Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction First Edition

There are many things I am not good at. I’ve gone to a few activities at Painting with a Twist but my portraits are, well, pretty terrible. I can grill a steak but beware if you eat anything I’ve cooked more complicated than a slab of beef. I love baseball and I used to be pretty decent at it but at no point in time have I been a very strong batter.Now that I’ve tooted by own humble-horn let me add to the above list the broad topic of philosophy. I love epistemology and logic but I don’t much care for metaphysics and ethics. It’s probably because I’m not very good at working through all the philosophical positions that surround metaphysics and ethics. But Edward Craig won’t let me off the hook on any aspect of philosophy. If I or anyone else were to claim that philosophy is useless then I or “they will be talking about the ineffectuality of certain types of thought, or of human beings’ incapacity to deal with certain types of question. And then instead of rejecting philosophy [I or] they will have become another voice within it” (2). We are all philosophers of one sort or another.For people like me who have only read a handful of philosophical works, Craig’s contribution to the VERY SHORT INTRODUCTION series is helpful in most regards. Before I get to those helpful items, let me just mention one problem I had with the volume.Craig is a Brit and he writes like one. I’m an American and though I’ve read plenty of Shakespeare, grew up reading the King James Bible, and love British television shows like “Good Neighbors,” “The Vicar of Dibley,” and “Keeping Up Appearances,” I found the prose of PHILOSOPHY: A VERY SHORT INTRODUCTION a bit wonky at times. When you read it, be prepared to re-read some sentences so you are clear on what he is discussing. Admittedly, the issue is more likely my own than Craig’s. It isn’t his fault I’m a simple minded American. But it would have been nice if the prose had been easier to read.Let’s move on. What makes this volume a worthy contribution to human knowledge and understanding?First, the book’s format is based upon specific philosophers and their positions on different aspects of philosophy. Chapter two covers ethics and Craig discusses Plato’s work CRITO in which he details a conversation between the soon-to-be executed Socrates and his friend Crito. Chapter three covers epistemology and there we encounter David Hume and his analysis of miracles. Chapter four is all about metaphysics and we meet a Buddhist named Nagasena and a king named Milinda.Other chapters deal with specific themes like consequentialism, contract theory, and integrity (chapter 5) or Idealism, dualism, and skepticism (chapter 6).Chapter 7 is perhaps the best chapter of them all. Craig deals with Descartes, Hegel, Darwin, and Nietzsche. And in so doing he gives us some interesting problems to think about. When discussing the implications of Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection, Craig wonders what would happen if Descartes had lived after Darwin. What would Descartes do with the implication that the mind is the product of natural processes and not the gift from God that he had supposed? How radical would it change his entire philosophy?Chapter 8 of this very short introduction to philosophy draws out the implications of philosophical thought on different groups like the individual, the State, women, and philosophers. Philosophy has direct bearing on just about everything and this book has certainly opened up my eyes to the truth of that. But this book is only a very short introduction and the bibliography serves us a springboard to other works including those by Bertrand Russell, David Hume, and so many more.If you are interested in philosophy and don’t know a lot about the topic, this is the book for you. If it does its job, it will spur you onto reading more books on philosophy covering the topics of logic, metaphysics, ethics, and epistemology. The VERY SHORT INTRODUCTION series has them all and I plan on reading each of them to try and get a grip on the philosophical world.If you think you will never use philosophy then, well, you really need to read this book. Philosophy isn’t dead. It isn’t useless. It is part of everything.

This is a nice introduction to Philosophy but it is not a conventional one. It is not a history, for example, though it has historical elements; and it is not a delineation of philosophy's specific fields (e.g. ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, and so on), though it talks about some of those fields. Nor does it attempt to provide a systematic list of philosophy's principal themes.It refers to some classic texts in philosophy (Plato's Crito; Hume's Essay on Miracles, et al.) but it does not, of course, reprint them within this small space. At some points it creates a one-sided dialogue with the reader, in which the reader is encouraged to examine certain passages in the classic texts.At other points there are discussions of isms and current themes, e.g., the rights of animals. There is a very useful, but brief bibliography at the end of the book that suggests opportunities for further readings.The bottom line is that the book jumps from place to place, idea to idea, philosopher to philosopher, and is a bit of a jumble. At the same time there is a sense of unity in the text that arises from the genial demeanor of the author and his reassurances offered to the reader that the doing of philosophy is not an impossible task and that the reader is probably up to the job.The result is more of a 'good read' than a coherent introduction to the subject of philosophy. The writing is pleasant and lucid and many important subjects are addressed. The book is relatively unique in its inclusion of elements of eastern philosophy and the manner in which eastern philosophic themes can be woven together with western ones. There are a set of nice illustrations. All in all this is a pleasant book on the general subject of philosophy. While not a systematic introduction to the subject it is a leisurely and attractive 'discussion of' philosophy.