Off and on, I have been reading Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error by Kathryn Shultz. The woman can write and the breadth and insight she shows is terrific. The most amazing thing she has mentioned in my latest readings is the case of Hannah, who is blind but DOESN’T KNOW IT!!! How is that possible? The woman gets nerve messages to a part of her brain that get interpreted as sight. She has “memories” of sights that she has never seen! The very possibility would give Decartes pause. He is the philosopher/mathematician who tried to find an absolute and undeniable basis on which to base philosophy. He decided that his sense data (eyes, ears, etc.) could be mistaken but I bet he didn’t know about the possibility of being blind and not knowing it. He took as the most sure thing he could find in his life and mind, his awareness of his own thoughts and famously said, “I think, therefore I am.” Because he and many other thinkers since the time of Galileo and other scientists were trying to reconcile the Christian church’s doctrine with the discoveries of science, he wanted to try to keep ideas of the mind/soul separate from the body.
That and many other insights were delivered by Prof. Lawrence Cahoone in his Teaching Company course on the modern intellectual tradition. I was especially attracted to his course by the fact that he discusses the history of western philosophy from Aristotle to postmodernism, which is a heck of a span. I will say that all in all, I personally find few officially recognized philosophers worth much study and time.
Recently, we finished Bill Bryson’s lastest book, “At Home: A Short History of Private Life”. It is another excellent book by the author of “The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid” and “A Short History of Nearly Everything.” This latter is easily the best history of science I have read, or rather, listened to. Bryson is an American, lived in Britain for about 20 years, moved back to the States and then back to Britain. He lives in a rectory built in the 1850’s and got interested in its history, especially the history of the rooms of our houses: history of the living room, the kitchen, the dining room, etc. Of course, that is close to being the history of us and the book is light but covers many aspects of our lives and living in a easy to read but interesting way.
