Think is a great introductory book into some of the
most important problems in philosophy. Blackburn introduced his essay with a
powerful paragraph: “In the end, it is
ideas for which people kill each other. It is because of ideas about what the
others are like, or who we are, or what our interests or rights require, that
we go to war, or oppress others with a good conscience, or even sometimes acquiesce
in our own oppression by others. When these beliefs involve the sleep of
reason, critical awakening is the antidote.”(p. 11)
Throughout the book he deals with important issues
that define our human nature: the problem of knowledge, mind, free will, the
self, god, reasoning, the world, and what to do in the future. I enjoyed this
introduction through the ideas that shaped our knowledge: Descartes dualism
about mind and nature, its shortcomings and often misinterpretation of the
example that he used: about the doubt being the evil in deceiving us.
Wittgenstein remark of how our personal knowledge and mind deceives us into
thinking about states and things as immutable needs to be addressed. “Always get rid of the idea of the private object
in this way: assume that it constantly changes, but that you do not notice the
change because your memory constantly deceives you.” (Wittgenstein(1953) in
Blackburn, 1999, p. 74). Blackburn brings into attention also the assumption of
future being fixed: “Which events unfold
from time’s womb depends on what we decide to do- this is what the inside
control of a person or a thermostat means. Our choosing models are implicated
in the process, unlike those of a mere spectator.” (p.113)
The essay about important thoughts that shaped human
thinking continues with the presentation of how we reason about the possibility
of things happening in the future or when trying to predict the outcomes of
certain decisions. In all do respects any particular musings that our minds
might entail in trying to make sense of past events in order to foresee the
future can be summed up by the phrase: “The
future will be what it will be. Its events are already in time’s womb. So get
cracking.” (p. 112)
Indeed with this thought my appetite for philosophy
grows even bigger and my wish to comprehend deeper and fundamental problems is
expanding by the day. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in
having a taste of the problems and concepts dealt in philosophy.
