It just occurred to me that I haven’t written about John C. Wright’s “Chronicles of Chaos” trilogy, which I read over the summer and quite thoroughly enjoyed. The titles are Orphans of Chaos, Fugitives of Chaos, and Titans of Chaos, and the contents of the titles is an interesting mix of fantasy, mythology, and epistemology, the latter used in a delightfully odd way.

The premise is (apparently) straightforward: there are five orphans, three boys and two girls, living in a boarding school/orphanage in England. The time is the present. They have lived there, all together, for (almost) as a long as any of them can remember. The conditions are reasonably good: they are fed well, clothed well, and educated well, in a surprisingly classical vein. But they are not generally allowed TV or movies or modern novels, and they not allowed to leave the grounds except on rare occasions under strict supervision. As they are approaching adulthood, naturally they chafe under these restrictions.

Oh, and each of them has a strange power. Our heroine, for example, though not obviously muscular, can carry absurdly heavy weights without difficulty.

Who are these orphans? Why are they being kept here? Who is running the orphanage? And what does epistemology have to do with any of this? There’s more below the fold–but be watch for the spoiler warning.

To summarize, though: it’s a neat adventure, Wright does some new and interesting things, the characters are compelling, and I look forward to reading more by him. The only complaint I have is a certain juvenile fascination with sex on the part of the five principles–not a lot of actual sex, mind you, and none on stage, but a fair amount of thinking and talking about it. Of course, the principles are juveniles….

Anyway, good stuff.

Mild Spoiler Warning: If you’re already planning on reading these, you might want to stop here.

I’m going to try to explain what I found so charming, philosophically, about the books, without giving too much away.

Although each of the five orphans appears human, each is really a member of a different supernatural race, each with its own powers, and there’s a complicated rock-paper-scissors scheme whereby the powers of each race can be blocked by those of one of the others; this provides much of the plot. But the neat thing is that each set of powers comes with an appropriate philosophy/epistemology.

One character, for example, can manipulate matter at the atomic level. He can open locks, he can modify machines, he can create “serums” with a profound affect on the behavior of other people. He’s basically a walking nanotech lab. And going along with this is a purely naturalist epistemology. People are essentially machines. There is no super-natural. Everything that is can be manipulated in fundamental ways at the atomic level. That’s the way the character thinks, and that is, in fact, how his power works.

Another character has the power of dreams. He can make things happen just by wanting them to happen strongly enough. Philosophically, he is, I guess you’d say, an Idealist: the real world doesn’t really exist. All is fluid; all can be whatever you want it to be.

In short, the world-views of the five clash just as their powers clash–yet they must learn to work together to survive. Yet they cannot abandon their world-views; they are part of each character’s nature, and one of the means by which they exercise their powers.

Philosophically speaking, this is of course nonsense: there are five philosophies on offer, here, and they can’t all be true. Nor can any of the characters (except possibly the Idealist) truly accept the powers of the others without rejecting the philosophy that underlies their own. In that sense, I guess you’d say that pragmatism (and friendship) wins the day.

Nevertheless, good fun, and a nifty mix of deep thought and occasionally frivolous behavior.

I picked up this book the other day because I was enjoying Kreeft’s Socrates Meets Descartes, and this appeared to be in the same vein. In fact, it is, and it isn’t. It’s written at a similar level and for a similar audience, but the style is entirely different.

Whereas Socrates Meets Descartes is a dialog written by Kreeft and involving Socrates, this present book is a commentary on Plato’s Apology. Socrates offended a lot of people, and was brought up on charges of atheism, among other things; the Apology describes his defense, and his condemnation to death. Kreeft also provides selections from Plato’s Euthyphro, to show why Socrates was on trial, and from the Phaedo, to show how Socrates died, with additional commentary on both.

As a commentary, it’s both enlightening and entertaining, and Kreeft’s love of both the topic and of philosophizing in general is infectious. I enjoyed it, and recommend it. However, I have one minor quibble with the cover blurb, which makes it appear that the book stands alone. It really does not; although Kreeft quotes liberally from the Apology, I found that I really needed to dig up a copy of the Apology and read it straight through before going on with Kreeft’s commentary. That’s the right thing to do, anyway, but the blurb should have made it clear that this is a companion to Plato, and does not contain the complete text.

Incidentally, Kreeft uses W.H.D. Rouse’s translation of the Apology; I found the complete text, using the same translation, in Great Dialogs of Plato, published by Signet Classics.