If you've read Robert Nozick's "Anarchy, State, and Utopia" (AS&U) or you are considering reading it, I stronly advise you to follow it by reading Jonathan Wolff's "Robert Nozick: Property, Justice, and the Minimal State".

In my recent review of AS&U, I wrote many positive statements about it and expressed my agreement with many of the ideas presented in the book. I also wrote some negative statements regarding the organization of the presented material, the lack of concise summaries of significant concepts, and the frequency and magnitude of tangential discussions.

Whenever I read something with which I generally agree (like AS&U), I immediately seek out opposing views that I would consider an effective use of my time and thought. This time, my search led me to something that provided opposing views AND helped me to garner a better understanding of the ideas presented in AS&U - "Property, Justice, and the Minimal State".

"Property, Justice, and the Minimal State" provides important and relevant criticism of AS&U, presents most of its central ideas in a more concise and organized fashion, and contains excellent notes about other critics of AS&U and related reading material. (Alas, so much to read and think, so little time...)

I view "Property, Justice, and the Minimal State" as a NECESSARY companion to AS&U. If you read one and not the other, there is much that you could gain that you have not.

(My rating of five stars for this book should not be viewed as independent of my rating of four stars for AS&U. I believe that, had I not read AS&U earlier, I would not have been adequately qualified to (even) submit a rating for "Property, Justice, and the Minimal State". I rate this book five stars, at least partly, because it helped me to gain more from AS&U. My ratings of these two books are correlated and should be interpreted with that in mind.)

Now, on to read John Rawls' "A Theory of Justice"...

Jonathan Wolff has admirably succeeded in providing some clarity and focus to Nozick's often frenetic prose and disjointed ideas. Wolff presents a clear exposition of the main ideas in Anarchy, State, and Utopia (and thankfully avoids Nozick's digressions), and reviews some of the standard objections to Nozick's brand of libertarianism. He also offers some thoughtful replies on behalf of Nozick, though these are usually unconvincing (due more to Nozick than Wolff).

In my opinion, this book should be useful both to students of political philosophy as well as to political philosophers themselves. Wolff is very clear, very accessible, and does not assume a whole lot in the way of background knowledge (though familiarity with Rawls would be an asset). This book is extremely useful to anyone wanting to familiarize themselves with the debate on libertarian political philosophy.

This is a fine book by an important veteran philosopher. It's Nozick's last published book before his unfortunate death.

I also recommend: Williams, Truth and Truthfulness; Krausz, Relativism; Nagel, Last Word; Nozick, Philosophical Explanations; and Putnam, Realism with a Human Face; Searle, Social Construction; Searle, Rediscovery...Mind; Dummett, Logical Basis....

Chapter One is on truth and relativism. Nozick situates truth in space-time and discusses objective facts (and the attractions of a correspondence theory of truth). Chapter Two extends his discussion on objective facts; he brings in the philosophy of science. Chapter Three discusses modality (necessity and contingency), and the most interesting material here is on mathematical and logical necessity (see Dummett, Putnam, and Stroud). Chapter Four is on consciousness and the mind-body problem (compare with Searle, Chalmers, and McGinn). Chapter Five is a discussion on normative ethics.

I highly recommend this book. It is often quite clear and rigorous in parts.

This brilliant book is Nozick's reply to Hawking's challenge to philosophers (or those claiming to practice philosophy) today at the end of "A Brief History of Time": why is the tail of science wagging the metaphysical dog (this image is borrowed from Nozick)? Physicists today are asking the good and serious questions in philosophy by making bold hypotheses, and thereby stretching metaphysical possibilities. Meanwhile philosophers are still largely enraptured by the illusion of necessary truths and certainty in all possible worlds. The idea of objectivity as expressed by the notion of invariances is a useful and enlightening tool Nozick has provided not just for understanding better the concepts of necessity and contingency (and how similar they actually are), but how they can be used to understand the way the mind and ethics work. A must read for anyone interested in philosophy. Nozick's clarity of thought, style and wonderful sense of humour make this a highly readable work.

Any Nozick book will leave you more clever than it found you and Invariances is no exception. As Nozick more or less says in his Introduction, this book is not so much about getting the correct answers to questions, as it is about posing new and interesting questions (or, better, posing old questions in new and interesting ways). The value here is that thinking about the world in news ways puts our current ideas in jeopardy (which is a good thing) and forces those ideas to step up to bat in order to remain our current ideas.

Invariances will make some ideas which you may have dismissed as foolish seem plausible (even though you'll still probably dismiss them) and force you to confront some new thoughts in epistemology, philosophy of science, and ethics. Nozick is an antidote to the not fully explored idea. What you don't know might hurt you, but what you half-know will.

I have neither the subtlety of mind nor the academic formation to compete for attention with Robert Nozick -- obviously: he lectures at the World's Greatest University and I natter away at a commercial bookselling site.

But I needed a public place to say what a remarkably disingenuous book this is. This is not your ordinary hypocrisy; this is classic, platonic (literally) disingenuousness. The person below who remarked on how Nozick craftily makes of his reader a co-conspirator is reading perceptively whether or not Nietzsche ever said anything about unreadable books. While denigrating persuasion and touting his own concept of "explanation," Nozick commits one of the most rhetorical, suasional, imperial (but not imperious), and coercive texts that I have ever read.

In truth, for most of the book I thought Nozick's socratic humility was a piece of irony -- his self-consciousness is a constant throughout the book -- hence my jolly accusation of disingenuousness. But towards the end I began to get the unpleasant feeling that Nozick really did believe he was "just explaining." If this is true, it takes his book into a whole different kind of bad faith.

I am writing jocularly, as if the pejoratives I am bandying about are just good clean fun, but I think there is a serious problem here. It relates more to what Nozick hasn't done than what he does do. Nozick sets forth his "explanations" with the intention of synthesizing, supplementing, or superseding other views. He passes judgment in this way upon an extraordinarily broad range of thought, but he is not therefore entitled to call what he does explanation. He leaves too much out -- for instance, most continental theorists from the past forty years. It is argument, and surprisingly tendentious argument at that. What he does not ignore he debases -- consider his concluding remarks on "reductionism" which are, as he acknowledges, reductionist, but which also seem to me on the edge of the hysterical.

In any case, if I knew more I could say more, but I am not setting forth a thought so much as chasing down an intellectual feeling. I believe there is a problem here; I freely acknowledge that I am not equipped to do more than point in its general direction.

Oh yeah. Nozick's idea of "correct values" in ethics is fascist, especially when you're supposed to put people in touch with correct values through corporal and capital punishment.

In-depth study of philosophy has one general result: the certain knowledge that one knows almost nothing with certainty. Such questions as "Is good inherently better than evil?" and "How can we know whether or not we have free will?" become nearly impossible to answer. The conclusions of philosophy often seem cerebral and intangible, remote from day-to-day experience. Philosophy can seem like a word-game with no correspondence to real life.

In Philosophical Explanations, Harvard professor Robert Nozick takes us down a different path. He starts with the conclusions that seem, to him, inherently true. For instance, "Human beings have free will." Then he pursues philosophical thinking backward from the premises, showing how this might be shown, what evidence supports the view, and how different evidence provides troubling contradictory notions. In "Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?" Nozick rejects solipsism out of hand--again, he is collecting evidence to support his own views, not pursuing logical argument to determine an unsuspected truth. This approach is much easier to reconcile with our experience of the world.

Although a background in philosophy makes reading this book a deeper, richer experience, the language is completely accessible to the layman. For instance, "Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?" starts this way: "The question appears impossible to answer. Any factor introduced to explain why there is something will itself be part of the something to be explained, so it (or anything utilizing it) could not explain all of the something--it could not explain why there is anything at all...Some writers conclude from this that the question is ill-formed and meangingless. But why do they cheerfully reject the question rather than despairingly observe that it demarcates a limit of what we can hope to understand?"

If you've an interest in philosophy's Great Thoughts, curl up and ponder Nozick's well-written Philosophical Explanations. This book will surely get you thinking.

Ideas can provoke, and even individuals who are absolutely determined to be objective and weigh each idea or opinion without getting emotionally involved usually at one time or another find themselves in heated debate. One can only speculate on the reasons why anger typically accompanies the exchange of ideas. One would think maybe that individuals intelligent enough to discuss sometimes very complex ideas would not permit themselves to get agitated. Another possibility, from a biological/evolutionary standpoint, is that anger is a kind of defense mechanism: that it reacts against new ideas as these disturb the cognitive equilibrium of the individual. Since ideas determine an individual's outlook and how he/she deals with reality, too rapid a change in the individual's conceptual structure might threaten the individual's survival.

Early in the introduction to this book, the author makes a strong and uncommon case against what he has termed 'coercive philosophy'. This, he says, is characterized by its terminology: arguments are "powerful", and best when they are "knockdown". Such arguments, if the premises are believed by your "opponent", force your opponent to the conclusion, which he/she must believe, lest they be labeled as "irrational", the latter they are told, and some of them believe, is the ultimate anathema. But if they do not, the "owner" of the argument is in trouble: he/she is faced with someone who is perfectly comfortable with the "irrational" label. What does the arguer do then?

Therefore, the author asks the reader to consider another approach to philosophy, and that approach is reflected in the title of the book. The role of philosophy is to explain, not to argue. Good philosophy will explain the fundamental problems and curiosities of life, such as ethics, the mind-body problem, the nature of knowledge, and so on. As the author puts it: "There is a second mode of philosophy, not directed to arguments and proofs: it seeks explanations. Various philosophical things need to be explained; a philosophical theory is introduced to explain them, to render then coherent and better understood."

This is a delightfully optimistic approach to philosophical inquiry, for it assumes from the beginning that the individuals who are engaging in the philosophical conversation are willing to sit down and discuss calmly, rationally, and openly, the issues at hand. The author assumes the reader is such a person, and the book is full of thought-provoking ideas presented in a way that respects the dignity and intelligence of the reader. His discussion of "explanation versus proof" is fascinating and in fact has applications in artificial intelligence.

I found chapter five on "The Foundations of Ethics" the most lucid of all in the book, and I thoroughly enjoyed its reading. That does not mean that I agree with all that he asserts. In fact that opening sentence of the chapter, that states that "ethical truths find no place within the contemporary scientific picture of the world", I profoundly disagree with. But no problem, as the author encourages disagreement, and speaks to the reader over and over again, imploring him/her to reconsider their positions, think through the issues, ask themselves questions, and find answers never before thought of.

Indeed, everything about this book is good, and the practice of "philosophical explanation" results in a more productive and interesting methodology. There is no place for anger, ridicule, or other forms of negativity in philosophical, or any other forms of inquiry. Genuine respect for all ideas expressed by all individuals, no matter how radical, no matter how "offensive" is the optimum path to truth. Such a path may not be the shortest one, but it is certainly the best one.

Nozick is famous, always clear-thinking, always expressing himself briefly but to the point. His style makes the book a wonderful philosophical enterprise. But in fact, Nozick is still where social science was 10 years ago. He makes an impressive effort of combining different paradigms, evidentialism, causal theory, cognitive psychology, in one overall approach; he then applies this monstruous creature to old problems and paradoxes. The true reasons of these paradoxes, as was shown, for instance, by Bach (1984), are violations of applicability of classical rationality and decision-making theory. Not surprisingly, Nozick arrives to the same result with quite a different methodology. So, in brief, the book remains a brilliant study of ideas brought into social science years before; Nozick succeeds in beautifully arranging various paradigms. He still fails to be innovative in what concerns foundations.

Nozick's important papers are all here, from the ones that made his reputation thirty years ago to some insightful pieces from the mid '90s. The range is broad, as anyone who's read much of his work would expect; long-time Nozick readers will also recognize the unfortunately flip note in a few papers. On balance, though, there's a lot worth reading in this book, most of it thought-provoking.

Nozick made his reputation in the '60s with some really spectacular papers in decision theory. Those papers (Coercion; Newcomb's Problem and Two Principles of Choice, and Moral Complications and Moral Structures) are all here, which is helpful since the originals can be hard to dig up--I needed the Newcomb paper for my senior thesis way back when and had to wait like a month before the library located it.

These papers are dense, but deeply rewarding. Newcomb's Problem, which introduced this puzzle, is a good introduction to the field, technically rigorous but readable, though I don't really agree with his answer. Coercion has some stuff about rights that prefigures the claims in Anarchy, State and Utopia. Moral Complications is an amazing paper, really rich but still intelligible. I don't buy everything he says, and I think Bernard Williams and Thomas Nagel have both come closer to describing how moral thought really works, but anyone interested in moral philosophy should study this paper.

The pieces on Socrates, Quine and the theory of explanation focus on various areas of philosophical method and choice of subject matter. Most of his suggestions here seem right or at least plausible, though he says an awful lot about reductionism without actually saying whether he believes in it or not.

The short pieces on various issues in value theory are mostly insightful, though a few are just clever. The doggerel on universal gravitation seems to show that Goodman's notion of aesthetic merit in insufficient, not flat-out wrong; his claim the the percentage of Israelis living on kibbutzim is a serious measure of how many people would choose socialism seems a stretch. The Characteristic Features of Extremism is sharp but disapointingly short. The review of Regan's Case for Animal Rights raises a serious challenge to hard-line animal rights ethics and proposes a solution to the problem of animals' ethical standing, though I'm not completely happy with his suggestion.

The final selection of short stories on philosophical themes includes twin gems, Testament and Teleology, which would be great on an introductory philosophy syllabus but don't really offer new insight. Oddly, his most famous story, "G-d", isn't here, probably because the published version was edited in a way he didn't like. It's too bad--that story has more bite than the ones here. The stories are all cute, though they're more clever than deep.

This book is regarded often as the definitive defense of libertarianism. If so, then libertarianism is in trouble as this work is quite interesting but hardly provides knockout arguments in favor of libertarianism. Nozick's point of departure is a Lockean state of nature and he assumes a Lockean view of rights with accords a good deal of weight to property rights. The book is divided into 3 sections; Anarchy, State, and Utopia. In Anarchy, Nozick attacks anarchist thought and demonstrates that some form of state is necessary to safeguard rights. In the State section, he extends his argument to argue that only a minimal state is justified; a more expansive state encroaches on essential liberties. The utopia section is quite interesting and makes the fundamental point that utopia would have to be a plurality of utopias to accomodate the plurality of human conceptions of ultimate good. As is often the case, the critical aspects of this book are better than its constructive elements. Nozick provides an excellent critique of anarchism and provides some useful though not fatal criticism of individuals like John Rawls who espouse a more expansive view of the state. Many sections contain ingenious arguments though there are a fair number of diversions from the main issues.
Nozick's arguments, however, suffer from at least 2 fundamental flaws. His attempt to demonstrate that only a minimal state is justified is incomplete and ignores basic features of human nature.
1) Incompleteness - Nozick's vindication of the minimal state rests squarely on his assumption of a Lockean scheme of rights. He is clear that this is an assumption and makes no effort to defend his choice of this set of assumptions. By assuming a different conception of rights, we would arrive at a different view of the state. With more emphasis on social and/or economic equality, we would arrive at a more expansive state. In order to present a definitive argument for the libertarian state, Nozick would have to present a convincing jusification of his choice of fundamental rights. Since he does not, his argument is not convincing.
2) Ignorance of Human Nature - Nozick's scheme tolerates inequalities, indeed, the minimal state is likely to generate huge inequalities. This is not hypothetical but a matter of historic fact. The closest we have ever come to such a state was Gilded Age America with its enormous class and economic differences. The temptation for the powerful to exploit their advantages is irresistable. The inevitable result is both economic and political domination by the powerful with consequent erosion of the basic rights of the less powerful. The resulting abuses of power result in political and social institutions that attack the basic rights, including property rights, of the less privileged. Further, as Tacitus wrote, "it is human nature to despise those you have injured." One of the consequences of domination is the development of ideologies justifying domination. Looking again at American history for an example, we can see the development of a variety of proslavery doctrines arising in the antebellum South as illustrating this tendency. In a so-called minimal state dominated by the powerful, ideologies would arise that would attack and very likely ultimately vanquish the official doctrine of libertarianism. Nozick's scheme carries with it the seed of its own destruction. I worked out this critique for myself, only to discover subsequently that Nozick himself arrived at similar conclusions and no longer espouses libertarianism.

If you have any interest in political philosophy at all, if you are worried about the erosion of individual liberty (and its companion, individual responsibility) in modern society, or (even) if you are a collectivist and actually promote government involvement in our individual lives for the "greater good" at the expense of some or all, you MUST read this book. It is a somewhat difficult book to digest, so others (political moderates or those apathetic with regard to political philosophy) need not even crack the cover.

If you find that you agree with the arguments and conclusions of Robert Nozick, you will be enriched with ammunition for debating political philosophy. If you DON'T agree and you believe that your disagreement is based upon sound philosophy, you will still be greatly rewarded - if for no other reason than you were required to expend some great effort to refute the presented material as you read it.

The major principles presented and defended by Mr. Nozick are as follows:

1) Anarchy is not tenable. 2) A "minimal state" or "nightwatchman state" that only protects the rights of its constituents is justified/legitimate. 3) any state beyond that "minimal state" is unjustified/illegitimate because it will inherently violate the rights of (at least) some of its constituents.

Beyond these major principles, Mr. Nozick also revisits the concept of Utopia in the last section of the text. I found this last section very enjoyable. Mr. Nozick's presentation of the concept of "Meta-Utopia" opened up whole new avenues of political thought for me.

I agree with the major principles of this work as I have stated them above; however, I found that I did not agree with everything presented. I enjoyed the mental exercise required to think through many of the presented topics. I was very pleased to realize the existence of this book and to read it.

Not that it has any bearing on the significance of the presented material, I did find the book to be quite difficult to read. Similar to what many critics and reviewers of this book have stated before, I found the organization of the presented material lacking and the absence of concise summaries of major topics disappointing. I found myself wishing that this were not the case - so that I might glean more benefit from the reading of the book. Also, Mr. Nozick seems too quick to prolifically digress into tangent discussions. Although the topics of these tangent discussions are quite interesting, it is my opinion that, coupled with the organization problem already mentioned, the frequency and magnitude of these discussions detracts from the persuasiveness of the book.

Even with the shortcomings, I feel some great deal of enlightenment and joy after reading this book. Mr. Nozick obviously respects and attempts to understand opposing views to the degree that he is willing to examine them with great scrutiny and then, aptly, present his arguments against them. Since I read books like this one to help me seek answers to philosophical political and otherwise) questions, I found it refreshing that an author would approach (or at least, attempt to approach) such arguments so objectively.

As I said at the beginning of this review, anyone with an interest in political philosophy will find the reading of this book to be time and thought well spent.

"Anarchy, State, and Utopia" occupies a crucial position in the debate between liberalism, libertarianism, socialism, anarchism, neoliberalism, and conservatism. It's a key reading for anyone interested in political philosophy, contemporary political debates, or just general thoughtful reading. Nozick is a clever author and a brilliant theorist.

"Anarchy, State, and Utopia" is a classic in American political theory because it is so pertinent to themes dominating partisan political debates in America. Nozick begins by making a set of undefended assumptions: notions of individual freedom and the just acquisition of property. Many argue that Nozick's failure to defend these assumptions is problematic, but this criticism doesn't strike me as being particularly pertinent. It seems, rather, that Nozick is operating within the pregiven tradition of American political philosophy and discussing various social practices within the context of this tradition. In this sense, it is perfectly appropriate for him to automatically accept American political values since those are the context of his work.

Nozick begins by defending the existence of the State against anarcho-individualists, but ends up putting forward a thesis that is highly sympathetic with libertarian themes. For Nozick, individuals in the state of nature create government in order to ensure a basic order to the conducting of everyday life (it is this idea that makes his work so pertinent to the debates between Lockean and Hobbesian theory), but he goes on to argue that when the State takes on a life of its own and begins to engage in liberal programs like economic re-distribution, it has overstepped its boundaries. Private property and individual rights enjoy considerable sanctity in Nozick's thought, and Nozick considers involuntary economic re-distribution to be in a way a type of forced labor. Nozick's work is thus very relevant to the discussion of distributive justice in Rawls.

One (perhaps inconsequential) criticism I would level at Nozick is that he fails to maintain a stable subject position throughout is work. For example, he approaches government through a sort of thought-experiment regarding its ontogenesis (like Locke, Rawls, Hobbes, Rousseau, etc.) and then critiques distributive justice from the position of ahistorical objective moral reasoning.

This book was entertaining and informative of parts of leonardo da vinci's life, but it did not cover all topics that were needed to be. Still an outstanding book nonetheless.

This was a tricky book to read. At first I thought it was very uneven, but it turned out there was an odd type of systematic flaw that would reappear here and there; namely, that Nozick tries too often to quantify the unquantifiable. Let me explain that nebulous charge. The move from metaphor to math to metaphysics just doesn't work. It actually runs the other way. Metaphors are merely pedagogical devices to explain in very simplistic short hand what would otherwise take careful analytical methods to communicate. Now at first, it looks like Nozick is doing just that, trying to incorporate analytical methods where "they ain't been incorporated by nobody else," as some of my rural friends might put it. But it turns out that any time he talks of "proportionality" or "more reality" etc., he enters into a very peculiar type of confusion - call it "quantified metaphor." Now if you think that phrase makes little sense, then I believe you'll likewise find the book constantly recycling this irritating flaw. Yet if you think that phrase is perfectly legit, then you'll probably think there's something really deep going on here. If it were virtually anybody else writing the book, I'd say, "no way." But it's Nozick, for heaven's sake! Fortunately, the "more real" Nozick does come to visit occasionally: his sections on Wisdom and on The Holocaust put the Harvard heavyweight headlock on my soul. Well, they knocked me out, anyway. Maybe you'll think different. So keep your eye open for Nozick when he wanders in and out of the book. But skip over Nozick*, the quantified metaphor clone.

I admire Nozick greatly, and he is one of the only philosophers I continue to read now that I've graduated college. This book is probably his best book to read "for pleasure," and as there are few contemporary philosophy books that fall into this category, this one seems like an important buy for that reason alone. Unfortunately, the ideas for most of the essays here are quite a bit more interesting than how they actually turn out. Some topics promised real intrigue, only to degenerate into mush (some) or academic gobbledygook (others). (The essay on the Holocaust is, however, a real gem.) I subtract a second star because this book is also infamous for Nozick's recanting of quite a bit of his philosophy from _Anarchy, State, and Utopia_, his most important book. He was more convincing his first time around. After spending years and years being one of the only philosophers in the universities to defend libertarianism, Nozick appears to have let his colleagues bully him into selling himself out. This might earn him a few more friends in the People's Republic of Cambridge, but long-time admirers have been seriously let down. Nevertheless, the book is very ambitious. It falls a bit short of its promise, but really gets one thinking and expands the scope of what philosophy offers. On balance, not bad at all.

There being so few reviews here on this work I thought I would read them all before adding my own, afterall if I would just be repeating the others why bother. I was very impressed by the general knowledge of Nozick and the philosophical sophistication of the reviewers. But I belive that same sophistication made them miss the boat on this one.
This is not hard analytic philosophy. This is an examination of everyday concerns about life that apply to everyone and it is written for everyone, not just those of us with degrees in philosophy. For the lay person, it provides a glimps at how a philosopher might approach a problem, even one where a straight answer may not be possible. The nature of "Love's bond" for example may do little more than create a framework for how to think about one's intimate relationship, but it does it in such a way as to expose the reader to the economic analysis of human motivation and also to such things as the motivations that keep people ( or political groups ) from even offering conditional statements. Even his use of parenthetical digressions encourage the reader to go beyond what he is presenting and apply their own analysis to the sub-issue. True, things like the difference between making love and f...king may not be of great philosophical importance at university but his distinction is insightful and fun and the sort of subject matter that tittilates the neophyte in to wondering why they never looked at it that way. Then that neophyte might also wonder what else they should examine in that light.
These days the only political philosophy that seems to rule the land is pragmatism, the only debate on ethics is between relativism and absolutism, and the only exposure to epistomology is via cyberpunk and "the matrix." Academic philosophers in the U.S. have made themselves invisible to the people by excessive analysis of the minutia of language, the nature of the mind, and other things that have no bearing on the common persons life. Nozick has, like Socrates, used this book to reach out to the common people in a way that demonstates that philosophy can still be relavent to them. This book encourages all to open their minds and to look at things in new ways. ( I have often lent it to other lawyers in my office only to hear things like " I never that of it that way.")
To sum it up, this is not Socrates closeted with plato discussing the nature of ultimate reality, this is Socrates, with a drink in his hand, reclining at the symposium and talking to his freinds.