The Plato Cult: And Other Philosophical Follies

If you cannot enjoy reading these essays then your brain lacks something that could make your life a better place to live in. A similar kind of pleasure as that coming from Voltaire or very few other witty iconoclasts.Inspite of its hardcover, this is a lousy edition, just a quick nearly-photocopy USA reprint of an originally UK-published book. Even the original typos reprinted (e.g., "whatver" on page 51). I fell in love with this book through a Spanish translation back in 1994: the classroom-oriented Spanish edition was a better physical object than this one. For one thing, my Spanish Stove had its pages sewn together instead of just glued together.

Amid the body count of the "worker's paradise",Hitler's Reich,Mao's revolution and the general idealistic-nihilistic paradigm that defined the 20th century,this book is a great intro to understanding how the utopian folly rears its beastly head again and again.Stove takes on the frauds who've somehow managed to spew out their inanities and call the puke "philosophy".The postmodernists,the idealists and the fuzzy-brained get their proper comeuppances.The unspeakable tragedy is that the Rousseau's,Marx's,Heidegger's and their pernicious ilk were ever taken seriously and thus lent a phony air of intelligence and righteousness to the catastropic utopian movements in the 20th century.The religion of idealism has taken a sabbatical for the time being but everything comes back around again.Will the people in the future be wiser than the man of the 20th century and prevent the more gruesome episodes that defined our time in history's grinder?

Solace might seem a strange reaction to those already familiar with the acerbic writing of David Stove. But then, I assume there are those like myself who were ecstatic to read what they've sometimes thought, stated with more learning and wit than we might ourselves muster.Literally laugh out loud funny, Stove ravages irrationalism wherever it pokes it's ugly head whether it be in theological ejaculations, musty idealistic salves, or po-mo science. There are a large number of writers working on tired ad-hominem slur essays as part of the public reaction to the excesses of political correctness or academic incomprehensibleness, but none I'm aware of have this amount of intellectual weight while maintaining such an arch humor. I only wish this book was about as 10x as long. While reading it I felt the books momentum gaining, as it seemed the essays gained both power and wit the further into the pages I got. I wish Stove would have attempted the nostrum he speaks of in the last piece "What is wrong with our thoughts?", and given us his version of the history of the madness of PHI before his death. I doubt he could have finished or stomached the task, but even the notes would have been enlightening. For those looking for something along the same lines (though admittedly not quite as good) check out M. Stewart's "The Truth About Everything".On a special note, Stove's treasury was a special respite for me in this time of national tragedy. It's been rare to find something that can give you an honest, hearty laugh in the aftermath of such reports of terror. It seems a timely reminder of the excesses of "bad" thought, especially as it expresses itself through religious fanaticism and political murder.

It will be a long time before you find another philosophy book even remotely like this one. Savor it. David Stove not only talks about philosophy, even our precious analytic philosophy, with wit and derision, he actually does philosophy, and excellent analytic philosophy, in a lively and unforgettable style. This is an excellent book for students because it is humorous and very lively, but it also achieves and sustains levels of clarity rarely seen in discussions of solipsism, idealism, Kantian questions and a host of other 'problems.' Graduate students in every humane field can learn a great deal of philosophy from Stove, and students of philosophy have in this book a new model of excellence. His style is humorous, aggressive and precise, while also being very gracious and conciliatory though never merciful enough to give up his belief that he is right after all. Stove is the most combative philosopher, both in style and substance, that I have come across in quite some time. He believes that it is a myth that philosophy is largely based on arguments. He holds, in fact, that most philosophers, including the most famous ones, argue far too little. Stove argues a lot. Perhaps to make up for all the lost time... If there has been a consistent strain to the negative remarks about Stove, it is probably that his style is not sanctimonious, or respectful or unctious enough to please the hotly moralistic puppy ears of our hypersenstive age. For example, Stove concludes that the world of Objective Idealism is merely the regular world spoken of in church and pulpit tones. He lampoons Nozick as having a make believe philosophy. And there are other disrespectful things said. However, Stove is not engaged in any personal attacks. He has the goods on everyone he talks about, and he restricts his concerns to their arguments. He does not make fun of anyone, I would say. It is more like he has fun while talking about the zany arguments philosophers fall for. The main point of the book seems to be to take idealism down a notch or two. A century and a half of idealism needs diagnosis, and not all diagnoses are flattering. Some are even offensive to morally feverish puppies. And then there is the lingering guilt over positivism. Our age enjoys a guilt and punishment game played out over the graves of every positivist aspiration. If the most rational diagnosis of the scene at the death of positivism includes a recommendation that the patient be revived, walked about and exercised back into robust health (sans a few toes and some pride), then it is just too bad for those planning the funeral. Stove's Neo-Positivist Credo (the final chapter) is a very real threat to every obscurantist in the humanities. There is in the end no way to tell you how satisfying this book was for me, nor how happy I am that it exists.

Combining brilliant hyperbole with caustic understatement, Stove recouts the horrors and madness of two and half thousands years of philosophical nonsense from Plato to Hegel, Kant, Poper and Kuhn. Stove chews 'em up and spits 'em out. And not just the high and mighty: a 700 page treatise on 3 years of Hegel's early writings is ground into sausage.P.S. henry@coombs suggests that if two statements are contradictory one of them must be right. Oh?2+2=5; 2+2=15. And Nozick gets what he deserves.