Daniel Robinson was actually born in or near what is now called Greece on or about 400 BC. Recently awakened from hibernation, his lectures for The Teaching Company on "the Great Ideas of Philosophy" are a tour de force, challenged only by a series of lectures on the "Great Ideas of Psychology" and on "Ancient Greece". Well credentialed, he is a Neuro Psychologist by training who has ventured into classical scholarship and "the love of wisdom" by inclination.He reinforces my preconceived notions about those who are captured by foolish consistency, currently called "post moderns" or "de-constructionists" or "predistination materialists" (my term) as valuably recycling trivial truths.
This is a deep, humourous book of great seriousness. The only fault, is that, like Stephen Gould, Robinson knows too much and at times cannot resist telling us.
Robinson is a moral realist; i.e.; he believes that moral truths are at least as true as super strings or MBranes or for that matter genes or alleles. But as a moral realist, he also believes that "there is a limit to respect and tolerance, and that limnit is reached when fundamental moral tenets are violated" and in the possibility that "at any given time in world history, there are no identifiable occupants in the defined moral space!".
Unlike this review (but like Robinson's lectures) this book is filled with nuggets that make the investment in time and money well worthwhile.
For those seriously interested in how the world works and tired of the foolish consistencies of Dawkins, Dennett and Rorty, wade into this book. If nothing else, the one liners are great fun even as they are subtle and too often hidden.
On substance, I consider this book off the scale.
Sam Taylor
Panning for Gold
