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Sam Harris, Foolish Beliefs, and The Great Books


   It has long been argued by readers of the Great Books that the reading, studying, and knowing of said Great Books can actually inoculate one from foolishness. When people speak in a novel or trendy way about the "dangerous ideas" of Sam Harris, those who have read the Great Books know that they are more foolish than dangerous. Foolish for a few reasons. These ideas are not new, they are not reasonable, and they are not provable. Harris has argued in more than one of his books that if an idea is not reasonable and not provable, then it should be rejected. He is Orwellian in his push to change the meaning of words, and merely affirm without arguing. He seems to be extremely confused on this same point many fundamentalists get wrong. To simply state something does not make it so. 
     So how can reading the Great Books protect us from the foolish beliefs of Sam Harris? 
First and foremost, there is the stark reality that there is nothing new under the sun. For those of us who had read the ancient Great Books, and the previously well articulated various forms of the determinism-freewill debate, Harris represents contemporary expressions of silly old ideas already refuted. These issues are explored in the book of  Ecclesiastes, and writings of Cleanthes, Zeno, Chrysippus, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius.  All of these issues and arguments (minus post Enlightenment dogmatic scientism) more artfully argued, and with greater respect, generally, of divine reality. 
     One of the greatest joys I have had for more than a decade reading and leading discussions on the Great Books is when a student says, "wow, I thought this was a modern idea, but this guy thought of this 3,000 years ago." That is when I usually joke that most scholars with "new insights" are usually unethical or ignorant plagiarist. Mr. Harris is certainly committing plagiarism and it is yet to be determined if he is ignorant, unethical or both.
     The Great Books also help us avoid the logical fallacy of reductionism. Taking something as complex as the issue of human freewill and reducing it to electrical chemical and environmental interactions is not a dangerous idea, it is silly reductionism.
     Instead of spending ten minutes with Mr. Harris (unless you have to), I would encourage you to spend several hours with Mortimer Adler's The Idea of Freedom. There is a great deal more intellectual humility in this work that is both encyclopedic in scope and philosophically informed in depth. Both of these qualities are seriously lacking in Harris's tiny treatise on the indefensible assertion that freewill is an illusion. There are key qualities that separate these two works in a most telling manner. Adler's volume is a thick, deep, and richly informed read, shaped by the great conversation. Harris's is different. 
     So, I freely suggest that you freely read the Great Books, which address the heavy debate about the realities of freewill and various determinisms freely read Adler's masterpiece which takes serious those brilliant authors who took this issues very seriously, and then freely read Harris's diminutive volume and freely draw your own conclusion about human freewill, but only if you want to.


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