Think

Over its two thousand year-history, the philosophical tradition hasn't come a long way toward answering these big questions. What it has done, however, is give thinkers methods for revealing obvious fallacies in a whole range of arguments.
"Think" is designed to give the general reader access to some of the methods and ideas developed by thinkers from Descartes onward. What the book does not do is give the reader any prefabricated answers to these Big questions. Mr. Blackburn is less interested in giving us the answers than he is in showing us how to approach the questions. Although he occasionally offers his own opinion, he is careful to show that there is no easy way to access philosophical truth.

Downsides: lack of a further reading list is irritating. Blackburn also ignores pretty much everything thats happened since 1900 (except Wittgenstein and Russell) and avoids much continental philosophy since Kant. The quotes and works of Hume are given a disproportionate regard, given his influence. This may be seen as conservatism from Blackburn, but it does allow him to give the book a brevity which is excellent. However it should be pointed out that Blackburn is intellectually conservative and this sometimes come through in the writing.

This is best read as an introduction to philosophical thinking (as opposed to the history of philosophy) and at the very least, the reader should be able to ask the right question if not come up with the answer.

Please can we have something similar about modern philosophy?

His argument that scattering dust would make the image for someone that sees in negative sharper and more detailed is patently wrong, since if the dust is dark, someone seeing it in negative will see it as white and vice versa. How such a mistake occurred in a book that is otherwise well researched is beyond me, but is something that is made note worthy by the fact it is so out of character with the rest of the book.

The second kind of introduction is unfortunately much rarer. This kind attempts to explain the ideas that philosophy attacks and some of the arguments surrounding the various theses. Anthony Flew's Introduction to Western Philosophy is one of these (unfortunately it also suffers from a perverse desire to keep some kind of chronological narrative and is far too dense for an introduction). Simon Blackburn's Think is yet another. I think this is a much more fruitful approach for someone actually interested in an introduction to philosophy rather than merely learning how to drop names at parties to sound educated.

Think has much to commend it. It clearly delineates a number of key topics. It attempts to show a back and forth of the various ideas held on these topics. For the most part, the writing is light, the explanations easy to understand. There are a number of brief excerpts from actual source material along with commentary on them to help us understand what is meant and how it might fit in to the modern world. Blackburn starts with Descartes and the modern age of philosophy rather than boring us with page upon page of medieval or ancient philosophy that is almost impossible to understand in an introduction to philosophy because of the sheer amount of context such material requires to be understood.

The downside is that Blackburn, despite his protestations to the contrary, doesn't do a very even handed job of presenting differences of opinions. He is quite clearly an atheist of the liberal English analytic school. Even if you agree with his positions -- and I do for the most part -- you still wish for a slight more equitable treatment in an introduction. This bias informs most of his commentary; there is a lot of Hume and virtually no Kant, and no other German idealists at all. I understand that the book is a slim volume and cannot be comprehensive, even as an introduction, of the various schools of modern philosophical thought. However, Blackburn spends far more time defending his favorite points of view than he does ones he disapproves of; the chapter on God is the most egregious example of this. However, as long as the reader uses some critical thinking I think the book is still useful as a KIND of introduction. With the caveat that the reader doesn't stop here and instead continues on to learn more about the viewpoints Blackburn gives short shrift. Perhaps there is no such thing as a perfect one-book introduction to a field of study like philosophy.

There are few other smaller complaints about the book. The chapter on logic was one of the weakest. The explanations were often hard to follow. Only inductive logic is mentioned, despite the predominant role deductive logic has had for the past several thousand years (again, I think this is an example of Blackburn's bias showing). The final chapter, however, was by far the weakest. It was almost entirely Blackburn's personal opinion. Unlike every other chapter in the book it is devoid of references to major philosophers and excerpts from their works. It feels completely out of place given the rest of the book. Also it would be nice if Blackburn had given a recommended reading list. After all, if he has done his job the reader should now hunger to read more about philosophy. But where to go? Are we to dive straight into the source material? But which Locke do we start with? Or perhaps Kant comes first? There is no guidance from Blackburn on this relatively important issue for the self-guided neophyte.

In all, this is a decent introduction, if not a great one. It's strongest point are that it is easy to read, which is a very strong point indeed in an introduction to philosophy.

Blackburn's gripping introductory chapter gives the newly interested hope. He claims that his aim is to make philosophy understandable and enjoyable to readers who are taking a first look at the "big themes," and that he intends to "introduce ways of thinking about the big themes." However, it would have been more accurate (and not to mention more honest) for him to write that he intends to introduce "a way" of thinking, namely his own.

Blackburn zips through the "big themes" at a frantic pace, quickly brushing aside any school of thought that does not resemble his brand of materialism and scepticism. The problem is not so much his worldview, but, rather, it is the way he goes about promoting it. Throughout the book, he gives his opposition a very limited and inadequate voice, and, then, presents his view on a particular issue as the decisive winner in the debate.

Blackburn's positive arguments for his positions are formidable, but, this particualar book is simply not long enough to give his opposition a fair opening statement or rebuttal. His "introduction to philosophy" does not give a comprehensive enough vantage point from which to adequately begin thinking about the issues. Hence, it is not a true "introduction" in the first place.

With the above said, I must admit that this book is a good read for anyone interested in Blackburn's thinking, but, to present it as anything else but Blackburn's thinking is to take advantage of readers with little to no background in philosophy. I recommend this book only to those readers who are already equiped with a firm enough philosophical base to discern sincere, open inquiry from tacit indoctrination into one particular school of thought.