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15 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
Quee Nelson Refutes Rorty, Relativists & Postmodernists, August 18, 2007
Quee Nelson (who successfully completed her graduate work in Philosophy at a major university in California) writes with great style and humor. Most of the book is a witty and wide-ranging dialog between an unnamed student and his unnammed, male professor. Wrapped around the dialog are more arguments forcefully putting the case against skepticism, postmodernism, anti-realism, Richard Rorty and his followers. Indeed, the book should be titled "The Slightest Philosophy: How Realism Refutes Rorty." Despite Nelson's great writing, which avoids jargon more than any other book on her subject, does it slightly overstate the case to say her book is jargon-free or to say that her book is avoiding technical jargon? Even if Nelson manages to avoid using jargon to make her own points, isn't there some jargon appearing nonetheless? Isn't on the book's cover and elsewhere, for example, "ding an sich" and don't we encounter academic jargon (only sometimes undefined) such as 'postmodernism' (p.ix), 'qualia' (p.12), 'representationalism' (p.12), 'fideism' (p.17), 'solipsism' (p.22); "the fallacy of equivocation" (p.53), 'sense-data' (p.72); 'duck-rabbit' (p.75), 'veridical' (p.79), "geometric corpuscles" (p.89), 'effluvium' (p.89), "elan vital" (p.89), 'quarks' (p.89), "phenomenal world" (p.102), "noumenal world" (p.102), "pre-existing non-homogeneities" (p.118), "snee program" (p.130), "windowless monad" (p.134), "a priori" (p.158), "prima facie plausibility" (p.192), 'Coherentism' (p.193), 'Pyrrhonism' (p.197); "infallibilist Foundationalism" (p.202), "reductio ad absurdum" (p.202); "da kine" (p.203); and "epistemological conservatism" (p.220)? Further, don't we encounter some technical neologisms by Nelson like 'scene-image' (p.60), 'inviddying' (p.61), 'ex-sist' (p.81), and "gleebing monops" (p.152), even though she evidently intends 3 of these terms as parodies? We can easily look up all these terms but it would be even better if Nelson let us know exactly what she thinks these key words mean. Wouldn't a glossary and an index have been extremely useful, and shouldn't they appear in later editions of this terrific book? She does helpfully provide endnotes and sources for the treasure trove of quotations from many sources. I'm perfectly content with Nelson using the jargon itself, since her book is the best introduction to epistemology and since such a book should introduce students to key technical terms in the relevant literature. So don't hold this against the book at all.
Nelson writes on p.xi: "The modern philosophy canon is the anti-realist canon; if twenty of the world's most popular epistemologists since Berkeley were made into baseball cards, you might not find a good champion of the vulgar [naive realism] in the pack." But isn't the modern philosophy canon just as much the realist canon as the anti-realist canon, since both rivals are well-represented in the canon? Doesn't modern philosophy include such realists as Francis Bacon, materialist Thomas Hobbes, Rene Descartes, Benedict Spinoza, John Locke (believer in a mind-independent material substance), Thomas Reid, David Hume (after he retreats, on practical grounds, from skepticism), Immanuel Kant (since Kant thinks our phenomenal world of experience is due to a mind-independent noumenal world of things-in-themselves), and Soren Kierkegaard (who rejected Hegel's idealism), among others? Nelson evidently meant to say the true claim that the anti-realist canon IS INCLUDED IN the modern philosophy canon rather than say the questionable claim that the modern philosophy canon IS IDENTICAL TO the anti-realist canon. Nelson's second claim about what 'might' be true about the top 20 most popular epistemologists since Berkeley is such an extremely watered-down claim that it is true, but is it still misleading? It's watered-down because almost anything 'might' be true. Monkeys might fly out of President Bush's butt and win the war in Iraq. Does Nelson unintentionally mislead us to underestimate the realists among the top 20 most popular epistemologists since Berkeley? She admits to J.L. Austin, Thomas Reid, and G. E. Moore, but does she overlook or underemphasize these other realist candidates for the top 20 most popular epistemologists since Berkeley: Sir Karl Popper, the earlier Ludwig Wittgenstein, George Santayana, the later Bertrand Russell, Alfred North Whitehead, scientific socialists and materialists such as Karl Marx and Mao Zedong, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Thomas Kuhn (who says in footnotes that "on pain of solipsism" he cannot avoid realism), the earlier Hilary Putnam, W.V.O. Quine, and John Searle?
I'd love to see Nelson instruct us more on how the 5 senses often mislead us. I'd love to see her confront the non-technical basics of a chapter on perception in an introductory textbook of psychology, and then apply her philosophy to it.
May Nelson turn her superb skills to legal, moral and political philosophy in her next book, though some points of morality and politics do crop up here. Is her isolated crack (irrelevant to her main argument) about her imagining some works of Rousseau being carried by the killers in the killing fields of Cambodia a cheap shot against Jean-Jacques Rousseau? Isn't Rousseau better understood as a defender of liberty and peaceful change through democracy? For example, nobody rightly blames The Beatles for the mass murders by Charles Manson's "Family" just because Manson was inspired to murder by The Beatles White Album. Similarly, isn't it unfair to blame Rousseau for the mass murders in Cambodia hundreds of years after Rousseau even if those Cambodian psychopaths somehow found inspiration in Rousseau (which Nelson never shows in her book)? Indeed, Rousseau never called for the socialist abolition of private property much less call for any socialist violence needed to abolish private property. The Beatles sang the praises of peace, love and freedom and are not responsible for The Manson Family mass murders inspired by misinterpretations of the Beatles' White Album. Rousseau defended liberty and democracy, so doesn't he avoid responsibility for The Killing Fields of Cambodia?
Nelson ambitiously claims to have solved Hume's Riddle of Induction. But on p.210, does she fall short of this great ambition and underplay the distinction between physical and logical possibility by saying: "If something is physically impossible, then it's impossible. Period."? Isn't Hume's Riddle: "how can we make inductive generalizations that are as certain as valid deductions, where there is no logical possibililty that all the premises can be true and the conclusion false?"? Isn't Hume right to say we are so far unable to do this without the logical flaw of begging the quesiton at issue by assuming as a premise that the future must be relevantly like the past and that natural laws must remain constant over time? Further, isn't Hume then right to conclude that we are unable even to get probably true scientific generalizations without the logical flaw of begging a key question at issue, namely, whether the future will be relevantly like the past (and whether natural laws will stay constant over time)?
Despite my mere questions about 4 sentences in Nelson's book of nearly 300 pages, there are two main take-away lessons from Nelson's excellent book: 1) Realism is true; and 2) "Admittedly, Hume was undeniably great." (Nelson, p.19.) I urge you to read this book.
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 The Slightest Philosophy 1598583786
Quee Nelson
Dog Ear Publishing, LLC
The Slightest Philosophy
Books
Quee Nelson Refutes Rorty, Relativists & Postmodernists
Quee Nelson (who successfully completed her graduate work in Philosophy at a major university in California) writes with great style and humor. Most of the book is a witty and wide-ranging dialog between an unnamed student and his unnammed, male professor. Wrapped around the dialog are more arguments forcefully putting the case against skepticism, postmodernism, anti-realism, Richard Rorty and his followers. Indeed, the book should be titled "The Slightest Philosophy: How Realism Refutes Rorty." Despite Nelson's great writing, which avoids jargon more than any other book on her subject, does it slightly overstate the case to say her book is jargon-free or to say that her book is avoiding technical jargon? Even if Nelson manages to avoid using jargon to make her own points, isn't there some jargon appearing nonetheless? Isn't on the book's cover and elsewhere, for example, "ding an sich" and don't we encounter academic jargon (only sometimes undefined) such as 'postmodernism' (p.ix), 'qualia' (p.12), 'representationalism' (p.12), 'fideism' (p.17), 'solipsism' (p.22); "the fallacy of equivocation" (p.53), 'sense-data' (p.72); 'duck-rabbit' (p.75), 'veridical' (p.79), "geometric corpuscles" (p.89), 'effluvium' (p.89), "elan vital" (p.89), 'quarks' (p.89), "phenomenal world" (p.102), "noumenal world" (p.102), "pre-existing non-homogeneities" (p.118), "snee program" (p.130), "windowless monad" (p.134), "a priori" (p.158), "prima facie plausibility" (p.192), 'Coherentism' (p.193), 'Pyrrhonism' (p.197); "infallibilist Foundationalism" (p.202), "reductio ad absurdum" (p.202); "da kine" (p.203); and "epistemological conservatism" (p.220)? Further, don't we encounter some technical neologisms by Nelson like 'scene-image' (p.60), 'inviddying' (p.61), 'ex-sist' (p.81), and "gleebing monops" (p.152), even though she evidently intends 3 of these terms as parodies? We can easily look up all these terms but it would be even better if Nelson let us know exactly what she thinks these key words mean. Wouldn't a glossary and an index have been extremely useful, and shouldn't they appear in later editions of this terrific book? She does helpfully provide endnotes and sources for the treasure trove of quotations from many sources. I'm perfectly content with Nelson using the jargon itself, since her book is the best introduction to epistemology and since such a book should introduce students to key technical terms in the relevant literature. So don't hold this against the book at all.
Nelson writes on p.xi: "The modern philosophy canon is the anti-realist canon; if twenty of the world's most popular epistemologists since Berkeley were made into baseball cards, you might not find a good champion of the vulgar [naive realism] in the pack." But isn't the modern philosophy canon just as much the realist canon as the anti-realist canon, since both rivals are well-represented in the canon? Doesn't modern philosophy include such realists as Francis Bacon, materialist Thomas Hobbes, Rene Descartes, Benedict Spinoza, John Locke (believer in a mind-independent material substance), Thomas Reid, David Hume (after he retreats, on practical grounds, from skepticism), Immanuel Kant (since Kant thinks our phenomenal world of experience is due to a mind-independent noumenal world of things-in-themselves), and Soren Kierkegaard (who rejected Hegel's idealism), among others? Nelson evidently meant to say the true claim that the anti-realist canon IS INCLUDED IN the modern philosophy canon rather than say the questionable claim that the modern philosophy canon IS IDENTICAL TO the anti-realist canon. Nelson's second claim about what 'might' be true about the top 20 most popular epistemologists since Berkeley is such an extremely watered-down claim that it is true, but is it still misleading? It's watered-down because almost anything 'might' be true. Monkeys might fly out of President Bush's butt and win the war in Iraq. Does Nelson unintentionally mislead us to underestimate the realists among the top 20 most popular epistemologists since Berkeley? She admits to J.L. Austin, Thomas Reid, and G. E. Moore, but does she overlook or underemphasize these other realist candidates for the top 20 most popular epistemologists since Berkeley: Sir Karl Popper, the earlier Ludwig Wittgenstein, George Santayana, the later Bertrand Russell, Alfred North Whitehead, scientific socialists and materialists such as Karl Marx and Mao Zedong, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Thomas Kuhn (who says in footnotes that "on pain of solipsism" he cannot avoid realism), the earlier Hilary Putnam, W.V.O. Quine, and John Searle?
I'd love to see Nelson instruct us more on how the 5 senses often mislead us. I'd love to see her confront the non-technical basics of a chapter on perception in an introductory textbook of psychology, and then apply her philosophy to it.
May Nelson turn her superb skills to legal, moral and political philosophy in her next book, though some points of morality and politics do crop up here. Is her isolated crack (irrelevant to her main argument) about her imagining some works of Rousseau being carried by the killers in the killing fields of Cambodia a cheap shot against Jean-Jacques Rousseau? Isn't Rousseau better understood as a defender of liberty and peaceful change through democracy? For example, nobody rightly blames The Beatles for the mass murders by Charles Manson's "Family" just because Manson was inspired to murder by The Beatles White Album. Similarly, isn't it unfair to blame Rousseau for the mass murders in Cambodia hundreds of years after Rousseau even if those Cambodian psychopaths somehow found inspiration in Rousseau (which Nelson never shows in her book)? Indeed, Rousseau never called for the socialist abolition of private property much less call for any socialist violence needed to abolish private property. The Beatles sang the praises of peace, love and freedom and are not responsible for The Manson Family mass murders inspired by misinterpretations of the Beatles' White Album. Rousseau defended liberty and democracy, so doesn't he avoid responsibility for The Killing Fields of Cambodia?
Nelson ambitiously claims to have solved Hume's Riddle of Induction. But on p.210, does she fall short of this great ambition and underplay the distinction between physical and logical possibility by saying: "If something is physically impossible, then it's impossible. Period."? Isn't Hume's Riddle: "how can we make inductive generalizations that are as certain as valid deductions, where there is no logical possibililty that all the premises can be true and the conclusion false?"? Isn't Hume right to say we are so far unable to do this without the logical flaw of begging the quesiton at issue by assuming as a premise that the future must be relevantly like the past and that natural laws must remain constant over time? Further, isn't Hume then right to conclude that we are unable even to get probably true scientific generalizations without the logical flaw of begging a key question at issue, namely, whether the future will be relevantly like the past (and whether natural laws will stay constant over time)?
Despite my mere questions about 4 sentences in Nelson's book of nearly 300 pages, there are two main take-away lessons from Nelson's excellent book: 1) Realism is true; and 2) "Admittedly, Hume was undeniably great." (Nelson, p.19.) I urge you to read this book.
Dr. Sterling Harwood
August 18, 2007
- Overall: 5
- Overall: 5
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