Talk:John Gray (philosopher)

message: what about this abundance of quotations? shouldn't they rather be on wikiquote?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.186.65.47 (talk) 14:27, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Quotations

message: greetings, I have just removed the line "in which he portrays humanity as a rapacious species engaged in wiping out other forms of life while destroying its natural environment.". I'm presently reading straw dogs, and while the preceeding is accurate, I think in the context in which it is likely to be viewed by the average reader, it is a misleading summary of the book. I've added "in which he denies humanity's special status with respect to other living things". duracell
:I think he does a bit more than simply deny humanity's special status. He sees us as a dominant and dangerous species. Could you sign your posts, please? See Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages. SlimVirgin (talk) 18:36, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)
I tihnk you may be missing the point. As I said, your comment is accurate. But, it is not the central theme of this book. *everyone* thinks that we are a "dominant and dangerous species". That is a completely unoriginal point. The point Gray is making is that liberal humanism sees humans as having a special status. This status, humanists think, will allow us to transcend the boundaries placed on other animals qua being animals. But, Gray argues, this is illusory - and in fact based on christian thinking, which liberal humanists ostensibly reject. We are in no sense "different" to other animals - by virtue of conscious reflection, free will or anything else (all of which he spends a good deal of the book setting forth). Hence, the line I inserted is more accurate. The book is "an excoriating attack on humanist progressivism abnd all its derivatives" (D. Marquand, "New statesman") "a hectoring attack on man-centered thinking" (Ian thompson "the independent") "A disturbing and thought provoking book. Are we really that different from animals?" (sunday tribune). All of which, of cuorse, come from the inside cover of the granta paperback of this book.
Lets just change it to "an attack on humanist progressivism" ok? duracell
:Hi, he doesn't only reject the notion that we're special; he describes us as a particularly appalling species. I think an earlier version of the page did allude to us as nothing but a genetic accident, or words to that effect. Can't we keep both: your attack on humanist progressivism, and rapacious species destroying its own and others' environment?  By the way, you can sign your name by typing four tildes after your posts. See Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages. SlimVirgin (talk) 14:17, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)
::rather a large post below, but I enjoyed writing it and thinking about it.
::Ok, look "appalling" with respect to what? his central message is that we do away with notions like this, becasue they imply that humans are somehow special. Think of it like this: no other animal can be "appalling". Have you ever heard people going on about the morality and free choice of hyenas or the HIV virus? Those things are not seen as bearers of responsibility. So, if we can be appalling, it must be because there is something special about us - we have "free will" and so on. And, by virtue of these properties (so the humanist thinks), we will be able to transform the world into whatever form we see fit, so we have a responsibilty to protect other animals etc. That we are "appalling" means we abrogate this reponsibility. Needless to say, Gray does not have much time for this idea. For him, "cities are as natural as bee hives". Individual humans probably dont really even have free will  - let alone humans as a species. So you see, he is saying that it makes no sense to call us "appalling". It is a category error, in the sense that we mean it here. I dont imagine he thinks it is a category error in all circumstances though - he's not necessarily a relativist in terms of ethics. I dont know what his ethics are actually. He does still think that we will wipe out a good many species, most especially ourselves. But, we are powerless to stop ourselves (just like *any other animal*), so it makes no sense to hold us responsible.
::Actually, I have revised my opinion, and I am not even sure your comment really represents the books position at all. Our behaviour does not make us particularly "dangerous". Like lovelock, Gray is at pains to make clear that the biosphere will be fine, whatever we do. We may temporarily cause imbalance - but the result of this will just be our own destruction, and the restoration of more conditions more generally viable for most living things (this is Gaia theory, see e.g daisy world model. In general, the natural, non-evolved (becasue there's no selection between biospheres, on account of theres only 1 of them) occurence of homeostasis). We may wipe out particular species - but we cannot wipe out the whole biosphere. It will wipe us out, make us change or adapt to us. Think of the first photosynthesising lifeforms. They released a terrible toxic substance into the environment (oxygen was toxic to all life 2 or 3 billion years ago) and in the process must have caused mass extinctions. Appalling?
::Those observations are *part* of his argument aginst the special status of humanity. that is the conceptual theme of the book, philosophically (and it is a *philosophy* book).He also turns his guns on the green movement, who he sees as humanist progressives, yet your comments would seem to carry within them the implicit message that he is a supporter of the green movement. He is much subtler than that, as I have tried to argue.
::I have found this book so interesting, I'm actually considering writing something (not here, obviously) about why I think he very narrowly misses the point. Taking inspiration from neo-darwinism, Gray's ultimately nihilistic perspective is based on the notion that evolution is "random" (as you say). But, there are other views on evolution than neodarwinism. In my line, I look at how the brain harnesses self-organising properties. This is just a fancy way of saying it harnessess naturally occuring patterns. Thats how come something so complex can evolve "randomly". At each level of complexity, evolution harnesses intrinsic pattern formation to produce the next level of complexity. But there is a real sense in which those patterns were there to be found, implicit in the meso-level physics around us. Moreover, there seems to be a ratcheting effect whereby complexity is retained; life has on the whole got more complex. I choose to see significance in that - and it *is* a choice, although I agree with him that most things aren't. Maybe that makes me a "progressive". See the work of stuart kauffman, Francisco Varela (mentioned in straw dogs) Scott Kelso for all this, generally emerging views in many areas of science which put non-linear dynamics on center stage Duracell 16:15, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Rapacious species

message: The Guardian article says he was born in 1947. It also has no mention that he taught in the University of Essex.
The copyright page of Liberalisms (1989), gives a birthdate of Nov. 5, 1948, which is also the date that libraries use to distinguish him from other authors with the same name. Brown's article contains at least one factual error: Straw Dogs wasn't published in 2000, but two years later, and, if Gray hadn't matriculated at Oxford until he was nearly 21, it probably would have come up in newspaper profiles before.
24.129.37.143 03:17, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, he has stated before that he is "profoundly disinterested in [his] own personality" 2603:8081:8A07:9000:FC15:DC37:C978:D47A (talk) 14:52, 3 August 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  When was John Gray born? 

message: The section entitled literary criticism needs to go for several reasons.
Firstly, it is not about anything you'd normally call literary criticism. Secondly, it says nothing about the thought of John Gray. Thirdly, it is not NPOV in that it is critical of John Gray but supportive of the journalist Francis Wheen. Fourthly, it contains an unreferenced claim that Wheen's book had "otherwise received glowing praise". Fifthly, it quotes an article that is bordering on the abusive. Sixthly, it is about something that is deeply unimportant.
I have tried to delete it once but it was reverted. I think somebody else tried to. It needs to go.--Oldandrew (talk) 18:17, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: As there are no sources to support the section I placed it into comment. Once independent sources can be found to verify the information it can be added back in. GtstrickyTalk or C 19:20, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Literary Criticism 

message: The first paragraph says that he is still at LSE and the second says that he is not.  Someone should resolve this.  Klmarcus (talk) 00:03, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Retirement 

message: To get rid of the tag I've removed this:
This really explains Gray's insight and I can't see how it could be put any better. I'll try and write a synopsis under a section called "The core thesis of Straw Dogs" or something? Anyone got any better idea how to handle this? Sarah777 (talk) 13:39, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: The Quotes issue

message: Does this section breach WP:QUOTEFARM?Autarch (talk) 17:36, 27 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Quotations section 

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thread_title: File:Gray10.jpg Nominated for speedy Deletion

message: This article seems to me to in violation of NPOV, in that it summarises Gray's arguments and reports all the praise he's had but doesn't so much as mention the serious criticisms that have been made of him; for example, I read at least one article that described him as a political opportunist whose philosophical positions shift as the political climate changes, and who can be relied upon to challenge radical criticism of the political mainstream, whatever the political mainstream happens to be (except for when he was on the far left, but that was a time when the far left in Britain was experiencing a brief surge in popularity). I can't remember who wrote the article, but it's not the only scathing criticism of Gray I've read. He is much more controversial than this article suggests, and it needs more material to redress the balance. In the meantime, I would suggest that it needs at least a banner calling for a more comprehensive account of his reception, and not just a section called 'Acclaim', because he hasn't received nothing but acclaim. Lexo (talk) 20:04, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Para 3 of this section appears to contradict para 1. Either "agonistic liberalism" describes Berlin's philosophy or it is an alternative to it; can't be both Encylopaedia Salesman (talk) 09:54, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I was struck by the same thing. I thought that perhaps the implication is that Gray's judgment of Berlin's political philosophy is incorrect. Then we need something like "Gray's characterization of Berlin's political philosophy is disputed by X, Y, and Z. They claim that..." Meir Simchah (talk) 08:00, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Agonistic liberalism

message: I have commenced a tidy-up of the Bibliography section using cite templates. Capitalization and punctuation follow standard cataloguing rules in AACR2 and RDA, as much as Wikipedia templates allow it. ISBNs and other persistent identifiers, where available, are commented out, but still available for reference. This is a work in progress; feel free to continue. Sunwin1960 (talk) 10:51, 13 September 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bibliography