About 166 pages into the book by David Edmonds and John Eidinow*. Not sure, really, what I think of it. Conflicted, basically. It’s a rather gossipy book, when I was hoping for more philosophy, as its subjects, Rousseau and Hume, would lend themselves to a very interesting comparison. It does some of that, showing Rousseau’s famous elevation of the state of nature and the benefits to humans in a that state, versus Hume’s far more skeptical, “realistic” vision. They also talk about his empiricism in such a way that I could see Nietzsche’s perspectivism arising from it, and then Husserl’s phenomenology. Had not seen the connections before, when I read Hume decades ago.
So far, however, the sections on actual ideas and the life of the mind are too few and far between.
The book is well-written and interesting in parts, but I’m not sure if I want my philosophers knocked down to such human, all too human levels. Not sure if a book that emphasizes Rousseau’s whining, frequent, unearned perceptions of victimhood, or Hume’s emphasis on his career is something I want to spend a lot of time with. Good, accessible books on the history of ideas are hard to find. Perhaps it’s a sign of the times that those with a gossipy nature and a hook or two make it into print more easily than those that take ideas far more seriously.
Two more successful books, when it comes to pairing intellectual titans:
Camus & Sartre, by Ronald Aronson
The Courtier and the Heretic, by Matthew Stewart.
The latter is about Leibniz and Spinoza …
* Wittgenstein’s Poker, by the same authors, is supposed to be excellent. Have not gotten around to it yet. On my shelf, ready for reading soon, is Wittgenstein Flies a Kite, by Susan Sterrett. Will probably read that after Rousseau’s Dog.
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