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Title: The Problem of the Soul: Two Visions of Mind and How to Reconcile Them by Owen Flanagan ISBN: 0-465-02460-2 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 28 May, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $27.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.36 (11 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Modern philosophy at its best
Comment: In this book, one of the world's most important and under-recognized philosophers addresses what is arguably the major cultural question of our times: Can the humanistic and even religious view of human nature be reconciled with science?
Flanagan is a witty, entertaining writer, who eschews the jargon and abstractions that deaden the prose of the vast majority of academic philosophers. And unlike philosophers such as Daniel Dennett, Flanagan is less intent on demonstrating his cleverness than on presenting his thoughts as clearly as possible. Although he is steeped in knowledge-from Aristotle to the latest findings of cognitive science-Flanagan wears his learning lightly. His writings are rigorous enough for professionals-philosophers and scientists paid to ponder the mind-body problem and other enigmas-while remaining accessible for lay readers. And shouldn't philosophy be for everyone?
Flanagan is basically a scientific materialist, who believes that the mind is a function of the brain and cannot exist independently of it. In The Problem of the Soul, he dismisses such supernatural concepts as God, the immortal soul, life after death, and even free will, defined as freedom from physical causality. But he argues convincingly that if we jettison a supernatural outlook, we are left not with an anything-goes nihilism but with an even more secure foundation for morality.
Flanagan deftly draws upon his personal experience to explore certain questions-for example, what concept of a self makes sense, given all the changes we pass through in life? He reveals his family's history of alcoholism, his decision to stop drinking, his recent interest in Buddhism. In the hands of a lesser writer, this approach would seem self-indulgent, but Flanagan makes it poignant and compelling. There is a warmth suffusing his prose that counteracts the chill of his ideas, and even lends them a kind of tacit support: ultimately, it is simple human decency that will save us (if we can be saved) and not faith in some supernatural metaphysics.
A book like this is bound to provoke-indeed invites-objections, and I have a couple. One is that the free will Flanagan attacks-a dualistic version that assumes absolute freedom from physical causality--is something of a straw man. I believe that science undermines any meaningful concept of human choice, including the one that Flanagan articulates.
I also see a potential weakness in Flanagan's concept of an "ethical ecology." He suggests that, just as ecologists seek to understand the factors that contribute to a healthy ecosystem, so should our ethics aim at delineating conditions conducive to our "flourishing." The tenets of ecology-for example, the notion that diversity of species leads to ecological stability-are contentious, to say the least, and hence might not provide the kind of the secure foundation for human ethics that Flanagan envisions. But of course Flanagan wrote this book not to give us answers but to incite further reflection and dialogue. He succeeds splendidly. We need philosophers like him.
Rating: 5
Summary: An Exhilirating and Uplifting Philosophy of Persons
Comment: This is an amazing and important book on the nature of persons. Flanagan is a major contributor to the attempt to tame consciousness within a naturalistic theory (see his Consciousness Reconsidered, Dreaming Souls: Sleep Dreams and the Evolution of the Conscious Mind, and Self-Expressions: Mind, Morals and the Meaning of Life). In The Problem of the Soul he takes on an even bigger and more important problem. How are we to understand human nature -- free will, the self, morals and life's meaning -- if we take seriously the combined insights of Darwinian theory and work in cognitive science, neurobiology, and cognitive neuroscience? Flanagan explores the issues with great sensitivity, compassion and depth. Our humanistic image does take a hit for there is no such thing as an immortal soul, we are animals through and through. But we are still persons and persons (often) act freely -- but not with mysterious free wills. Consciousness is not epiphenomenal. Life has meaning and morality has an important function -- it makes social coordination possible and positions us to flourish. Flanagan treats theists and soulophiles with the respect they deserve, but which their ideas don't (as he puts it). Many readers of Crick and Dennett find the main message of philosophical naturalism depressing and dehumanizing. Flanagan -- more than either of these -- is concerned with providing a full theory of person's compatible with what science teaches. But thanks to his humane and respectful tone, the subtlety of his arguments and conclusions, we are left with a picture of ourselves as remarkably gifted animals suited to find meaning in living knowledgeably, honestly, and with love and compassion. Wilfred Sellars, one of Flanagan's heroes saw philosophy as the attempt to understand how 'things considered in the broadest possible sense hang together in the broadest possible sense.' This is a book of wisdom in the old sense. A philosophy of persons for the 21st century. Must reading for anyone who wonders: What am I? What does life mean?
Rating: 3
Summary: Very good - with one big caveat and one smaller one
Comment: Yes, three stars for a very good work. But that has to do with the caveat.
Flanagan's removal of the dichotomy between Cartesian free will and determinism is well done. His showing that a positive replacement for free will, voluntarism, the ability to plan and act voluntarily, is philosophically and cognitively conceivable.
Another good part to the book is that I believe Flanagan's Buddhist practice leads him to tink in some new directions and also enlivens his narrative.
The big caveat? His mischaracterization of Dan Dennett's views of the self as the "center of narrative gravity." I might agree that Dennett is not a postmodernist. I would NOT agree that Dennett does not believe the self is a fictive, or at least a semi-fictive entity.
Related to this is another concern. It is one thing to try an individualistic interpretation of Hume's well-known comment that whenever he tried to apprehend the self, what he saw was individual sensations. Hume's dead and can't be interviewed.
However, Dennett is alive and kicking. Flanagan could have asked him what he meant by his "narrative gravity" statement rather than trying to creatively shoehorn his interpretation of Dennett into Flanagan's own view of what the self is and is not.
The smaller caveat is that at least some Buddhists do believe in reincarnation, not of a personal soul but of an impersonal life force. Others believe in an individualized afterlife. Flanagan fails to disclose these facts about Buddhism at one or two relevant points.
Also, contrary to another reviewer here, Flanagan does NOT support epiphenomenalism.
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Title: Freedom Evolves by Daniel C. Dennett ISBN: 0670031860 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: 10 February, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: The Illusion of Conscious Will by Daniel M. Wegner ISBN: 0262232227 Publisher: MIT Press Pub. Date: 15 April, 2002 List Price(USD): $34.95 |
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Title: Brain-Wise: Studies in Neurophilosophy by Patricia Smith Churchland ISBN: 026253200X Publisher: MIT Press Pub. Date: 02 December, 2002 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain by Antonio Damasio ISBN: 0151005575 Publisher: Harcourt Pub. Date: 01 February, 2003 List Price(USD): $28.00 |
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Title: The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature by Steven Pinker ISBN: 0670031518 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: 26 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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