How the world thinks- book review
Julian Baggini’s (now quite old) book bites off a little more than it can strictly chew, but still does a great service.
I have covered ambitious books already here- but what Julian Baggini aims for in this book is kind of astonishing for a single volume. For the sake of brevity, I’m going to cover what he is aiming for alongside some comments on whether I think he achieves it.
1) He aims for a comprehensive survey of world thought, both scholarly and, to an extent, folk. He does manage to cover a huge amount, from Australian Aboriginal cosmology to Japanese virtue ethics, but inevitably as an academic philosopher, Baggini gravitates to his equivalents in India and East Asia. This creates some odd gaps- African philosophy is virtually absent, and there is even a rather apologetic coda on Russian philosophy which feels a little like he just ran out of time to research it. But the scope, even with those caveats, is impressive.
2) He aims to explain a diversity of concepts and world views in a way that is comprehensible to the general reader. Some jargon is inevitable- language is so tied to culture and usage that direct translation leads to a huge loss of meaning. I think, by the end of the book, that I was a little clearer in knowing my anumana from my eudaimonia, but I did struggle at times. I suspect a reader who is less relaxed than me about understanding precisely what is going on might get frustrated.
3) To advance the narrative, he needs to make generalisations about cultural and philosophical traditions without slipping into stereotyping and Orientalism. Here he mainly succeeds- it is hard to do this 100% while still having fluent text that doesn’t stop every sentence to caveat- but there are a couple of unfortunate moments. The vignette from the Indian Philosophical Congress at the beginning is engaging, but leaves the impression that Baggini doesn’t take Indian philosophy that seriously, and impression that never quite leaves the reader despite extensive coverage of the Upanisads. Conversely, he seems very reverent of Japanese thought, in a way that sometimes slips into romanticism- he claims that when a Japanese person encounters a circle, they see not the line but the space enclosed- an empirical claim that I am not sure he really has evidenced.
4) This one is more subtle, but Baggini makes the point that you cannot fully understand these philosophical ideas without to some degree in immersing yourself in the state of mind from which they emerge. Perhaps the best example of this is his descrption of another book, The Book of Tea, which is both a description of Japanese tea ceremonies, and a meditation of sorts. I think there are passages where this book is trying to coax the Western reader out of their mindset and into another, by thought experiment, metaphor or analogy. But then the word count intervenes and we need to move on. Still, the effect is tantalising.
For a book that I admire and enjoyed, I am perhaps being quite critical and picky. I also being a little unfair because although the title and some of the framing suggests something highly ambitious, at other times, Baggini’s aim is more modest–to promote curiosity about and empathy towards other philosophical traditions. To look outside our own cultures and recognise the folly of thinking that western philosophy is the only proper philosophy. And in that he richly succeeds.
The book can be purchased here (or anywhere, really)
Next time, a film-making game of uncommon tricksiness