Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 01:07:51 +0200 (MEST) Subject: Anthony Flew, Thinking about thinking Hello! I will do the presentation of this book in english, partly because I read it in english and partly in order to practice my, perhaps declining, knowledge of this language. If you notice any erorrs, please correct me. (I'm not using a dictionary, no such cheating...) As the subject says, the book is called "Thinking about thinking" and the author is named Anthony Flew. It also has an undertitle, "Or, do I sincerely want to be right?". It contains 118 pages, and is printed in 1975. I borrowed it at UB, so this is the first of all books I have told you about that I can't lend you. (more such will follow). I thought/hoped that this book would improve my thinking. Maybe it will, but not very much I'm afraid. It's language is quite British english, indeed. Not the American talk soup style of writing. Flew is/was professor of philosophy in Great Britain, born in London in 1923. Contents 1. The Basic Equipment This chapter tells a little about many things. What is a proposition? and so on. It does not start from the beginning, so some earlier study of logic will not hurt. (The beginning for me is Boolean algebra (And, Not, Or) is not mentioned) 2. If/then and All/none Quite ordinary stuff here too, the usual laws (Modus tollens, modus ponens in latin (which is not used here)). 3. Evasion and Falsification The term falsification makes me immediately think of Karl Popper, and he is obiously mentioned here. 4. Motives and Grounds It's mostly about the ambiguity of the word "reason", as in grounds and causes. 5. Minding our language This chapter was interesting, some quotations of George Orwell 6. Figuring Mostly about how to lie with statistics. I have read a better book on that subject, but I don't remember the title now. 7. A Chapter of Errors "percentage of what?", some tricks the advertisers use. 8. The Final Foreword Concludes the whole book. During my reading of this, I tried to observe whether I thought in english or first translated to swedish. It was roughly 50/50. When i found myself translating, I increased the reading pace, in order to not having time to translate. It sometimes worked, but not always. The fact that this book was written in 1975 makes it a bit dated. Many quotations of, for me not known, British politicians and such. I found it on the "kursböckerhylla", but it does not seem to be used in any courses in philosophy in Lund any more. There are probably lots of better books on this subject, but I don't regret reading it. Thats all for now!