Conundrum
A very nice good, I have to say. The ideas are presented very clearly. We learn about the ideas of various philosophers and also about how they are connected. The end of the book is devoted to influences of existentialism on later philosophical movements — postmodernism, deconstruction, structuralism and post-structuralism.
This is a great introduction and an overview of existentialism for everyone interested in the topic, or, like me, just curious about it.
I listened to the audiobook version narrated by Jay Snyder. Snyder did a wonderful job! It was easy to pay attention to his voice as he has a very natural way of speaking.
Merged review:
A very nice good, I have to say. The ideas are presented very clearly. We learn about the ideas of various philosophers and also about how they are connected. The end of the book is devoted to influences of existentialism on later philosophical movements — postmodernism, deconstruction, structuralism and post-structuralism.
This is a great introduction and an overview of existentialism for everyone interested in the topic, or, like me, just curious about it.
I listened to the audiobook version narrated by Jay Snyder. Snyder did a wonderful job! It was easy to pay attention to his voice as he has a very natural way of speaking.
This is a perfect meditation guide! I have only praise for the author.
The book provides a nice overview of the ten stages of practice. At each stage you learn some skills and overcome specific obstacles. Having mastered new skills you can proceed to the next stage, where another tasks await. Each chapter devoted to a stage very clearly presents you the goal for this stage, how can you say you've mastered the stage, various practices to do, specific problems at the stage and how to overcome them.
Also, every 1–2 stage chapters we get a chapter explaining how things work — a useful model of the mind and an explanation of how the things we're working on fit into this picture. So you can practice and know exactly what you are doing. You are not going in blind. You have a very clear map, you know where you are, what to do, and you know what is going on. It's beautiful.
Additionally, beside specific practices that help you increase the power of consciousness (peripheral awareness and focused attention), the author gives other types of useful practices that help us gain insights into the nature of our minds — how phenomena simply arise and pass away, how things are interconnected, how phenomena are empty of some essence. These things are described, yes, but we get specific practices we can do to that make these things not merely intellectual, but experiential — we are supposed to experience them and feel them.
The book doesn't focus on one aspect of the practice — such as sustaining stable attention on an object (such as breathing sensations) for long periods of time or widening the scope of awareness that doesn't grasp — but on both, and in such a way as to make them function optimally together for a common purpose.
The book can be read in many ways. You can, for example, read up to the chapter that is about the stage you are at at the moment and read more when you believe you can progress to the next stage. You can also read all the interludes to fully understand the mind model. Or you can read the entire book linearly out of interest.
I highly recommend the book to everyone who is serious about practicing meditation.
Now, this is a book that makes you want to read Schopenhauer!
This book is a reaction to Schopenhauer: A Very Short Introduction by Christian Janaway, which I have also read. Janaway's book is very weird. He is very critical of Schopenhauer to the point of calling his metaphysics a failure! Very dismissive and definitely not motivating the reader to study the works of the great philosopher. One can't imagine why would Janaway spend so much time writing articles, book chapters, and even collaborate in the newest translation of Schopenhauer's magnum opus, if he doesn't respect it.
Kastrup treats Schopenhauer with respect he deserves. He makes clear the points from The World as Will and Representation that are important and profound and original. When you read it, you feel that Bernardo sees great value in Schopenhauer, and you start to see it too. This is how an entry-level book about a philosophical work should look like. Bernardo delivered.
Words have many meanings. The sense of a word is made clear from its use and the context. This is how we speak and write in everyday life. And Kastrup — deliberately — makes perfect use of this fact. This is how he is able to interpret Schopenhauer's work and resolve apparent contradictions and inconsistencies — points, where some philosophers found baffling.
I still think it would be great for Kastrup to address points made by other people. For example, Bryan Magee believes that the best sense of Will would be something like a physical force that blindly drives everything. And Moira Nicholls in The Thing-in-itself And Will In The Thought of Schopenhauer (a PhD thesis) lists six plausible interpretations of Will. Kastrup focused only on his own (but consistent with some others, including Julian Young's) and on Janaway's.
What I would also like to hear about are some criticisms of Schopenhauer's system by Kastrup himself. I'm sure he has some points of disagreements. Especially considering the fact that he himself put forward a metaphysical system, very similar to that of Schopenhauer, yet with certain differences. Making clear the points of contention would be valuable to the reader.
There are some peculiarities in the book, which I will list only briefly. Kastrup claims that:
- Will has an instinctive (unknown to itself) purpose or goal, towards which it strives — this is very contentious and I feel like the point could use some more argumentation,
- Will is mental and experiential — again, a very contentious topic, but Bernardo makes it consistent throughout the whole work,
- Will dissociates itself into separate alters (various personalities embodies in animals, including humans) — this point comes directly from Kastrup's own metaphysics and seems to sit wobbilly in the present work.
Additionally,
- it wasn't clear to me how exactly the eternal Ideas (borrowed from “Platonic Idea”) can give rise to particulars (for example, how the Idea of “catness” gives rise to particular cats), and how to square this with the appearance of new forms of life through evolution. The idea of Idea is very digital or category-like, rather than analog or smooth. We carve out cats from the world and abstract the concept of “cat” or “catness”, even though there are instances where forms (of life or other things) change smoothly from one to another.
- Kastrup introduces his concept of alters to explain why we have different points of view, even though there is only a singular thing-in-itself (Will). Because of this, the very concept of Will complexifies, as there has to be something in Will that generates those alters, there have to be some processes that dissociate the mind at large into disparate, particular minds of animals. It feels like these processes are different than Will in some way.
Finally, a note about the narrator — Robert Fass. The narrator did a stellar job. This may be the best narration of a philosophical work I've experienced. When other narrators are flat and put you to sleep, Fass has a very natural intonation and he keeps you focused on the book. A very pleasant experience.
Both the book and the narration were so good, I read the book in one day. I highly recommend it for every fan of philosophy and of Schopenhauer.
This is an OK good. Peter Singer starts with Hegel's ideas about rights, laws, and morality, and how are they intertwined, together with the ever progressing history. Then, we are exposed to the phenomenology of spirit (which studies how the mind itself presents to itself, so things like consciousness and self-consciousness are apprehended). The science of logic is only noted at the very beginning, as a taste for what is there.
I would prefer the book to be longer but with clearer exposition of certain concepts and with the very important science of logic included. Kant: A Very Short Introduction was a bit longer and included all 3 major topics that Kant raised (epistemology and metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics). So it should have been possible to extend the book about Hegel to also include all relevant aspects.
Lacking was also a sense of awesomeness. So many people are hyped about Hegel, but after reading this book, I have no idea why.
I would give the book 6.5–7 / 10.
This is not a book about philosophy.
The book is mostly about petty squabbles between philosophers. We get to know some philosophers, who like to live a controversial life. And this contrarian lifestyle seem to be converted into their “philosophy”, as a kind of rationalization. We don't really get to know or understand the philosophy behind the characters. It's thrown around very sparingly, very often only as a point of disagreement between the characters. Throughout the entire book I had the impression that they use their “philosophical” ideas as playthings or as structures from which to attack other people. It was like a game to them — you attack my “philosophy”, so I'll attack yours! Of course, I cannot know whether there really is anything of value to existentialist or phenomenological philosophy — well, not from this book, that's for sure.
The book centers around Sartre and de Beauvoir. We see them as the original SJWs and ultimate virtue signallers. They often get in conflicts with secondary charactes, including Camus and Heidegger. We see how friendships form, we see various conflicts, and how some of these friendships fall, sometimes over some “philosophical” or political issues. Sartre was the product of his time, he even fell into the propaganda and became a commie.
There were bits and pieces that were interesting, such as stories about people hiding and retrieving their philosophical notes (Husserl, Heidegger), or a very brief overview of The Second Sex by de Beauvoir.
But overall, the book was a slog. Sometimes I felt like I was reading a website with gossip about celebrities. I really expected an exposition of the philosophy of existentialism, so the stupid conflicts of personalities have indeed subverted my expectations.
Maybe it may be interesting to those who would like to read about the history and some bibliographical trivia of a few existentialist personas. I don't reacommend it, though.
I read the audiobook version. And the narration is superb! The narrator knew how to properly pronounce German and French names and sentences, which was very nice. Her American accent was really funny. And you could really tell when she was saying “Being” vs “being”. Really nice.
Overall, a decent book. The author presents a nice progression of Schopenhauer's thought, starting from his doctoral dissertation (On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason), which is fundamental to understanding his entire system, then going through papers on ethics and freedom of the will, before delving into The World as Will and Representation. The arguments are laid out fairly clearly.
However, as other reviewers noticed, Janaway is way too harsh in his opinions towards Schopenhauer, going as far as to say that his system is “untenable”! It's fine to make known the points with which philosophers struggle with and don't accept, or some which are considered to be errors by today's scholars, but surely there are better ways than this. I think it would be better to inspire the reader to go deeper into Schopenhauer's philosophy to discover what other great figures mentioned at the very end of the book saw in it, without frequently claiming that the system “doesn't work”.
The concept of “Will” is not explained to my satisfaction, as there is a debate whether it should be understood as a physicalist force or something like energy from physics or as a minimally conscious drive. The former view seems to be taken by Bryan Magee and Christopher Janaway, the latter by Julian Young and Frederick C. Beiser, as far as I understand at least. This is a very subtle point, but it's very important.
Overall, a very readable book. It is more action-packed than some other long sagas. This means that the system of magic is not developed as much (or, it's not developed yet). On the other hand, there aren't many drawn-out scenes of politics and the like.
Some motifs are common ones, such as sacrifice, the struggle between the old miserable self and the new noble-like self, the slave rebellion. Vin is probably too similar to Shallan from the Stormlight Archive series that's why I found her story less original. (Yes, this is an earlier book, but I had read books from the Stormlight Archive before this one.)
The book is very heavy on the Good vs Evil story, even if there are some cracks in this framework. This makes the story not as engaging.
An excellent book! Very clear exposition of Kant's thoughts about our relation to the world and what can be known (transcendental idealism), how our actions are morally guided (practical reason), how is it that our aesthetic judgments/feelings may be legitimately said to be universal (aesthetic judgment), and his later but incomplete work on politics. Each topic is handled with respect and appreciation for the philosophy and explained properly.
The book is very readable, easy to follow. Most of the arguments can be understood without problems, some had to be shortened a lot due to the nature of the format. I think the book can be a very good introduction before reading Kant's works or a refresher after reading some of them. But it can also serve as a motivation to study Kant as I got a whole new appreciation for the great philosopher. The book is written so that it's clear why so many people today value Kant so highly and why he has influences generations of philosophers that came after him.
Very good overview of Artistotle's philosophy together with points where he made some mistakes and explanations why these mistakes are not a deal breaker. Aristotle was a pioneer in certain areas (logic) and in other areas (biology) he did the best he was able to, given the (un)availability of tools.
We learn about Aristotle's approach to obtaining knowledge, which starts from what he can and does observe, usually by studying the world or asking trusted people what they saw. This is contrasted with Plato's focus on theorizing. We learn about Artistotle criticising Plato's ideas about Ideas, we get to know Artistotle's opinions about the role of the state and his ideal government, and the more philosophical topics, such as his account of explanation and causes, the psyche, and others.
This is not only a good preparetion to reading Artistotle, but a very good overview of his ideas. It is a much, much better book than “Plato: A Very Short Introduction”.
The aim of this book is not so much to provide an overview of Plato's philosophy, but to prepare the reader for reading Plato's works. That's why so much attention was given to understanding the structure of the dialogs.
I would very much like to have more detail about the philosophy itself, especially considering how much precious space was wasted on insignificant trivia like the issue of homosexuality and feminism, which are marks of our times and the particular looking-glass through which the author approaches the topic.
The book is very flat and dry, both in the text as well as in narration.
An amazing book! The main story is presented through discussions a group of people have in their group therapy sessions. And it is intense! The shifting dynamics between personalities often take center stage, yet we always get back to the central driver of the book — Philip's unique outlook on life born out of love for Schopenhauer and his philosophy, and Julius struggling with him grappling with his looming end due to cancer, yet trying to give the group as much as he can.
The main story is interspersed with chapters about Arthur Schopnehauer's life. These chapters are not mere curiosities. They inform what happens in the main story on many levels. Schopenhauer's life and his struggles mirror some of the things that happen to Philip. And the insight into the psyche of human (yearning for status, the supererogatory role of the sex drive, and others) of the great philosopher come up frequently in the discussions the patients have during their sessions.
What is the Schopenhauer cure? Who was helped by it? What are the limits of the cure? These are the unspoken questions that underlie a lot of the interaction of the characters and the overall progress of the story.
I enjoyed the book very much. However the last fragment of the book (around 1/5 - 1/4 of the book) seemed rushed. Then we skipped through many therapy sessions really fast. And the changes some people made during that time were big, too big to feel authentic. Based on the book it's difficult to see how some people could make such breakthroughs so fast. Also, we seemed to lost sight of Julius' struggle with his mortal condition.
There were many instances were characters refereed to views (even through direct quotes) of known philosophers and writers. It adds some additional cerebral feel to the story, something more to ponder about.
I listened to the audio book version narrated by Neil Hellegers. It is a stellar performance! Hellegers gave every character his own unique personality, matching precisely the personality flowing from the text. But also, using his magnificent voice he was able to set appropriate mood and the atmosphere of the story. Stunning performance!
The ending was really nice, very moving. I felt warm inside. Reading the book was a wholesome experience.
This is one of the worst books I have ever read. Karl Deisseroth is a psychiatrist and a scientist actively working in the field of neuroscience. He introduced a method of using light to influence activity of certain types of neurons. Because of this I expected the book to be full of cutting-edge science, things I could not got from any other place, things that come fresh from the lab using a highly advanced method of looking at and controlling brain activity. Boy, was I wrong...
The books is almost entirely a collection of anecdotes. The problem is, there isn't really anything else beside that filler. I didn't care one bit about any of the patients. The author didn't make me care. Slapping a name on a case doesn't make you care. Reading how Deisseroth is torn by his emotions when relating to the patients doesn't make you care. The author doesn't know how to write a compelling story. Which is not unexpected — he's a medical doctor, not a story writer. But then again, what's the point of including them in the first place?...
I don't know what the author was trying to accomplish with these anecdotes and the description of his emotional struggles with the fate of the patients. But the strongest impression I got was that the author needs therapy as he's really struggling with his emotions, with himself, and with his work. The book reads like a confession to a therapist rather than an educational work.
There isn't much valuable information. Some of it is boring (a certain nerve controls movements of an eye), some of it is already common knowledge (memories are coded by connections between neurons). And there isn't anything more to it! No jaw-dropping curiosities, no unexpected discoveries. Instead of content we get a forced flowery language. The author really tried to act as a writer. But the sporadic poetic language is not a substitute for interesting content.
I listened to the audio book read by the author himself. And this is yet another disappointment. Deisseroth doesn't have the skill, he's not a narrator. Instead, he is a sloth. I had to listen at 120% speed just to keep focus not to fall asleep. He makes weird pauses mid-sentence. The entire narration is weird and not natural. I had the impression that the author is constantly very, very sad. This was irritating... I had to force myself to finish the book.
A very pleasant read. The book starts with a quick recap of Darwin's life with a focus on the development of the theory of evolution by natural selection, credited both to Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. We get a refresher on DNA and genes, this is a rather boring part, but it's important for completeness. Then we get many chapters full of interesting facts about life, such as eusocial animals (termites, ants, many bees, but also naked mole rats). We learn about various drivers of evolutionary changes (sharp changes in the environment, mutations, genetic drift), mututal evolution of species, and many other things. The book not only teaches but helps appreciate the mechanisms and new knowledge by providing very concrete examples illustrating all the mechanisms.
A pleasant sequel to Children of Time. The book starts very sluggishly; sometimes I wasn't as interested in pursuing the story as in the case of the first book. After around 20% of the book, it started to pick up the pace. Essentially, the story used some of the same elements as in the first book — a single species transformed by a technological virus, a species very alien to both humans and portias, with their unique ways of approaching reality and communication, finding a way to find some common ground and communicate, and another intelligent element entity — just like Avrana Kern — is an important vehicle that propels the story forward. So, in a sense, it was more of the same. But because the first book was pleasant and relaxing, I didn't mind more of the same good stuff.
The book is just fine. Not world-shattering. Mostly, it shows that Confucius put a lot of focus on personal virtue — on the character and integrity of a person, and how a virtuous ruler would act as a lighthouse for the entire kingdom, where people would direct their lives accordingly, and hence all would be good.
A very easy and pleasant read. A group of austronauts on a mission on which the fate of humanity depends. Evolution of alien intelligent beings on another world. Super advanced, but now ancient, technology. Millenia of time passing. Some things changing in a blink of an eye, some people still remaining themselves.
We follow two separate groups — human and non-human — and we get to know their motivations, their histories, the struggle to secure a future for themselves. We get to know them, get close to them, understand them. So the struggle between their visions and their predicaments is ever so moving.
This is an easy book. There are interesting ideas and sci-fi motifs here and there. But the book itself seems very simple. But the story grows on you and the simplicity is fine.
A fascinating look into the book that started it all. Darwin makes a lucid and compelling case for the transmutation of species by means of natural selection. He supports his (and Alfred Russel Wallace's) ideas with a multitude of paths of evidence, such as the similarity of species on islands close to each other, the process of creating new breeds of farm animals and pets (through “unconscious selection”, that is the unintentional selection by man), persistence of closely related species in the fossil record, and many others.
Darwin repeatedly notices that various peculiarities of life forms are weird under alternative theories (of multiple origination of species, of single point in time of creation of species), but are perfectly explainable under the theory of natural selection. Indeed, Darwin puts a lot of weight on the explanatory power of his theory.
Similarly, on multiple occasions Darwin puts out his theory onto the right, saying that if something were true, it would be fatal to his theory. He is very aware that a good theory is one that explains more than the competitors and one that stands various tests, attempts at bringing it down (falsification).
The above two points mean that Darwin was a very self-aware scientist. He knew exactly what he was doing. He wasn't merely speculating or fitting data to his theory. He understood how science proceeds, what a scientist needs to do, and what a theory has to be like. Darwin has delivered on all of these accounts. He even reported on some experiments he and other naturalists made that supported his claims. And the style of writing is superb. I was hooked! The arguments and example flow. It's not a mere listing of various proofs or comparisons of example species. The argumentation is delivered carefully, but in a very approachable style. One doesn't need to be a biologist or a geologist to follow this great work.
It's a pleasure to read and get a glimpse into genius. A genius that uncovered processes guiding the changes in life forms that we know all understand and accept, yet where so difficult to come up with. By reading the book you can get some idea, why Darwin and Wallace took trail of these processes. It had to do with the development of geology, embryology, microscopes, travel to various places of the globe, and the collaboration in the wide society of naturalists, who provided their accounts of forms of life living in various conditions of life and in various places.
I would recommend this great work to anyone interested in biology, evolution, life, but also in science in general.
*) I read the audio book version from Naxos. I have to say that the narrator is superb in this edition!
A very interesting book. Cabrera evaluates not the things in life that happen to us (goods things like pleasure or virtue, bad things like pain and vice), but life itself. He asks, does life has value in intself? Further, he questions, whether life could be considered to be a good in itself, considering various structural problems with being alive. By being alive we are subjected to decay, getting old and decrepid, dying, the lack of guarantee of satisfaction of our preferences and desires, and the inherent impossibility of living a moral life as we're struggling against the interests of other people (and even space occupied by other people!). This, according to Cabrera's radical philosophy, makes life not valuable, but negative.
Yes, it is a very thought-provoking work as it pushes the ethical thought to the meta-level (but not to meta-ethics!), in asking not merely “how ought we live?” but “is life worth living (starting, continuing)?”
The book is very uneven. Sometimes it's hard to follow because of the used concepts that have a lot of baggage associated with them (Heidegger's Being and the non-being of being). Sometimes the presentation of arguments is very clear, almost analytical in exposition. So don't be surprised if you like and understand some parts, but fail to understand other parts.
I read the English language version of the book, which is horrible. It seems to be a fan (and not a professional) translation. There are many typos, grammatical errors, sometimes it's hard to understand the already difficult topic because of this.
A very short introduction and some passages from Upanishads. The Upanishads are written in a peculiar way, as if someone was making grand pronouncements. But it's not easy to see what are they based on or what “morals” can be extracted from it. So it's a very different style from argumentative or from narrative/allegorical styles.
The book is very uneven. Some good stuff mixed with some ridiculous stuff. The first part (around 75% of the book) focuses on the China's rise to power, their view of global politics, the old stratagems they're still using and applying to the modern age. All of this is very interesting.
But then the book takes a turn downhill. The absurd moralizing begins. The author sees China as hungry for power, not respecting the environment, silencing its political dissidents. China is hungry for power. But it is just too easy to find examples of USA meddling with politics of sovereign countries, often destroying them (Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam). The author talks about China aiding the Taliban, without mentioning the fact that it is the CIA who created Osama Bin Laden and his al-Queda. The author laments China's not respecting the environmental control, while ignoring USA being the biggest polluter per capita. The author mentions some political dissidents in China being put in house arrest, while ignoring what happens to whistle-blowers in USA — Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, Julian Assange. The author cries about China doing only business with autocratic governments, but doesn't mention how USA companies (Nestle, Coca Cola, and others) abuse other lands to extract precious minerals and overtake their economies. The author doesn't like China's censorship, but maybe isn't even aware of the magnitude of the censorship that American social media giants do each day.
The moralizing simply falls on its face. USA has absolutely no moral high ground. From the perspective of a third party (someone living in Europe), it looks like the established bully hegemon (ba) crying about a new bully that will soon overtake him. But make no mistake, it's not about any “American values” — it's all about power. The author shows a false dichotomy — the world will stick with USA or everyone will go the China route. This is false and disingenuous. Other parts of the world — and I have Europe in mind — may take a different route, one that doesn't give in to the bullies.
Very interesting book containing ideas you will want to think deeper about. The brain is structured in a way that views the world and thinks in two different ways. This duality can be seen across history, where one way becomes dominant, then gives way to the other mode of being. There is a lot to be learned. One can feel a need to engage one's other side to be fully oneself.
What I did not like in the book was that the fragments on postmodernism were so short. Also, Eastern cultures (“oriental” cultures per the author) were mostly limited to China and Japan, without mention of one of the longest lasting ones — that in India.
It was somewhat weird that, even though McGilchrist talks a lot about the connection of the right hemisphere with the body, there was very little about the bodily actions. I think only dance was mentioned. What about yoga, kung fu and other martial arts, sports in general, or various other things that people do with their bodies?
But the biggest problem is that the comparisons between historical phases (artistic, scientific, cultural) — such as romanticism and enlightenment — and the two modes of relating to the world were made without even a hint of how this is possible. How is it possible that somehow one hemisphere takes more control over vast numbers of people so as to sway the entire society (or even many societies) to its side? And how does a given society imposes its constraints on the way individuals use their brains so as to focus their use of one hemisphere preferentially? Without any attempts at causal explanations, these comparisons seem merely fascinating, but not that convincing.
*) I read the audio book version read by Denis Kleinman. The narrator is horrible! His monotone, robotic, lifeless voice is difficult to follow without dreaming away from it to something — anything! — more interesting, more varied. And it is a stark contrast to a message of the book that puts more weight to supra-logical side of our lives.
Excellent continuation of the series. The entire world gained even more life and richness. The complexity has increased considerably, making the world alive. You now have the feeling that the characters are complex, unobvious individuals. Various points in the world connect so that we understand why things work the way they do.
The best part is the recognition that we cannot paint people as either good or bad. They seem too real for that, and the world doesn't accomodate such simplifications.