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Quick Looks Philosophy

Justice, Gender, and the Family—Susan Moller Okin

216pp. (C) 1989

Moller Okin pushes for strict family “equity” and “equality;” and upbraids many men for their pathetic family efforts, but she pushes the sexism, helplessness and vulnerability buttons too hard. This work has too many claims that lack statistical support and too much media feminism. Time for Life suggests that husbands on mean do as much work in families as wives do, though men who are not in families contribute little to their children’s well-being. Worth skimming.

Freedom and Its Misuses by Gary Beabout

Most ideologies seek to capriciously limit the liberties of others and ignore their own misuses of liberties.

Beabout argues that we should not misuse are freedoms. Instead, he claims we should use our freedoms to watch sports. Aarrrrgh! Talk about trading one misuse for another. Somewhere I read that men spend on mean four times as much time on spectator sports—viewing and thinking about—than they think they do. This is one of those Kierkegaardian books. Worth browsing.

The Metaphysics of Star Trek —Richard Hanley

253pp. (CH) 1997

Aritificial life, artificial inteligence, beamability, personal fusing and splitting, alien rights, personhood, machine creativity, futurism, time travel—the unusual suspects. Some things that could be misinterpreted by those unfamiliar with philosophy and a few things that will be questioned by those who are. Contains a poor chapter on logic and emotion.

Connected Knowledge: Science, Philosophy, and Education —Alan Cromer

221pp. (C) 1997

Cromer Blasts constructivism. He argues for building background knowledge before having students “play” at difficult concepts. Science, math, reading and writing are difficult and require direction, organization and the understanding of key points. Haphazard and merely feel good efforts lead in the wrong directions.

Connected Knowledge is a success in the physical science department. It often fails in the social science department. Worth browsing.

Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in a Cynical Time by Paul Rogat Loeb

Loeb doesn’t endorse misguided activism, but he doesn’t exactly criticize it, either. One of the causes of cynicism is misguided activism. Activists with the most shock or entertainment value get the attention. The well-reasoned activist gets ignored. The world needs misguided activism, even less than it needs detached cynicism. Not recommended.

Unpopular Essays —Bertrand Russell

1950 (H)

Not much smells better at five on a Saturday morning than the yellowed pages of a fifty-year-old book. An entertaining tour of rubbish and non-rubbish. Not as dated as you would expect. The balkans are ever balkinized. Russell’s command of language still stands as more advanced than anything I have seen in the USA Today.

Contemporary Perspectives on Religious Epistimology

Here be some God(s) stuff: Imagine you are just parent and you did the best you could—you weren’t perfect, all-knowing, all powerful. You could not control natural forces. How would you respond to a grown kid who was a good person but whose attitudes toward you were contempt, disgust and hate? Would treat her a little worse than the similarly good kid who treated you with respect and gratitude for the good things that exist and that can be done despite the existence of horrific evils?

—J.T. Fournier

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