A dense but accessible discussion of the metaphysical role of time in human affairs.
In 1922, at a meeting of the French Society of Philosophy, Henri Bergson (1859-1941), “one of the most respected philosophers of his era,” expressed unhappiness with Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, which discarded the concept of absolute time and denied the reality of simultaneity. Present in the audience, Einstein disagreed.
One consequence was that the Nobel committee changed its mind, awarding Einstein the 1922 prize for explaining the photoelectric effect on the grounds that relativity was still a matter of debate. Both reaffirmed their disagreement over the years, a matter that scholars have not considered of great importance. In this lucid if academic history of scientists’ efforts to measure time and the consequences of their success, Canales (Chair, History of Science/Univ. of Illinois; A Tenth of a Second: A History, 2010, etc.) makes a reasonable case that those scholars were wrong. Einstein did not invent the relativity of time and space, but his 1905 special theory proposed such a revolutionary view of the universe that even those who did (Henri Poincaré, Hendrik Lorentz) balked. Bergson, a brilliant thinker whose writing emphasizes intuition and perception, was also not convinced, “claiming that the sensational conclusions of the physicist’s theory were not so unlike the fantastical searches for the fountain of youth.” Canales dismisses the argument that Bergson, a polymath, didn’t understand the theory of relativity. He and his supporters’ objections stemmed from a “strong repugnance toward a philosophy that wants to explain all reality mechanically.” The author turns up a surprising number of philosophers and scientists who weighed in on an ongoing, if not world-shaking, debate that split the century “into two cultures pitting scientists against humanists, expert knowledge against lay wisdom.”
A dense but accessible discussion of the metaphysical role of time in human affairs.Pub Date: June 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-691-16534-9
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Princeton Univ.
Review Posted Online: March 4, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2015
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.
A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.
“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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