Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Philosophy in the late XX century, May 23, 2000
This is a wonderful introduction to many of the central philosophical questions of the twentieth century. The author focuses on Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and William James as a means to highlight the problems of elevating technique over substance. The book does not assume any familiarity with any of these philosophers, and so provides an entry into their thought. By focusing on Wittgenstein instead of the later logical positivists and Heidegger rather than Sartre or another existentialist, the author can bring out the true greatness of Wittgenstein and Heidegger compared to later philosophers. I recommende this book to anyone interested in critical thinking.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sharply observed, excellently written, May 5, 2003
By A Customer
Here is a sample of Barrett's prose."One of the disservices of positivism (for which the early Wittgenstein bears some responsibility) was to erect into dogma the slogan 'Mathematics tells us nothing about the real world.' The dogma should have been suspect from the start. It is entirely unlikely that we should have been able to build airplanes or launch rockets without the aid of mathematics." Here we see Barrett moving bravely through some areas of modern philosophy that are usually clogged with jargon and overly technical treatment, we see him dispensing with crutches, using plain language -- and he takes us with him.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Not His Best, But Still Worthwhile, June 24, 2007
This work is not up to the level of Irrational Man or The Death of the Soul, but it still bears the mark of Mr. Barrett's thoughtful iconoclasm. He challenges our culture's thoughtless and quite automatic pursuit of technology as the Grail of human endeavor, and with it the implicit assumption that all human problems are technical at their root. His measured reflections highlight both the obviousness of this bias and the dubiousness of its validity. He performs a brief but effective review of how this bias arose via Renee Descartes's influential philosophical tradeoff of a desacralized sensible world wherein science reigns supreme, for the separate and unchallenged province of religion on the other side of the equation. For better and for worse, the outcome has proven to be the elevation of Technique to the apogee of human concern, at least in the most "advanced"--meaning, technologically superior--societies.
He effectively demonstrates the emptiness of techique per se, showing that it rests upon unexamined assumptions worthy of conscious reflection. Indeed, modern society has reached a crisis point where the mindless veneration of Method and Machine is literally destroying the natural world--the unremarked but crucially abiding foundation that occasions the possibility for technique and technology.
Less effective are his (now dated) speculations about the future of American and Soviet societies, though they might be of interest to those who wish to evaluate the usefulness of his future focus. Troubling is his occasional dismissive oversimplification of philosophers not to his liking--Nietzsche is "satanic," e.g.--but this does not constitute the core of either the text or his arguments. Also less than satisfactory is his reflection upon the nature of faith. While taking William James to task for "psychologizing" the religious impulse, Mr. Barrett seems unable to offer more than "I do it because I do it" as an explication of his own religious observances and, by extension, those of others who incorporate religious practice into their lives.
All this said, The Illusion of Technique is worthwhile reading . William Barrett is one of those philosophers who has contributed relevant works useful to thoughtful people who might lack technical background or familiarity with contemporary philosophical issues.
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