Customer Reviews

Questions that Matter: An Invitation to Philosophy

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I have taught courses in philosophy and religion for the past 15 years at several colleges and universities in Southern California. I have dozens of introduction to philosophy textbooks in my personal library (instructor complementary review copies from various publishers). For several years I struggled to find a textbook that would buttress my diligent efforts to teach philosophy to young men and women in a challenging and stimulating fashion. By far, the best introduction to philosophy textbook I have ever seen or used is Ed Miller's outstanding book QUESTIONS THAT MATTER (hereafter QTM). Allow me to mention six reasons why this book is truly an exceptional textbook in philosophy.

First, QTM strikes an excellent balance between scholarly content on one hand, and a readable writing style on the other. A motivated and reflective college student will come away from this volume with a thorough and understandable introductory knowledge of the discipline of philosophy.

Second, QTM provides a comprehensive introduction to philosophy by introducing the student to the major branches or fields of philosophy, including metaphysics (study of reality), epistemology (study of knowledge), ethics (study of the good), logic (study of correct reasoning), and philosophy of religion (critical analysis about God).

Third, while QTM is organized in a topical manner, it includes a wealth of information about all of the leading philosophers of the Western world, including relevant excerpts from the various philosophers' writings in their major fields of contribution. This text also includes brief but very informative mini-biographies of the leading philosophers.

Fourth, QTM as a textbook promotes solid learning through the helpful use of charts, diagrams, and providing the definitions of key terms through the use of various pull quotes throughout the volume. In addition, the text provides a useful and extensive glossary of philosophical terms.

Fifth, QTM is written by an author who holds doctoral degrees in both philosophy and in theology. The result is a textbook that addresses the field of philosophy of religion in a very sophisticated and even-handed manner. Arguments both for and against God are clearly presented and logically evaluated. The best philosophers on both sides of the God question are quoted.

Sixth, QTM devotes an entire chapter to helping the student become familiar with the basic principles and arguments of logic. Since philosophy is defined [by the author] as "the attempt to think rationally and critically about the most important questions," this chapter presents logic in a concise and clear way.

As a college instructor, I give QTM my highest recommendation. I recommend it to teachers and students alike. Thank you Dr. Miller for writing such a clear and insightful book that introduces students and teachers alike to the big questions of philosophy. This is a work well done!

I've used this textbook on more than one occasion in my Introduction to Philosophy courses. And for me the proof as to whether or not this is a valuable text is determined by the quality of the educational experience it generated among my students. With this in mind, I can't help but conclude that this book works for me. My students and I have had wonderful and often passionate discussions regarding the various topics covered by this book. In an Intro course students do not necessarily need to be exposed to all the latest--and mostly trendy--schools of thought; but they can benefit from learning about the historical development of philosophy. On this note, although the author does exhibit a predilection for Christian topics and points of view, I think this is justifiable when one considers the deep and lengthy relationship that Western philosophy has had with Christianity, be it in the form of Saints Augustine and Thomas or in the more modernist vein of Descartes, Kant, and Hegel (even much of Nietzsche has to be read as a response to Christianity). Taking this approach, in my experience, enables students to better appreciate the growing secularization of the world around them and the ineptitude of current philosophies to provide them a more organic and meaningful relationship with the earth, their community, and the sacred. In the end, I believe that anyone who's frustrated by this book is more than likely just a bad teacher, and they should probably just get over themselves and quit trying to blame their textbook.

This was my college text for Intro to Philosophy in the early '90s and I enjoyed it a lot. The concepts were presented clearly and in a logical order. An introductory course should give a student an overview and a "ground floor" to build on, should the student wish to go on. In fact I ordered a copy of this textbook for my college-sophmore son - his professor only has original source material from three philosophers for an INTRO course, which seems narrow and overwhelming.

I really liked this book for philosophy, it was very clear and I was able to understand the material even though philosophy can be hard sometimes. Totally recommend it!

I was worried about getting the book on time for my class had started. But this wasn't the fault of the book store but I did not realize that it was the shorter edition of the text book until I was taking my first test and found that most of the questions on the test were over material that I had not read.
The information on amazon about the book did not list that this book was the shorter edition. I had to turn around and rent an e-text to correct the mistake so I am not happy about that. I much rather have a book in hand than one on a computer screen. You live and learn!
Will I ever use this book store in the future? I may but I will not wait until the last minute the next time, in case there is a problem.
Thank you,
Student Lisa

what i loved about this sender was i got my book fast within a week and a half. im pretty sure i would of gotten it sooner if it wasnt for the labor day holiday. bt overall it was great and my book is in great condition. almost new

It was in great condition, the ed. is not the one i needed for the class but it had all the stuff the 6th ed. had plus extra stuff they took out. I'm happy with it.

Questions That Matter is purportedly a general text in philosophy intended for college students. In fact, it is a tract in Catholic moral philosophy. For every question introduced, e.g. 'Does God Exist?, the answer is already available and manifestly Catholic in content and thrust. No truly open inquiry is permitted. It is quite clear, even to the most naive reader, that he is being steered along a particular thread or line of biased argument to agree with Miller's own metaphysical preconceptions. Indeed, the words chosen and questions posed are designed to imitate the habituated conditioning and thought patterns endured over endless hours re-gurgitating answers in The Baltimore Catechism.

Peppered liberally throughout the book are incredible errors of logic as well as a dearth of empirical evidence to support Miller's sundry claims and theist assumptions. As an example, he appears willing to go along with Anselm's arguments pro-deity, in his chapter on the "Existence of God". These arguments, to be concise, are that "God being the 'greatest entity/being" that one can imagine is substantively distinct from such fantastic entities as 'unicorns', etc. Thus, if so many people can imagine such a 'greatest being' he/she/it must exist in reality and not merely in their imagination.

Of course, this is a patent non-sequitur. The limits of my own imagination, for example, can extend to projecting within my mind's eye a 'being' the size of the whole universe with conscious powers to match (e.g. through quantum wave superpositions). But, however sophisticated and compelling this image may be, it emphatically doesn't exist in objective reality! I point this out because one standard definition of madness is the inability to distinguish one's inner imaginings from external reality. In this regard, Anselm and his mental descendants must be considered as quite mad if they genuinely suppose their 'greatest being imaginable' actually exists!

Secondly, if the current 'greatest being' imagined defines this entity ("God") then what does this really say, given that humans possess a finite neural capacity (as well as a flawed brain architecture)? If this neural capacity (and by extension, imaginative power) is enhanced, say by evolution, then what? Do we accept the newer, larger imagined version over the old? If so, that says more about the acceptance of our own thought conceptions than it does about any exterior being that supposedly exists. None of these points have been included for possible discussion by Miller.

In the chapter on Materialism, Miller does himself in by referring to the sophisticated arguments of philosopher J.J. Smart, who uses quantum physics and its indeterminism to extend the basis of that philosophy away from its ancient (and overly simplistic) Greek origins. However, here the author has bitten off more than his metaphysics can chew. He would probably have been better off staying away - and sticking to his various castigations of 'mechanistic' Materialism (a la Newtonian laws) rather than doggedly taking on quantum mechanical issues of which he displays woeful ignorance. (QM is at the heart of modern Materialism!)

For example, Miller offers no compelling refutation of Smart's considerable tract, and thereby ends up looking as bereft of intellectual moorings as Anselm's unbelieving 'fool' is bereft of faith. ("The fool hath said in his heart there is no God", etc). Miller simply attempts to discredit Smart by resorting to the usual staid religionist tactics (based on ignorance of complexity at different physical levels). For example, according to Miller: `If all thought is purely the result of physical brain activity then why should the content of this thought be anything special... why pay any attention to it if it is thus self-refuting?'

This, however, is based on several egregious assumptions, not the least of which is the unproven belief that self-refuting thought can be unimpeachably identified. As I note in my book, 'The Atheist's Handbook to Modern Materialism' (p. 164) - since there's no practical method to identify the site of a specific thought (where the quantum neural wavepacket collapses), nothing can be said about the quality or content of the thought. In other words, the supernaturalist can't make any claims about thought in a purely Materialist context. Including whether it is "self-refuting".

Most of the remainder of Miller's monograph is devoted to flaying all those philosophers with whom the author does not agree: David Hume, Jean Paul Sartre and a litany of others. This is accomplished within the scope of 4-5 paragraphs of a chapter section, after setting the victim up in one or more convenient 'straw man' positions (e.g. the attacks on Austrian philosopher J.J. Smart on pp. 165-168). Of interest - at least to me - was after several such 'flayings', I found myself scribbling notes in the book's margins, putting down arguments in their defense as they might had they been alive to do so.

Perhaps, this is the single redeeming feature of Miller's book: that it encourages such interaction! Apart from that, far superior texts are available (e.g. 'Problems of Life & Death' by Kurt Baier, 1997, Prometheus) to address and answer the questions to which Miller alludes.

First, to setup the context: I accepted a commission to teach an intro philosophy course where the previous instructor canceled at last minute. This book had already been ordered, so I could not use one of my choosing, I had to use it.

I am not at all happy, and it is not just because I didn't get to choose the book.

I completely agree with the previous review on several points. Miller is using this text to serve his own Christian agenda. This is obvious to both myself and my students (who have never taken a philosophy course before). Also, there are just some egregious omissions. In his section on epistemology, he omits even *mentioning* theories of what knowledge is (such as coherence theory, correspondence, the tripartite account of knowledge) He doesn't mention the Gettier problem. And in his chapter on skepticism, he says nothing about Hume. (!!)

A complaint that my students have made is that he frequently offers very long quotations and doesn't summarize them well (or at all) - almost as if it was convenient to fill pages with excessive historical quotes and avoid the work of trying to make sense out of it. It is, of course, a fine thing for philosophy majors to take original texts and making sense of them on their own. But, this is SUPPOSED TO BE FOR AN INTRO-LEVEL COURSE.

Let me make this last part clearer: it's not the book is too hard, it's that the citations seem like excessive/confusing padding.

Another OBVIOUS problem is that the book grossly over-emphasizes the importance of philosophy of religion by dedicating an ENTIRE SECTION (five chapters!!) to it. This just doesn't reflect the modern place that philosophy of religion holds in academic philosophy. Philosophy of religion holds a quite minor place at this point. It quite pluasible to go through a philosophy graduate degree program and take little or no philosophy of religion. The same could not be said for metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. Yes, yes, yes - all of us philosophers should be aware of the ontological and cosmological arguments for the existence of God and the like, but this kind of thing can be addressed at the introductory level via a single chapter (as the other two intro philosophy texts I own demonstrate).

I told my students that I've never used this text before and that therefore I am reading the book right along with them. I've found myself apologizing for the text so often, continuing to say "hopefully the next section will be better."

At this point I've had it. I am announcing tomorrow morning that we are no longer using this text. I actually think it would be quite easy to formulate a solid argument that this kind of tendentious text is both 1) harmful to philosophy (it is bound to turn off students early on) and 2) immoral (since it serves a religious agenda where it is not appropriate to do so). SHAME ON YOU ED.

Well, I've got to go now - I need to make copies of *real* introductory texts for the next class readings. :)

Do not buy this book. My professor selected this title for our introductory class, but two days into the course students were asking for alternative textbooks to buy. The book fails, big time, in explaining basic concepts and uses terminology that for an introductory class needs to be explained. I also agree with the other reviewer mention about the excessive amount of "copying and pasting" from other books. A disaster. I wish I could give it 0 stars.