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Amazon.co.uk Review
Those familiar with Midgely's excellent Science and Poetry will recognise a continuing interest in how some of our most powerful myths (the myth of the social contract, of social atomism, of progress) are understood via the metaphorical light of recent technologies-—the telescope, the microscope, the computer—-in ways that are no longer useful to our present needs. The familiar contrastive ways of thinking (hard/soft, higher/lower, mind/body, inside/outside, heaven/earth, appearance/reality, objective/subjective, science/poetry) useful as they have been, can also be the prison-houses of thought, keeping us bound to one of the most powerful and misleading myths of all--the myth of science as omnicompetent method.
When thinking about Mary Midgley it pays to compare her with Richard Dawkins. Dawkins approaches his subject with something like cosmic awe. He is the poet-priest of science who writes with an irresistibly powerful appreciation of the wonder and poetic beauty of nature. But Midgeley takes issue with just the sort of scientist-as-priest he might be: the sort of person who thinks that "science is the only way to know the real world", that evidence-based beliefs are the only ones worth having, that religious beliefs are cowardly and irrational and that science is the "hard" king of the disciplines.
Midgley, by contrast, maps culture in an entirely different way. She shows us that there are different ways of looking at the world, different sources of knowledge that all have their place depending on what it is we want to know. Midgley shows us a way to end the contest of the faculties without giving the victory to one discipline or another and this makes her one of the most important thinker-about-thinking philosophers in the country. In Midgley's map of the intellectual landscape there are no priests and the world looks a more interesting place because of it. Try comparing Dawkins' discussion of science and romantic poetry (Unweaving the Rainbow) with any of Midgley's recent offerings. --Larry Brown --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Review
'For those who haven't yet read Midgley, these essays are an excellent place to start.' - Jon Turney, The Guardian
'An elegant and sane little book. Unusually for a philosopher, Midgley has a superb ear for the use and misuse of language.' - Edward Skidelsky, New Statesman
'She has, perhaps, the sharpest perception of any living thinker of the dangerous extremism that lurks behind so much contemporary scientistic discourse ... Merely as anthologies of contemporary folly, Midgley's books are essential reading ... we have Mary Midgley among us. We should pay attention and be grateful.' - Brian Appleyard, The Sunday Times
'[Mary Midgley's] latest book is full of good sense and illumination on many topics ... Midgley's pathbreaking efforts should be warmly welcomed.' - The Philosopher's Magazine
'Mary's voice, sane, clear and brooking no nonsense, speaks crisply from every page, debunking scientific and non-scientific pretensions alike. A chapter each evening will help me keep sane.' - The Sunday Times
'Christian readers will be sympathetic and find much material for helpful reflection on the topics chosen.' - The Gospel and Our Culture Network
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Customer Reviews
Like some other books of Midgley that I've read, this is a clearly, carefully and elegantly written opus. It is an enjoyable read, like reading prose, even though it is sometimes rather difficult and requires a lot more time. Her use of language is colorful and elegant, simply brilliant. There are not many writers of non-ficition that can excel her use of the english language.
However, she has a tendency to critizes other scientists and fields of science rather strongly, which sometimes goes a bit over the top. When argumented properly it is well-warranted, but at times the arguments seem to defy my logic and at times the logic is incomplete. If they are opinions, then she should state them as such. But on the other hand, I have found that the more her arguments annoy me, the more I start to think about these things. I am, therefore, almost led to believe that her style is a carefully laid scheme, deviced to lead the readers to think about this stuff by themselves. At least I have. And if a book is thought-provoking, it doesn't much matter if you agree with its opinions or not. It is good anyway.
Social contract theory assumes us all to be self interested at heart and only co-operative in order to serve our own interests further. This has not evolutionary backing, Midgley insists. Darwin belived we are collaborative by nature, so the idea of requiring a contract to hold us all together isn't warranted at all. The reason we need to abandon this metaphor is that the contract theory sees us only as as having responsibility to those also as a part of the same community or nation-state of our own. This form of morality is no use to us in a globalised age and needs serious re-thinking.
Scientism is mainly due to a confusion of a scientific worldview with a scientistic one. Many think that being scientific intails the belief that natural science alone provides a reliable description of our world and its goings on. The best known adovate (and most criticised) is the Chemist Peter Atkins, who has written a great deal on the omnicompetence of science. The idea is that physics and chemistry constitute a true account of things and other disciplines such as the social sciences, history, law etc are referring only to an epiphenomenon - an illusion produced by the underlying physical structures and forces at work. Its completely reductive in its approach - another example would be behaviourism, which didn't see motives as 'real' in anyway at all, they just had the appearance of being real.
Midgley's key point is really that a mind is no less real than a particle, a person's motivation to act is no less real than a force acting upon an object. This doesn't mean the mind is a sort of ghost in the machine - Midgley holds no such view. We live in 'one world but a big one' as Midgley puts it. Reductivism - reducing the real to particle physics and forces and seeing our everyday experience as an epiphenomenon with no causal consequences of its own isn't scientific, its scientistic. We need social scientists and historians as much as physicists for us to have a good account of things, one doesn't 'trump' the others.
A core theme is that we are not passively controlled by smaller units, we have just as 'real' an existence as the forces that act upon us and the genes we are made of. We are not governed by our genes, we ARE our genes, there is no passive, separate self to be governed by.
One criticism I have come to appreciate is Midgley's use of Dawkins' writing in the selfish gene. It is important to note that Dawkins' uses the idea of the genes manipulating the body it is contained within, not because this is straightforwardly what happens, but rather because this might be how it would look from the gene's-eye-view. This does not mean from the person's view, they are passive. Its just a lively personification of the activity if the gene, which I do think midgley is a little hard on. But it is understandable that she highlight the personification when reductionism has become so popular in modern scientific writing.
If you can get a reaction that recommends four of the most over-rated, soul-less, ego-inflated high priests of the ethics-free religion that... Read more
Midgely's writing style is excellent. It is a pleasure to read. Her arguments, however, belong in the 1800s. Read more
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