[Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener] [By: Gardner, Martin] [August, 1999]

by Martin Gardner

The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener showcases Martin Gardner as the consummate philosopher, thinker, and great mathematician that he is. Exploring issues that range from faith to prayer to evil to immortality, and far beyond, Garnder challenges the discerning reader with fundamental questions of classical philosophy and life's greater meanings.Recalling such philosophers was Wittgenstein and Arendt, The Whys of Philosophical Scrivener embodies Martin Garner's unceasing interest and joy in the impenetrable mysteries of life.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Science, Essays, Religion, Mathematics, History

Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

Martin Gardner was an American mathematics and science writer specializing in recreational mathematics, but with interests encompassing micromagic, stage magic, literature (especially the writings of Lewis Carroll), philosophy, scientific skepticism, and religion. He wrote the Mathematical Games column in Scientific American from 1956 to 1981, and published over 70 books.

Reviews

[S.A. Alenthony · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Philosophy is concerned with two matters: soluble questions that are trivial, and crucial questions that are insoluble.”-Stefan Kanfer

With that epigraph, Martin Gardner begins his wonderful book, The Whys Of A Philosophical Scrivener—a book that has been, for me, one of those special ones I keep at my bedside so I can repeatedly browse it and scribble notes in its margins.

Gardner is a prolific author of over 70 books on mathematics, puzzles, skepticism, science, and philosophy. He wrote for Scientific American from 1956 to 1981, and has been a key figure in the modern effort to debunk pseudoscientists and paranormalists of all stripes. A founding member of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, he wrote a column for their magazine, Skeptical Inquirer, from 1983 to 2002. He has been a loud critic of creationism, and has earned the respect and friendship of the likes of the late Carl Sagan and Stephen Jay Gould, as well as Michael Shermer, James Randi, and Douglas Hofstadter.

In short, he’s just the sort of brilliant mind and gifted writer that we freethinkers love to have in our corner. But here is the surprise: Martin Gardner is a theist. And this book, in which he attempts to set out and justify all of his philosophical positions, is mostly about his personal religion, and how he tries to reconcile it with his considerable rational prowess, skepticism, and education.

Before I address the theological topics that comprise the bulk of the book, I’ll briefly gloss over some of the other subjects he considers. Each chapter title is of the form “Why I Am Not An ( X )”. Gardner is not a Marxist, a Smithian, a solipsist, a pragmatist, or an ethical relativist, and there are chapters devoted to each of these entries and other matters of politics, economics, and philosophy. They are all fine essays, but not nearly as interesting as those devoted to religious topics, so I will not say anything else about them here.

Several chapters that every non-theist will clearly appreciate include: “Why I Am Not A Paranormalist”; “Why I Am Not A Polytheist”; and “Why I Do Not Believe God’s Existence Can Be Demonstrated”. He dismantles all of the standard arguments, including the always popular Argument from Design (where he employs a quote from William James, of all people: “To the grub under the bark, the exquisite fitness of the woodpecker’s organism to extract him would certainly argue a diabolical designer.”)

And then, the book makes its sudden u-turn, for directly on the heels of his chapter which dismisses any and all purported demonstrations of God’s existence, comes a chapter entitled “Why I Am Not An Atheist”– and this is followed by: “Prayer: Why I Do Not Think It Foolish”; “Evil: Why?”; “Evil: Why We Don’t Know Why”; “Immortality: Why I Am Not Resigned”; “ Immortality: Why I Do Not Think It Strange”; “ Immortality: Why I Do Not Think It Impossible”; and “Surprise: Why I Cannot Take The World For Granted”. In these chapters, he puts forth his justification for his own, rather unorthodox religious beliefs. He’s not a Christian, Jew, Muslim, or anything else that is easily recognizable or simple to categorize. He rejects all revelation, holy books, fundamentalist doctrines, or prophets that claim to have direct contact with the divine.

Gardner is no dummy; he doesn’t rely on any of the specious arguments that infest the books of less well-read theists. He never points to DNA or quantum electrodynamics and says “See? Too complicated to arise without God.” He doesn’t harp about some innate moral sense that we supposedly have and which “could not have arisen naturally.” He does not subscribe to what Richard Dawkins has called The Argument From Personality Incredulity. None of those tired arguments are here, since he discredits them all himself. In fact, he makes the admission at several points that all the best arguments belong squarely on the atheist side.

So what, then, is the basis of his belief? You will need to read the book to find out the details. Gardner is a fideist, and accepts the credo consolans: He believes because he finds it consoling. No other reason. As dubious as it may sound in the context of this review, his book builds as compelling a case as anyone would ever be able to do. And while he didn’t sway me in the end (I’m still an atheist, after all), this book did far better than any other in terms of presenting a theistic worldview that I could at least partially understand, maybe even sympathize with.

Gardner is the kind of believer that we non-theists wish all believers would emulate. Intelligent, and honest enough to admit his doubts and uncertainties: if the world’s religious were like him, our quarrels with them would be mere interesting philosophical asides; not the life-or-death matters that they unfortunately too often become. And we could then take Spinoza’s high-minded path: “I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them.“

One of the key questions that books like this force me to ask, and I try to ask this of other atheists and agnostics often, is: how should we non-theists deal with the liberal religious? Believers like Gardner, or the Reverend Barry Lynn, who heads up the organization Americans United For The Separation of Church And State. Are Unitarians our friends, or just a less obnoxious and less harmful group that follows slightly less harmful nonsense? In our quest for a more tolerant, more rational, less dogmatic world, should we be expecting that for calls for pure atheism will make many converts? Or should we look to take baby steps? Many people, today, will simply not accept a complete lack of theistic belief—would it behoove us to then encourage them to explore the ideas of theologians like John Shelby Spong, who has written books such as Why Christianity Must Change Or Die?

Personally, I think Spong, Lynn, and Gardner et al. are powerful allies in the battle against the truly dangerous aspects of religion. Without comprising what we (don’t) believe, we will get further, faster, with their help.

To summarize, and getting back to topic, I highly recommend Gardner’s book. It is a wonderful conversation with a kindly yet precise thinker and gifted writer. The book introduced me to a number of authors and ideas I’d likely otherwise never have heard of. (I was so impressed that I wrote to him about it, and received a nice reply back.) His stance is so unlike what most atheists are used to encountering from their interlocutors that it might even come as a bit of a shock to some.

But hey, shock is good.

[Mike Horne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read this in college. This is a good introduction to philosophy. Gardner is a theist who rejects Christianity (both evangelicals and progressive mainstream protestant and theologically liberal Catholics), but loves G.K. Chesterton and enjoys C.S. Lewis.

I am a Christian and a free market capitalist, but I enjoy this nonetheless.

[Jerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

The most incredible fact about existence is that you and I exist.

This is three books in one. The first part is an overview of philosophy: solipsism, pragmatism, and relativism especially, with a special focus on free will, consciousness, and what reality means. The second part is political: (modern) liberalism, conservatism, and democratic socialism. The third part is religious: why he believes in a generic father-like God who oversees the universe and responds to prayer, and why he believes in the immortality of the soul. Generic is the wrong term; Gardner’s God is anything but generic; I mean it only in the sense that it is not based in any specific religion, though it is undoubtedly colored by the prevalence of Judaism and Christianity around him.

I’m most familiar with Gardner from his old Omni Magazine columns and from his ubiquity in Lewis Carroll fandom. But recently finding Logic Machines and Diagrams while traveling has made me want to read more, so when I ran across this in Chattanooga I snapped it up.

Each section is very different. They’re all fascinating in their own way, but the philosophy and religion sections are fascinatingly informative. They’re also intertwined, as the “problem” of consciousness, free well, and existence play into mankind’s ideas about religion.

His philosophy section detours through the paranormal, a topic of interest for Gardner for as long as I’ve known about him back in his Omni days. He was one of a handful of what the paranormal crowd called “professional skeptics”, and very effective at it. Here, he correlates a resurgence in belief in the paranormal with “the decline of traditional religious beliefs among the better educated”—with actual statistics that showed “persons with no professed religion were the most inclined to believe in ESP and extraterrestrial UFOs.”

Overall, his coverage of philosophy is a grand utilitarian tour through the history of philosophy and the arguments for and against consciousness, free well, and the nature of reality. It’s as useful now as it was when he wrote it.

The religious section is by far the most fascinating. Gardner argues for free will, an ultimate God who cares and who listens to prayers, a personal soul, and the immortality of the personal soul.

The reason God must be modeled as a person is simple. It is the highest model we have of Something to whom we can relate in an I-Thou way. You can worship, love, thank, confess to, seek forgiveness from, make requests of, a person. You cannot do any of these things with a potato or a galaxy or with a God who is a 6,000-foot-tall jelly bean. You can hope that a God powerful enough to make a universe is powerful enough to make a life for you after death, but you would hardly suspect this of a God who was no more than a super dog or cat, or even a super chimpanzee. How can we model a God except in our own image? God, if there is a God, surely is not less intelligent than such clever people as you and me!

Argues is a strong word: all he’s really doing is explaining why he believes these things, and how his beliefs are logically consistent, both with each other and with his sideline as a skeptic.

Like the philosophical section, he summarizes a history of various philosophical controversies in religion (mostly Christianity) and contrasts various modern solutions to those controversies. It’s not necessarily as insightful as C.S. Lewis or G.K. Chesterton—two thinkers he greatly admires—but it is far more intellectually comprehensive. You could easily use this book as a starting point for a deep dive into religious philosophy.

Why have I written this book? …I think I have written it for those who, like me, find themselves unchurched but still praying, still trusting in God, still hoping for another life. I suspect there may be more of us around than we realize, but since we attend no church for the unchurched we have no way of recognizing one another.

In some cases his view comes across as pollyannaish. His conception discards everything, or almost everything, about God that we as humans fear in our limited understanding. Everything that to our understanding describes an unnecessarily harsh God, he argues that God must not be like that. It’s an argument that may ultimately be fruitless, because, as he paraphrases, some things about an ultimate God will always pass our understanding. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t an argument that must be addressed. This was the most fascinating of the three sections of the book.

As a sideline to his discussion about Evil, he talks about past lives, and how “argument from moments of déjà vu is valueless because there are adequate explanations that do not assume previous lives…”. He goes on to discuss a term I’ve never heard before but find extremely useful, jamais vu, “a peculiar strangeness about a familiar scene.”

This has nothing to do with anything and he never returns to the subject, but I’m glad he mentioned it!

The political section is pretty much the opposite of his philosophical section in every way. Instead of treating every side evenhandedly, he misrepresents everyone who is not a democratic socialist while being very careful not to take any position that might allow testing his theories in the future.

At the beginning, he talks about how people of every political persuasion tend to describe their philosophy in such generic terms that no one can disagree with it.

There is always a temptation to define an ideology so broadly that it converts everyone by definition.

For example, conservatives—especially overseas—often define conservatism as “one who wants to conserve the wisdom of the past”.

Who wishes to abandon the wisdom of the past?

The entire first section of the book has been about the wisdom of Western culture, and there are apparently a lot of people who would like to abandon it. How would he react to the infamous Smithsonian document? Or that at least one major news organization was, while I was reading this, celebrating the swearing in of “the first Black Supreme Court justice in U.S. history”?

His own definition of democratic socialism succumbs to the same temptation.

We who openly call ourselves democratic socialists, for want of a better phrase, believe as much as any Smithian in an untrammeled free market in every area where untrammelism actually works. We, too, opposite government overloads, if by this is meant attempts by the state to do more than it can do adequately… We, too, are aware of the impossibility in principle of transforming economics into a science with the predictive power of physics.

This doesn’t actually say anything.

That his definition may not be accepted by all, or even any, democratic socialists comes in his passive-aggressive questions:

Even aside from losses of freedom and massive violations of human rights, who would prefer the dull uniformity of goods, services, art, and ideas that characterize dictatorship, over the variety and multiplicity of choices available in democracies with mixed economies?

Perhaps the most famous democratic socialist today, Bernie Sanders, does indeed prefer dull uniformity, openly complaining about the multiplicity of choices, denigrating it as why do we need multiple kinds of deodorants or sneakers?

You don’t necessarily need a choice of 23 underarm spray deodorants or of 18 different pairs of sneakers when children are hungry in this country.

He seems convinced that government-sponsored monopolies are the best choice for the future, comparing government bureaucracies to private bureaucracies as equally problematic—ignoring that government bureaucracies can’t be ignored by consumers the way businesses can. The choice is between the government busting big companies, the companies living beyond their usefulness, and the government taking over the industries served by those companies. Because busting big companies only increases inefficiency in the global marketplace, it’s not a viable option. In his world, Heinlein’s Sears-Montgomery still exists as the leviathan of commerce.

It’s the kind of simple failure of logic that the Martin Gardner of the beginning of the book and the end of the book would never make.

At the time he was writing this, AT&T was losing its government-sponsored monopoly status. Like many pundits of his time, he seems to think this is going to make for inefficiency and higher prices.

…the competition between local phone companies may only produce inefficiency and higher prices than otherwise would have prevailed.

Of course, this is not really a prediction. It “may” only, so the incredible burst of innovation that followed AT&T’s loss of government protection does not technically falsify this prediction.

What government-sponsored monopolies are inevitable because they are the best? He doesn’t say; the sense is that all of them are, but that it wouldn’t be prudent to say so at this time.

Writing in President Reagan’s first term, he also makes a one-way hypothetical about the excuses people make for the failure of their theories to produce the predicted outcomes:

If Reaganomics has not worked by 1984, you can be sure that not a single supply-sider will blame supply-side theory… We shall soon see if England’s Iron Lady can survive the social costs of having taken this road. We shall soon see how Reagan and his party will fare if unemployment continues to be high in 1984.

He doesn’t make the hypothetical about what actually happened, which is that the economy had recovered by 1984 (and thus was already in recovery as he wrote this), and would those opposed to conservative economics recognize their error? In fact, they went through (and continue to go through) the same litany of excuses Gardner expected conservatives to use. Meanwhile, Reagan won 1984 in a landslide and Thatcher continued on for seven more years and her Conservative Party for fourteen. Of course, that doesn’t test his statement either, because he didn’t say Reagan would lose, only that “we shall soon see”.

This is a semi-revised edition from 1999, well after those events. Semi-revised because he chose to put updates in a separate section in the back. He completely ignores what he said about what we “might see” in 1984.

The lack of even-handedness permeates this section. He argues that the Laffer curve is pointless, not because it’s wrong but because it’s too obvious that there is no tax revenue at 0% tax rates, and no revenue at 100% tax rates. This goes against my own memories of the time, which is that the Laffer curve was controversial not because it was obvious but because many politicians didn’t want to give up near-100% tax rates. Gardner’s ending for this section, however, nearly exactly mirrors his caricature of the silliness of the Laffer curve:

What we do know is this Society is poorly served by a government that leaves business entirely alone, and even more poorly served by a government that takes all business over.

Like the Laffer curve, this is brain-dead obvious; also like the Laffer curve, you’ll find people arguing not that it’s useless because it’s obvious, but that it’s useless because it’s wrong.

Interestingly, he almost comes to an important point:

Exactly how future planning will be made, by what groups and for what moral ends, I do not pretend to know. As I never tire of saying, there may be no best way. There may be many ways, equally good, for balancing government controls with the free decisions of big corporations and small businesses.

According to the index, the words “federalism” and “federalist” never appear in the book; Google Books confirms that. It’s as if he has no idea that a solution to “there may be no best way” already exists.

More sadly interesting is, from his 1999 notes:

The greatest world event to take place since I wrote this chapter [Faith and the Future] was obviously the collapse of Soviet communism. Who predicted it?

There were at least two who predicted it; he makes a very oblique side reference to Poland “catastrophically” moving toward economic decentralization. There were people among the Poles who knew it was possible. And, of course, Reagan predicted it. In an example of the gulf between my worldview and his (one of the reasons I enjoyed this book despite the middle section), Gardner segues from “Who could have predicted it?” to this story:

In an effort to heal a widening rift between the United States and Iran, Reagan sent the Ayatollah, along with a cake, a Bible which he (Reagan) personally autographed! I’m surprised that the Ayatollah didn’t return the favor by sending Reagan an autographed copy of the Koran.

I’m honestly at a loss as to how that would have been an unfavorable outcome; had the Ayatollah responded in that way, it would have signaled a potential for tolerance in Iran that we could have worked with. How this overture reflects badly on Reagan (Gardner describes Reagan’s actions as an “absurdity”) escapes me completely. I’m pretty sure Reagan, unlike Gardner, wasn’t surprised when the Ayatollah turned out not to seize the opportunity—but the attempt is a laudable one.

Gardner does better in his 1999 notes when he returns to Malthusianism. In the original, he wrote:

It is a sobering thought that with all our vaunted science and technology we are still far from refuting the dismal prophecies of the Reverend Thomas Malthus, though for reasons Malthus did not anticipate.

In the postscript, he says, in one of the few unequivocal statements for the political section of the book, that “Thanks to modern technology, Malthus has been proved wrong in contending that population always outruns food supply, although for other reasons famines still stalk the world.”

And he’s generally very good about calling modern liberals to task for their deliberately blind boosterism in favor of communism in the Soviet Union, but when it comes to one of the most egregious actions of our government in the twentieth century he tries to spread the blame around far more than is deserved:

During World War II our government herded 110,000 persons of Japanese ancestry into ten concentration camps where they were kept for three to four years…
Who protested? Not the communists or their lobotomized fellow-travelers. After all, one most show no mercy to possible enemies of the Soviet Union! Not the conservatives or the liberals… President Roosevelt ordered the internment; Congress approved; the Supreme Court validated.

This ignores people like Colorado’s (Republican) governor Ralph Carr, who stood up to Roosevelt and kept Coloradans safe from this horrible policy, in Carr’s case at the cost of his political career.

That Roosevelt’s policy is an obvious argument against bigger central planning doesn’t seem to cross his mind.

The main problem I have with this section is that I worry I’m succumbing to Gel-Mann Amnesia—knowing that there’s a whole section of things that turned out wrong and not applying that knowledge to the rest of the book. I hope that that’s not necessary, because this is otherwise a fascinating overview of both philosophy in general—as it relates to the reality of existence and the nature of free will—and to religious philosophy as it relates to the existence of a God and what that means for people.

It makes a great companion to any library that contains C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton, as it both agrees with them in general and departs from them in specifics. Gardner presents a very different view of how God and the immortality of the soul might operate.

[Hendrik · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is more than annoying, it physically hurts to see an intelligent author such as he try to somehow fix contradictions and non sequitors with flowery citations when he clearly shows that he knows where the problem in his arguments lies, especially against atheism or polytheism or proof of god but for immortality. What an odd combination.

[Michael Norwitz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gardner's a great writer, humanist, and democratic socialist, and this book is like listening to an intelligent person thinking out loud about religion, politics, and faith. It's not a work of academic philosophy, and will disappoint anyone approaching it with an expectation for those standards. I'd recommend it to anyone with a non-academic bent who is interested in exploring new ideas.

[Luis Munoz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Este libro ha sido un recorrer de subidas y bajadas. Quienes conocen a Martin Gardner como aquel polímata filosófico que inspiró a miles de personas a acercase al mundo de las matemáticas gracias a su sección mensual de Mathematical Recreations en Scientific American, se pueden sorprender de las confesiones que hace en su extenso y más personal libro, "Los Porqués de Un Escriba Filosofo".

Aunque han transcurrido ya casi 30 años desde su publicación, "Los Porqués..." es un texto que sorprende. En sus líneas, Gardner destila ironía, humor y sabiduría en cada página. Da la impresión de que Gardner ha leído todo lo que existe sobre los temas de los que habla y se confiesa en cada capítulo con títulos tan frontales como "Por qué no soy marxista", "Por qué no soy paranormalista", "Por qué no soy ateo" o "Por que no me conformo (respecto a la inmortalidad)". Para quienes lo relacionamos con su capacidad de análisis, como hombre de ciencia y mente clara, sorprende encontrar a un Gardner creyente en Dios, en la vida después de la muerte, en la plegaría y ese tipo de cosas. Leer sus opiniones puede ser inicialmente desconcertante pero al mismo tiempo maravilloso ya se puede estar o no de acuerdo con sus posturas, pero no pasa inadvertida su forma de presentarlas, con erudición, pero sobre todo con la solvencia de quien ha reflexionado mucho al respecto.

Gardner no quiere que se le malinterprete: el epílogo del libro deja claro que Gardner cree en Dios pero no es religioso (lo que sazona con un chiste de Lenny Bruce, "es bueno ver a tanta gente dejar la iglesia para acercarse a Dios" y hasta se adelanta a la sorpresa de sus lectores: "Si, nosotros los teístas filosóficos somos una raza fragmentada y solitaria. Somos teístas de incógnito. Podemos estar trabajando durante años junto a otra persona sin que ésta llegue a sospechar que creemos en Dios... cuando oramos lo hacemos en secreto, como recomendaba el propio Jesús."

Pienso que Gardner hubiese abandonado a Dios si no hubiese nacido y criado en una familia de católicos conservadores (como el mismo anota), pero es incapaz de hacerlo porque encuentra consuelo y lo libera de pensamientos vacíos e inútiles (no tiene sentido pensar en la existencia del mal y compatibilizarlo con la idea de un Dios todo poderoso ya que no podemos saber la respuesta y no la sabremos, como muchas otras cosas a las que Gardner se declara incapaz de comprender). Es por eso que nos invita a tratar de encontrar a un Dios personal, alguien a quien darle las gracias o pedirle a alguna cosa "¿Qué perdéis con probarlo? Podrás descubrir que en el fondo de estas antiguas tradiciones religiosas, enterrado bajo la sangre y las tonterías, había algo que les dio vitalidad, que sostuvo y sigue sosteniendo la vitalidad de miles de personas". Me confieso incapaz de esto, pero no dejo de pensar que Gardner tiene razón sobre esto último.

Gardner es un teísta honesto (lo suficiente como para aceptar que los ateos tienen razón en casi todas las cosas), un hombre que no quiere renunciar a lo numinoso ("no estoy defendiendo una postura son argumentos, sino que manifiesto un sentimiento), alguien que quiere compatibilizar su fe con la realidad (y concluir que es imposible hacerlo en ciertos aspectos) pero sobre todo un renacentista de los que hoy ya damos por extinguidos. Libro que merece ser de cabecera, "Los Porqués de un Escriba Filosofo", aunque denso y difícil de leer por momentos, me lo llevo como una de las aventuras intelectuales más placenteras de las que tengo recuerdo.

[Rafael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Conocí de la existencia de Martin Gardner por su columna de matemáticas en el Scientific American y por sus libros contra las seudociencias como “Fads and Fallacies in the name of Science” y “Science, Good, Bad and Bogus" y me aficioné a leerlo. Así que el día que topé, en una feria del libro con “Los Porqués de un Escriba Filósofo”, lo compré.
Había empezado a leer el libro con mucha atención, subrayando algunos pasajes y anotando en sus márgenes algunas opiniones, cuando conversando con alguien que estudiaba filosofía hablé del libro, le llamó la atención y decidí regalárselo, con todo y mis anotaciones. Pasaron algunos años, volví a comprar el libro y recomencé su lectura. Lo estuve leyendo prácticamente a lo largo de todo el 2009, no es una lectura fácil, aunque si muy interesante.
El libro esta dividido en 21 capítulos que explica cada uno la razón de alguna de las creencias de Gardner sobre economía, política y religión. Entre otros temas, razona Gardner en el libro acerca de porque no es solipsista, porque no es anarquista ni Smithiano, ni Marxista, pero también porque no es ateo, porque cree en la oración y porque cree en la inmortalidad.
Sus opiniones sobre la existencia de Dios, la plegaria y la inmortalidad no dejan de ser una sorpresa en quien ha formado parte de CSICOP, la organización de escépticos estadounidenses que se ha dedicado a combatir charlatanes como Uri Geller. Alguien, como Gardner, que ha sido amigo de ateos como Asimov y escepticos como el Mago Randi, sorprende al exponer esas creencias.
Para mi gusto los capítulos donde Gardner habla de sus “creencias” económicas son los mejores, donde analiza a Smith, a Marx y a Galbraith, entre otros. Donde habla de la mano invisible del mercado, de los monopolios y del rol del estado en la redistribución de la riqueza, para mi fueron textos donde aprendí mucho.
Aquellos en los que habla de la Fe y de porque no es ateo y los tres capítulos que le dedica a la inmortalidad me parecieron también muy interesantes por los datos que da, por las lecturas y autores que menciona, pero sus argumentos no terminan por convencerme, porque como el mismo Gardner reconoce,” La Fe es una expresión del sentimiento y de la emoción, no de la razón” Y dice también que el salto a la fe nace de “…una desesperación y un miedo intensísimo”. Algo en lo que se identifica con otros fideístas, como él, muy especialmente con Unamuno, a quien cita varias veces.
En el capítulo que dedica a explicar porque la existencia de Dios no es demostrable repasa las “pruebas” de la existencia de Dios y las va descartando una a una, hasta terminar concluyendo que no es demostrable. Gardner resume su posición con estas palabras: “..,en todas las demostraciones encuentro un salto emocional, ya sea explícito o implícito, que emana de un deseo, de un temor o de ambas cosas a la vez” y remata más adelante: “ ¿No es el colmo de la soberbia y la locura humanas suponer que nuestros cerebritos finitos sean capaces de elaborar una demostración de que el mundo ha de estar hecho tal como es, o de que ha de existir un Dios que lo hiciera así?
En el último capítulo, el que se titula La fe y el Futuro, aclara Gardner porque escribió el libro: “ lo he escrito para aquellos, que como yo, no tienen Iglesia pero siguen rezando y confiando en Dios, y esperando otra vida.” Creo entender las razones de Gardner para emprender la tarea de escribir un libro como ese.
En largos pasajes, lo que platicaba el autor, no me decía gran cosa, pues hablaba de un tema, como la oración, que no me parecía interesante a priori, sin embargo aun en esos pasajes Gardner asume posiciones críticas interesantes, como las de tratar de conciliar la creencia en un Dios Ominipotente con la posibilidad de que los rezos de los humanos lo hagan “cambiar” sus desiginios. La argumentación de Gardner a lo largo de todo el libro es racional y bien documentada.
Incluso cuando habla de la Inmortalidad lo hace recurriendo a “modelos para el alma” y desarrolla tres. Se pregunta que es ser inmortal o que es volver a vivir, plantea el problema de la identidad de un ser consigo mismo. ¿Soy yo mismo después de un cierto tiempo en que todas las células de mi cuerpo, son ya nuevas debido a su continuo proceso de regeneración? Es un poco el enunciado de Heráclito para los ríos, llevado al ser humano. ¿Seré yo mismo si me “reconstruyen”, después de muerto, a partir del que fui?
Reflexionando en esa vía toca temas de ciencia ficción, como la tele transportación de personas, desintegrándolas y volviéndolas a integrar y da el siguiente dato curioso: La primera vez que se utilizó el transmisor de materia en ciencia ficción fue en “The man without body” de Edward Page Mitchell publicado originalmente en 1877 y reeditado en 1973 en la compilación de cuentos, de Page Mitchell, “The Crystal Man”.
Platica también Gardner, en esta parte del libro, un texto de Ciencia ficción, “Dark Nuptial”, que cuenta la historia de un hombre cuya mujer muere. El hombre está desconsolado, hasta que alguien le recuerda que su mujer había sido teletransportada en alguna ocasión y que la matriz con la que la reconstruyeron, aun existe. Usan esa matriz y reconstruyen a la mujer. La pregunta es: ¿Se trata de la misma mujer que murió?
El cuento citado por Gardner me recordó otro del Uruguayo Horacio Quiroga, llamado “El Vampiro”. En éste relato, publicado por primera vez en 1927, juega el cuentista con el paralelismo entre las ondas sonoras y luminosas para especular que si es posible grabar las primeras, debe ser posible grabar las segundas. Dice el personaje de Quiroga “Si la retina impresionada por la ardiente contemplación de un retrato puede influir sobre una placa sensible al punto de obtener un doble de ese retrato, del mismo modo las fuerzas vivas del alma pueden bajo la excitación de tales rayos emocionales, no reproducir sino crear una imagen en un círculo visual tangible”.
Por ese procedimiento, el personaje del cuento de Quiroga, impresiona su retina con la imagen de una mujer de la que esta enamorado y después la reconstruye, a partir de esa grabación. En el relato se le describe así: ‘No era una mujer, era un fantasma; el espectro sonriente, escotado y translúcido de una mujer’” El cuento juega con la misma idea que analiza Gardner ¿podemos ser reconstruidos a partir de un registro de nuestras características? El texto de Quiroga me parece notable, por la época en que lo escribió y me parece que su idea viene de la afición que tenía al cine, pues la persona que se reconstruye en el relato es la de una estrella del cine que se grababa en la retina de su enamorado.
Gardner no evita hablar en el libro, de algunos de los conceptos más recientes de física y de lo qué es la “materia”, habla de quarks, neutrinos y partículas elementales, siempre sin extrapolaciones exageradas, pero mostrando que no sabemos gran cosa acerca de qué es la materia.
El libro en cambio se nota viejo en la parte política, está escrito en 1983, antes de la caída del muro de Berlín y habla todavía de un mundo bipolar, sin embargo es un detalle menor en un libro que hace apetecer otras lecturas, que nos hace ver la manera como Gardner admira a escritores como Unamuno, HG Wells y GK Chesterton. Un libro de un hombre racional, aterrado por el misterio de la vida, un hombre sin Iglesia, pero profundamente religioso. Religioso en el sentido en el que el mismo Einstein se definió y que Gardner cita:
“ Fue la experiencia del misterio –unida a la del temor- la que engendró la religión. Un saber de la existencia de algo que no podemos penetrar, nuestras percepciones de la razón más profunda y de la belleza más radiante, que solo nos son accesibles en sus formas más primitivas –éste saber y éste sentimiento son lo que constituye la verdadera religiosidad; es en ese sentido, y sólo en éste, que me considero un hombre profundamente religioso.”

[Dale Alleshouse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Martin Gardner's The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener is a worthwhile read for anyone grappling with life's big questions. The most redeeming quality is the insight it provides into the author's complex reasoning processes. Mr. Gardner tackles most of the major topics in philosophy and describes exactly how he formed his personal belief system. While I don't agree with all of his conclusions, particularly concerning theism, the depth of thought is refreshing. The world would be a better place if this level of introspection were to become commonplace.

Another redeeming quality is that the book is, for the most part, polemic free. Mr. Gardner doesn't attempt to persuade readers with rhetoric. As he states on page 352, "I find no urgency in persuading anyone of anything". Because of this, it's a great resource for those with nascent opinions.

In spite of the redeeming qualities above, I could only give the book a 4-star rating. It is a laborious read that could be 30% shorter without losing any meaning. At times, the many source quotes feel more than a collection of facts than a narrative. This is not a source for the time-constrained reader.

[Allan Savage]

Gardner does what he says. He accounts for the "whys" of his beliefs. As he does this he presents to his readers what is familiar to their own thought evoking insight on their part. It ought to be understood, however, that he writes in broad strokes and ideas are expressed in a manner that, at times, lacks precision. By reflecting on a wide range of philosophers and artists he presents us with material we thought we understood. His efforts amount to an attempt at preserving the integrity of scholastic thinking, or a contemporary derivation of it, in the postmodern world. Gardner presents us with a North American understanding of a European approach to philosophical thinking. There is a lot of breadth to his work but, from my perspective, little depth. I finished the book with the sense that when all was said and done Gardener, as a 'philosophical scrivener', was on the outside looking in. However, I do recommend the book for Gardner's encyclopedic approach to his material. It is worth noting that Gardner views William James as a particularly insightful thinker.

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

Martin Gardner was ok with not knowing. He was a very smart man and a fine writer of popular science and philosophy. Many of the chapters in the book are about what he has decided is false. My favorite chapters were on politics and economics, 'Why I am not an Anarchist', 'Why I am not a Marxist', and 'Why I am not a Smithian' (as in Adam). His religious thoughts were interesting, having decided that he could not rationally justify his belief. He called himself a Deist or sometimes a Fideist (although I never could quite figure out what he meant by that). Unfortunately, once he got on the topic of religion, he started to repeat himself and the whole second half of the book repeats the reasons for his unbelieving belief. It was never uninteresting, but I would have liked more topics. He gets a bonus star for piquing my interest on a few writers I have yet to read, but now will unless I die first.

[Al Eister · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cómo se extraña este tipo de ensayo, ameno y erudito, no una mera recopilación de ideas ajenas.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thought provoking and we'll written.
Gardner touches on a variety of subjects, from economics to religion.

[Korin: A Crone Running Amok · Rating 3 out of 5]

A rather strange book where Gardner explains why he is not a great many things without explaining what he actually believes.

[General Kutuzov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Philisophical theism

[Louisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This wonderful Book of Whys contains the confessions of a mathematician, a skeptic, a rationalist with a brilliant, logical mind, that in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, he does (did, Gardner died in 2010) believe in God and in an afterlife.

I can't agree with everything he writes, couldn't accept fideism as a way to circumvent scientific reasoning, and I admit I am still baffled by what Gardner calls his leap of faith. It is refreshing though how he assesses, even revels in, the irrationality of his own beliefs: To a rational mind, the world looks like a world without God. It looks like a world with no hope for another life. To think otherwise, to believe in spite of appearances, is surely a kind of madness. Never a pedant, never boring, always engaging, page after page of honest thinking and witty prose. Recommended.

[Nathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm very glad I sought out this book after reading one chapter back in my final college semester. I intend to read more Martin Gardner as I can find his books. Even though I don't entirely agree with all the points he makes, he has better reasoning and sounder sources for his beliefs than nearly any person I've encountered (myself included). He covers and justifies his reasons behind psychological, political, and theological questions. Some concepts were over my head, but I followed along, listening as intently as I could, not wanting to miss anything. After all, Gardner was both a mathematician and a philosopher. How could I keep from reading this book?

Recommended to everyone, but keep a dictionary (read: Wikipedia) nearby.

[Bruce · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my introduction to the written Gardner. I had greater expectations going in than were realized.The writing was tedious and his method of explaining how he differed from others and how they differed from each other left me unsure of his points. The substantial referencing to other thinkers was a useful reference for his readings. I will need to re-read this when I am more interested in the journey than in finding an answer.

[Rossella · Rating 2 out of 5]

'ci sono ottimi motivi per non credere in Dio... ma io ci credo lo stesso. Non è ragionevole credere che Dio ascolti le nostre preghiere... ma io per qualche motivo prego comunque', e così via.
Da una mente così brillante mi aspettavo di meglio.

[Roqsan · Rating 2 out of 5]

In which Martin Gardner, who is the very embodiment of logic when skewering any other form of mysticism, makes an irrational case for his own belief in a deity, admittedly not the one of religion. Why must one's heroes always have feet of clay?

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

very enjoyable...

[Eric Hines · Rating 4 out of 5]

 Very honest and enlightening reflections of a skeptical theist.

[David Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book hooked me deep in the early chapters, and I loved Gardner's style. Some of the later chapters on aspects of theism got a little tiresome and repetitive, but I enjoyed the voice throughout.