Nigel WarburtonBesprekingen

Philosophy Bites was one of the few podcasts I used to follow, when they were new, when I'd go on walks with earphones plugged into an iPod.

Warburton and Edmonds have great skill in finding people who are excited about what they study and who can answer well-stated questions clearly and succinctly.

Now there are three, maybe more, books based on these fine discussions, books that I can read carefully and at leisure. There is Philosophy Bites Back, and Philosophy Bites Again.

I enjoyed, as far as I can recall, every session I listened to, and have enjoyed even more, two of the three books, with every intention of reading the third - at least once.

Too little a history, jumping into cliches, not much you can get out of the book to think for yourself.

It is only barely an appropriate text for people who have no idea what philosophy even is.

Buen libro para conocer distintas formas utilizadas para argumentar y expresar pensamientos, aunque quizás puede resultar demasiado técnico para algunos lectores.

These are a series of short reads, just enough to get some flavor of what the philosopher was about.

This book can fairly be judged by the cover: it is indeed short and only an introduction. Not at all badly done for that. But I guess I'm looking for more. So my rating (like for all books I review here) is a rating for ME not the whole universe of possible readers.

You could forego a massive investment of time and money by reading this survey of giants in western philosophy.

If you've already spent more hours than you care to admit in university lecture halls, then replace those underwhelming exposures with Warburton's concise and useful recaps instead.

I’m a sucker for introductory books on philosophy, maybe in part because there are various approaches (historical, topical, etc.) and many fine minds with widely different views who’ve taken a variety of approaches to the basic formula chosen. This one’s pretty good. It gives synopses of the major ideas in two dozen books the author considers short-listers (covered in chronological order), with major counter-arguments. If anything it’s too concise, but the author knows his material and presents it very capably. A fault, in my view (though a very common one), is that he skips from late antiquity to Descartes (or Machiavelli in this case). It also seems a bit odd that he skips Hegel. On the other hand, about a third is given to the last 150 years, including Rawls, and the author’s convincing that this emphasis is warranted.

This book is excellent. Nigel Warburton has done us a favor by writing this book. This is a contentious topic and is not as simple as people like Elon Musk may want it to seem.

He has outlined the foundation of the theorem of free speech - it is still what John Stuart Mill has stated. However, society has become much more complex since then, and the issues surrounding free speech are fraught with contradictions. He has done an excellent job of discussing this topic systematically and in a neutral tone.

Contemporary debate on Free Speech vs Hate Speech is tangled with dogma, emotional sentiments, acrimonious arguments about religion.

Most of us don’t know where to draw the line.

One approach would be to take, meat of this book in Chapter 2.

It talks about Mill’s Harm principle. Concisely — Mill takes a consequentialist approach for freedom of speech i.e greater the outcome of an action ought to be chosen eg: liberty, the best idea in society would automatically win, and get to truth. Does this mean, you’d allow, “Flat Earth.” Mill says, yes — why? Because, it would not be good to silence minority view, in doing so, would be tyranny.

Although, I am not sure how Mill defines truth. His theory of truth, could be debate, and his premise might hinge upon it.

Nigel takes a tour on famous cases on Free Speech, his example on famous Holocaust denier, brought lights to me on legal rights. English Courts declared, the historian as, “Holocaust Denier.” Thus discredited his academic credentials.

I’d recommend reading this to anyone interested in legal laws, liberty, utilitarianism.

You’d spend few hours in this book.

I'd suggest work of Roger Williams on Liberty of Conscience. He was, the founder of State of Rhode Island, U.S.


Nigel Recommends popular author, John Locke’s work on Toleration and John Stuart Mill’s work on Liberty.

Deus Vult,
Gottfried

An adequate overview of about 30 philosophers. Nothing new or beyond what you would get from Wikipedia or anything else. The summaries were decent and pretty uniform in depth/style.

While this is certainly useful as an introduction to philosophy, for me it only served to confirm my view (based on other reading of philosophy texts) that while learning about philosophy may be, as some claim, a way to learn how to think critically, it's generally a waste of time and effort. The fact that Warburton starts with 'God', focusing on efforts to prove that God, a god, or any gods do or do not exist, illustrates this waste. Philosophers have been going at this question for fifteen hundred years and may perhaps persist for another fifteen hundred, regardless of the fairly obvious fact that such a thing is not - almost by definition - open to proof either way.
Ditto "the problem of evil", also not open to resolution. And so on.
In each of his chapters, Warburton presents a selection of different philosophical approaches to a topic and, for each approach, sets out a number of 'criticisms' (by philosophers) outlining ways in which each approach can be shown to be an insufficient route to any conclusion. Each chapter ends with a 'Conclusion', but only a conclusion to the chapter, not in any way a resolution of the question discussed. An example: "As in all areas of philosophy there is no guarantee that clear argument will provide convincing answers to the difficult questions, but it does improve the chances of this happening." On all the evidence, such a chance is diminishingly small.
Seems to me that philosophy is simply a debating society - lots of fun for the participants, very little value outside the debate. Nothing wrong with debating societies of course, but why are my taxes used to pay teachers and professors and students to enjoy these debates? The evidence from the UK parliament and government is that reading 'PPE' (Philosophy, Politics and Economics) leaves the graduate unable to make sound decisions but makes sure their PPE graduate friends will help them to join the decision-making process . . . .

I thoroughly enjoy the podcast and the book is a continuation of that informal and conversational approach.

A bit too abridged for its own good.

سهل وممتع ، وشامل إلى حد كبير .. وثري في اقتراحات المطالعة، التي يعرضها بعد كل فصل، لكتب تناقش موضوع الفصل نفسه .. ويصلح للمبتدئين فمن بعدهم

Felsefenin Kısa Tarihi'ni okudum. Uzun zamandır felsefe üzerine yoğunlaşmak istiyordum ama felsefenin genel hatlarını bilmediğim için sürekli erteliyordum. Bu kitapla birlikte önemli felsefecilerin çoğunu ve bu felsefecilerin çalışmalarını genel hatlarıyla öğrendim. Kitaplarını okumak istediğim filozofları da belirlemiş oldum.

Felsefeye başlamak için güzel bir kitap olduğunu düşünüyorum. Kitabın adından dolayı çekinen varsa çekinmesine gerek yok kesinlikle sıkıcı bir kitap değil. Yazarın üslubu güzel ve güncel örnekler de vererek anlamamızı kolaylaştırıyor.

Western Philosophy in a Glance
This is an introductory book. It gives basic informations about a wide range of philosophers in western tradition. The author presents the philosophers in a chronological order, beginning with greek’s philosophy and ending with Peter Singer. The text is clear and accessible to beginners. The chapters (the philosophers) are linked, suggesting the reader a continuity in their works. One must be conscious, though, that there aren’t such a thing. Good reading to explore philosophy.

Una breve introduzione alla filosofia per il profano, organizzata per temi: Dio, l'etica, la politica, il mondo esterno, la scienza, la mente, l'arte. Per ciascuno vengono illustrati sinteticamente alcune teorie o posizioni filosofiche, e i loro problemi e punti deboli. Non prende posizione, ma presumo che voglia aiutare il lettore a farsi la propria idea. Tuttavia il rischio dell'approccio "esposizione + critica" è che il lettore concluda che le teorie esposte siano tutte errate e inutili (ma chi giungesse a questa conclusione dovrebbe rileggersi l'introduzione, che chiarisce a cosa serve o non serve la filosofia).
Naturalmente non è né completa né approfondita e non dà alcuna panoramica storica, ma è semplice e chiara e può essere un buon punto di partenza per chi della disciplina ha una conoscenza modesta o nulla, o vuole acquisire una consapevolezza di base delle teorie e dei problemi che si incontrano studiando i temi trattati. Il difetto maggiore mi pare lo stile un po' troppo freddo, arido e impersonale, ma non ho idea se sia nell'originale o nella traduzione.½

A nice and comprehensible overview of a selection of classic works in philosophy. Not exhaustive, but it gives a nice summary of the selected works along with a summary of the criticism each work has drawn. I am just beginning to read about this subject, and I left this book with an idea of where I might want to read next.

Contemporary British philosopher Nigel Warburton, host of the podcast series “Philosophy Bites” asks us to consider if the live peacock Belgian artist Francis Alÿs recently sent to the Venice Biennale to be entered as a work of art is, in fact, a true work of art. Curiously, this is the same question my philosophy instructor asked our class nearly fifty years ago when he showed us a slide of Alpha-Pi by Morris Lewis, a white canvas with wavy lines of color painted on the bottom left and bottom right. In other words, different work, same question.

In an attempt to address this question, “What is art?” Warburton has written his engaging little book, approaching this philosophic conundrum from four specific theoretical angles: 1) Clive Bell’s significant form, that is, the work’s line, shape and color possessing the power to produce an aesthetic emotion in the viewer, 2) R.G.Collingwood’s theory of emotional expression and clarity of feeling needed in the process of artistic creation, 3) Ludwig Wittgenstein’s focus on the concept of ‘family resemblance’ along with an overview of the nature of language, 4) the ‘Institutional Theory’ developed by George Dickie, shifting attention from the work itself to the context of how the work is exhibited by museums and galleries and how it is appreciated by an audience. As by way of a wrap-up, in the fifth and final section of his little book, Nigel himself steps forward to share his views on the art question. I wouldn’t want to restate the various facets of his position but let me mention one thing he does say: we should move away from general rules and hone our attention back to the individual works themselves.


After reading Nigel’s book and giving the art question some reflection, I’d like to share a few of my own thoughts. This art question revolves around the visual arts, particularly painting and sculpture. The other arts, such as theater, dance and music do not face this question in quite the same way. Why is that? I suspect it has to do with recognized quality of performers and performances, for example, when we see or listen to the best of the best – Royal Shakespeare Company, Imperial Russian Ballet, Philadelphia Orchestra, Cirque de Soleil, Pilobolus Dance -- we know we are in the presence of great art.

So, in my modest view, this is what the visual arts needs in our brave new 21st century world: a breakthrough, that is, an artist or artists creating great art, so great, similar to the above examples of theater, dance and music there would be no question as to its greatness. Of course, I don’t have a clue respecting the form such breakthrough art would take, nor do I think such art would sufficiently answer the question ‘What is art’ but by such a breakthrough I strongly suspect the public perception of the visual arts would be enormously enhanced.


Anyway, back on the book. Here is a passage I find especially probing, “What you know and believe affects what you see. Your expectations and knowledge don’t just help you to understand and interpret what you see, they in part help you to construct and categorize what you see.” The example offered is Van Gogh’s painting of crows flying over a cornfield. We look at the painting a first time. Then we are told this is the last painting Van Gogh painted before killing himself. We take a second look. All of a sudden the crows appear ominous and threatening.

I think this examples underscores how art can be a transforming experience – the more we open ourselves to multiple viewings, open ourselves to such things as exploring the cultural and historical context of a work along with the artist’s development, the more we can grow in our understanding of that specific art form and also grow in our overall artistic sensitivity and aesthetic delicacy of taste. Am I overdoing it with all the sensitivity and delicacy? Reading Nigel Warburton’s little book will undoubtedly help you formulate an opinion. Highly recommended.

Best for: Anyone interested in an introduction to ideas from western philosophy, starting with Socrates and Plato.

In a nutshell: Philosopher (and podcaster http://www.philosophybites.com/) Nigel Warburton spends 40 chapters exploring the one or two main hallmarks of different western philosophers.

Worth quoting:
“Philosophers challenge dogma. They ask why people believe what they do, what sorts of evidence they have to support their conclusions.”

Why I chose it:
I was feeling a little nostalgic about my days studying philosophy. That program was only a year, and pretty focused on certain areas, so I only have a passing understanding of many of the big western thinkers.

Review:
I’m going to say this upfront: the western philosophy that professors often choose to teach in school is populated by dudes. White dudes. That is evident clearly in this book, which includes only four women (two of whom are in the same chapter, and one of whom shares a chapter with two dudes). In the 40 chapters there are probably between 50 and 60 philosophers discussed, so yeah. That’s not great at all.

With that said, the ideas that many of these philosophers have explored are fascinating to think through. While I’d heard of nearly all the folks discussed in the six or seven page overviews, I enjoyed getting a condensed version of their beliefs. It’s not enough to have serious, thoughtful dialog about, but it is enough to get one thinking.

I probably enjoyed the chapters that discussed figures I studied more than the other chapters, just because it got me thinking back to my time in school and how much I enjoyed those conversations and debate (and how much I think Kant is just … wrong). It got me excited to do some more philosophy reading in the near future.

If philosophy is something you think you might be interested in, I recommend this book. I think Mr. Warburton is generally pretty fair in his analyses and descriptions, so you can take what interests you and then pursue further readings in those areas.

Concise

Full of sweeping generalizations. Hardly a good illustration of philosophy in action.

ottimo

Each chapter was devoted to one school of thought in philosophy, represented sometimes by a single name, and sometimes by multiple. I listened to it as an audiobook, and it worked really well in this format, better than, say The Problems with Philosophy by Bertrand Russell. Warburton's writing style is accessible. Listening to explanations, you get them the first time around. No jargon.

This book interestingly compares to Bertrand Russell's History of Philosophy. The main differences are that Warburton's book feels more neutral, and only contains light critique of discussed schools of thought. Russell was more direct and critical. Warburton's book is also more recent, so it includes a chapter about Peter Singer.

A collection of interviews with philosophers. Unfortunately the interviews are both short and extremely introductory in content. I didn't feel like I got anything out of the collection that I hadn't already had during undergrad -- though I do have a relatively strong background in the humanities. I'd picked this up to read something from Don Cupitt, a priest who believes that the Christian God as currently discussed does not exist but for whom religion is still meaningful. Since I'm equally disappointed in the depth that his interview went into (this is a limitation of the written conversational form, I expect), I'll have to look elsewhere.