May 25, 2010
Reading List
As noted, I am off on my travels next week. Holidays are good for one thing: reading lots of books you don’t normally have time to read.
So, suggestions please. Fact and fiction welcome, though bear in mind size constraints (backpack already has to fit Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments, Quentin Skinner’s inexcusably heavy Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes, and Leviathan and the Air Pump by Shapin and Schaffer).
Actually I’ve been especially negligent of fiction recently so suggestions on that front most welcome. Indeed, I’m supposed to be practicing my French, so good novels in French (which are shockingly hard to find in my limited exprience) especially welcome. Indeed, anyone who can find me a French novel that’s not shot through with rampant misogyny gets a prize.*
Don’t worry about whether or not I’ve read something; assume complete ignorance and that way no accidental oversights will occur.
Toodles.
–
* there is no prize
Tim Worstall said,
May 25, 2010 at 12:39 pm
And now for something completely different.
I’ve no idea whether you’ve ever got into the Discworld stuff from Terry Pratchett. But if you haven’t might I recommend “The Truth”? Disregard the sci-fi/fantasy part of it (if you need to) and it’s one of the best satires on the newspaper business since Scoop.
senusert said,
May 25, 2010 at 12:47 pm
Well anything by Balzac is good, although I wouldn’t know anything about the misogyny. Mme Bovary is also good, but I suspect you’ve read it.
For English fiction, try Wolf Hall.
I’d reccomend d’Espagnat’s Physics and Philosophy or The Veil of Reality, but I don’t think you’re into that kind of thing.
Paul Sagar said,
May 25, 2010 at 1:06 pm
Senusert,
Thanks for those.
Tim,
I read the first 3 or 4 Discworld novels as a kid and thought they were great. And why would I – a card-carrying Sci-Fi/fantasy nerd – want to ignore those bits???
Luis Enrique said,
May 25, 2010 at 1:10 pm
The ultimate in fun holiday fiction:
Glen David Gould “Carter Beats the Devil”
one of the most enjoyable books I’ve ever read.
P.S. look D2 being mean about you:
http://d-squareddigest.blogspot.com/
FranLydie said,
May 25, 2010 at 1:19 pm
Use good old Google and try things like “livre en francais facile” or “livres faciles a lire” and variations on the theme.
Ou bien tu pourrais allez sur amazon.fr et voir ce que d’autres lecteurs ont pense des livres qui y sont a vendre. Tu peux les acheter pour quelques centimes et les faire envoyer a Londres.
Leo said,
May 25, 2010 at 1:30 pm
2666 is rather long (900+ pages) but it’s utterly mindblowing. It’s by Roberto Bolaño, and it was apparently intended to be his last great work (he died quite late on in the drafting process, so it looks pretty much as it would have, had he lived, i’m told). To an extent, it’s about misogyny; one of its set pieces is two large pages of misgynistic jokes. But it’s also about violence, Mexico and literature. I think you’d very much like it.
On the political philosophy front, I imagine you’ve already read him, but i’m going to recommend Raymond Geuss anyway. He’s a ‘realist’ critic of liberalism and Anglophone political philosophy more broadly, and he uses insights from both the analytic and continental philosophical traditions to do it, which is kind of like gold dust to me at the moment. Everything he writers is short and to the point, and i though his “Philosophy and Real Politics” and “Public Goods, Private Goods” were both very good. Both are like 100-120 pages.
Have a good holiday.
Leo said,
May 25, 2010 at 1:32 pm
Also, on the French front: La Disparition by Georges Perec. A novel written without using a single word with the letter ‘e’ in it. It’s phenomenal, and not misgynistic.
Daniel said,
May 25, 2010 at 1:37 pm
Hi Paul,
I really enjoy your blog, and read it regularly. However, I’m an English Lit student and haven’t really had anything to contribute to the discussion yet… But, if there’s one thing I can contribute to, it’s reading lists.
Have you read Bonjour Tristesse by Francois Sagan? It’s a really short and delightful novel about a trouble-making teenager who goes about ruining things for everybody… I guess you could make some very broad comparisons with Catcher in the Rye – as a french and female counter-part to it – but it’s a unique book and I highly recommend it.
Also, what about a bit of existentialist literature? If you haven’t already read it, L’Étranger by Camus is magnificent (and short), and La Chute, also by Camus, is an engrossing read (and short again). La Nausée by Sartre is also worth a punt.
I can also vouch for Madame Bovary, it’s a book that is so well written it’s like reading silk. The craft that goes into every sentence is unbelievable. And, it is pointedly not misogynistic.
I hope that helps!
Daniel
Paul Sagar said,
May 25, 2010 at 2:00 pm
Looks like Madame Bovary is the must-read for this trip then. Cheers for all the suggestions though, keep ‘em coming!
Leo: if you direct your eyes to the sidebar, you will find the two single best sentences from Geuss’ Philosophy and Real Politics. Unortunately, apart from that funny childish dig at Nozick I thought it was a rubbish book, at best the start of an argument. And that annoyed me because 1) Geuss can be very good but this was just lazy and 2) I’m sympathetic to what he wants to do but my god it’s not good enough just to pull tongues and parade about as though you’re some sort of analytic Nietzsche, refusing to put the arguments in and acting like that’s everybody else’s problem.
Leo said,
May 25, 2010 at 2:21 pm
Well, given its brevity, i don’t think it pretended to be anything other than the start of an argument. It read to me as a diagnosis of some fundamental malaises at the heart of Anglo-American political philosophy and then a quite tentative attempt to sketch out a different direction. His dig at Nozick i quite liked, but i thought his dissection of Rawls was better because longer and more sustained, though arguably Perry Anderson does a better job in his essay on Rawls, “Designing Consensus” (in his ‘Spectrum: From Right to Left in the World of Ideas’, and originally published in ‘Dissent’, Winter 1994). ‘Public Goods, Private Goods’ is better, because Geuss focuses in on one concept at the heart of liberalism – the public/private distinction – and subjects it to quite an effective critique. Also, a good thing about Geuss: if something he has written is crap, it hasn’t wasted much of your time. Not something that can be said often.
Mark said,
May 25, 2010 at 2:24 pm
Non Fiction;
Watching the English by Kate Fox
Fiction;
The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks
Or Player of Games/Use of Weapons by Iain M Banks. (love that Iain Banks)
Fantasy;
Farseer Books by Robin Hobb
or
Grace said,
May 25, 2010 at 2:53 pm
Non-fiction: I’ve recently really enjoyed The Elusive Quest for Growth and The White Man’s Burden (William Easterly, slightly preferred the second one). Gorky’s My Childhood, Sergei Kourdakov’s Forgive Me, Natasha.
You’ve probably read them before, but fiction-wise I’d recommend The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Wuthering Heights, Therese Raquin, Resurrection (Tolstoy), Tess of the D’Urbervilles, the Aeneid.
Dan said,
May 25, 2010 at 3:09 pm
It might be a bit heavy going for vacation reading, so I somehow doubt you’ll take up my recommendation, but I’d say bring along some Hayek. Something like Individualism and Economic Order (a collection of essays) or, if you’re feeling brave, the first volume of Law, Legislation and Liberty. Given your interests in Weber and modern liberalism, I think you might actually find Hayek very worth reading. He’s also arguably the most important thinker of the second half of the 20th century, which doesn’t hurt.
As for non-fiction, Catch 22 is one of my favourite novels – highly recommended if you haven’t already read it.
senusert said,
May 25, 2010 at 3:33 pm
“He’s also arguably the most important thinker of the second half of the 20th century”
Not Rawls, Arendt or Sen? How about Dennet or Serle as well?
James A said,
May 25, 2010 at 3:33 pm
In accordance with your request to assume complete ignorance, I will suggest some of my favourites that you’ve probably already read:
* The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
* Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell
* The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
Paul Sagar said,
May 25, 2010 at 3:37 pm
Dan, I actually agree re Hayek’s importance (in my crude estimation he’s had more ‘real world’ impact than Rawls, whatever academic political theorists might like to think) and he is certainly somebody I should read more about, not least because of the Weber interest but also because he is set on the Cambridge first year courses and I’m going to be applying to teach that stuff next year.
Catch 22 is phenomenal. Utterly stunning, in fact. It took me a third attempt to get into the swing of it but it was definitely worth it. Indeed, I found the penultimate chapter one of the most powerful things I’ve ever read.
Leo, I found most of Geuss’ arguments against Rawls to be exceedingly poor. Less than we’d expect from a second year undergraduate. Indeed, I tried to put that sort of vague, generalist, can’t-be-bothered-to-argue-properly stuff through a third year pol theory collection at Balliol and Adam Swift rightly gave me 2:2 marks accordingly. Don’t emulate Geuss, would be my advice.
As for your point that he doesn’t take up much time – true, but he cost the state £14 albeit via my bank account, and given that his book is basically just lazy I do have a problem with the price tag. If I came across that book as a long blog post that would be one thing, asking people to pay for it is another…
Paul Sagar said,
May 25, 2010 at 3:40 pm
James, whilst Grapes and Catalonia are of course wonderful – I am shocked and appalled that you like that sexist, self-satisfied, pretentious pseudo-philosophical arsegarbage put out by Kundera.
Please tell me that you read it pre undergrad and haven’t tried it since. It absolutely stinks.
James A said,
May 25, 2010 at 3:49 pm
Clearly you’re allergic to Kundera. I agree that he can be misogynistic, but I don’t concur with your other harsh judgements. I haven’t read ULoB for a while, but I re-read his collection of short stories The Book of Laughter and Forgetting last year, and – despite being repelled by the misogynistic bits – nevertheless enjoyed it.
Oh well, different strokes etc.
James A said,
May 25, 2010 at 3:51 pm
And re: Geuss, he can also be a nasty man. Very nasty indeed.
Peter said,
May 25, 2010 at 3:55 pm
I don’t read much and I guess you’ve probably read these two, but:
Fiction:
Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
Non-fiction:
Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius, Ray Monk
The Monk especially. One of the best books I’ve ever read. No interest in Witters’ philosophy necessary (I have no interest in it and still enjoyed it immensely). It’s quite long though.
James A said,
May 25, 2010 at 3:56 pm
Also, on French language books, Diana likes – or used to like – stuff by Michel Tournier. She read it in Romanian, but said she imagines it would be better in the original French.
Ed said,
May 25, 2010 at 4:20 pm
Bernard Williams: Shame and Necessity. Amazing.
Much of the above about Geuss is correct, although History and Illusion in Politics and Outside Ethics are much better. Paul are you doing a PhD? If so what on?
James A said,
May 25, 2010 at 4:24 pm
OK, one more go and I promise to stop posting. Have you read My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk? A beautiful novel. Diana also rather liked Pamuk’s Snow.
Paul Sagar said,
May 25, 2010 at 4:30 pm
Ed, Shame and Necessity is one of Williams’ best, an absolute cracker. I’m doing a PhD yes, nominally on David Hume’s political philosophy though one of my present tutors keeps warning me that nobody ever actually works on what they think they will with the person who’ll be supervising me. Tbh if I stay in 18th C political thought I’m happy with that.
James: not read that one, cheers.
Dan said,
May 25, 2010 at 4:32 pm
he is certainly somebody I should read more about
I was going to say something about this in my comment but didn’t: as a general policy I am against reading “big names” in the original, but Hayek is one of the few exceptions. Until last summer I had read hardly any of his work first hand, relying instead on secondary sources, and I was really amazed at how much had been lost in translation. So in other words – if you’re going to invest any time at all, read him, not about him.
(Also, do they really let first year PhD students (assuming that’s what you’ll be applying for) teach undergrads at Cambridge? They certainly don’t at most places I’ve looked at.)
Paul Sagar said,
May 25, 2010 at 4:42 pm
Dan, I’ve been told informally that first year PhDs can teach at Cam, but that doesn’t mean I will be allowed to I suppose. Will have to apply and see. It definitely happens at Oxford though, albeit occasionally.
Am I right in thinking you’re doing one of the Oxford Mphils at present? Only your ISP says Worcester college but I thought you’d been at Corpus with Peter.
As for reading big names in the original you should ALWAYS do that! It’s the rule not the exception that things are lost in translation/criticism. Not least because most academic output is, from what I’m discovering on my Hobbes research, crap.
Dan said,
May 25, 2010 at 5:05 pm
Hmm, that’s interesting. Having gone traipsing around the US looking at PhD programs, the only one I saw that let (indeed, made) first years teach was Arizona (mainly because they’re a relatively badly funded state university who actually need people to teach). I actually do Maths and Philosophy, which has a sort of 4th year Masters attached, so I’ve been at Worcester the whole time.
I’m interested in the history of philosophy primarily for the arguments to be found there, and I think that in a lot of cases (in my experience at least) the modern proponents of positions have better arguments than those who originated those positions. (It seems to me, for instance, that AJ Simmons is a much more persuasive Lockean than Locke ever was, and Korsgaard is a much more persuasive Kantian than Kant.) But, yeah, reading Hayek certainly lessened my confidence in this view!
RA said,
May 25, 2010 at 7:08 pm
Non-fiction:
*The Chosen by Jerome Karabel- Not sure how widely available it is in the UK, but given your recent post on college admissions, you might enjoy it. It’s essentially a Weberian account of how merit and selectivity have been defined and contested over the past century in the admissions departments of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton.
*The Flight from Reality in the Human Sciences by Ian Shapiro
*Objectivity by Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison
Fiction:
*Les Bienveillantes by Jonathan Littell- I’ve never read it in French, but it’s a light romp through World War II.
*Petersburg by Andrei Bely (tr. by John Elsworth)
leftoutside said,
May 25, 2010 at 7:23 pm
Well, I can’t recommend too much in the way of French Literature being sadly unable to speak or read it to even a GCSE standard, I would say that I enjoyed Camus greatly, especially The Plague which is excellent.
But books which I’d recommend you are. Fiction:
*The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant by Stephen Donaldson – awesome fantasy collection for the geek in you.
*A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Solzhenitsyn – amazing story of life in the gulag. Short too.
*Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky – its awesome, and its in Prnguin Modern Classics so can be yours for £2.
Biography
*Bit of a Blur by Alex James – Makes you want to join a rock band, perfect for really self indulgent fantasies.
Non-Fiction
*The Great Transformation by Karl Polanyi – Always interesting for a non-marxist anti-free market critique of capitalism.
*Watching the English by Kate Fox – makes you feel all parochial and nice about being English.
*Bad Science by Ben Goldacre – I assume you’ve read this, its a must. The man’s a hero.
*Bloody Foreigners by Robert Winders – perfect antidote to anti-immigrant hysteria, published while the country was in the grip of a moral panic about asylum seekers yet even the Mail gave it a glowing review for its positive assessment of the impact immigrants had on Britain from 1000 AD onwards.
That enough for you?
Paul Sagar said,
May 25, 2010 at 9:26 pm
Dan,
I’m afraid that I couldn’t disagree more about the way to treat original texts. At one level, there’s the basic point that the big books written by the big names stand out for a reason – they are very good. Hence, it’s usually better to pay attention to the shark as oppose to the pilot fish making a living off it.
At a more philosophical level, however, I’m pretty firmly against this view (pushed fairly hard in places like Oxford, of course) that philosophy deals with a set of issues and questions that are pretty much context-free and existing independently of whichever agent happens to be espousing them at any given moment (rather like mathematical concepts, say; any rational agent in any time and place should come to the same conclusions about what 2+2 is, etc – but is it really the same with philosophical enquiry, in all its forms, especially the political?) On this, i basically think that Quentin Skinner’s early work, updated and streamlined in Visions of Politics Volume1 is correct.
I’d strongly recommend Visions Vol 1, Chs 3 and 4 (especially 4; it’s a re-statement of the seminal Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas, minus the more controversial linguistic stuff which is relocated to later chapters). As far as I’m concerned, a careful reading of Skinner on these questions provides an overwhelmingly compelling picture of what ideas are, and how we go about engaging with and retrieving them. Kantians and those with Kantian dispositions will disagree, of course – but given the impact M&U has had in, especially, the history of political thought I really do think you’d do well to give it a go (and give it a really fair try; it’s a complex essay with many, many layers and repays close and persistent reading).
Everyone else: thanks for all the suggestions, Waterstones will be barren by then end of the week…
Rob said,
May 25, 2010 at 9:33 pm
I second Wolf Hall. It really is very good. Three other pieces of English language fiction – no French, unfortunately – Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay; David Peace’s GB84; and Sarah Waters’ The Night Watch, none of which are remotely like each other except in being quite wonderful (Kavalier and Clay is about a pair of emigre comic writers in 40s New York, and made great by Chabon’s joyful prose; GB84 is like Ellroy doing the miner’s strike, but with sympathy; and Night Watch is, other than working backwards, just unflashily very good). Non-fiction, if you’ve not read it, James Fenton’s collection of dispatches from South-East Asia in the seventies and eighties, All The Wrong Places, is, if somewhat mordant, entertaining and has its heart in the right places.
Rob said,
May 25, 2010 at 9:37 pm
Oh, and the really noticeable thing about the Perry Anderson piece is the difference in the levels of interpretive charity he sets for Rawls – because, despite the fact that Rawls says welfare state capitalism does not satisfy his principles of justice, that’s what he’s an apologist for – and say, Hobsbawm, who’s forgiven staying communist in 1956 because he has fond memories of the Popular Front.
Paul Sagar said,
May 25, 2010 at 9:37 pm
Rob, Cheers for that. Yes, Wolf Hall is very good. Read it last Christmas and found it thoroughly enjoyably distracting. My Dad reads the Sarah Waters books, and says they’re very good but i’ve just not yet made time.
That’s the depressing thing about getting these reading lists…it reminds me how much I’ve not read, but want to.
Oh well, at least I’ll die before the number of good books ever runs out.
Leo said,
May 25, 2010 at 10:03 pm
Ok well as a first year undergraduate, i guess i’ll have to wait a year to know whether you’re right or not. As for Adam Swift not buying Geuss in PaRP, given that the only evidence we have so far for that estimation is that you regurgitated what Geuss says in a collection and Swift didn’t like it, and given your remarks about the importance of reading the primary text rather than settling for an interpretation, i’d say that isn’t much evidence; and even if it were, what i’ve read of Swift suggests he wouldn’t much like Geuss’ kind of argument. On the other hand, if someone like Marc Stears really didn’t like PaRP then i’d be more inclined to listen, as it were. I can’t comment on Geuss’ entire corpus as i’ve only read 4 of his books, and the two mentioned above as being particularly good have escaped me so far (though one’s sitting on my bookshelf waiting to be read).
From what you’ve said about the nature of philosophical problems, you might like Richard Rorty. Then again, you might hate him. Either way, it would probably be a productive encounter. You may have read him already, but if not, i’d recommend Contingeny, Irony and Solidarity for his specific contribution to how we should think about normative and political questions, though Philosophy and Social Hope gives a broader overview of his thought.
I’m going to press 2666 again too, because it’s amazing and everyone i’ve read on it and talked to about it agrees.
Leo said,
May 25, 2010 at 10:16 pm
Rob,
I agree that the piece on Hobsbawm isn’t as critical as it obviously should be by Anderson’s own general metrics, but the pieces on Thompson and Brenner demonstrate that he’s rather partial. I much prefer Tony Judt’s piece, which focuses much more on Hobsbawm’s political beliefs; Judt characterizes him well as a ‘Tory communist’. All the same, Anderson does subject Hobsbawm’s work to some not insubstantial criticisms; certainly more than Brenner and Thompson get. On Anderson on Rawls, i don’t think that’s a particularly fair representation of his criticisms. If anything, Anderson is critical of Rawls for deliberately staying so aloof from political debates, and for constructing a system of such vagueness that it can be taken by different people to imply fundamentally different things, of which the welfare state is just one. So he’s more criticizing Rawls for never really addressing the question of whether the difference principle and so forth entails the welfare state, or whether (as Kymlicka thinks) it implies a radically different way of redistributing things.
Rob said,
May 25, 2010 at 10:54 pm
Leo,
so, the appropriate response to a comment in which I point out that Rawls explicitly says, welfare state capitalism does not meet my principles of justice, is to endorse criticisms of Rawls for “never really addressing the question of whether the difference principle and so forth entails the welfare state”. Clearly you’ve learnt at least one thing from Anderson.
Paul,
Night Watch really is very good. The prose has a restraint to it, knows just how to find the pivot around which a whole scene can turn with what seems like (but I’m sure actually isn’t) a minimum of fuss. The early Victorian lesbiana is good – she writes about desire very well, I think – but a bit more pulpy. The Fenton’s good for a holiday, partly because he’s abroad too, and is quite short.
Leo said,
May 25, 2010 at 11:01 pm
So where does he say that?
RA said,
May 26, 2010 at 12:03 am
I’d like to second Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity and also add Information: A Very Short Introduction by Luciano Floridi.
Paul Sagar said,
May 26, 2010 at 12:15 am
Leo,
I’m worried about repeating past errors and being really rude to you, but my word you have a style that threatens to bring out the worst in me. I’m pretty sure you don’t mean it, but to me you have the most patronising tone I think I’ve ever come across in blog comments. But that may be as much about me as about you – indeed, see below.
1. I originally wrote
Whereas you bizarrely pronounce that:
As I think I perhaps too rudely put it on our last abrasive encounter on this blog, you need to slow down and sharpen up your critical reading and reasoning skills. I didn’t say that AS rejected Geuss’s arguments, just that he rightly didn’t tolerate that sort of vague hand-waving non-argument way of doing “philosophy” (should it merit the name) from me. But more than anything, what I wrote was advice to you for how to survive the Oxford exam system – which you missed because you were too busy being a first year PPEist and arguing for the sake of arguing rather than slowing down and having a careful think to check you’d got clear on what was being said and done.
2. I have no idea what Marc thinks of Geuss. For the record, however, I’m more inclined to approach pol theory and the history of pol thought in the Stears mould than the Swift. But nonetheless, Adam Swift is an extremely accomplished and intelligent man, and I really think you could do with reeling it in a bit and not dismissing his (hypothesised) views about Geuss so quickly. AS has been doing this stuff a long time and you do come across as rather hubristic in your dismissals of him.
3. I have very, very little time for Richard Rorty.
4. Piece of advice: you have clearly read a lot. That’s sort of good. But as your exchange with Rob is implying (given that you seem to be singularly missing his point), you could perhaps do with reading less and thinking more, and doing it all more slowly. I don’t mean that in a nasty way. Your (hubristic?) (overbearing?) style, your desire to argue until the break of dawn (cf. recent exchanges at Virtual Stoa), your enthusiasm and your certainty in your own ability and views reminds me a lot of, well, of me in first year PPE. But my advice, accordingly, is to slow down, read less and think more. That was the advice given to me by my tutors, and it was undoubtedly the best piece of advice I ever had in 3 years as an undergraduate.
The danger, otherwise, is that you end up arguing with everyone, getting clear on nothing, and turning into a stellar member of the Oxford Union. And that is where intellectuals go to die.
Paul Sagar said,
May 26, 2010 at 12:16 am
“RA”
You’re a dick.
I’ll see you on Thursday, where you will be forced to sing The Star Spangled Banner. Again.
Leo said,
May 26, 2010 at 1:08 am
Those are all criticisms i recognise in the sense that i often have those thoughts about my own style of arguing, but i never really get given them by tutors, so i guess i write in a different way there. As for needing to read less and think more, that chimes with what i’ve kind of intuited but never really been told by any tutors, so i’ll happily take it on board. For what it’s worth, i don’t think the tone issue has anything much to do with you – it’s one of my worst qualities and i’m conscious of it; though it does seem we have a quite extraordinary capacity to rub each other up the wrong way that i’ve not encountered elsewhere (to the same degree…).
If i come across as hubristic and dismissive of AS, that wasn’t my intention. I respect Swift, but he does do political philosophy in a way that places him fairly firmly in the tradition that Geuss is broadly criticizing in PaRP, and so one hardly expects him to roll over and agree entirely with Geuss. Indeed, presumably he practices political philosophy in the way he does because he thinks it’s a good way of doing it, and so it seems likely that he’d disagree with Geuss. Obviously that doesn’t invalidate his view of Geuss – it’d probably be interesting to read his views – it’s just that my experience so far has suggested that academics in political philosophy and philosophy more broadly tend to be less understanding of, tolerant of and willing to bridge major methodological disagreements with others than major disagreements within one school of philosophical ‘practice’, as it were. So for example, my own philosophy tutor is quite a mild, tolerant man, but when he gets onto the subject of continental philosophers – Alain Badiou in particular – loses that and starts ranting. One of the reasons i like Rorty is that he seems willing to engage with just about any thinker, no matter their tradition, and doesn’t seem to have the same blinkers other philosophers – in both the analytic and continental traditions – often seem to have with regards to people who do things in a fundamentally different way. Now if, as i think you think, Geuss’ methodology isn’t the issue, it’s just a case of severely sloppy thinking, then fine, but for some reason i found what you see as severely sloppy thinking very compelling, as did a number of friends who i recommended the book to. I’m not saying you’re wrong, but my reading of it suggested to me that if Swift didn’t like the style or way of arguing Geuss uses as you used it, either he didn’t think you pulled it off or he doesn’t like that way of arguing. If it’s the latter, i’m not about to assume that that’s because Geuss is sloppy, because my recollection is that he wasn’t. Obviously i may well be wrong. I’ll go back and re-read it over the summer.
From your original comment, it wasn’t quite clear (to me, at least) whether “that sort of vague, generalist, can’t-be-bothered-to-argue-properly stuff” referred to Geuss’ way of arguing, or to the whole kind of enterprise PaRP is; Geuss’ method or his arguments. If that was me not reading closely enough, i apologise.
On Rorty, he doesn’t seem to have many fans in Oxford, and in a way i can see why. For starters, his style certainly seems to be instantly offputting for many people, and even though i like him a lot, i find it grating at times. In terms of issues with his philosophy, though, i’d be interested to read what you don’t like and why, as i’m conscious of having read much of his work but not much in the way of criticism of him (though i’m aware there’s a book dedicated to that).
James A said,
May 26, 2010 at 10:06 am
I think it’s time for the infamous double-dactyl.
Higgeldy Piggeldy
Prof. Richard Rorty thought
He would be naughty by
Trying to say
Reason, Truth, Knowledge are
Phantasmagoria
But… better keep talking to
Bring home the pay.
Nakul said,
May 26, 2010 at 10:40 am
I can attest that Marc thinks Geuss on Rawls well worth taking seriously (I think his words were ‘genuinely deep’) but that Geuss still has some questions to answer.
Tom Hurka’s review of PaRP (http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=15086) succinctly summarises my own frustrations with the book — that it adds very little to Bernard Williams and the BLD: ‘Geuss wants something more radical; he wants the suspect nature of moral intuition to point to his entirely different “realist” political philosophy. But his book disappoints because it never clearly shows how its proposed realist methodology will work, or how a philosophy based on it can reach credible political conclusions without making just the ethics-first assumptions it claims to avoid.’
Can I recommend Tony Judt’s ‘Ill Fares the Land’? Short, for a start. Nothing you may not know already, but rousing and often moving. Provides some of the rhetorical defence social democracy doesn’t get often enough…
Rob said,
May 26, 2010 at 10:42 am
Leo,
I’m not doing your homework for you. Books have things called indexes. Try using one. It’s also worth bearing in mind that, strictly, since it is philosophy and not a set of pamphlets calling for various concrete political reforms, it is not a criticism of Rawls’ work that it doesn’t tell us what to do. Works in epistemology don’t have to tell us the best way to go about acquiring knowledge; why should works in political philosophy have to tell us how to achieve any given political virtue?
Paul Sagar said,
May 26, 2010 at 11:13 am
I suppose the facetious answer is “because it’s supposed to be political philosophy”. But no, that’s just Jubb Baiting…
Although I actually think there’s less merit to the “Rawls doesn’t tell us what to do” meme than typically assumed (despite myself using this meme – clumsily – at a recent seminar, when I was too wound up by sub-par presentations to articulate myself in a clear and sensible way). That is, a good Rawlsian in an existing western democratic state is either in the position of a legislator, or a citizen of a relatively well-ordered and stable society. Legislators should strive to make the basic structure of a given society more in line with the dictates of justice as revealed by reflection from the OP, helpfully summarised in TofJ, whilst citizens should put democratic pressure upon legislators to do just those sorts of things.
Short of advocating a revolution, what do people want from Rawls? Indeed, why does he offer less practical advice to the modern citizen of a liberal democracy than, say, Hobbes did to the ordinary person in 17th Century England? Hobbes basic advice was basically: put up and shut up, do what you’re told and accept the Sovereign power. Not exactly an extensive shopping list of political duties, maxims and practical obligations…
Rob said,
May 26, 2010 at 11:37 am
“because it’s supposed to be political philosophy…”
Knowing is no less a practical question than how to structure the forms of our collective life; in fact, in some ways, it looks a rather more practical question – I do it every day after all, whereas I don’t make and remake our political institutions every day. So if the thought’s that political philosophy concerns some sphere of practical action and so must be practically-oriented, then that should be true of epistemology as well. I mean, actually, clearly, neither are, since the truth functionality of the statement ‘if y, do x’ does not change according to the state of the world, which is what practical orientation would have to mean, but for the sake of argument…
Paul Sagar said,
May 26, 2010 at 11:49 am
As I said, Jubb-baiting.
I’m actually broadly sympathetic to that response. As with ethics/meta-ethics, there’s lots of important and valuable work to do be done in explaining what we do, and thinking abstractly about the implications about that, and how it all plays out.
I guess, however, there does seem to be one prima facie difference with (say) epistemology: that epistemology by its nature surely only seeks to explain what humans actually do when it comes to questions of knowledge, whereas politics (and, incidentally, ethics) seems rather to have an added dimension: what they should do. Now of course, it doesn’t follow that ethical/political theorists must themselves follow their own maxims (we all know ethics lecturers who cheat on their wives and undercut personal rivals out of spite) – but ethics and politics do seem to carry with them prescriptive components that are an integral part of the area as a whole.
Which isn’t to say that all ethicists and political theorists need to engage in providing such prescriptions. There’s plenty of reasons why that isn’t true. But on the flip side, it does look correct to say that if no ethical and political theorists are providing prescriptive advice then something important is lacking.
Having said that, this is clearly not the situation we face. Lots of people are doing that latter sort of work. It just happens that some big names have focused on the former – and that seems OK to me, in and of itself, because there’s lots of interesting stuff to be explored over there and political and ethical theory isn’t just about the prescriptive side of things, and to say that it must be seems to me to threaten a rather gross sort of philistinism.
Paul Sagar said,
May 26, 2010 at 11:55 am
Just to clarify: prescriptions need not be practical dictates. “If X, do Y” can be different to “If X, one ought to do Y” at the level of abstraction, as well as concrete advice.
So for example, an ethical or political theorist can quite sensibly say: “when Europeans encountered Native Americans, they ought not to have given them disease-infested blankets” – a prescriptive statement about what ethical agents ought to do/not do – without thereby being committed to any practical advice (as the situation discussed refers to a historical scenario that won’t be replicated again).
Ok it’s not a great example, but i wanted to bring out that there’s a relevant distinction between mere practical advice, and the issuing of prescriptions (by which I really mean normative prescriptions), to tease out a distinction that I don’t think you were being sufficiently sensitive to, though becoming sensitive to it doesn’t undermine your more general point.
Mark Thakkar said,
May 26, 2010 at 11:56 am
You’ve got plenty to be going on with, so I’ll restrict myself to (1) seconding Peter’s recommendation of Monk’s intellectual biography of Wittgenstein, but pointing out that it’s quite large, (2) urging you to read Borges’ philosophical short stories if you haven’t already, and (3) suggesting that if you like Poe, a fun way to practise your French would be to read Baudelaire’s translations thereof (best collection: “Nouvelles histoires extraordinaires”). Bonnes vacances!
grrl said,
May 27, 2010 at 1:03 pm
if you reject ‘rampant misogyny’, perhaps you would be interested in some ‘mild misogyny’ ;) : Simone de Beauvoir – ‘Le Deuxième Sexe’.
Hugh said,
May 30, 2010 at 12:46 pm
Hi guys, I know I’m a little late to the party, but as regards Marc Stears’ take on Geuss, it’s worth pointing out that Geuss’ works feature a couple of times on the Hillary Core Paper of the Oxford M.Phil in Theory of Politics, a reading list compiled by Lois McNay and Marc Stears. Week 5 includes “Philosophy and Real Politics”.
x
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