The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener

Rating:
Summary: A Pleasure to Read, A Little Hard to Describe
Review: As anyone who has read Martin Gardner knows, he is both a compelling writer and possessed of a great mind. He is best known as skeptic and debunker, usually in reviews for NY Review of Books, and in columns in various magazines, most notably Scientific American. Like Stephen Jay Gould, he has a tremendous intellectual range and can make anything interesting, including topics that you believe you could not possibly care about prior to reading Gardner on the subject.

All of Gardner's compilations are worth reading and may represent a better introduction to Gardner's thought than the present volume. Nevertheless, this book has a charm that cannot be denied. The book is unlike anything else I have ever read. It is basically a series of musings about various philosophical issues: free will, evil, economics, politics and the nature of god. Gardner begins by giving a simple, understandable summary of the area, including the arguments of the great thinkers on the subject. Gardner then moves to a thorough analysis of the weight of the arguments, and concludes with his own position on the issue.

In general reading this book has the feel of being included in the private musings of a great intellect. Gardner is careful to develop his arguments thoroughly and simply so that the neophyte philosopher will not be left behind. (Though in fairness, some terms are not defined, an a Dictionary of Philosophy would be useful in getting the casual reader up to speed.)

Gardner's style is charming. He takes up a topic such as determinism versus free will and examines the philosophical arguments that have been raised against the existence of free will. Having admitted the power of the arguments arrayed against free will, Gardner confesses that he believes in free will anyway. And so it goes for arguments against the existence of God, immortality, prayer, etc., in every case confessing that the rational arguments favor positions contrary to his own, and then maintaining them anyway.

Gardner is a "fideist," meaning that he acknowledges the impossibility of demonstrating rationally the existence of God and related issues, but insisting that faith is an appropriate mechanism for getting around these difficulties. Gardner is never heavy-handed or preachy in his positions, and he gives the arguments against him a fair hearing.

The joy of reading this book is that the issues are so clearly presented that the reader can assess his own thoughts on the subject. I personally do not buy fideism as a justification for abandoning reason, but the book presented the alternative views so well that I felt comfortable disagreeing with Gardner in his conclusion.

In the end, fideism is an interesting point of view. It does not require the destruction of arguments against one's belief in God. In fact, the fideist can revel in the irrationality of his position. While the reader may not be convinced to believe as Gardner does, I will bet you will come away with a better grasp of the issues involved.

Rating:
Summary: An Encyclopedic Approach
Review: Gardner does what he says. He accounts for the "whys" of his beliefs. As he does this he presents to his readers what is familiar to their own thought evoking insight on their part. It ought to be understood, however, that he writes in broad strokes and ideas are expressed in a manner that, at times, lacks precision. By reflecting on a wide range of philosphers and artists he presents us with material we thought we understood. His efforts amount to an attempt at preserving the integrity of scholastic thinking, or a contemporary derivation of it, in the postmodern world. Gardner presents us with a North American understanding of a European approach to philosophical thinking. There is a lot of breadth to his work but, from my perspective, little depth. I finished the book with the sense that when all was said and done Gardener, as a 'philosophical scrivener', was on the outside looking in. However, I do recommend the book for Gardner's encyclopedic approach to his material. It is worth noting that Gardner views William James as a particularly insighful thinker.

Rating:
Summary: An Encyclopedic Approach
Review: Gardner does what he says. He accounts for the "whys" of his beliefs. As he does this he presents to his readers what is familiar to their own thought evoking insight on their part. It ought to be understood, however, that he writes in broad strokes and ideas are expressed in a manner that, at times, lacks precision. By reflecting on a wide range of philosphers and artists he presents us with material we thought we understood. His efforts amount to an attempt at preserving the integrity of scholastic thinking, or a contemporary derivation of it, in the postmodern world. Gardner presents us with a North American understanding of a European approach to philosophical thinking. There is a lot of breadth to his work but, from my perspective, little depth. I finished the book with the sense that when all was said and done Gardener, as a 'philosophical scrivener', was on the outside looking in. However, I do recommend the book for Gardner's encyclopedic approach to his material. It is worth noting that Gardner views William James as a particularly insighful thinker.

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining but not as clever as it thinks
Review: Gardner is as lucid and engaging as ever, but as usual this lucidity comes with the price that you wonder if he's really making any important points, as opposed to harping on about his favourite themes. A lot of his arguments aren't terribly convincing, though they tend to work fine on the level of a good writer holding forth about big issues without ever adding much to them. Too often we just get a few quotes from Kant or whoever, upon which Gardner veers once more into his standard hobby-horses - telling us about his hatred for anything he thinks is pseudoscientific, and his religious views.

I'd like to have seen him subject these - which, entertainingly, amount to unregenerate fideism - to the same kind of analysis he delights in dishing out to 'pseudoscientists', but not much joy there. Gardner's beliefs are backed up by dignity of the whole Judeo-Christian Tradition, so they're comparatively immune to the kind of ferocious (and often disquietingly unfair) debunking treatment those with less orthodox takes on reality get. Gardner is easy to read but I'd suggest trying to get a little balance by investigating people with other viewpoints. They can be far less risible than Gardner makes them seem - it's easy to go through life scoffing at things when your only contact with them is through hostile accounts.

This is a well-written but slightly shallow book about philosophical subjects by someone who isn't actually a philosopher. It's easier to read than most book written by actual philosophers because it doesn't break new ground or do more than scratch the surface of most of these issues. Many of its conclusions are a little facile. I definitely agree that this would be a good book to introduce an interested teenager to these areas, though.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Reading
Review: I read Gardner's "Whys of a Philosphical Scrivener" years ago when I was a freshman in college, and it was perfect reading for that point in my life. It's a rather odd book; basically it's a collection of essays on broad philosphical, religious, and political topics, with many interesting digressions. For me, one of its useful effects was to clue me in to other interesting books, magazines, and ideas, and I'm still benefitting from it. Evem without accepting all of Gardner's opinions, it's probably had, directly and indirectly, the most influence on my thinking of any book I've read. Gardner digresses- often in the extensive and entertaining footnotes collected at the back of the book- into mini-discussions of other writers, contemporary politics, odd historic events, religion, science, etc. It makes a good "what to read" guide. It's almost conversational at times. Read it yorself, especially if you don't know much about philosophy (it will get you interested), and buy it for any curious high school or college kid you know.

Rating:
Summary: A series of lucid essays on faith and reason
Review: Martin Gardner is a writer for whom the term 'polymath' could have been invented. His reach in this idiosyncratic statement of beliefs covers philosophy, theology, literature, mathematics, physics, politics, economics and literature, and the book is excellently-written.

Inevitably some of this material looks either dated (the book was first published almost 20 years ago) or fitfully reliable. The weakest sections deal with economics and politics, in which Gardner - who counts himself a 'democratic socialist' - doesn't really have any insights that are not truisms (e.g. marginal tax rates should be neither too low to raise revenue nor too high to discourage enterprise), and evidences scant awareness of the arguments of the Public Choice school of economics regarding government failure.

Other chapters of the book, covering such matters as why Gardner is a sceptic regarding the claims of the pseudo-science of parapsychology, or why he believes that there are objective standards of aesthetic excellence, are deft in construction and more convincing in argument. He veers off-course again, however, when his theological premises turn him to the fideism expounded by such thinkers as Kierkegaard and Miguel de Unamuno. Gardner maintains that the essence of our humanity is not the capacity to reason but the capacity to feel, and restates William James's adaptation of Pascal's 'Best Bet' argument for the existence of God. This is one area where I cannot follow Gardner, for it seems to me that his religious credo requires the abnegation of critical faculties, but perhaps for the religious believer who respects science and reason there is nothing more to be said than Gardner presents. It makes, however, for a frustrating target for those who happen not to share Gardner's conclusions.

The best part of the book for me is the author's literary enthusiasms. Gardner's judgements almost never let him down: he explains well his admiration for G.K.Chesterton and Emily Dickinson (with which I entirely concur), but does so less successfully with H.G.Wells (who, contrary to Gardner's protestations, was a dupe of Soviet Communism in the 1930s quite as much as, say, the Webbs and Bernard Shaw).

All in all, this is a thought-provoking book that no one else could have written.

Rating:
Summary: Lighter Philosophy
Review: This book is a great deal of fun. Gardner writes very well and his arguments are generally very easy to follow. He attacks all sorts of philosophical sacred cows in an often extremely dismissive tone, and never devotes very much time to felling his foes that are easily outmatched by Gardner's pen. Of course, I'm being facetious, but that is more or less the tone Gardner takes throughout this book.

Please don't misunderstand, this book is excellent and extremely fun - it's just that it is hard to take many of Gardner's arguments with much more than a grain of salt because one can't exactly dismiss volumes upon volumes of the greatest works of western philosophy in a paragraph or two. Make no mistake, when beats up a philosopher with whom you share his opposition to, it's hard not to giggle along with him. If Gardner is goring an ox of which you are a fan, you become understandably annoyed.

All of that aside, though, it is a nice journey through all kinds of topics that most of the philosophically inclined amongst have pondered at one time or another. None of the essays are super-hard-hitting, by any means, they are more like light-handed musings about this or that view, this or that system of thought. While Gardner may fairly be described an overall skeptic, I'm not sure who wouldn't meet the definition construed so broadly as there are many things indeed Gardner positively ascribes to (e.g., objective standards in aesthetics and ethics). He is mainly just a eloquent proponent of good common sense.

I'm not quite as prepared as another reviewer to assert that Gardner "clearly presents" each view he debunks, mainly because he doesn't exactly present them in ways the original proponents would likely accept. Simply put, Gardner is good at knocking down straw-men each chapter. (And in this respect I am forced to agree with the anonymous November 2002 reviewer.) Gardner is by no means a heavyweight in serious philosophical discussions, so I disagree with another reviewer who more or less dubs him the best of the "American freethinkers" of all-time. Another reviewer rightly notes that Gardner often discusses William James, but omits that Gardner's discussions of James are usually less than complimentary. Oliver Kamm's review, I must say, is right on the money.

"The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener" predictably appeals to those with little or no philosophical background, which is not at all a bad thing. In a sense it is quite similar to Nozick's "The Examined Life," only Gardner is far more entertaining. Another point worth mentioning is that Gardner's discussions on economics are a bit dated, being written in the early 80s when many Americans had far less faith in capitalism than they do today. In all "The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener" is a wonderful read.

Rating:
Summary: A wonderful book!
Review: This is a wonderful book. Gardner is a philosophical theist who makes a case for a personal God, prayer and immortality, without resorting to organized religion, which he rejects. He is not dogmatic when discussing the questions of God, immortality, evil, faith prayer, atheism etc. and writes with humor and insightfulness, although I think there is a somewhat stronger logical basis for belief in a personal God than does Gardner. On the subjects of organized religion, economics and politics he is tends to be somewhat dogmatic and less insightful. For example, in dismissing the incarnation of God as Jesus he does not mention the sublime theology (of Peter Abelard?) that God, out of love and solidarity with humanity (with the forgiveness of sins a byproduct, as God can forgive sin anytime), chose to become man and suffer as we do the pain and evil of this world. In dismissing hell as too barbaric a concept for God he does not discuss the possibility that some individuals reject God (even after death) and that hell is" living" with your own voluntary and continuing rejection of God. When discussing eastern religions he undervalues the meditative experience. All in all, I still give Gardner 5 stars because of his wonderful synthesis of philosophical theism. It has strengthened my faith in a personal God.

Rating:
Summary: Martin Gardner's Profound Masterpiece!
Review: This is literally a book that opened my eyes to many issues that I had previously been ignoring in my study of Philosophy (my college major). Before reading this book I did not have a true name for my religious opinions, after reading this work I realized that there were others who shared my views as a philosophical theist. Although The religious topics take up half the book, the other half discusses philosophy, the paranormal, ethics, aesthetics, and politics-all of which are well reasoned and thought out, even when I disagree with Gardner, I find myself recognizing that the view he is defending is a strong one. Overall a wonderful and profound book, well written, and worth reading for anyone who is interested in the major issues in philosophy.

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining but not as clever as it thinks
Review: This is yet another great collection in which Gardner sets about destroying the illogical and psychologically damaging views propounded by new age guru's, pseudo-science and religious fanatics. A great addition for anyone whoenjoys his work in Skeptical Inquiry magazine or is interested in freethinking, atheism and agnosticism. Gardner has made it his life work to expose the dogmatic foundations of illogical thought where ever it may be found and as this collection shows, shoddy logic is alive and well in the Western tradition.