A very engaging read on God and the problem of evil. It was a survey of the debate then Davies' own position, which is partly Aquinas' position (Davies is a Dominican friar). I have not read Swinburne, Plantinga, Hick, or much of Hume, but Davies clarifies opponents positions in a seemingly even-handed fashion.
If anyone wanted to 'get into' philosophy, this would not be a bad introduction. It is not romantic or overtly emotional, which is often used as a slight of hand trick to avoid making a logical argument, nor is it unnecessarily complex and wordy. Davies prose is modest and hesitant, occasionally irritatingly so, but you never lose footing with him. Herbert McCabe, another Dominican friar and teacher of Davies, was also simple in his prose, but he seemed to have more fun with it. Davies writes as though it is a duty; McCabe, a notorious drunk whose most important contributions to philosophy were in who he taught, wrote for fun in his spare time as he lectured and performed his duties as a friar. Both authors are recommended, however.
I admit to preferring my philosophy in more practical settings. I love Nietzsche, Rousseau, John Gray, but purely because I like their personalities; I enjoy them as people who reveal themselves so effortlessly. But do I agree with them? Perhaps less than I would with most other thinkers who bore me. Those three are great writers, but as philosophers... I do not know. The more I read Nietzsche, the less ground breaking he seems to me. Dostoevsky too knew the way culture would turn. Even the supposed muddlehead Matthew Arnold, if read between the lines, suggests much of the overman in his constrained English way. 'We are not free to be crabs', wrote Nietzsche. We can not escape the times we live in, and the air we breathe is shared. Nietzsche is worth reading because he is a great writer.
Poetry, in its own way, is philosophy. The greatest poems often turn to philosophical matters. The lengthier a poem becomes, the more likely the author is to muse on why he writes it. Lucretius, Dante, Milton are all philosophers or propagators of a philosophy. Several of Shakespeare's love sonnets are musings on life, for love is not just romance, it colours all of human experience. Love and desire is where a man finds himself thinking that he may be more than just an animal:
What power is it which mounts my love so high,
That makes me see, and cannot feed mine eye?
(from a play, not a sonnet)
Fiction and irony play a great role in self-understanding. Through narrative mutability and the use of different voices, authors can explore reality in a way that is slower, more refined. Kierkegaard does this in
Either/Or and Updike, in an introduction for one section of the book, stresses Kierkegaard's novelistic eye. By setting up multiple voices, all touching different aspects of himself, Kierkegaard reaches a consensus. With his ironic detachment, he can probe at serious questions. To create a new world and new experiences, he allows himself breathing space, without fully need to accept any answers. The novel is the artform most suited for the doubter and the sceptic. Poetry is all about that certainty of feeling. The poems we remember are short and brief. They elucidate a truth then move on. The greatest poems are unwritten for that reason. Our emotions and those moments of clarity are so brief that they are hard to express in words, and those of us most clear-headed are often the least willing to write about how they feel.
The novel, by contrast, has too much going on. It can't help but second guess. There's no end to the conversations and what ifs. It can't help but become aware of its artificiality. And there is always more to be said. The best advice I can offer anyone who wishes to write on a computer, is to avoid the backspace button. If you don't then you will be constantly revising your words and never finishing that dreaded first draft. There is simply too much room for improvement.
Nevertheless, the pleasures of fiction writing are immense. We can have the last word, we can explore other angles, and rethink our experiences and memories. To go back to Shakespeare, his greatness is his ability to give every man and woman an honest say. There is no judgement in his soliloquies. A character may be wicked or foolish, but there is no undercutting from an omnipotent author telling us that they are wicked and foolish. Shakespeare may have been a bore in reality, but he, no doubt, understood the wide varieties of passionate emotions in a way few do. That is more psychology than it is philosophy, but then the two subjects must have connection for either to work well.
I finished
Robinson Crusoe last week and that was of a similar sort. Defoe was never stranded on an island for 32 years, but he had given it thought how he would have acted if he had been in that situation. By doing so, he shows much about himself. The character of Crusoe is interesting in what he discusses and what he deems important to reveal. What he omits, incredibly revealing. What the island is like and what Defoe imagines it to be should be contrasted with Melville or Conrad. The 'actor' in us when writing a narrative voice is perhaps more truthful to our being than what is found in any self-examination or extended mediation. To openly lie is perhaps a necessary step in discovering a truth. Why do we lie? What do lie about? What does that say about us? Feelings are a bottomless pit, without complete definition or certainty. To be sincere is meaningless when to be open is to be as vast as the sea. The 'shallow' actor at least has a base he can touch.
Davies' book is of a practical sort. This is the philosophy that looks at an established problem, sees the responses, builds an argument, then tries to correct the objections it might have. It is a philosophy that does not make for great literature, but it does not set out to be. And if it did, it would be dishonest and appealing to feelings rather than serving the truth, whatever it may be.
