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BOOK REVIEW ALL THINGS SHINING: READING THE WESTERN CLASSICS TO FIND MEANING IN A SECULAR AGE (Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly) by Prof. John Matturri Queen College, City University of New York The landscape of professional philoso- ogy, have perhaps begun to develop a com- phy in the English speaking world has been mon ground where fruitful dialogue with dominated by a tradition, derived from both members of the continental tradition may be Cartesian rationalism and the British empiri- becoming more possible. This is found, for cists, which conceptualizes the relationship example, in the growing support for theo- between human beings and the world as ries of embodied cognition which have em- being mediated by a veil of mental and/or phasized a view of human beings as that of verbal representation. Rather than acting physical bodies that are integrally situated within the world, this tradition sees human within essentially interacting with the world. beings as reflecting upon mental images de- Others have suggested an intermediary non- rived from the world and acting on the ba- conceptual sphere of mental life that stands sis of these conscious or non-conscious re- between mere reflex reaction and full-scale flections. Less represented in Philosophy conceptual mental content. The philosopher departments outside of Europe has been an Andy Clark has even questioned whether alternate tradition, represented by continen- there is a strict division between our minds tal philosophers such as Maurice Merleau- and the tools we use to understand and ne- Ponty and Martin Heidegger, which has gotiate the world: there is for him no prin- adopted a position more influenced by ciple difference between the human visual Aristotle, one which places less emphasis system and the, for example, telescopes that on representation of the world than on the extend the capacities of that visual system actions of beings that are deeply integrated or the human memory systems and the note- into the world. For decades the dominant books or computers that we use to expand analytic philosophers and the less common our ability to remember. These philosophers proponents of continental philosophy have do not deny that mental representations play engaged in little constructive dialogue. an important aspect in our mental lives - if In recent years, however, certain ten- there were no mental representations how, dencies within the analytic tradition, stem- for example, could we think about the fu- ming perhaps from commitments to Aristo- ture or non-actualized possibilities? __ but telian naturalism, but also responsive to de- they do tend to emphasize that such repre- velopments in such fields as neuropsychol- sentations are grounded in a less intellectual 68 ABAC Journal Vol. 31 No.1 (January-April, 2011, pp.68-73) All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age and more body-oriented relationship to the Dreyfus' earlier work, there is a substantial world. shift away from Heidegger’s style in this Herbert Dreyfus was one of the most work. Rather than adopting Heidegger’s prominent predecessors of this trend. Since rather prophetic stance and ponderous vo- the late 1960s he has written about conti- cabulary, the authors adopt an informal tone nental philosophy, most particularly the work of discussion that suggests a conversation of Heidegger and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, between intelligent persons rather than the restating their sometimes quite obscure man- pronouncements of exalted wise men. This ner of presentation to a language that is more makes the book accessible not only to ana- accessible to those trained in the analytic lytic philosophers unsympathetic to the tradition. Reflecting perhaps Heidegger’s rhetoric of Heidegger but also to the wider critique of technology as a manifestation of audience of non-philosophers for whom the the Cartesian split between the subject and book seems to be primarily intended. the world, but also reflecting his mastery of This matter-of-fact approach must not, the relevant scientific fields. Anticipating later however, be taken to suggest that the scope theories about embodied cognition Dreyfus of the book’s concerns is at all unambitious. did not deny the notion that non-human The authors in fact advocate nothing less machines could think, but held that truly than a return to a relationship of a sort that thinking machines would have to be robots the authors suggest was characteristic of who actively interact with the surrounding Ancient Greek polytheism. Moreover world, would have to be characterized by though their method includes a good num- what Heidegger called being-in-the-world, ber of examples taken from everyday life, a phrase that provided Dreyfus with the title its core is to be found in a wide-ranging sur- for a classic study of Heideggerian philoso- vey of classic literary and philosophical phy. works whose authors include Homer, Heidegger conceived of his philosophi- Aeschylus, Augustine, Aquinas, Dante, cal position is manifesting a deep critique of Descartes, Shakespeare, Kant, Melville, the nature of modern society, not merely a and the contemporary American novelist study in academic philosophy and in All David Foster Wallace. For all of its rather Things Shining: Reading the Western Clas- conversational tone, this is a book of con- sics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age, siderable ambition. Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly, a In essence, the book is a critique of the Harvard philosopher who had been modern emphasis on personal autonomy, a Dreyfus’ student, extends Dreyfus’ line of basic value of modern Western culture that thought to a similar consideration of the is attributed to the separation of the self from spiritual problems of the modern world and the world that particularly followed from the how they might be remediated. Although Cartesian notion of mental life as mediated Heidegger is only mentioned twice in the inner representations of the world rather than main text of the book it is very clear that his a more embodied view of mentality. This deep influence on it, and on the thought of autonomy, according to the authors, inevi- the authors, can be felt throughout it. As with tably leads to nihilism because it provides 69 John Matturri each individual with an indeterminate num- In other words, the author’s assumption that ber of choices about what to want and how literary and philosophical classics provide a to live but provides no basis for preferring truly accurate representation of the culture one chosen way over another. Much of the from which they emerged is at least ques- book consists in the analysis of the way this tionable. movement towards nihilism is represented Yet despite the questionable nature of in a series of literary classics that are as- their method of presenting their critique of sumed to provide strong expressions of the modern culture their book remains a pen- values of the cultures of the time. etrating addition to a longstanding critique To some extent this assumption of liter- of Western notions of individualism and au- ary expressiveness of cultural value systems tonomy that has precedents not only in the is well-taken: certainly Dante’s expression work of Heidegger but also in such con- of the belief world of his time resonates more temporary communitarian thinkers and pro- with late medieval culture than it would with ponents of virtue theory as Alisdair the Enlightenment culture of the eighteenth MacIntyre and Charles Taylor. In these century. Dreyfus and Kelly plausibly reject emerging traditions of thought human be- the idea, still quite current in the dominant ings are not primarily conceptualized as au- tendency of analytic philosophy, that the self tonomous individuals, but rather as integrally can be reduced to a bundle of propositional acculturated into a context which provides attitudes, of beliefs and desires, for one that them with values, goals, and narratives which holds the propensities to think and act in ground their relation to themselves, to oth- certain ways are as deeply, and integrally, ers, and to the world. In the thought of these assimilated into the self as is a primary lan- philosophers standards of behavior are not guage. This, however, begs the question of reducible to rules, as in Kant’s ethics, or whether a detailed connection can be made methods of evaluation, as in utilitarianism, between a work of the highest culture, with but to deep character traits that, like Aris- a core of ideas derived from the study of totelian virtues, have as their underlying ba- the philosophy of Aquinas, and the deep sis processes of both habituation of action. cultural of the ordinary people of the era, One of Dreyfus and Kelly’s main examples many of whom may have been illiterate. in the book is a man who risked his life to Cultures just may not be as unitary as the save someone who had fallen onto a New authors' method suggests they are. The au- York City subway track: the authors note thors suggest the people of the Middle Ages that, like the heroes portrayed in the Greek were determined to experience themselves epics of Homer, he acted not out of reflec- as given a place on earth by God, but if this tion but merely in response to a perceived is the case how can one explain the popular situation. A virtuous person, for Aristotle, is revolts that occurred in that era. Can we one who acts appropriately not because he really conclude on the basis of a book read engages in rule-based calculations but rather only by a small number of members of an one who confidently responds out of a highly intellectual elite that prior to Descartes hu- honed and deeply embedded “gut instinct”, man beings had little sense of an interior self? to use the phrase that the contemporary 70 All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age American thinker Jesse Prinz uses to char- free choice, and, the authors suggest, alien- acterize the physically-based responsiveness ation.

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