Overall, good review; it convinced me to buy the book and read it myself (though perhaps for different reasons than those for which you found it valuable), which is, I suppose, the best one can say of any review of anything.
The section titled “Field Building” was weak, I thought, and the first paragraph especially. It reads like a bog-standard criticism of ‘rationality’, which has been discussed innumerable times before. Yes, perhaps ‘discussed’ only, and not ‘addressed’ (you might say); but even in that case, what you say here adds little (it makes no reference to previously given counterpoints, for one).
The middle part of the section titled “Responses to Criticism” speaks of a deep and difficult problem, and I’m glad to see this point continue to be raised; it deserves much examination (and has received a good deal, lately, which is good). The critical question, I think, is how to find a “middle ground”; clearly those who came before were wrong about many things (or do we suppose that all knowledge was given by God on Mount Sinai, and all since has been decline?), but it’s also foolish to dismiss everything that our ancestors believed—after all, their knowledge clearly sufficed to live sufficiently successful lives that we, their descendants, are here today; was it all luck? No; the long accumulation of knowledge and wisdom is a real thing, and comes in many forms. (For example, just yesterday I learned, from my grandmother (a retired pharmacist), of an entire field of study—pharmacognosy—whose existence I was totally unaware of, at least as anything other than “folk wisdom”.)
Of course both of these perspectives individually are talked about often enough. We get a sort of “dueling paradigms” effect; and insofar as one perspective waxes and the other wanes, in any particular time or social context, we see what resembles a wildly swinging pendulum. What I’d like to see seriously discussed and examined is the question of how to synthesize both perspectives; what principled way is there of figuring out how to balance (epistemic/scientific) conservatism vs. neophilia, presentism vs. Luddism, skepticism of the past vs. skepticism of the future, etc. How do we synthesize approaches to preserving or rediscovering existing knowledge with approaches to discovering new things? Do the pitfalls in one resemble the pitfalls in another, or are they very different? etc.
(comment continues here, as it would otherwise exceed the character limit)
(continuation of my previous comment, which otherwise exceeded the character limit)
Finally, the question of secrecy is an interesting one. Clearly there is use in being able to hide knowledge from those who ought not (by your lights) have it, and also in selecting for those who do not shy from putting in some intellectual effort; but the question is: how do you balance that with the desire to attract, to your field, those who can contribute to its advancement? After all, if you make no explicit efforts toward that end, then you will select very strongly for adherents who love obscure puzzles (as we might put it charitably; or, less charitably—those whose interest what is esoteric far outstrips their interest in what is true). Do you (hypothetical founder or member of any movement, group, intellectual tradition, etc.) want to attract only such people, and exclude those of a more straightforward, sensible mindset? I do not think so; and any movement that does want this, seems unlikely to be very effective in achieving its goals.
From the best of my knowledge, we do not have a character limit. Maybe you are running into some technical issue? Would love to fix it, since I don’t seem to have any problems posting arbitrarily long comments.
Comment attempting to reproduce character limit issue:
EDIT: Here I originally posted the string ‘xxxxxxx ’ repeated 512 times, totalling more than the sum of the lengths of Said Achmiz’ two comments, with no issue. I have removed it because it took up a lot of space on the page. But as far as I can tell it was successful.
Overall, good review; it convinced me to buy the book and read it myself (though perhaps for different reasons than those for which you found it valuable), which is, I suppose, the best one can say of any review of anything.
The section titled “Field Building” was weak, I thought, and the first paragraph especially. It reads like a bog-standard criticism of ‘rationality’, which has been discussed innumerable times before. Yes, perhaps ‘discussed’ only, and not ‘addressed’ (you might say); but even in that case, what you say here adds little (it makes no reference to previously given counterpoints, for one).
The middle part of the section titled “Responses to Criticism” speaks of a deep and difficult problem, and I’m glad to see this point continue to be raised; it deserves much examination (and has received a good deal, lately, which is good). The critical question, I think, is how to find a “middle ground”; clearly those who came before were wrong about many things (or do we suppose that all knowledge was given by God on Mount Sinai, and all since has been decline?), but it’s also foolish to dismiss everything that our ancestors believed—after all, their knowledge clearly sufficed to live sufficiently successful lives that we, their descendants, are here today; was it all luck? No; the long accumulation of knowledge and wisdom is a real thing, and comes in many forms. (For example, just yesterday I learned, from my grandmother (a retired pharmacist), of an entire field of study—pharmacognosy—whose existence I was totally unaware of, at least as anything other than “folk wisdom”.)
Of course both of these perspectives individually are talked about often enough. We get a sort of “dueling paradigms” effect; and insofar as one perspective waxes and the other wanes, in any particular time or social context, we see what resembles a wildly swinging pendulum. What I’d like to see seriously discussed and examined is the question of how to synthesize both perspectives; what principled way is there of figuring out how to balance (epistemic/scientific) conservatism vs. neophilia, presentism vs. Luddism, skepticism of the past vs. skepticism of the future, etc. How do we synthesize approaches to preserving or rediscovering existing knowledge with approaches to discovering new things? Do the pitfalls in one resemble the pitfalls in another, or are they very different? etc.
(comment continues here, as it would otherwise exceed the character limit)
(continuation of my previous comment, which otherwise exceeded the character limit)
Finally, the question of secrecy is an interesting one. Clearly there is use in being able to hide knowledge from those who ought not (by your lights) have it, and also in selecting for those who do not shy from putting in some intellectual effort; but the question is: how do you balance that with the desire to attract, to your field, those who can contribute to its advancement? After all, if you make no explicit efforts toward that end, then you will select very strongly for adherents who love obscure puzzles (as we might put it charitably; or, less charitably—those whose interest what is esoteric far outstrips their interest in what is true). Do you (hypothetical founder or member of any movement, group, intellectual tradition, etc.) want to attract only such people, and exclude those of a more straightforward, sensible mindset? I do not think so; and any movement that does want this, seems unlikely to be very effective in achieving its goals.
From the best of my knowledge, we do not have a character limit. Maybe you are running into some technical issue? Would love to fix it, since I don’t seem to have any problems posting arbitrarily long comments.
Comment attempting to reproduce character limit issue:
EDIT: Here I originally posted the string ‘xxxxxxx ’ repeated 512 times, totalling more than the sum of the lengths of Said Achmiz’ two comments, with no issue. I have removed it because it took up a lot of space on the page. But as far as I can tell it was successful.