On The Beginning of Infinity

Here's my review of "The Beginning of Infinity," a book that touches on many of my interests. Its author advocates a philosophy that's much closer than that espoused by the author of the previous book I blogged about.

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The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World by David Deutsch
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Beginning of Infinity presents a strong thesis about the importance of explanatory knowledge and its relationship to limitless progress. I’d heard Deutsch talk about this topic before, and I had assumed this would be yet another typical nonfiction book belaboring the same points. A friend whose tastes I respect recommended I read it anyway, so I gave it a try. I’m very glad I did!

The books thesis in clearly laid out, and the arguments for it are very persuasive. Deutsch confronts many possible philosophical objection, and attempts to obliterate each one by using very general arguments. He convincingly takes on inductivism, empiricism, justificationism, relativism, instrumentalism, and of course post-modernism, among many other philosophies. In fact, his arguments against other philosophies are probably stronger than his argument for his own thesis, but I think that still fits with the main worldview of the book: that progress requires replacing mistaken ideas.

Deutsch reinforced many of my views on some topics (eg the existence of objective values) and convinced me of some others (on why political compromise is bad). Even in parts of the book where I found him less convincing (eg in his defense of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics or his views on AI), I feel I still learned something and have more to ponder.

I also appreciated Deutsch’s fearlessness. For example, he doesn’t buy into environmental sustainability and is willing to buck most academics on sacrosanct topics. You know where Deutsch stands and why. Go read this book if you have any interest in the philosophy of science and of human progress.

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The First

I haven't posted any book reviews on this blog, but since this one is relevant to academia, I thought I'd give it a try. Here's my first posting of a review I wrote on goodreads.com.

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The First: How to Think About Hate Speech, Campus Speech, Religious Speech, Fake News, Post-Truth, and Donald Trump by Stanley Fish
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I started my faculty job at UIC in 2012, eight years after Stanley Fish finished his term as dean of my college, and it didn’t take me long to hear about him. I heard about Fish before I knew the name of my (then) current dean, and I never even learned the names of other former deans. Usually, when an administrator becomes so memorable, he must have done something disastrous that nobody can forgive. But as far as I understand, this was not the case with Fish; he was known for making bold and unusual decisions, often controversial but not inept.

Now, twelve years later, I was at a used book sale where I saw a book by someone named Stanley Fish. Seeing that name jogged my memory, and I checked the author’s bio to see if it was the same Stanley Fish — indeed, it was! I had no idea he wrote books (apparently, he wrote many), and I immediately bought the book to see what he had to say.

The book involves the author expounding his ideas on the First Amendment, and it did not disappoint. True to his reputation, Fish takes many controversial positions— including that freedom of speech should not be the central value on college campuses and that the First Amendment should not have included religion — and he even offers the best defense of postmodernism that I’ve seen. (I still don't buy it.)

In the end, this is a fun and thought-provoking book. It reinforced my views on some things, convinced me on some points, and utterly failed to convince me on many others. But unlike most non-fiction, this book delivers something new and unpredictable with each chapter.

The main downside is that the book feels like a rant more than a principled argument spanning the various aspects of the First Amendment. The long title even betrays its lack of coherence. The other downside, of course, is that I think he’s wrong about too much! Still, it was a fun read.

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