"Doing Philosophy" - Timothy Williamson (Book Review)

Doing Philosophy Book Review

Timothy Williamson is a highly decorated Philosophy lecturer and in this tiny volume he covers the whole scope of philosophy as he understands it. His abridged CV is 37 pages long. Links are available here https://www.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/docs/people/williamson/TW_CVupdated.pdf

https://www.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/people/timothy-williamson

1

Williamson seeks to highlight that philosophy is already familiar with us and asks us to move from unguided intuition into a polished craft. He argues that scientists like Galileo and Newton did not view themselves as scientists but as natural philosophers, Newton sought to find Gods character in nature and ended up in a scientific realm.

Williamson simply takes us on a tour in Philosophy and shows us how it should be done for maximum impact

2

Common sense is philosophy’s starting point and as thinkers work through scenarios common sense is not lagging too far behind, common sense is an acrobat’s pole for keeping philosophy in place.

3

This is my favorite chapter in the entire book, Philosophers believe that without challenging a speaker in questions and answers session it is difficult to engage in philosophy which can help reframe problematic statements, disputing highlight gaps in logic and test the strong points of the speech. In Christianity questioning ministers is frowned upon because not trusting the anointed ones is a sin – but this is untrue because Paul was questioned by the Berean Christians, they verified what Paul taught in the balance of the scriptures and they found his teachings to be ironclad. Luke dedicated both his books to Theophilus, so he can verify and test the writings of Luke to that of eye witnesses. Disputation should be incorporated in the churches to minimize deceit and to expose false prophets. Sometimes true prophets fail to work hard enough to prepare a good and accurate message and take short cuts, having back and forth discussions can highlight a need for ministers to work harder at their craft.

4

When clarifying terms, it is critical to do so upfront as it is easy to debate when terms are used for various reasons, some terms may not be used because they are truer but because they highlight the issue at hand better.

5

Williamson really has fun with Thought experiment and compares them to actual experiments and highlights the risks and benefits of using intuition, imagination and experiments in general.

6

Comparing theories is the hallmark of philosophy where we weigh options via inference to the best explanation, working with rival theories etc. He also highlights here that the war between science and theology is waged within the valley of philosophy. Stephen Jay Gould mentioned that science and theology occupy non-overlapping magisteria http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_noma.html and reading Williamson, one quickly learns that there is a lingua franca between theology and science, an understanding of philosophy can lubricate dialogue between atheists and theists.

7

There is a startling illustration by Williamson regarding the power of deduction, he introduces the subject of disjunctive syllogism to highlight how we build arguments in philosophy. To interpret the Bible we need to be skilled in this area because the Bible is written in a language that requires the ability to exercise deduction (Ephesians 5:18) “Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit” – Clearly this verse does not mean that we can be drunk with beer, or whisky because they are not explicitly stated, we infer that any intoxicating drink should not be drunk so as to be drunk.

8

History of Philosophy

Mathematics and science sometimes does not question basic assumption but builds on them, just like in theology we at times do not question our basic assumption.

9

Other fields

Philosophy is not a standalone field but touches on other fields such as economics, ethics, he explores how philosophy overlaps with history, anthropology, linguistics, psychology and computer science using Alan Turing as a case study.

10 Model building

Models are simplifications but highlight human thinking nonetheless

Summary

This is a book that should be kept in book shelf for reference as it’s not a once off read and when you deal with aspects of philosophy one can consult the book and see his view, this guide is brief, yet all-encompassing and is written for lay people to follow.

Please do let me know in the comments below if you will consider this book or if you have a book you’d like to recommend for me to read, thanks for watching