Yeah, it’s a philosophy book. Why read philosophy? Every philosophy reader has their own reasons, but to me it’s a way to consider Big Ideas, and to consider logical arguments for and against these ideas. The nature of the writing also encourages having a dialogue with the author as you consider their arguments and evidence. As part of this dialogue you ask yourself if you agree, disagree, or need to further consider the ideas. Having a notebook and pencil close by is critical as you read. This is deep, focused, interactive reading.
Short review. Huemer has an engaging, conversational style and explains complex ideas in everyday language. He certainly doesn’t write like a stuffy stereotypical philosophy professor. I’ve already ordered another book of his to read, which focuses more on his study of knowledge. I expect to report on this second book at some point in the future.
I also tried a new to me technique. I extracted key ideas from the text, and wrote them on individual 4×6 index cards. Ultimately these will be rewritten and migrated to my online Obsidian database. More on that process another time.
Onto the book itself. This book is an introductory book and thus covers a broad range of topics. Most of the book focuses on a branch of philosophy called “Epistemology”, which is the study of knowledge. What it is. How do acquire it. How do we analyze it. And so on. Huemer seems to specialize in this area of philosophy.
Huemer has a sample of the book here. In it, you can find the table of contents, which I’ve reproduced below.
Part I: Preliminaries 1
- What Is Philosophy? 2
- Logic 10
- Critical Thinking, 1: Intellectual Virtue 25
- Critical Thinking, 2: Fallacies 46
- Absolute Truth 64
Part II: Epistemology 79 - Skepticism About the External World 80
- Global Skepticism vs. Foundationalism 99
- Defining “Knowledge” 114
Part III: Metaphysics 133 - Arguments for Theism 134
- Arguments for Atheism 160
- Free Will 180
- Personal Identity 196
Part IV: Ethics 212 - Metaethics 213
- Ethical Theory, 1: Utilitarianism 240
- Ethical Theory, 2: Deontology 257
- Applied Ethics, 1: The Duty of Charity 270
- Applied Ethics, 2: Animal Ethics 283
- Concluding Thoughts 302
Appendix: A Guide to Writing 305
Glossary 316
He covers a lot of territory here! What I’m going to do is list a few of the more interesting ideas (to me). So, consider this to be a sampling of book notes, rather than an exhaustive review or analysis.
- Religion, Science, and Philosophy explain phenomena differently
- Religion appeals to authority and supernatural sources of knowledge.
- Science appeals most prominently to observation, either from formal experiments or by observing nature. Conclusions are usually inductive
- Philosophy appeals to logical arguments, usually deductive, where the premises are normally well known observations or common intuitions.
- Huemer has great advice on being an objective thinker
- Identify your own biases
- Diversify your information sources. Collect information from the most sophisticated sources, not the most entertaining sources.
- Challenge yourself. Don’t just think of ways that other people might be wrong. Try to think of reasons why your own views might be wrong.
- The word “Arbitrary” means not supported by reasons.
- Huemer defines Knowledge like this: We learn a concept (aka acquire new knowledge) through exposure to its usage in our speech community, and we apply it by imitating that usage.
Huemer is also interested in a classical philosophical thought experiment called “The Brain In A Vat”. This thought experiment illustrates a way that we can’t be certain about any knowledge that we have about anything.
Quoting the book: “It’s possible that we aren’t even experiencing the world. We could just be a brain in a vat with a bunch of wires attached, getting electrical signals from a sophisticated program that makes us think that we are alive”.
The argument goes like this.
- You can have knowledge about the external world only if you aren’t a brain in a vat
- You can’t be certain that you aren’t a brain in a vat
- Therefore, you can’t have knowledge about the external world.
Huemer has written a detailed paper about the brain in a vat problem. He shows (with arguments and evidence) why we shouldn’t believe that we are a brain in a vat. If you have any interest at all in this thought experiment, you can download his paper from this site at no charge.