Guus Bosman

In the author's own words, this book is about "different imaginative visions, different world-pictures, different myths by which we try to make our choice intelligible". It is a philosophical book, but with practical explanations on why certain world views (myths) are popular today, and how they have evolved over the last few hundred years.

She does a great job in pointing out various biases modern Western readers have, and how they may influence our world views and acceptance of certain theories of the world. Ideas like 'social contracts' and 'memes' are being analyzed. A central question is the mind/body relationship, and why there is a distinction between the two in the first place in our world views. The author forces you to reevaluate old ideas, and points to subtle assumptions in your thinking. My father gave me The Myths We Live By as a present and the dedication he wrote in the book fits this perfectly: "philosophy is always keep asking questions".

She identifies as a weaknesses in grand theories a large abstract 'black box' between vast principles and specific cases (p. 85). She credits such theories with the fact that they can shed light on certain moral questions, "light up and clarify some special aspect of life, to supply conceptual tools which will do a certain necessary kind of work. Wide though that area of work may be, it is never the whole, and all ideas lose their proper power when they are used out of the ir appropriate context" (p 156).

Her discussion of various types of morality is very interesting. She discredits the "unified" approaches which try to give a single comprehensive way to explain behavior and morals. "The pleasure of showing other people up as moral frauds, combined with the intellectual satisfaction of extending one's guiding theory more and more widely, is a pay-off that theorists find it very hard to resist." She calls for moral pluralism, a subject I'd like to read more about.

Mary Midgley is a good author. I found the first 10 pages of the book somewhat difficult to get through, but that's because the subject is not easy and it had been a long time since I had read a philosophical book like this. After that initial bump I got really interested and enjoyed reading it.

Half-way the book, when discussing the separation between mind and body in philosophical thinking, and solutions for this awkward split, the author spent a few pages on the relationship between man and women. Just when I thought: "why do these discussions on feminists ideas and this man/woman discussion belong here?" she wrote: "Why, however (you are still wondering) do I persist in talking about the relations between the sexes instead of getting down directly to the mind/body problem?" Clearly, the author has a great understanding of her audience (or at least of my mind) -- impressive.

The books addresses a wide range of questions, such as the human relationship between earth (compared to 'heaven') and the relationship between humans and animals. She criticizes the strict use of methods from physical sciences in social sciences, and (rightly) says that each area of research requires different research methods. There is no need to artificially exclude subjectivity (i.e. motivation) when researching humans, and -somewhat controversially- neither when researching animal behavior.

The biggest value of this book is that it forces you to evaluate your assumptions, and to get you thinking. The broad scope of the book makes that the author does not spend a lot of time on individual subjects, but the greatest significance of the book is that it encourages you to always keep asking questions.