosophical questions.

The book does not talk about the practical aspects of philosophy, or how can the average person could potentially use philosophy in their daily lives, which is too bad. Its focus is mostly the academic realm, which is a focus that runs the risk of losing some readers who are either unsympathetic towards or clueless about this strange sect. Nonetheless, the book is a good read and could serve as a good introduction to someone considering the "philosophical life" (read "academic philosophical life") as a career. There are warnings to heed in this book for the philosophical careerists out there.

I learned about McGinn via the work of Jerry Fodor. "The Making of a Philosopher" was the first book I read from him. This book is a rather good portrait of the intellectual development of a person. It is fascinating to see how his interests in philosophy develop and the persons involved. The book has the additional benefit of containing philosophical explanations that are short, to the point and clear.
McGinn also comes across as a very likable chap, unlike some of the pompous gits one finds frequently in philosophy (for a sample of these individuals just take a look at the reviews in this page).

This book is both a memoir and yet another introduction to philosophy. McGinn tries to come at introducing philosophy in a different way: through his autobiography and through the issues that prompted his interests in philosophy, the ideas he found interesting as a young man studying philosophy, and what he has thought about at particular times in his career as an academic.

The results are rather mixed. You don't get much of substance here, and so you should look somewhere else if you're searching for a serious and comprehensive introduction to philosophy. But this book does cover enough ground to give you a taste of what current academic philosophizing is like. It includes a breezy, straightforward picture of the life of an academic along with brief sketches of lots of interesting philosophical issues. Furthermore, there's not a lot of history covered here; the emphasis is on a few historically important philosophical issues and the more striking arguments and positions that have been defended in contemporary analytic philosophy. So this really gives you an account of what professional life is like for people working in contemporary Anglo-American analytic philosophy, the tradition in which McGinn works.

It appears McGinn intends the reader to come to philosophy in the same way he did. We go from the vague, somewhat confused ideas and concerns that first led McGinn to philosophy to immersion in ideas and concerns of current-day professional philosophers. Now, this emphasis on the intellectual development might seem too limited a perspective from which to introduce a subject. But this isn't such a problem here since specialization isn't as extreme in philosophy as it is in other parts of the academy. Since the division of intellectual labor here isn't as extreme as it is in the sciences, all philosophers tend to know a lot of the same stuff.

The book is quite interesting at the beginning, and I think the first couple of chapters would be a good introduction to just what philosophical thinking is like. Here there are very few details about McGinn's early life, and he concentrates on only those elements of his autobiography that are relevant to his intellectual development and his eventual interest in philosophical questions. So these chapters are concerned with the kinds of philosophical problems that are likely to be of interest to those without much, or any, background in the subject. Skepticism, free will, the existence of God--these are the sorts of issues that are introduced in this chapter. McGinn doesn't say a great deal about these issues here, though he says enough to reveal how philosophers attempt to answer them and how they criticize or defend the answers given by others.

The latter chapters come to focus more on the nature of life in academia and the issues that get discussed in contemporary analytic philosophy along with McGinn's own intellectual development as an academic. So we really get two stories here. The first story is the one of McGinn's rise to prominence in academia, and the other is the story of major issues in U.S. and U.K. philosophy from the sixties to the present. And these stories are interconnected since McGinn is a prolific thinker who has published on nearly everything of central importance in contemporary metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of language. Some of the highlights he mentions are Davidson and Quine on meaning, Wittgenstein and Kripke on rule-following, Kripke and Putnam on reference, David Lewis on possible worlds, Dummett's anti-realism, Nagel's views about the mind and its relation to the body. And whenever McGinn discusses someone's ideas, he attempts to provide a brief portrait of them.

Whatever one thinks about McGinn's personality--and some aspects of it can be off-putting--his discussions of issues here is pretty even-handed. While he occasionally says unflattering things about other philosophers, but he's more even-handed when it comes to their ideas--even those ideas with which he isn't sympathetic. He doesn't ridicule the ideas of others; nor does he use the book to push his own ideas on the topics he discusses.

I recently read a very lucid and cogent philosophical treatise by Colin McGinn,The Power of Movies: How Screen and Mind Interact. I found McGinn's writing style for a philosopher accessible without being condescending, challenging the mind to push beyond its boundaries yet simultaneously guiding the reader along, like a father striding alongside a child, helping the child to learn how to ride a bike.

McGinn's memoir on how he came to become a philosopher is written in a similar style. As an account of his personal life, focusing primarily on his mental and academic journey as a philosopher, McGinn is able to be witty and honest as well. The reader can sympathize with McGinn's effort to rise above his family's working class status and enter the world of professional philosophy, in particular to be accepted in the doctoral program at Oxford. Along the way McGinn also maps his intellectual journey, describing the various philosophical problems that he wrestled with, and the philosophical characters, like Russell and Wittgenstein, for example, whose theories and personalities he sought to understand. McGinn has a sharp sense of irony, and he uses this to sprinkle his text with witty observations about his achievements and failures, as well as his personal relationships with other philosophers.

McGinn treats the reader gently, providing enough of the philosophical quagmires to whet the appetite but not too much to lead the reader to frustration since, as he admits, this is a memoir and not a discourse on philosophical issues. McGinn has helped me identify philosophical issues and philosophers to pursue further, and understand the challenge ahead, without an excess of intimidation.

As Colin McGinn makes clear up front, this autobiography focuses on his intellectual life rather than his personal life, and his intellectual focus has been on Western analytic philosophy. As someone who once considered a career in academic philosophy, I found this book to offer a fascinating insider's perspective, even if it mainly just represents the perspective of one person.

I mostly agree with McGinn's views, and yet I find that most of the work done in Western analytic philosophy, including McGinn's own work, has been a waste of time. Not that I don't appreciate rigor and clarity (I do), but I find that analytic philosophy largely amounts to abstract hair-splitting which leads to no answers to deep questions nor any wisdom applicable to everyday life; people with an intensely analytic mind are better off applying their energy to math, science, etc. This shortcoming is especially acute in the philosophy of language, where Wittgenstein perhaps said the most that a philosopher can, thus leaving questions related to language best addressed by sociolinguists rather than philosophers. I'll grant that analytic philosophy has perhaps been more useful in the philosophy of mind, which is another of McGinn's major areas, but of course he reaches the negative "mysterian" conclusion that the problem of consciousness may simply be unsolvable by humans.

Nevertheless, I still very much like this book, and I didn't mind the quick review of some areas of analytic philosophy. Moreover, the scope isn't strictly confined to analytic philosophy, since McGinn does touch on a bit of psychology, phenomenology, and existentialism early on, and during the 1990s he ventured well beyond hardcore analytic philosophy into areas more relevant to everyday life. In that sense, perhaps this autobiography was a bit premature, since McGinn has continued in that more interesting direction during the past decade also.

In terms of the writing, this book is well written and easy to follow, with appropriate levels of candor and humility, and a nice balance between technical discussion, broader reflections on the philosophical life, and some fun gossip. Also, the unabridged audiobook is narrated very well and I think the audio format suits this book.

Highly recommended to anyone interested in contemporary Western philosophy.

I recently finished reading this book and I think that overall it is a good read. I am not a philosopher by training (I am a historian) but I purchased this book because I am a philosopher in my own way and I have always read philosophy.

I can not give this book five or four stars however because there were times when the author McGinn got boring and dull. His philosophical explanations were not all too clear making me wonder if it was because the philosophies he was trying to explain were too difficult by nature or if he had simply chosen complex definitions by choice. One thing is for sure, McGinn is very candid and honest and this makes the book worth reading.

I think he could have focused more on other philosophers and thrown a little more of his personal intellectual life since this is a memoir, but overall this book was a good read. I did feel an injection of intellectual urge for wanting to read more philosophy during and after reading this book. I do recommend it.

How do people become professional philosophers? Why are some so strongly compelled by the analytic (philosophy of language) tradition in philosophy? It is these questions that CM illuminates in his brief but very readable 'intellectual' memoir. If these questions don't interest you -- as it appears they did not interest certain reviewers on this page -- don't bother reading TMoaP. If they do, read on. You're sure to be rewarded for the few hours' effort. 4 stars, not 5, only because the rewards -- in my view -- were not as ample as they might have been. By which I mean: I greatly enjoyed reading TMoaP; I only wish it had gone longer and at greater depth into the areas of CM's philosophical interest. Guess I'll have to give CM's 'serious' philosophy a read sometime. TMoaP succeeds on two levels: it is an interesting and entertaining memoir, and a spur to further -- and deeper -- reading in philosophy. What more should a reader expect?

In his book The Making of a Philosopher, McGinn seamlessly weaves in and out of autobiography and concise explication of the most notable contemporary philosophical concepts with uncanny agility. In doing so, McGinn creates a new and entertaining genus of philosophical writing. Very often, philosophy seems so cold and abstract; almost inhuman. In addition to McGinn's extremely clear treatment of the most notable contemporary philosophical concepts, the Making of a Philosopher defies tradition by putting a human face to such popular contemporary philosophy, from describing Saul Kripke's table manners (p. 66) to David Lewis' driving habits (p. 101) and much, much more.

I happened to stumble across this book just after I graduated from Berkeley, and as it happened, reading it was a great way for me to reflect on and summarize a good deal of material that I was exposed to as an undergraduate. Feeling somewhat burnt out and jaded about philosophy at the time, what sold me on the book initially was the very beginning of the preface (a section of the book that can make or break a purchase for me), "The purpose of this book is to explain philosophy in an accessible, engaging way. But how best to do that? After trying out a number of plans for such a book, I hit upon the autobiographical format. More orthodox formats inevitably became too textbooklike, and while there is a place for such books I didn't want my book to remind the reader of school."

Needless to say, given my current mood at the time, I was sold. I was happy to buy the book too, because I had been meaning to read more of McGinn's work anyway, since I found the few scraps of his work that I had been exposed to exceptionally clear and intriguing. It was a natural purchase for me.

One negative about the book: I do wish that McGinn had taken it upon himself to go into greater detail about his life. To his credit, he does a good job of highlighting the good and the bad, but you finish this book with a sense that McGinn has left out many, many important details about his life. Not that it's that philosophically important, but he fails to mention any of those gritty details that make biographies so interesting--he fails to mention anything about his love life, for example. Before I give too much away, let me just say that biographies in philosophy are extremely rare. If anything, I recommend that anyone remotely interested in the subject should read this book to get a different perspective of philosophy that isn't very common.

Ontogeny describes the origin and the development of an organism from the fertilized egg to its mature form. Ontology is the philosophic study of being or existence. Colin McGinn takes the reader on a ontogenic journey from his youth in a mining town in northeast England to his arrival as a Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University. His journey takes us through his choice of philosophy as a career, his personal philosophic questions, his answers (or non-answers), his initial rejection and later rise in prominence at Oxford University. We can sense his existential questions as he tries to apply the philosophy he teaches, the questions of ontology, epistomology, free will, fate and luck, to his own life. This personal history is very engaging and serves to humanize the scholar and soften the aloofness and arrogance we usually associate with a world class academic.

When I read this, Rutgers philosopher Colin McGinn's autobiography, I wanted to do so as if I were just coming to the subject myself. What impressions would I, a young person wanting to explore philosophy a bit more, get out of it?

Unfortunately, what happened was this: I read it 'as' that young person, decided philosophy was too boring, but my older more experienced philosophical self kept wanting to 'jump in' and rewrite sections of the book. Maybe I could make it more interesting than McGinn.

This is not to suggest that I literally could; just to point out a big problem with the book. Philosophically (even for a beginner) it is boring. It focuses much on the philosophy of language and, to be honest, questions no one (sorry, you linguistic philosophers out there) cares about. What do we mean when we refer to an object? Is a thing merely ts traits, or is it an actual thing that has traits? What is it really to follow a rule? As one who is quite read in philosophy, I can tell you that this is why most people are not read in philosophy. If the beginner wants a good and accessible intro, go to Bryan Mageee's "Confessions of a philosopher". Same format as this - an autobiography. It is just much better as it talks much about the issues that most laypersons will fin more interesting like the nature of knowledge (what do we know versus guess at), what existence is, and other such things.

Now, if you are NOT expecting any sort of intro to philosophy, this might be a great book for you. For me, it was very helpful as I am applying right now for my doctorate in political philosophy. McGinn spends much of his time on the workings of academia and what being an academic and philosopher is all about. This part was thrilling to me! From McGilnn's unfortunately heated exchange wlth fellow philosopher Michael Dummett, to his Oxord days, to the details of when, where, and why, he came to the conclusion that the mind/body problem, amongst others, could not be solved at all. Interesting stuff!

Overal, then, I gave the book a three. To summarize, if you are new to philosophy and want your appetite whetted don't look for it here. GEt either Magee's above mentioned book, "From Socrates to Sartre", or if you've the patience and interest, Russell's "History of Western Philosophy". For academics and the laity well read in philosophy, this will be a fun book, but only as a 'beach read'.