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 | The Big Whimper of Modern Philosophy Posted by Michael E. Marotta on 11/12, 7:03pm | |
| A modern philosophy book that ignores Ayn Rand lacks a firm foundation. Rand could be dismissed as a minor 20th century philosopher. This book also ignores William James and Bertrand Russell. But The Big Bang Theory and Philosophy: Rock, Paper, Scissors, Aristotle, Locke by Dean A. Kowalski, editor (John Wiley & Sons, 2012), spends considerable time weighing Dr. Sheldon Cooper's "selfishness" without getting past Nietzsche and the Utilitarians. As a fan of Big Bang Theory, I expected more and got less from this example of post modernism's intellectual bankruptcy. The Big Bang Theory and Philosophy starts out well with “Aristotle on Sheldon Cooper: Ancient Greek Meets Modern Geek” by Greg Littman (professor of philosophy at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville). “Should you live like Sheldon Cooper? Think hard because you don’t have the luxury of not making a choice. Fourteen billion years after the Big Bang, evolution has finally produced a type of animal, human being, that must choose how it will live.”From there, entropy takes over and the observations, opinions, and “thoughts” have less potential. This book of essays by academic philosophers is evidence of the intellectual bankruptcy of our age. The authors present famous philosophical problems such as "empiricism versus rationalism" without any awareness of the solutions offered by Ayn Rand, Leonard Peikoff, and other Objectivist philosophers. Moreover, the ignorance of basic science displayed by these academic philosophers is embarrassing. In Chapter 5 "Is Wil Wheaton Evil?" by librarian Donna Marie Smith quotes theologian Martin Buber who claimed that the Bible echoes historical evidence that "man introduced the lie into nature." In point of fact, deception is a deeply evolved and widely inherited strategy among both plants and animals. That humans are somehow especially flawed because we deceive each other may be the claim of a mystic, but it cannot be an assertion from a scientist. Thus, the character of Dr. Sheldon Cooper is humorously self-contradictory in his (contextual) inability to lie and his (contextual) ability to carry one off so well. Humor depends on such intersections. Chapter 6 (Selfishness, Pleasure, and Virtue) by Gregory L. Bock and Jeffrey L. Bock baldly claims: "Ethical egoism doesn't have a wide following among philosophers because it's difficult to defend the view that only the agent's interests matter." That would be funny, perhaps if spoken by an ass of a philosopher at a BBT party episode, but as a serious claim by an academic philosopher (Gregory L.) and the seemingly valuable employee of an internet marketing firm (Jeffrey L.), it is just sad. Clearly,this is another example of how capitalism suffers because altruists and mystics hold positions of responsibility within firms. While it is (unfortunately) possible to hold a position in academic philosophy, that self-interest cannot be justified by the webmaster of an internet marketing firm is like a surgeon who cannot accept the need for anesthetic and antiseptic. | ||
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