Books shelved under “Philosophy”

First off, shout-out to this book for no subtitle! That’s rare for a work of nonfiction—not that I have any great hatred of subtitles, but the absence of one here is notable. Anyway. Algorithmic Culture Before the Internet caught my eye because the history of computing, intertwined as it is with the history of mathematics and the history of feminism, interests me a lot. Ted Striphas discusses how we conceptualized both the word algorithm and…

Nothing has changed since George Floyd. This year opened with another high-profile murder of an unarmed Black man—Tyre Nichols—by police. While it’s true the officers have already been indicted for Nichols’ death, the commentary continues to privilege the idea that this violence is the result of isolated actions, of inadequate training, of something—anything—other than ongoing systemic racism. Some coverage emphasized the race of the police officers—they, too, are Black—and seemed to say, “How can this…

Where do I start? Do I lament sheepishly how I’ve slept on bell hooks my entire adult life, and it is only now, at thirty-three, now that she has passed, that I’ve made time to read even one of her books? Do I confess that this was a revelation, that it was exactly the book I needed here and now? This review will be purely encomium, for that is what I feel about All About…

Philosophy of the mind has always been one of my favourite realms of philosophy. I love thinking about how we think. About why we think. Consciousness, sentience, intelligence—how did these traits evolve? How do they even work? Patrick House explores Nineteen Ways of Looking at Consciousness (literally what it says on the tin) and tries to address these questions. As he admits in the introduction, he doesn’t have all the answers—none of us do—but…

As Lee McIntyre reflects in the book, this topic seems even more relevant now than it did prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. We have very effective vaccines that will help us mitigate the harms of COVID-19, yet a shocking proportion of people are hesitant to get vaccinated. A perhaps less-shocking proportion have decried public health measures, like mask mandates, designed to keep people safe. In How to Talk to a Science Denier, McIntyre tries…

Women are monsters, according to the patriarchy. That’s the thesis of Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power, Jude Ellison S. Doyle’s follow-up to their 2016 Trainwreck: The Women We Love to Hate, Mock, and Fear... and Why. To elaborate a bit more, Doyle argues that the portrayal of women (and femininity) in our media and culture overlaps with our understanding of the monstrous, the Other, the…

I don’t remember how Freedom Fallacy: The Limits of Liberal Feminism came on my radar. Someone somewhere must have mentioned it; it looks like I bought it from Book Depository four years ago. Anyway, I finally got around to reading it last summer. I was hoping to dig deeper into some of the essays, but honestly things like breaking my elbow took up most of my time, and now I just don’t have the inclination…

It occurs to me that, with the exception of The Prague Cemetery, since I bought that when it was released, I have basically been reading Umberto Eco’s books in publication order. This is entirely unintentional, and now I only have one more to go … but on the bright side, that sounds like an excuse, after I finish that one, to wrap around and start re-reading them all, in order again!

But I don’t…

I love it when a book leaves me feeling so deeply ambivalent. I mean, I would prefer it if I could just outright love Genesis, no ambivalence necessary. But I would rather ambivalence than apathy. Bernard Beckett has clearly put a lot of effort into crafting this deep, philosophical dialogue. It’s a beautifully constructed piece of literature.

But I also didn’t really like it that much.

Anaximander, or Anax as she is called, is…

Hard to know what I could add to my previous review of Sophie’s World. I suppose in the 6 years that have passed since that second reading I have grown and changed and that means my perspective on this book will have changed as well. But I stand by the earlier review, and now I’ll just elaborate.

I bought this fresh copy of Sophie’s World as a gift; actually, I bought it twice over.…

There is a school of thought rising in popularity which wants coding to become a mandatory subject in schools. I have some thoughts on this, but that is neither here nor there for this review. Rather, it’s just interesting that for all the talk of teaching kids to code because it will lead to “better jobs”, there isn’t much emphasis on teaching about the way Big Data is redefining our lives. From data mining…

Money is one of humanity’s most clever and enduring technologies. It is a brilliant way of transferring value across vast distances and decentralizing our economy. Barter makes sense on a hyperlocal, neighbourly scale, but you can’t run a vast industrial economy on it. As Niall Ferguson chronicles in his excellent The Ascent of Money, increases in numismatic sophistication were vital in increasing the range of trade and our abilities to innovate and provide services…

I read the first 78 pages of this book so you don’t have to.

I was trying to make it to at least 100, but I’m sorry. The body is willing but the mind is weak.

I added this book to my to-read list after reading The God Delusion; it somehow coming up as a counterpoint to Dawkins’ atheistic arguments. I just went back and re-read my review of that book, and I’m pleased…

It was a Friday; I wasn’t working, I’m a little behind on my read count, so I took this off the stack. It looked short and light enough to finish in an afternoon. This need to achieve things rather than “living in the moment” of simply existing and enjoying the book goes against the principles of Taoism, of course. But I never claimed to be Pooh Bear.

The Tao of Pooh is a short book…

My exposure to politics as a child was, like so many things, gradual and haphazard. There were the overt attempts to indoctrinate me into democracy—vague spectres of mock elections in grade six dance in the deep recesses of memory. There more subtle episodes, such as the late-night satirical sketches of Royal Canadian Air Farce, where most of the humour would go over my head for years after I started watching. There were the disruptive…

What is this I don’t even.

Argh, my brain hurts. Where did it all start going so wrong? Was it when the sexually ambiguous cadre of private female shock troops seized the recreation of the Titanic in order to force its first-class passengers to toil at menial labour in an effort to rehabilitate them? Or was it earlier than that, when the ludicrously one-dimensional antagonists unleash a clone army of aborted foetuses on unsuspecting would-be…

I want to start this review by inviting you to read my review of A Short History of Nearly Everything, so you can understand my feelings about science going into this book.

If that’s tl;dr, then allow me to reiterate the main thrust of the review: science is fucking awesome. Got it?

Margaret Wertheim would agree with me, but in Pythagoras’ Trousers she explores how the general absence of women from mainstream scientific…

I really need to stop going into bookstores. With a title like Why Rousseau Was Wrong, how could I not buy it? It didn’t help that the author, is the dean of the local cathedral, was sitting behind the table with the last two or three copies, and engaged me in a nice conversation before offering to sign the book for me. I didn’t quite mention that I was an atheist. Perhaps she suspected…

Certain things just make Canadian public broadcasting awesome, and the Massey Lectures are one shining example. For one week, since 1961, with a few exceptions, CBC radio has broadcast annual lectures on a topic from philosophy or culture by notable figures. These lectures now get published in book format. Douglas Coupland’s most recent novel, Player One, is an adaptation of the lectures he gave in 2010. Now Neil Turok, a noted physicist and current…

Editor’s note (2020): Since writing this review in 2012, Adams’ behaviour has continued to deteriorate. He now regularly espouses views I find reprehensible, and as such, I can neither recommend nor endorse Dilbert or any of Adams’ other writings. This review remains for posterity.

Scott Adams is an interesting figure. I'm an unabashed Dilbert fan; I have the massive, slipcase-clad twentieth anniversary book, and I particularly love the short-lived TV series. I don't regularly read…