Great Books

[bsrkz@xxxxxxxxxx]

When I consider what I use in practice to judge whether a book is a 'great
book', it seems that it is its continued relevance to intellectual debates of
general interest. Of course, this account basically amounts to saying that
what matters is whether a book is relevant to philosophy.

If we use such a criterion, it is fairly easy to see what is part of the canon
by simply reading to or listening to contemporary intellectual works. It is
hard to deny that Aristotle, Descartes, Locke, Euclid, Darwin, etc. meet this
criterion. Oftentimes these thinkers are even explicitly mentioned by name, in
other cases they are not but it is not hard to figure out the origin of the
theories or arguments (Darwin is obviously the original source for discussion
of evolution by natural selection, for example); in other cases, it might be
more difficult.

Let us look at some examples of great books (or authors of great books) and
see what makes them great.

With Plato, we have the Socratic method, the existence of an eternal,
unchanging reality in addition to the changing temporal world, the noble lie,
etc.; with Aristotle, we have the four causes, substantial forms, Aristotelian
syllogisms, happiness as dependent on one's nature, the prime mover,
foundationalism, genus and species, etc.; with Descartes, we have Cartesian
dualism, the evil demon thought experiment, the importance of reason in
knowledge; with Locke, we have the distinction between primary and secondary
qualities, Locke's notion of an 'idea' which seems to have inspired the
concept of what is now called 'qualia', the distinction between simple/complex
ideas, the infinite regress argument against the claim that there are nominal
definitions for all words, the labour theory of property, the social contract
as being passed down by property transfer, religious tolerance, etc.; with
Kant, the distinction between categorical and hypothetical imperatives,
analytic and synthetic knowledge, the view that supposed synthetic a priori
knowledge is due to how our mind is structured, etc.; with Euclid, we have a
system of geometry starting from basic axioms including the parallel postulate
(relevant to debates about knowledge and metaphysics); with Smith's _Wealth of
Nations_, we have the first systematic treatment of economics, which advocates
for the free market based on a simple model of human economic behaviour; we
have Galileo's paradox, where the quantity of natural numbers and their
squares seem in some sense to be the same, since for every natural number,
there is a corresponding square, but the natural numbers include both the
squares and other numbers, so it seems to be more: and of course the examples
go on.
  
Now, there is a question of whether books that meet this criterion are worth
reading. If you think that engaging in the intellectual discussions that are
influenced by these books is worthwhile, and reading these books is necessary
to engage in those discussions, then clearly reading these books are
worthwhile (at least if the debates are worthwhile even given that you must
read these books). But presumably, it is not really an absolute requirement to
read the books, since you could read or listen to expositions of the same
theories/arguments elsewhere; still, reading the books might be one way of
doing it, and it might have certain advantages. We can at least say that given
the value of engaging in the discussions, there is pro tanto reason to read
the books if they help you engage in the discussions (although it might be
outweighed, and there might be better alternatives). Reading the historical
books might have the advantage that you can also learn the historical
development of the intellectual tradition, which perhaps has some value.

If you think that contemporary English language intellectual culture is
worthless, then of course, you will not think that these books are worth
reading on account of their relevance to it. 


Now let us look at certain types of works to judge whether they can be
considered great works by the same criterion.

In the case of fictional works, it seems harder to justify their inclusion by
the criterion of continued relevance to contemporary intellectual debates. All
you need to do is to read/listen to intellectual works to see the influence of
Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, etc. But I fail to see much influence from
Shakespeare or Homer. In the case of Shakespeare, you might get a quote like
'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in
your philosophy', but this is hardly a significant contribution. The mere
occasional reference is not enough to show that it counts as a 'great book'.
For example, the example sentence 'Sherlock Holmes lives on Baker Street' is
often used in philosophy in certain discussions, but reading Sherlock Holmes
will not help you contribute to the discussions in any way.

In the case of music and paintings, these do not seem to contribute to
intellectual discussions at all, with the only exception being that such works
might be used in discussions about aesthetics -- literature also can be used
as examples in discussions about the aesthetics of literature. Of course, even
works of popular fiction can be used in this context.

What about non-Western works? If we judge them by their continued influence on
English-language intellectual debates, then many or all of them will be
excluded (although, you can see some non-Western influences occasionally). If
these works are irrelevant to English-language discussions, and your goal is
to be an active participant and you only understand English, then such works
are irrelevant. There are very few people advocating for Confucian views who
are writing or speaking in English. You could still engage by thinking about
the theories (or arguments if any are provided) and having imagined
discussions, of course, which might be of some value even if you do not engage
with any defenders of the beliefs.

Without familiarity with the non-English intellectual culture, one cannot
judge whether it is worth engaging with in the first place, and cannot judge
what books are relevant to it; and gaining familiarity with the intellectual
tradition is harder if it is not practised in a language one understands. Of
course, it is possible to rely on people who do have familiarity with the
other traditions to recommend books to read at least; and we can, in some
cases, read translations of contemporary works to see if there are interesting
debates happening.

The mere fact that books have some lasting influence is not enough to meet the
criterion, so just pointing out that there are Confucians or Taoists would not
be enough.

However, perhaps these books are still worth reading. If your goal is simply
to find the truth, you might say that the fact that many people take the works
seriously is some evidence that truth can be found in them (although this
would still be different from merely being influential -- Shakespeare is
influential, but not in the sense of influencing people's beliefs). Of course,
this is not a very reliable heuristic, which is obvious from the fact that
people often have very different beliefs (and although you can claim that
sometimes they are like the blind men and the elephant, this is clearly not
always the case).

Some works from other traditions might also challenge assumptions that you
take for granted, which can be beneficial. But it is hard to judge what works
will have this benefit. Some works might be too similar to existing canonical
works so as not to add anything. Other works might be lacking in anything that
is worth taking seriously, even if it does represent an alternative view. If
other traditions use similar methods, they might end up discussing similar
things; if they use completely different methods, it might be that those
methods are inferior (assuming that the methods employed in the Anglophone
intellectual tradition are already the best available), and perhaps what they
discuss will be of no interest.

For the works to become part of a global canon (recognised by speakers of
English), however, it would be necessary for there to be more influence on
English-language intellectual debates by these works than there currently is.
I do not know if this will ever be the case. If someone thinks that these
works have something of value, rather than trying to get people to read them
based on arguments that they are likely to contain something of value, it
would be better for those people to advocate for the views/arguments directly
within the existing tradition: if this happens enough, those works will
naturally become part of the canon.


This all being said, on a personal note, I had already planned to eventually
read most if not all of the fiction works contained in the _Great Books of the
Western World_ collection (at least the first edition), and I have already
read some. Additionally, I planned to eventually get around to reading some of
the influential non-Western works as well. But even if I plan to read
something eventually, I do not think that it would be reasonable for me to
insist on chronological order, and I need to prioritise some works over others
-- I think that it is reasonable for me to prioritise the works for which I
have greater evidence that they will benefit me in some way. Also, I am
hesitant to recommend that others read something just because it has been
influential in some way or because it has influenced many people's beliefs in
some way -- this would presumably lead to their wasting a lot of time.