Examined Life

Robert Nozick's first book, "Anarchy, State, and Utopia", has been widely touted as the philosophical bible of libertarianism in America, the most rigorous case ever argued against redistributive justice and the welfare state, the Summa of anarcho-capitalism. Here's what Nozicks writes in chapter 25, near the end, of The Examined Life: "The libertarian position I once propounded now seems to me seriously inadequate, in part because it did not fully knit the humane considerations and joint cooperative activities it left roon for more closely into its fabric. It neglected the symbolic importance of an official political concern with issues or problems, as a way of marking their importance or urgency, and hence of expressing, channeling, intensifying, encouraging, and validating our private actions and concerns toward them.... There are some things we choose to do together through government in solemn marking of our human solidarity..." John Donne, of course, said something similar: No man is an island entire unto himself. The Examined Life is a book of homilies - sermons - expressing the earned wisdom of a lifetime of philosophy. I'm not a devoted sermon reader, and I can't profess to find this book fun to read, but it is full of simply-expressed clear thinking. Perhaps a chapter a week - there are twenty-six - on Sundays would be serviceable. Nozick's goal, I think, is to sketch out a kind of secular morality or ethics, not based on religious myth but rather on shared humanity and empathy. Chapter 20, entitled The Holocaust, impresses me as the most fearsomely cogent declaration of the fallen state of human progress that I've ever read: "I believe the Holocaust is an event like the Fall in the way traditional Christianity conceived it, something that radically and drastically alters the situation and stautus of humanity." Nozick declares taht he is not a Christian, and continues: "It now would not be a special tragedy if humankind ended... I do not mean that humanity deserves this to happen... but now that history and that species have become stained, its loss would now be no special loss above and beyond the losses to the individuals involved. Humnaity has lost its claim to continue." In relation to Christian eschatology, Nozick declares that humanity has desanctified itself. "There still remain the ethical teachings and the example of the life of Jesus before his end, but there no longer operates the saving message of Christ. In this sense, the Christian era has closed." A few pages later, Nozick offers this: "Perhaps it is only by suffering ourselves when any suffering is inflicted, or even when any is felt, that we can redeem the species. Before, perhaps, we could be more isolated; now that no longer suffices.... If the Christian era has ended, it has been replaced by one in which we each now have to take humaity's suffering upon ourselves. What Jesus was supposed to have done for us, before the Holocaust, humanity must now do for itself."

In an Introduction to Philosophy course students are usually introduced to a whirlwind of different philosophers each with very different views. Even when the views of various philosophers are best understood through a realization of how they differ one from another, it can be very confusing trying to imagine how the different philosophical positions might amount to something practical. It is for that reason that I have selected Robert Nozick's little book The Examined Life to use in my class as an example of how a philosophical point of view can be used to address the practical aspects of life. Nozick is fairly conservative. I might even be being conservative in describing him as "fairly" conservative depending on your viewpoint. He is often depicted as the conservative compared to the liberal John Rawls "Political Liberalism." For the most part I feel my students are conservative and so feel there would be a good match. So far the feedback from my students has suggested to me that my choice has been right on the mark. While you can certainly read this text through from start to finish for my course I select different chapters to go with different topics in the main text for the course. Some chapters might make better sense if read in order. On Nozick on emotions: I suppose an awful lot of philosophy (one reason some mathematicians can't stand it) is a fight over how to properly use words in relation to one another. One mathematician I know likes to be very precise. Wittgenstein argued that most philosophical problems could be solved just by clearing up the language. Once we clarified our language we would see that the problems were pseudo problems - fake! But we don't use our words in clear ways especially when talking to lots of people who use language in different ways among themselves - some people will understand you one way and others another and still others won't understand a bit. I myself have had the fun of saying something only to be clearly understood by many people to have meant just the opposite of what I was intending to mean! But imagine what it would be like to try to get everyone to use words in exactly a certain way and no other. "Precising" definitions - well, I suppose that is what school is for! But is Nozick an authority? Actually, I prefer Damasio's use of "emotion" in "The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness -- by Antonio R. Damasio.

The Examined Life is the first I've read from Robert Nozick. I had read a review denigrating the book, one of his later works, as a mere "self-help book," but after flipping through it in a Borders' a few months ago, decided to give it a read. If nothing more than a "self-help book," it's one of the best of that genre. I feel expanded, even irradiated. The title obviously comes from Socrates' famous line (challenge) in the Apology, and Nozick's answer is rich and full of blood. A set of meditations, touching upon one by one the significances of life, all flows forth and simply blooms from the opening line: "I want to think about living and what is important in life, to clarify my thinking-and also my life." The act of creation, sexuality, love (of parent, of child, of God), the nature of reality and its component dimensions, politics, eating, and much more are all probed, fleshed full and good. The author's style is bold and broad: it charts new ground, it makes daring leaps from uncertain foundations. Yet, he remains modest and honest. Questions breed tentative answers and new questions: some are answered, some are ground into new questions once again. There is an unmistakable organic nature, and one is left with the warm reward of having more questions after finishing than one did when beginning. The meditations, each a chapter long, grow as crystalline lattices from little germs, pearls from simple sand. The prose is easy: the author, polite to the last, apologizes when brief incursions into metaphysics become necessary. And I, an atheist, was fascinated by these meditations on brahma and the Christian God, the creative guesses at age old paradoxes: why does He let evil things happen, and why is Enlightenment so hard to reach? And I, a libertarian, was intrigued by Nozick's own "betrayal" (if you will) of his previous positions, his investigation of political virtue and the noble-non-libertarian-whims of the electorate. And I want to express just how much this book has changed me. I see things differently now; life itself is richer, holier, lighter. Paradigms have cracked. Possibilities are mossy and multiplied. One night I was miserable-why, I don't recall-so I flipped ahead a few chapters and read the meditation on happiness and then I was calm, content, and real. Though the backbone is not obvious, one can sense a vague progress through the chapters, as Nozick develops his idea of the highest value, the multidimensional amalgam of "reality." What does it mean to be more "real?" How does one achieve more "reality?" What are the component parts and what are their relationships? He then attempts a grand, and-so he admits-very precarious assimilation of reality's dimensions into a rectangular matrix. When this exhausting work is done, the meditations turn to other intricacies that have been left unresolved: light and dark, the meaning of wisdom, a cute reflection on democracy, and the bittersweet conclusion, quiet and humble, sad in its

While I apparently don't have depth of some of the other reviewers, I got a tremendous amount out of this book. While hardly an easy read, Nozick is thoughtful and accessible, something that is all too rare in contemporary philosophy. To those who say this is pablum, and a disapointment, I would say go back to your ivory tower. The rest of us who live in the real world appreciate having a conversation with someone who 'gets it' where so many contemporary philosophers fail either to expound a theory that is coherent, or end up with something like the Men are From Mars, et al garbage that can best be filed next to the National Enquirer. This is an excellent book and highly recommended if you want to have a catalyst for thinking about what matters to you.

I wish more philosophers of Nozick's stature would share their thoughts about the things that matter most to them, and us. A book like this took courage to write, and I found it wonderfully stimulating. This book is a great example of how a philosopher's approach to life can yield practical insights into such topics as religious faith, marriage, love, sexuality, etc. A great book.