Why Our Decisions Don't Matter: Provocative Philosophical Texts from the Greatest Minds

by Simon Van Booy

Provocative and eye-opening, Why Our Decisions Don’t Matter is one of three slim selections of philosophical texts and excerpts—along with Why We Need Love and Why We Fight—introduced and contextualized by acclaimed author Simon Van Booy (Love Begins in Winter, The Secret Lives of People in Love).

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Psychology

208 pages, Paperback

First published August 24, 2010

About the author

Simon Van Booy is the award-winning, bestselling author of more than a dozen books for adults and children, including The Illusion of Separateness and The Presence of Absence. Simon is the editor of three volumes of philosophy and has written for The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Washington Post, and the BBC. His books have been translated into many languages and optioned for film. Raised in rural North Wales, he currently lives in New York where he is also a book editor and a volunteer E.M.T. crew chief.

Reviews

[Esteban del Mal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Napoleon: "M. Laplace, they tell me that you have written this large book on the system of the universe, and have never mentioned its Creator."

Laplace: "I have no need of that hypothesis."

[Madeline Neway · Rating 2 out of 5]

There is some twisted form of irony in the way that Van Booy adheres to the cultural traditions of the writers/philosophers he features in his dismissal of women thinkers in this book. There really is no excuse for only including two women writers. One of which, I must add, was Emily Dickenson, whose inclusion makes it all the more quizzical as to why there couldn’t have been more (given that Dickenson wasn’t a philosopher and so the pool of candidates for Van Booy to pick from is clearly vast and discipline-spanning) and the other of whose (Janet Frame) work featured in the text was a response to Plato’s cave allegory, and thus cannot be viewed independently of her male predecessor. As a professor I’m certain you are aware of the thousands of women who have recorded their thoughts about suffering, decision making, and the inevitability of death. I implore you to do better.

That being said I did really enjoy a lot of the excerpts that were included, which is less of a compliment to Van Booy and more so directed at the writers themselves.

[Melody · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book but found it oddly paced due to the format (brief intro to historical figure followed by an excerpt) and a little boring. I enjoyed the mini-bios but wasn't as interested in the original source as I thought I'd be.

[John Reis · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a collection of poems and excerpts from literature on decision-making and its pointlessness. It includes several pages of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. Why that is here is inexplicable.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I rather like the idea of this book -- a kind of philosophical vade mecum with selections from literature and philosophy. Some of the selections made more sense than others: While I did not care for the long Wittgenstein quote from the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, which struck me as being cluelessly exclusionary, I liked the material from Homer, Shakespeare, Borges, Horace, and Emily Dickinson. I rather suspect I will continue to make decisions as if they mattered; and I probably won't anguish over them.

[A Ter · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was a big disappointment. I expected an original reflection given the provocative title -- similar to the better of the recent pop philosophy wave à la Alain de Botton. However, this book is little more than a (often cliche) compilation of excerpts of others' works. Any moderately well-read individual will be familiar with the vast majority of the cited material and the "editor" adds little original thought or value.

[Kari · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of writings that are related to the question of whether our decisions matter. There were some excerpts for works I’d already read so that was meh. But I liked the inclusion of poetry, literature, and art—all other ways of thinking about/playing with the central tenet of the book— our decisions both large and small, seemingly consequential and utterly banal, really don’t matter as we imagine they do. Agree or disagree, the book gives food for thought.

[James Vogl · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little bit of a misleading title. This is not a smart thinking book but a nice little gentle introduction to the philosophy of mortality. The curation left me wanting to follow up reading the Odyssey, The Stranger and Jude the Obscure!

[Filipe Kaneko · Rating 5 out of 5]

"In the midst of life we are in death." - the book of common prayer

More of an exert of ideas on the matter and less but still coherent story on why our decisions do not matter.

[Trisha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why Our Decisions Don't Matter is a thought-provoking text challenging common perceptions about free will and personal choice. Using selections from a variety of sources, Van Booy presents arguments without expounding upon them heavily. The book is clearly designed to leave interpretation up to the reader.

For me, reading this was like getting snapshots of other texts I loved, texts I read in college when I was still "smart." Kerouac, Sartre, Camus, Russell, Wittgenstein, Plato, the list goes on and on. If I had to pick a favorite entry, it would be the selection from When Science Meets Religion by Ian Barbour...or Colin McGinn's Shakespeare's Philosophy...or..seriously, the text is full of intriguing, well-written, and clear additions to the debate. I actually have so many sticky notes in the text, the pages won't lay flat.

Despite the high level of thought, the text is remarkably easy to interact with. The selections are clear and to-the-point which is something I appreciate in a philosophical text because while I love to ponder the ideas presented, I'm really not a fan of having to wrestle with the language to get at the ideas.

I have Van Booy's Why We Love and Why We Fight on my TBR shelves, and I can't wait to read them.

[Amari · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title implies that the author will offer some answer to the question posed therein -- but he doesn't appear to do anything of the sort. The literary excerpts, reproductions of paintings, etc. are worthy and of interest to anyone with any sense of esthetics, letters, or history, but the message of the collection seems to be simply that we should put things in perspective because we'll all die anyway. This is a fine enough theme for a collection, I suppose, but it doesn't stand up to what the author purports to share with us -- namely, a reason that choosing one thing over another has no impact on our lives.

The fact is that our decisions do have an impact on our lives, no matter how unimportant our lives may be in context. Our impending deaths -- and the grand, rushing current of human history in which any one life is a single droplet -- is to my mind another matter entirely and does not bear on the issue which is supposedly at hand.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fun series -- not heavy, each following kind of a philosophical arc within the topic, a little tasting menu of thoughtful stuff. Nothing you haven't heard before, but if you were to give any of them to, say, a smart kid heading to college, they could lead to some interesting reading or discussion if he or she was so inclined. And I'm having a good time revisiting some of what he has here. I'd forgotten, for instance, how much I liked Jude the Obscure. And it's reassuring to see that I STILL don't get Wittgenstein and I probably never will and THAT'S OK.

[Sara Habein · Rating 3 out of 5]

In essence, the book argues that, while we may be able to control our reaction to the world, we cannot control the world itself. Like the rest of the WHY series, it's thought-provoking and covers a wide range of source material. Good stuff.

(Full review can be found on Glorified Love Letters.)

[Kyle Cameron Studstill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Expected thinking on why our cognitive processes matter less in reality than they do by our perception, though the collection is mainly comprised of items that illustrate the idea that "we're all going to die anyway so the things we do in life may not matter." So, it's an interesting read on long LONG term thinking, though not necessarily and interesting read on long-term thinking.

[Rich · Rating 4 out of 5]

Outstanding collection of snippets from great works. You'll have likely read many of them in full version before, but it's interesting to see how the editors chat agonized and grouped works. It's the perfect book to have when you have a few minutes to spare. I wouldn't suggest sitting and reading it front to cover -- the selections are meant to be savored.

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

http://therumpus.net/2010/09/horn-rev...

[Valerie · Rating 4 out of 5]

good

[Brendan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was a pretty good collection of famous lit. While the author didn't really head-on tackle exactly "WHY Our Decisions Don't Matter", the excerpts he included were pretty interesting.

[Felix Terkhorn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hyuck hyuck

[Pirate Hat Hughes · Rating 4 out of 5]

for me, the essay on hamlet was staggering

[Dennis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Important: 1
Well-written: 3
Kept Attention: 1
Must Read: 1
Accessible: 5