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Rating: 
Summary: Excellent intro to great philosophical questions
Review: I find myself very much in agreement with the Editorial Review printed on this page in that this book is interesting and thought-provoking but does not always treat everything as even-handedly as it might. Though it is obvious that all philosophers will have their opinions, when writing introductions to arguments it is best to present both sides fairly. Law's dialogues invariably end with the side he does not agree with admitting they are wrong, and he can misrepresent the quality of argument on the side he opposes.Despite this, this is a good introduction and certainly is very accessible and highly engaging (I found myself wanting to read it whenever I had a spare moment). It also opens your eyes to arguments you may not have considered, and contains a lot of scientific material that is interesting with regard to philosophy. However just occasionally I found myself in profound disagreement with Law - such as his chapter on Designer Babies, which he essentially seems to have no qualms about. He says in his introduction that disagreement with him is a healthy sign but there is a line between his stating his own opinions in the context of the argument and infusing the very argument itself with his opinions so that it becomes biased. By no means am I a creationist, so I had no problem with the chapter decrying creationism, but I could see that it wasn't exactly unopinionated (though his exposition of the tactics of creationists was interesting, if hardly the whole story). My overall reccomendation is that this book is worth buying, but you must always keep in mind that Law is opinionated and there are often just as strong cases against him that are either not printed, or printed in a negative light. It will, as it claims, stretch your mind in new directions - just be wary of taking Law's opinion as the last word on each subject.
Rating:
Summary: Good enought to share, good enough to horde!
Review: I have to admit, I was expecting a book with a title like "The Philosophy Gym" to be somewhat facile, if not downright silly. I only bought it because my wife found it highly recommended by The Christian Science Monitor and a few of the chapter titles in the table of contents looked interesting. But don't let the glib title throw you! Stephen Law has managed to distill a wide variety of classic, age-old philosophical paradoxes into a neat, fun, easy-to-read, hard-to-put-down volume that will entertain you for hours, and challenge and enlighten you long after you finish it. Whatever beliefs you hold on religion, vegitarianism, knowledge and morality to name just a few, prepare to question and requestion them; no one and no belief is imune. You will be torn between storing this book on your "favorites" shelf or loaning it out to all your friends (depending upon your personal level of generosity; my copy is nestled snuggly in my bookshelf, my memory suffers more than my generosity these days and I expect I'll need it for reference now and again).
Rating:
Summary: A Perfect Way to Start
Review: I just recently discovered an interest in philosophical thought, and I found myself overwhelmed by all the resources available to me. I had no idea where to start when I stumbled across The Philosophy Gym. Nothing could have been more appropriate. It dives right into all the hot topics and gave me some foundational knowledge about how to approach those issues from a logical standpoint. It introduces the reader to basic philosophical terminology as well as several of the great historical philosophers and their famous arguments. Each topic is brilliantly presented in nice bite-sized chunks with suggestions for further reading at the end of each chapter. I couldn't be more pleased with this intro to philosophy.
Rating:
Summary: A Perfect Way to Start
Review: I just recently discovered an interest in philosophical thought, and I found myself overwhelmed by all the resources available to me. I had no idea where to start when I stumbled across The Philosophy Gym. Nothing could have been more appropriate. It dives right into all the hot topics and gave me some foundational knowledge about how to approach those issues from a logical standpoint. It introduces the reader to basic philosophical terminology as well as several of the great historical philosophers and their famous arguments. Each topic is brilliantly presented in nice bite-sized chunks with suggestions for further reading at the end of each chapter. I couldn't be more pleased with this intro to philosophy.
Rating: 
Summary: A stupid book from a stupid "philosopher"
Review: Just one example of how stupid he is: He argues that if Christians are against homosexuality because of what the Bible says, then they must not eat lobster, because the same authority (Leviticus) forbids both homosexuality and eating shelled seafood. Whereas the forbiddance to eat shelled seafood was a ceremonial distinctive that passed away with the New Covenant (see Acts 10), homosexuality had been BOTH a ceremonial and moral perversion in the Old Covenant, and its forbiddance is never revoked, but rather reinforced in the New Covenant (Romans 1, 1 Corinthians 6, etc). Therefore, that philosopher's argument was based upon a very superficial reading of Scripture. Now, he may come outright and say that he rejects Christianity, in which case the focus of the argument becomes something else. But his point is that even Christians have no basis for being against homosexuality. At this, he was terribly irresponsible as an "intellectual". However, this is not the only example of how stupid he is. If you are unfamiliar with philosophy, don't read this book. If you teach philosophy, however, I would recommend it, since you can take examples from this book for your students to criticize, and show that that even "philosophers" make very very stupid mistakes. This book makes me angry because it is a disgrace to philosophy and to philosophers.
Rating:
Summary: the best introduction to philosophy
Review: Knowing my strong interest in the subject, one of my friends said, "Philosophy is bunk!" He didn't catch the irony of his misstep: By debunking philosophy, he was philosophizing! If you have ever wondered where the universe came from; why there is something, rather than nothing; whether computers can think; whether time travel is possible, or whether it's morally acceptable to design children genetically, then you were thinking philosophically. In The Philosophy Gym, Stephen Law, a lecturer in philosophy at the University of London and the editor of the new philosophy journal, Think, presents "25 Short Adventures in Thinking." (A more appropriate subtitle for would be "25 Short Exercises in Thinking.") Law categorizes these chapters according to three levels of difficulty: "Warm-up" (six essays), "Moderate" (ten essays), and "More Challenging" (nine essays). The essays deal with metaphysics ("Where Did the Universe Come From?" and "Does God exist?"), epistemology ("What is Knowledge?" and "Is Creationism Scientific?"), aesthetics ("But Is It Art?), logic ("How to Spot Eight Everyday Reasoning Errors" and "Seven Paradoxes"), and ethics ("Can We Have Morality without God and Religion?", "Is Morality like a Pair of Spectacles?," "Designer Babies," and "What's Wrong with Gay Sex?"). Law discusses subjects such as rationalism and empiricism, deductive and inductive reasoning, science and pseudoscience, determinism and free will, circular reasoning and fallacies. He quotes philosophers such as Plato, Descartes, Locke, Voltaire, Bentham, Mill, Hume, and Wittgenstein. A personal disappointment with this book is that my favorite philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, is nowhere mentioned. How can one write about the problems posed by culture, morality, values, and truth and ignore Nietzsche? When I began reading Law's work, I anticipated an enjoyable experience, for the book is laid out in accessible, user-friendly chapters that contain humorous sketches and cartoons, much as one might expect in a book titled "Philosophy for Dummies." Also, most of the chapters contain "Socratic/Platonic dialogues," arguments and counterarguments, examples and counterexamples, on various philosophical problems. After a while, however, Law's approach begins to wear thin. I finished the book feeling that the author's cutesy clever approach trivializes philosophy. By seeking to make this a work for everyone, Law courts the danger of making it a book fit for no one. On the positive side, Law provides an intriguing examination of the conflict between "common sense" and skepticism: "We don't know what we think we know." The conclusions of skepticism seem absurd, but they are difficult to refute philosophically. At the end of each chapter, Law gives suggestions for further reading. Good advice! Perhaps, instead of buying Law's book, you should purchase those he recommends, such as Philosophy: The Basics, by Nigel Warburton; Philosophy: Basic Readings, edited by Nigel Warburton; and Thinking Through Philosophy, by Chris Horner and Emrys Westacott. Don't work up a sweat over this one. .....
Rating:
Summary: the best introduction to philosophy
Review: Law deserves all those puffs from academics. This is easily the best introduction to philosophy on the market. It's by someone who knows the subject inside out (Law edits the Royal Institute of Philosophy's new journal THINK). It's ideal for those new to philosophy yet, weirdly, many of the chapters also manage to take you to the cutting edge. I'm doing a Masters in philosophy and I still got a lot from it. "Could a machine think?" is the best thing I've read on the subject. This book is going to stir up a lot of feeling in many readers - Law doesn't mind saying what he thinks, and what he says will outrage many (like homophobes - see below), but that's part of the fun of it. For anyone with an open mind who enjoys having their preconceptions challenged it's a total blast. I've noticed this is fast becoming a cult book among philosophy students.
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Summary: We need more books like this
Review: Stephen Law, whose reputation in philosophy, especially in England, is enormous, has given us a short, interesting, intelligent book about the major questions of our time and all time: Does God exist? Can a machine think? What is knowledge? Perhaps the most useful chapter is How to Spot Eight Everyday Reasoning Errors. That chapter alone is worth the price of the book. It's good that you will profit from this type of serious reading and it's too bad some high placed officials in the American government won't profit from this kind of serious reading. Of course, the book is meant to stimulate thinking and not give answers. So some things seem overstated and some things are made more controversial than need be, such as why we have no moral right to eat meat. That claim bases itself on the idea that we can remain healthy just eatting vegetables. That is not possible without vitamin supplements. Furthermore, claiming that eatting plants is more moral that eatting animals because animals are a higher form of life is questionable. The encoding DNA for a pine tree for instance is (last time I checked) 40 fold more than for a human. Therefore, a pine tree is a much, much more complicated form of life than a human. A carrot has at least triple the encoding DNA of any animal, a reflection of its more complicated life style. That plants communicate with each other is now known from research done by NASA and the sex lives of plants and their adaptive powers are truly amazing. On strictly moral grounds, I would argue that eatting meat makes more more sense than eatting plants as animals are a lower form of life than plants. One thing is for sure, whether you like it or not, you must eat to live, a fact not discussed by Law. How come we have to eat to live? Some Jains decide that they have no moral right to eat anything. Within a few months, they die. That is the Jain moral choice. But what's so moral about killing yourself?
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