This Town

Book excerpt: Like Thomas Scarborough’s previous book Everything, Briefly (2022), This Town, too, is a metaphysics. However, it adopts the form of a story, which “concretizes” abstract thought. A narrator visits a pre-modern town, where he engages with various people: an old man, a young woman, the chief, and other townsfolk. The method of “concretization” brings a metaphysics down to the level of teens and up—covering core issues of language, reality, ethics, politics, science, math, meaning, holism, and God (this town believes in God). The focus is primarily on how these various areas of philosophy and life may be integrated into one, harmonious whole. This Town serves as an excellent introduction not merely to philosophy, but to philosophical thought.