REVIEWS 315

exercises found in many other informal logic and critical thinking texts.
(Some—but not enough—are to be found on a companion website for the
textbook at: www.clearthinking.nelson.com/student/test.html.) An instructor
using this text can find or construct these for his or her students. And making
them available to other instructors would benefit many of us who have the
same learning goals for our critical thinking or informal logic courses as this
textbook has. But without these extra resources using this textbook is unlikely
to produce students who have reached its learning goals.
Leslie Burkholder, Department of Philosophy, University of British Columbia, 1866 Main
Mall E370, Vancouver, BC Canada V6T 1Z1; lburkhdl@interchange.ubc.ca

The Little Philosophy Book

Robert C. Solomon
New York: Oxford University Press, 2008, 112pp., $29.95 hc., 978-0-19-531113-6.,
$16.95 pbk. 978-0-19-531114-3.

TIMOTHY CHAMBERS

“I wonder why. I wonder why.

I wonder why I wonder.
I wonder why I wonder why.
I wonder why I wonder!”
—Richard Feynman1

“[H]owever abstract and formidable our questions,” declared the late Robert
Solomon, philosophers should remain mindful of how these questions bear
upon “‘personal’ concerns and questions about how to live and live well”
(2). Solomon remained true to his advice; throughout his career, his writings
treated a varied host of human concerns, including emotions, trust, and even
slapstick comedy.2 A similar spirit guides Solomon’s effort in this delightful
primer in philosophy, whose aim is to assist “each student [to enter] into the
dialogue and think about . . . the classic questions on his or her own” (1).
Indeed, Solomon’s style demands that a reader invest further thought into
the issues he discusses. In the First Preface to the Critique of Pure Reason,
Kant famously cites the view that some books would be “much shorter” (in
terms time required to master them) if they “were not so short” (in pages).
Solomon’s slender volume is “short” in just this way. Each paragraph could
be singled out for fruitful scrutiny. Each chapter could be supplemented
with readings that elaborate on the themes Solomon treats. (I’ve made some
suggestions in the endnotes.)
Philosophy is said to begin in wonder, but it is human consciousness that
makes such wonder possible (23). So, after a tour of philosophy’s earliest
Eastern and Western glimmers (chap. 1), Solomon’s first topic is conscious-
316 Teaching Philosophy 32:3, September 2009

ness (chap. 2), with a special focus on “reflective self-consciousness”—i.e.,

our ability to contemplate such thoughts as “I am thinking” or, more dramati-
cally, Feynman’s “I wonder why I wonder why!”
Reflection on this capacity prompts a number of puzzles. Given that we
are conscious of the world [e.g., thinking “There’s a cat”], how does this
lead to our consciousness of our being conscious of the world [thinking
“I see a cat there”] (19–23)? Solomon dispenses with the suggestion that
others’ minds are inferred from knowledge of my own; instead, with a nod
towards Sartre’s “gaze” (le regard), Solomon offers the opposite view: that
“we become aware of [others’] being aware of us, and that in turn causes us
to become aware of ourselves” (21–22).3
Reflective consciousness also animates our “rationality, that remarkable
ability to think beyond the immediately given” (51). Lower animals might be
said to bear beliefs; but rationality inspires us to wonder about our evidence
for such beliefs (54). Such wondering is the beginning of epistemology (chap.
4). Solomon reminds readers that critical reflection is embedded in everyday
personal concerns, as illustrated by “healthy skepticism”—our practice of
“corrobor[ating] what one learns by checking it with other, varied sources” of
knowledge, including other media, expert testimony, and the scientific method
(54–55). But what if our suspicion were cast, not on a particular deduction
or perception, but on the very faculties of reasoning and perceiving in toto?
Solomon thus recounts Descartes’ “bold experiment” and subsequent project
to overcome the “global skepticism” which threatens (55–57). But should
we feel threatened by such skepticism? Solomon draws a more constructive
moral: that “[s]kepticism . . . is ultimately taking responsibility for your own
consciousness” (58–59).
One guiding theme of Solomon’s text is how many philosophical per-
plexities find their origins in the tension between first-person “subjective”
accounts of experience (29–32) and third-person accounts of what, “objec-
tively,” lies behind and causes these first-person experiences (43–48).4 This
tension provides the backdrop, not only for understanding the puzzle of free
will (chap. 5), but also for Solomon’s discussion of ethics (chap. 6). One
aim of Western ethical traditions is premised on the hope that we can ground
moral judgments objectively—i.e., prove them via demonstrations that are
compelling to everyone’s rational faculties. Kant’s Categorical Imperative
and Mill’s Greatest Happiness Principle exemplify this ambition (84–88).
And yet, some claim that it is psychologically impossible to make moral
judgments without being influenced by our personal perspectives; where one
stands, as the aphorism goes, can’t help but depend on where one sits. This
idea scaffolds Nietzsche’s account of morality (90–91). Yet, by Solomon’s
own definition, we are capable of objective judgment only “insofar as we
can eliminate . . . our various opinions, perspectives, and subjective prefer-
ences” (44). The latter two italicized premises are in tension with the first;
taken to the extreme, these two premises threaten to push us in the direction
 REVIEWS 317

of moral relativism, with its “intolerable idea that alternative values such as
cruelty, mass murder, and torture might be acceptable” (89). Solomon offers
no quick answers here, but that is a virtue, rather than a fault.
In fact, Solomon recognizes that his text never offers easy answers—“you
might think that philosophy,” he closes, “far from answering these questions,
has just made a mess out of all this” (100). This concession will no doubt
provoke the obvious undergraduate challenge: Why bother? A noteworthy
point of Solomon’s text is how often he pauses to answer this natural ques-
tion. For one, reflection enhances our actions’ freedom, for “[d]oing what
you want is free if and only if you want to want what you want,” and this
condition calls for the self-conscious ability to “be conscious of what we
want [and] evaluate the desirability of that desire” (72). For another, living
philosophically enhances our ability to live truly to our avowed ethos; reflect-
ing upon our values “may well serve as both a blueprint for what to do and a
reminder of what one knows one ought to do” and a preparation for what to
do when worldly pressures will urge us to act on undesirable desires, rather
than considered values (77–78, 87). Lastly, living philosophically enhances
our chance at a meaningful life—a life which manifests worthy values—
since “it is only by [our choices’] being appreciated, by understanding the
significance of what we are doing,” that our choices stand the best chance
of reflecting ourselves at our reflective best (95).
And yet—surprise!—Solomon hints that it is possible to live too “philo-
sophically.” Self-conscious “reflection allows us to distance ourselves from
our own perceptions, emotions, and desires.” Such “distance” is fortunate
when it allows us to, as we say, take a step back and evaluate whether acting
on a questionable desire is advisable. At the same time, though, Solomon
observes that “[m]any [philosophical] problems have to do with when to stop
distancing ourselves” (23)—when, so to speak, philosophy risks missing the
trees for the forest. Solomon does not elaborate on this tantalizing point. But
his very airing of this idea, that there are times we should reconsider whether
it is advisable to take (or remain) a “step back,”5 is part of what makes his
text at once challenging and rewarding.

Notes
1. Richard Feynman, Surely You’re Joking, Mr Feynman! (New York: W. W. Norton,
1985), 48.
2. See, respectively, Solomon’s True to Our Feelings: What Our Emotions Are Re-
ally Telling Us (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006); Building Trust—In Business,
Politics, Relationships, and Life (New York: Oxford Univeristy Press, 2003); and “Are
the Three Stooges Funny? Soitenly!” in Aesthetics in Perspective, ed. Kathleen Higgins
(New York: Harcourt Brace, 1995), 604–10.
3. For a helpful elaboration on le regard, including observations from empirical
psychology, see George J. Stack and Robert W. Plant, “The Phenomenon of ‘The Look,’”
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 42:3 (1982): 359–73.
318 Teaching Philosophy 32:3, September 2009

4. In this way, Solomon’s approach is reminiscent of Thomas Nagel. It might be a

helpful exercise for students to compare Solomon’s topics with Nagel’s treatments in his
own primer, What Does It All Mean? (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987).
5. Hamlet comes to mind here. Another literary source, illustrating the folly of
ignoring the subjective in the name of “objectivity,” is Arthur Conan Doyle’s tale, “A
Physiologist’s Wife,” in Doyle’s collection Round the Red Lamp (London: D. Appleton
and Co., 1894), 111–43.

Timothy Chambers, Department of Philosophy, University of Hartford, West Hartford,

CT 06117, chambers@hartford.edu

Merleau-Ponty’s Philosophy
Lawrence Hass
Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2008, xi+254 pp., $25 pbk.978–
0–253–21973–2

WILLIAM J. DEVLIN
In Merleau-Ponty’s Philosophy, Lawrence Hass “aims to help readers—
profession and lay philosophers alike—understand why Maurice Merleau-
Ponty’s thought continues to remain vital and productive for so many
contemporary philosophers around the world” (2). The impetus behind Hass’
aim is that Merleau-Ponty, as a philosopher, is more often than not either
ignored or misunderstood. Though he points out that Merleau-Ponty remains
influential even in some Anglo-American circles of philosophy (in reference
to philosophy of mind and aesthetics), I agree with Hass’ motivating belief
that a book like this needs to be written to help the audience of philosophers
to understand not only Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy itself, but also the impact
it has on philosophy today. In his introduction, Hass points out that, according
to Merleau-Ponty, philosophy is a task of “singing the world” in the sense of
renewing our connections to the world, and celebrating our creative abilities
in our thoughts and language. As such, Hass makes it clear that his method
in this book is not to simply re-present Merleau-Ponty’s writings; instead,
his method is to let Merleau-Ponty’s writings “sing” in such a way so that
his ideas are illuminated, challenged, and applied to important contemporary
issues and debates in philosophy.
Hass’ book contains a prelude, seven chapters, and a concluding section.
But the book, itself, is best construed as being divided into two fundamental
parts. Part 1 (prelude through chapter five) focuses on providing a systematic
presentation of the central ontological ideas found in Merleau-Ponty’s life-
works as encapsulating his phenomenology of living experience. In chapter
one, Hass analyzes Merleau-Ponty’s account of sensations and perceptual
experience in light of two competing philosophical positions on perception,
empiricism and physicalism, ultimately arguing that Merleau-Ponty belongs