A Student's Guide to Philosophy: Philosophy

The book part by McInerny is just an inane and arrogant rant. It has no value at all. The bibliographic essay by Hochschild is very good.

Since the trauma of World War I Western culture has become sympathetic to subjective relativism and unsympathetic to objective morals: In his Preface to Morals (1929) Walter Lippmann called belief in the objectivity of good and evil the "pathetic fallacy." In his The Modern Temper (1929), Joseph Wood Krutch described emerging moral relativism and uncertainty in the 1920's, which viewed traditional morals, religious beliefs and intellectual certainties as myths that have been unmasked by advances in modern science. And in his Only Yesterday (1931), Frederick Lewis Allen wrote that 1920's-era relativism was reinforced by Einstein and Heisenberg, who had brought relativism and uncertainty into physics. Do you believe that the Nuremberg trials of the Nazis were just the victors imposing their peculiar cultural values on the vanquished? If your answer is "yes", then you maintain a relativist view of morality. Do you believe that if the Nazis had won World War II, then it would be true to say that Jews are not persons but are merely vermin to be exterminated? If so, then you maintain a relativist view of truth. And you may also be sympathetic to the "pro-choice" view of abortion, which is based in subjectivist relativism. On the other hand if your answers to the above questions are "no", then you are not sympathetic to relativism. And you may be interested in this book, A Student's Guide to Philosophy, by Notre Dame philosopher Ralph McInerny. Its author views Western philosophy from the perspective of the philosophies of Aristotle and Aquinas. Much of academic philosophy - including what I found while at Notre Dame University - is an irrelevant pedantic game. But this book is an authentic philosophy book by an author who believes in the philosophy he writes about. In my vividly recalled personal experience as a student in McInerny's classes I found him an authentic and ingenuous philosopher. I am not of Scholastic persuasion, but I rate this book at 5 stars.

Rather than a give the story of philosophy in 50 pages, Dr. McInerny points students of philosophy in a direction such that their philosophical studies might actually benefit their lives. The book is thus a defense of perennial philosophy, and the classical view that philosophy is something humans are "naturally" drawn to do, because it completes our lives. Dr. McInerny engages the reader in argument, as he defends this view against modern views of philosophy, and discusses the nature of certainty, common sense, and the role of science. Its most important value is the great faith in human intellect and reason, implicit throughout the book. This book would make a good beginning for college philosophy classes. A concluding bibliographical appendix by Joshua Hochschild gives a brief overview of main philosophers throughout history, and some good suggestions for reading.