Book Festival event: A C Grayling and the Good Book

[marjoramblues]

Grayling is appearing at the Edinburgh Book Festival - Sunday 12th August.

The Good Book is his 'secular bible', which sounds intriguing but not so much that I've rushed out to get a copy. Has anyone here read it ? Any thoughts about the book and Grayling ?

Grayling will be 'outlining his views on the moral and philosophical beliefs underpinning a good university education, drawing on The Good Book to illustrate his ideas'...

Way to go, Grayling - promoting both his book and his own University...

[marjoramblues]

OK, so no 'takers'

[marjoramblues]

Received Grayling's 'The Good Book' today - oh dear

[artisticsolution]

Received Grayling's 'The Good Book' today - oh dear

It's always fun reading with you, M. I am afraid my dance card is full right now. But let me know if you enjoyed it please...I always enjoy the books you recommend.

[ForgedinHell]

OK, so no 'takers'

I like Grayling, but I never read that specific book.

[marjoramblues]

Received Grayling's 'The Good Book' today - oh dear

It's always fun reading with you, M. I am afraid my dance card is full right now. But let me know if you enjoyed it please...I always enjoy the books you recommend.

Yes, AS, I remember our travels with Marcus, Goethe and Kierkegaard very well - and how brilliantly you expressed your 'take' on each
Not sure that I have ever offered up recommendations, or reviews; it's been more about picking a book up and seeing where it leads me...if anywhere...

This one of Grayling's - well - there are plenty of crits on amazon, and elsewhere. I exercised that well-known 'principle of charity' even to buy it

Edit to add:

if you were ever enticed to buy it, then I don't think it would 'work' very well on Kindle. The hard physical copy is set up in Books, Chapters and Verse - two columns per page. And can be 'dipped' into, if so inclined, rather than read cover to cover.

[marjoramblues]

OK, so no 'takers'

I like Grayling, but I never read that specific book.

Thanks, ForgedinHell, for your response.

When you say that you like Grayling, do you mean that you have read and enjoyed other books by him, or what ?

My current knowledge of Grayling is very limited - something along the lines of :
'A.C. Grayling is a professor of philosophy at London University and the author of many books' (inner back cover flap)

Also, I'm aware of the controversy surrounding his establishment of a new University...

I am trying to get over my feelings that he is a most vain and pretentious person; anyone accomplishing what he has deserves to be given a chance, doncha think ?

[ForgedinHell]

OK, so no 'takers'

I like Grayling, but I never read that specific book.

Thanks, ForgedinHell, for your response.

When you say that you like Grayling, do you mean that you have read and enjoyed other books by him, or what ?

My current knowledge of Grayling is very limited - something along the lines of :
'A.C. Grayling is a professor of philosophy at London University and the author of many books' (inner back cover flap)

Also, I'm aware of the controversy surrounding his establishment of a new University...

I am trying to get over my feelings that he is a most vain and pretentious person; anyone accomplishing what he has deserves to be given a chance, doncha think ?

I have read a number of his books. They often repeat the same information, but they are easy to read and insightful. I've seen videos of him debating as well, and he always remains calm in a debate, sometimes, maybe too calm, but he always seems to present himself as a thoughtful person. He is trying to popularize philosophy and the humanities for the masses, some what like Carl Sagan who promoted science for the masses. Overall, I think he is a good representative for philosophy in the modern world.

[marjoramblues]

ForgedinHell:

I have read a number of his books. They often repeat the same information, but they are easy to read and insightful. I've seen videos of him debating as well, and he always remains calm in a debate, sometimes, maybe too calm, but he always seems to present himself as a thoughtful person. He is trying to popularize philosophy and the humanities for the masses, some what like Carl Sagan who promoted science for the masses. Overall, I think he is a good representative for philosophy in the modern world.

Interesting that you say that his books 'often repeat the same information'. At his Sunday Sermon, Grayling took issue with one of his questioners - a retired science academic who queried the place of Science in Grayling's University. Grayling, as far as I recall, had only briefly mentioned 'neuroscience',and so the question was genuine.
But perhaps I was one of those who Grayling stated only hear what interests them and so only catch 25% of what he has to say; that is why he repeats things 4 times

Grayling is clearly a most clever, articulate and persuasive character who exudes conviction and authority - he jokes about being 'God'...and the Sunday morning event was clearly chosen for his self-styled 'Sermon' - basically a Promotion of His University !

[John]

What was the issue regarding science and what did Grayling take exception to?

[marjoramblues]

What was the issue regarding science and what did Grayling take exception to?

To be honest, I can't recall the specifics of the question, sorry. This was at the end of a hot, hour-long, so-called 'book' event at which I became both enthralled by Grayling's arguments for, and outline of, his 'New College of the Humanities' (NCH) and frustrated by it. Like so many Sunday Sermons, I wanted to jump up and shout 'Objection !' - usually at some generalization by Grayling and some fly away statistics. More importantly, I was disappointed that there was little explicit 'drawing on the Good Book' - I had expected there to a deeper connection with particular references to any suitable Book Chapter or Verse.

The question might have centred around the 'Science Literacy' course - one of 3 core courses, part of the 'Diploma of New College Humanities' which is studied in addition to the University of London degree (For more info, see website).
However, my drowsy ears pricked up when Grayling, before answering the question, appeared to take exception to the 'fact' that he hadn't been listened to - the questioner was not paying attention in class, and was duly 'put-down' !

I've been trying to get the measure of the man.
For example - the 'Good Book' is said to 'made in just the same way as the Judaeo-Christian Bible was made: by redaction, editing, paraphrasing, interpolation, arrangement and rewriting of texts from the last 3,000 years of the great secular traditions. The Bible was made over many years by many hands; The Good Book has been made by philosopher A.C. Grayling' - (see inner flap)

Now, one of my reactions to this is - if a Secular bible needed to be written, why would it only be 'made' by one man alone.
And why would he make it so that his own writings are muddled in with a host of other non-referenced texts and traditions.

Just as the Bible has been re-written, re-packaged and re-interpreted, so will the Good Book. What a gold mine...
Next up - a highly acclaimed one-volume guide to Grayling's Word 'The Good Book Commentary' ?

[RickLewis]

I haven't read The Good Book, though I browsed it in a bookshop recently.

We did recently review an earlier book by AC Grayling on religion. It was Against All Gods (2007) and the review is here:

http://philosophynow.org/issues/91/Agai ... C_Grayling

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Against All Gods by A.C. Grayling

Chad Trainer ponders A.C. Grayling’s assertion that religion is in its death throes.

In the long succession of books by the New Atheists, one small book that has passed by largely unnoticed is A.C. Grayling’s Against All Gods (2007). This is a shame, because although it covers familiar ground, it could be an ideal read for someone making their initial foray into skeptical critiques of religion, since the book’s topics are very general in nature (apart from a chapter lamenting the failure of Michael Behe’s ‘science’ to conform to Popper’s canons of what science is).

From 1991 to 2011, Grayling was Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck College, University of London. In 2011 he founded and became the first Master of the New College of the Humanities, a private undergraduate college in London. Fans of Russell are most likely to be familiar with Grayling either from his book on Russell for Oxford’s ‘Very Short Introductions’ series, or from his essay on Russell’s philosophy of science for the Cambridge Companion to Russell.

In Against All Gods, Grayling argues that far from religion enjoying a resurgence, we are witnessing religion in its death throes (p.54). As Grayling would have it, civilized societies ought seriously to heed the connection between the evils produced and prevailing throughout the world and a “failure to uphold intellectual rigour in education.” And one important symptom of this absence of intellectual rigor is people’s failure to demand that “religious belief be a private and personal matter for indulgence only in the home, accepting it in the public sphere only on an equal footing with other interest groups such as trade unions and voluntary organizations such as the Rotary Club” (p.45). Like Russell, Grayling’s unabashed position is that religion “deserves no more respect than any other viewpoint, and not as much as most” (p.7), and that “It is time to reverse the prevailing notion that religious commitment is intrinsically deserving of respect, and that it should be handled with kid gloves and protected by custom and in some cases law, against criticism and ridicule” (p.15). Grayling makes a further point of asserting that “no atheist should call himself or herself one. The term already sells a pass to theists, because it invites debate on their ground. A more appropriate term is ‘naturalist’” (p.28, See also p.35).

G.K. Chesterton claimed “there are only two kinds of people: those who accept dogmas and know it, and those who accept dogmas and don’t know it.” Grayling contends, “He [Chesterton] is wrong: there are three kinds of people; these two, and those who know a dogma when it barks, when it bites, and when it should be put down” (p.37). But Grayling doesn’t think the death of religion will necessarily leave life empty of meaning: “Those who are not religious have available to them a rich ethical outlook – all the richer indeed for being the result of reflection as opposed to convention – whose roots lie in classical antiquity, when the great tradition of ethical thought in Western philosophy began” (p.59).

It is refreshing to have a first-rate philosophic mind such as Grayling’s treating issues important to the general public. The importance of the issues this book discusses, and the lucidity of its exposition, are beyond doubt. This book is a good, easy read; but probably expendable for those already familiar with the writings of the ‘four horsemen’ of New Atheism, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett. Indeed, Grayling describes his remarks in the book as “brief and blunt” (p.12), in contrast to his more substantial books to which the Introduction refers the reader should they relish more detail. In general, Grayling deserves to be read as widely as the ‘four horsemen’.

© Chad Trainer 2012

Chad Trainer is an independent scholar engaged in a study of ideas and arguments from the history of philosophy.

• Against All Gods: Six Polemics on Religion and an Essay on Kindness, A. C. Grayling, Oberon Masters, 2007, 64 pages, £8.99 pb, ISBN 978-1840027280.