We are not human

Abstract

A questionable perk of life as a prof­essional philosopher is being the occasional recipient of unsolicited monographs by self-published amateurs. Affectionately known as “crazy books”, these volumes crash the mailroom of a Philosophy Department, bearing titles like Ethics of the Astral Plane or The Key to All Ontologies. They promise answers to the deepest, oldest questions: the meaning of life, the universe and everything, unearthed without the help of experts or academic training. Once, when I made light of a recent arrival, a colleague stopped me short. He always felt bad, he said, that we did not have time to read these books. What if somewhere within them were the insights of an untutored genius, lost forever through the impatient cynicism of people like us?