Worth the price for the first essay alone... | On the Edge of Certainty: Philosophical Explorations |...

book: On the Edge of Certainty: Philosophical Explorations | Raymond Tallis

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	• On the Edge of Certainty: Philosophical Explorations Raymond Tallis Palgrave Macmillan, 1999 - 256 pages average customer review:based on 2 reviews view larger image
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Prerequisite, needed background

Tallis's works are brilliant and noteworthy, though still harboring some obscure problems (which I won't specify here). For an adequate appreciation of this book, however, one should have read the work Tallis considers as foundational: The Explicit Animal. It will become apparent that, as he notes in his Preface to "On the Edge...", his prime concern and target of criticism is material reductionism--biological materialism, functionalism, computational models, neutral monisms, and the like--which, as he himself puts it, "traduce" human consciousness. I believe that one reader's criticism that Tallis's work is obscure or difficult will not stand up if the reader has properly prepared herself/himself. To be sure, there is a certain kind of ineffability in Tallis's key notion of EXPLICITNESS, but, as he explains in considerable detail in his foundational book, that limitation in his conceptual framework is quite unavoidable by the very (ontological) nature of that framework. (I think his explicitness notions could be enriched, and made more meaningful, by the addition of other dimensions, a task to which I'm currently devoted.) Incidentally, I suspect that the readership will sharply bifurcate into those who will see Tallis's arguments as obviously compelling and eminently reasonable, and those who will see them as nonsensical and unscientifically mystical.
So--read "The Explicit Animal" first, and then enjoy "On the Edge".

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Worth the price for the first essay alone...

It is unfortunate that Tallis' views seem to be rather obscure compared to the large piles of tripe put out by people such as Dennett, Dawkins, Foucault and the Churchlands. In the series of essays contained in this book Tallis mehodically dismantles many aspects of both modernism and its antithesis, post-modernism.

Both have needed to have their fundamental frameworks laid bare but few have been able to cut through all the self-grandizing hyperbole to really go for the jugular. Tallis' essays demonstrate his wide range of knowledge and very perceptive views.

The first essay, "Explicitness and Truth (and Falsehood)" is worth the price of the book alone since it brings to the fore how the nature of truth itself has been obscured and twisted to suit modernism and post-modernism. Not only does Tallis' argument lay bare the problems but this is one of the few philosophical works that is quite readable. That is, Tallis' tone and style make this book quite enjoyable to read.

The "A Critical Dictionay of Neuromythology" neatly debunks the interesting variations on definitions readily invented by authors such as the Churchlands and Dennett. I suspect they will bluster and perhaps produce some responses but the true nature of their arguments, incoherence, shines forth after reading this work.

I enjoyed Tallis' references to Wittgenstein and the critique of de Saussure in addition to the other essays. Throughout the book Tallis displays a quiet brilliance that will hopefully be recognized by others in the philosophy of mind.

Enjoy.

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In earlier work, Raymond Tallis defends the distinctive nature of human consciousness against the misrepresentations of many philosophers and cognitive scientists who aimed to reduce it to a set of functions understood in evolutionary, neurobiological, and computational terms. This book continues to investigate these implications of human nature advanced in his earlier works for our understanding of the nature of truth, of language, of the mind, and of the self.

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