THE PHILOSOPHY OF EXPLANATION

A grieving father explores philosophical questions pertaining to the human experience in this memoir.

Peterson’s daughter, Kristin, died of endocardial fibroelastosis in 1980. She was severely mentally impaired; at the age of 9, she couldn’t “put more than two or three words together to form a sentence,” the author says, but he fondly recalls, more than four decades later, her “keen sense of humor.” The girl’s traumatic life and death were the topic of Peterson’s first book, The Mind of God (2004), and they continue to ground the author’s perspective in this follow-up, which advances arguments he previously made about the irrationality of religion. However, although this work doesn’t shy away from exploring his personal story, he asserts that it's a “very different” book, focusing on a reason-based philosophical approach to understanding his experiences in a larger context. He notes that reassuring religious platitudes, such as “God so loves your child that he personally summoned her home,” may soothe the grief of Christian parents; Peterson, however, takes bitter umbrage toward God. Although he presents God in this book as a nonexistent “no-thing,” the deity remains a central figure in his philosophical critique of religion. The author even connects nominally secular topics to God: Where “capitalism produces more goods,” Peterson says, God “produces more humans.” The author admits that religious readers “may have difficulty” with his approach, which not only argues against the existence of a benevolent God, but also claims that there’s a “close link” between religion and “insanity.” Eternal salvation, a linchpin to Christianity and other world religions, is represented here as stemming from humanity’s selfish motivation to find “personal happiness.” The book’s proffered “rational alternative” focuses on how language explains human experiences and purpose as part of what “takes place in reality.”

Based on an Aristotelian notion that natural, observable “truths” should guide human expression, the book challenges not only traditional religious explanations, but also postmodern philosophical ideas of relativity. Peterson, a retired engineer, has a keen, rational mind, presenting a straightforward case while broaching deeply emotional topics, from death and grief to happiness and ethics. His accessible prose is accompanied by useful charts, diagrams, and other visual aids that reinforce its logical progressions. When the author talks about his daughter, however, his stoic tone shifts to one of indignation and anguish, and it does so with powerful prose. Readers may find that the book’s critique of religion, while not particularly novel, makes rational sense; however, it often reduces religious people to vague straw men, and it doesn’t analyze the specificities of spiritual doctrines in any meaningful way. The book’s acerbic, brash style, including references to “religiously imposed mental illness” and a “jungle savage,” is likely to alienate readers who may otherwise be sympathetic to its arguments. Philosophers and scholars may also take issue with the book’s lack of citations or meaningful dialogue with other writings that address the same themes. Deeper engagement with the science of linguistics might have also strengthened its analysis.

An earnest but overbearing case against God and religion.