Students of psychology and philosophy will find much value in Boyer’s treatise, but it will probably strike most general...
A roundabout consideration of why humans turn to otherworldly thoughts.
Boyer (Collective Memory and Individual Memory/Washington Univ.) is fluent in several disciplines that touch on the cognitive sciences, including physical anthropology and evolutionary psychology. All of these disciplines, along with classical philosophy, come to bear on his account of why humans in every place and at every time have found it necessary or desirable to think of gods, the afterlife, and other extraordinary matters, building “complex supernatural constructs out of very simple conceptual bricks” (such as the recognition that all mortal beings die). While recognizing that religious beliefs vary widely within and between cultures and individuals, the author suggests that we hold them largely because we can; that is, all humans possess “the mind it takes to have religion,” a mind that uses processes such as “decoupling” and “inference systems” to arrive at what Boyer considers to be eminently practical reasoning about the meaning of life (reasoning that can sometimes involve inventing cosmic explanations for the mysteries and problems the mind confronts). Regrettably, the author is rarely straightforward in making such arguments, preferring instead to linger over (and then demolish) straw-man arguments and to show the flaws in other influential theories of religion (such as those of William James). The noted biologist E.O. Wilson gives a more concise and better argued account of the evolutionary basis of religion—if one that seems calculated to offend believers, as Boyer’s is not—in Consilience (1998). For all that, Boyer’s account has many merits, showing how the mind works by means of analogy, trial and error, and sheer speculation (the more counterintuitive the better) in the service of helping us to become comfortable inside our own skins and sleep well at night.
Students of psychology and philosophy will find much value in Boyer’s treatise, but it will probably strike most general readers as dry and daunting.Pub Date: June 15, 2001
ISBN: 0-465-00695-7
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2001
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
BOOK REVIEW
An erudite and artful, though frustratingly restrained, look at Old Testament stories.
The Book of Genesis as imagined by a veteran voice of underground comics.
R. Crumb’s pass at the opening chapters of the Bible isn’t nearly the act of heresy the comic artist’s reputation might suggest. In fact, the creator of Fritz the Cat and Mr. Natural is fastidiously respectful. Crumb took pains to preserve every word of Genesis—drawing from numerous source texts, but mainly Robert Alter’s translation, The Five Books of Moses (2004)—and he clearly did his homework on the clothing, shelter and landscapes that surrounded Noah, Abraham and Isaac. This dedication to faithful representation makes the book, as Crumb writes in his introduction, a “straight illustration job, with no intention to ridicule or make visual jokes.” But his efforts are in their own way irreverent, and Crumb feels no particular need to deify even the most divine characters. God Himself is not much taller than Adam and Eve, and instead of omnisciently imparting orders and judgment He stands beside them in Eden, speaking to them directly. Jacob wrestles not with an angel, as is so often depicted in paintings, but with a man who looks not much different from himself. The women are uniformly Crumbian, voluptuous Earth goddesses who are both sexualized and strong-willed. (The endnotes offer a close study of the kinds of power women wielded in Genesis.) The downside of fitting all the text in is that many pages are packed tight with small panels, and too rarely—as with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah—does Crumb expand his lens and treat signature events dramatically. Even the Flood is fairly restrained, though the exodus of the animals from the Ark is beautifully detailed. The author’s respect for Genesis is admirable, but it may leave readers wishing he had taken a few more chances with his interpretation, as when he draws the serpent in the Garden of Eden as a provocative half-man/half-lizard. On the whole, though, the book is largely a tribute to Crumb’s immense talents as a draftsman and stubborn adherence to the script.
An erudite and artful, though frustratingly restrained, look at Old Testament stories.Pub Date: Oct. 19, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-393-06102-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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