Customer Reviews

The Plato Cult and Other Philosophical Follies

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I defer to no one in my admiration for Stove's work, but this collection of essays isn't quite what I expected. Plato is hardly addressed at all; Hegel gets no more than a few passing mentions and a final cussing-out. If you want to see those icons comprehensively clasted, you'll have to go to Popper's "The Open Society and its Enemies". Stove, after a brisk opening fracas with the science history-philosophy brigade (headed by the ubiquitous Popper), directs his fire at targets who, from the point of view of an amateur of philosophy such as me, are of very minor interest: the later Nelson Goodman, Robert Nozick, then a whole necropolis of nineteenth-century British idealists. It came as a surprise to me that late nineteenth-century Anglophone philosophy was almost entirely dominated by neo-Hegelians. Well, back then my ancestors were mostly illiterate farm laborers. Quandoque dormitat Homerus. There's a lot more on these people (some of whom Stove humorously insists were first-rate, but wrong) than I ever wanted to know.

On the continental front, Foucault is noticed and promptly squashed. Derrida, Baudrillard, Deleuze - forget it. It's no secret that these have had more influence on the (loosely speaking) intelligentsia, for good or ill, than a hundred F.H. Bradleys or Nelson Goodmans. I suppose Stove takes it for granted that their productions are beneath contempt, even as examples of 'folly'; but try telling that to the fans. I don't believe this is the answer; it's part of the problem.

If you know Stove's work you'll find the old acuity and acerbic wit going strong. It's worth getting this book just for the final chapter, 'What is Wrong with Our Thoughts?' (forty philosophical ways to go mad). But the book as a whole would have been more effective with sharper target selection. I recommend his concentrated attack on the farrago of modern philosophy of science (titled in its latest incarnation "Scientific Irrationalism").

P.S. Many people wonder if Stove actually approved of anybody. He quite liked Hume. But even one of that master's apercus is dismissed here as 'tripe'!

I would recommend this book to intelligent newcomers who want to learn about philosophy. Yes, I know. The book is patchy: the section on Robert Nozick is misleading and unfair, and Stove's attempt to explain Nozick's perfectly cogent views as Vietnam War fall-out, is just plain ridiculous. And Nozick isn't Stove's only innocent casualty. But newcomers to philosophy are bound to come away with misleading impressions of some kind. At least with Stove I know what those impressions will be.

The thing that makes this book valuable, apart from Stove's deliciously caustic writing style, which will make you laugh uncontrollably, is the large middle section, called, "Idealism: A Victorian Horror Story". Gosh, that was fun. Stove here applies his talent for ridicule to a target well worth ridiculing; and he uses some positive arguments that don't crumble when exposed to bright light. Be warned. Not all of his arguments have this merit.

Oh, I should warn you about the final chapter, which aims to convince you that everyone is mad. For a while it convinced me that everyone was mad, author included. There's a list of nonsense statements about the number three which starts in hilarity and ends in gloom. But surely they can't *all* be nonsense. They certainly can't all be false: some of them are just the negations of others of them, so one would expect some of them to be true.

This book was a delight to read: a fine example of the British (and apparently Australian) tradition of scholarly writing about serious topics that is at the same time permeated with wit and sarcasm. Stove dissects some of the major, largely forgotten philosophical movements of the past, with the aim of showing where they went wrong--and of casting light into the darker fallacies of contemporary philosophy. His list of forty statements about the number three that embody distinct kinds of error in thinking, for most of which we don't even have labels, was hilarious and disturbing at the same time--a fitting end for this eccentric book. Anyone who finds philosophical questions compelling ought to be able to get something out of it.

It will be a long time before you find another philosophy book even remotely like this one. Savor it. David Stove not only talks about philosophy, even our precious analytic philosophy, with wit and derision, he actually does philosophy, and excellent analytic philosophy, in a lively and unforgettable style. This is an excellent book for students because it is humorous and very lively, but it also achieves and sustains levels of clarity rarely seen in discussions of solipsism, idealism, Kantian questions and a host of other 'problems.' Graduate students in every humane field can learn a great deal of philosophy from Stove, and students of philosophy have in this book a new model of excellence.

His style is humorous, aggressive and precise, while also being very gracious and conciliatory though never merciful enough to give up his belief that he is right after all. Stove is the most combative philosopher, both in style and substance, that I have come across in quite some time. He believes that it is a myth that philosophy is largely based on arguments. He holds, in fact, that most philosophers, including the most famous ones, argue far too little. Stove argues a lot. Perhaps to make up for all the lost time...

If there has been a consistent strain to the negative remarks about Stove, it is probably that his style is not sanctimonious, or respectful or unctious enough to please the hotly moralistic puppy ears of our hypersenstive age. For example, Stove concludes that the world of Objective Idealism is merely the regular world spoken of in church and pulpit tones. He lampoons Nozick as having a make believe philosophy. And there are other disrespectful things said. However, Stove is not engaged in any personal attacks. He has the goods on everyone he talks about, and he restricts his concerns to their arguments. He does not make fun of anyone, I would say. It is more like he has fun while talking about the zany arguments philosophers fall for.

The main point of the book seems to be to take idealism down a notch or two. A century and a half of idealism needs diagnosis, and not all diagnoses are flattering. Some are even offensive to morally feverish puppies.

And then there is the lingering guilt over positivism. Our age enjoys a guilt and punishment game played out over the graves of every positivist aspiration. If the most rational diagnosis of the scene at the death of positivism includes a recommendation that the patient be revived, walked about and exercised back into robust health (sans a few toes and some pride), then it is just too bad for those planning the funeral. Stove's Neo-Positivist Credo (the final chapter) is a very real threat to every obscurantist in the humanities.

There is in the end no way to tell you how satisfying this book was for me, nor how happy I am that it exists.

If you cannot enjoy reading these essays then your brain lacks something that could make your life a better place to live in. A similar kind of pleasure as that coming from Voltaire or very few other witty iconoclasts.

Inspite of its hardcover, this is a lousy edition, just a quick nearly-photocopy USA reprint of an originally UK-published book. Even the original typos reprinted (e.g., "whatver" on page 51). I fell in love with this book through a Spanish translation back in 1994: the classroom-oriented Spanish edition was a better physical object than this one. For one thing, my Spanish Stove had its pages sewn together instead of just glued together.

Solace might seem a strange reaction to those already familiar with the acerbic writing of David Stove. But then, I assume there are those like myself who were ecstatic to read what they've sometimes thought, stated with more learning and wit than we might ourselves muster.

Literally laugh out loud funny, Stove ravages irrationalism wherever it pokes it's ugly head whether it be in theological ejaculations, musty idealistic salves, or po-mo science. There are a large number of writers working on tired ad-hominem slur essays as part of the public reaction to the excesses of political correctness or academic incomprehensibleness, but none I'm aware of have this amount of intellectual weight while maintaining such an arch humor.

I only wish this book was about as 10x as long. While reading it I felt the books momentum gaining, as it seemed the essays gained both power and wit the further into the pages I got. I wish Stove would have attempted the nostrum he speaks of in the last piece "What is wrong with our thoughts?", and given us his version of the history of the madness of PHI before his death. I doubt he could have finished or stomached the task, but even the notes would have been enlightening. For those looking for something along the same lines (though admittedly not quite as good) check out M. Stewart's "The Truth About Everything".

On a special note, Stove's treasury was a special respite for me in this time of national tragedy. It's been rare to find something that can give you an honest, hearty laugh in the aftermath of such reports of terror. It seems a timely reminder of the excesses of "bad" thought, especially as it expresses itself through religious fanaticism and political murder.

Amid the body count of the "worker's paradise",Hitler's Reich,Mao's revolution and the general idealistic-nihilistic paradigm that defined the 20th century,this book is a great intro to understanding how the utopian folly rears its beastly head again and again.Stove takes on the frauds who've somehow managed to spew out their inanities and call the puke "philosophy".The postmodernists,the idealists and the fuzzy-brained get their proper comeuppances.The unspeakable tragedy is that the Rousseau's,Marx's,Heidegger's and their pernicious ilk were ever taken seriously and thus lent a phony air of intelligence and righteousness to the catastropic utopian movements in the 20th century.The religion of idealism has taken a sabbatical for the time being but everything comes back around again.Will the people in the future be wiser than the man of the 20th century and prevent the more gruesome episodes that defined our time in history's grinder?

Combining brilliant hyperbole with caustic understatement, Stove recouts the horrors and madness of two and half thousands years of philosophical nonsense from Plato to Hegel, Kant, Poper and Kuhn. Stove chews 'em up and spits 'em out. And not just the high and mighty: a 700 page treatise on 3 years of Hegel's early writings is ground into sausage.

P.S. henry@coombs suggests that if two statements are contradictory one of them must be right. Oh?

2+2=5; 2+2=15.

And Nozick gets what he deserves.

A previous reviewer for this book was feeling smart and said:

"P.S. henry@coombs suggests that if two statements are contradictory one of them must be right. Oh? 2+2=5; 2+2=15."

henry@coombs said that either something or its negation must be right. As in P or ~P. Example: in (2+2=5) or ~(2+2=5). Obviously one is right. So, this reviewer's complaint is quite silly and makes him look rather foolish.

Amid the body count of the "worker's paradise",Hitler's Reich,Mao's revolution and the general idealistic-nihilistic paradigm that defined the 20th century,this book is a great intro to understanding how the utopian folly rears its beastly head again and again.Stove takes on the frauds who've somehow managed to spew out their inanities and call the puke "philosophy".The postmodernists,the idealists and the fuzzy-brained get their proper comeuppances.The unspeakable tragedy is that the Rousseau's,Marx's,Hegel's and their pernicious ilk were ever taken seriously and thus lent a phony air of intelligence and righteousness to the catastropic utopian movements in the 20th century.The religion of idealism has taken a sabbatical for the time being but everything comes back around again.Will the people in the future be wiser than the man of the 20th century and prevent the more gruesome episodes that defined our time in history's grinder?