Peter Simpson (4) (1951–)

It's a good idea to know what Wojtyla wrote, because it probably informed his papacy. Since his writing is so horrific, it would be nice to have a short text that explains the contents of his books. Simpson kind of does that, which is the best I can say for this book.

Otherwise, it's the kind of thing that reminds me why I often take a solemn vow not to read books that are poorly written. It often reads as if it's been translated from another language word for word: "Perhaps we should add show more about this analysis of how an I can be an I two things." I assume he means "add two things to this analysis of how an I can be an I," but who am I to say?

Simpson is also held back by the fact that Wojtyla's thought is not particularly interesting or even coherent. This book suggests that Wojtyla could not find a phenomenology adequate to his conception of the human person (c. 1969) as an agent. I submit that the entire history of French existentialism would find this a somewhat puzzling statement. Even if, for obvious reasons, the future JPII didn't want to just import JP Sartre's phenomenological work, he could have given Gabriel Marcel a go. The implication is that Wojtyla didn't really know much about any philosophy other than the one he happened to be reading (Max Scheler) or the ones he couldn't help but know (a little bit of Kant).

Anyway, the question Wojtyla tried to deal with is important; it might be the question of modern philosophy, to wit, how can we have free individuals but also objective knowledge? He's quite right to say Kant didn't quite answer the question, though he posed it in a very strong form. He's not at all right to say "well, we get that by taking an old philosophy of objective knowledge (scholasticism) and adding to it a phenomenology of individuals." Call it 'personalism,' but it is transparently an individualistic response to totalitarian political forms tacked on to traditional scholasticism.

Yes, philosophers everywhere are cringing: insufficiently dialectical, Karol! You can't just add two utterly opposed systems of thought to each other. And, even if you could, you can't throw in a dash of liberal individualism, and then use the resulting chimera to justify your assumption that people shouldn't use condoms. There's no way around the fact that this mish-mash is a mere mirror-image of the decades in which it was thrown together, rather than a reasoned, critical investigation.

As for the book itself, it lacks an index, clarity, and a comprehensible system of annotation, all of which omissions are the fault of the editor and publisher. Simpson is entirely to blame, however, for its lack of critical distance. The idea that this system (sic) of thought "displays a coherence, a scope, and a humanism that are remarkable" is ludicrous; the claim that "one may disagree, of course, and I suppose many will. But it would be hard not to admire," is even more so.

An extra star for being one of only two books that even try to make this influential body of thought available to the layman (sic). show less