Philosophy as Pleasantry

PHILOSOPHER'S QUEST (275 pp.)-- Irwln Edman--Viking ($3).

The absence of philosophical thinking in a book by a professional philosopher might seem a damning defect. In Philosopher's Quest, as in its predecessor (the best-selling Philosopher's Holiday), it is meant to be a source of charm. Professor Edman's gift for talking about philosophy has made him one of the prides of Columbia's faculty and a crowd-drawing lecturer. The same gift, at work in his good-humored essays, will endear him to readers who do not wish to put up their hands and ask searching questions.

This is not philosophy; it is a pleasant defense of urbanity among teachers of philosophy. Edman writes, he says, as he would talk to a friend "over a glass of sherry."

One chapter, consisting of imaginary interviews with Plato, Marcus Aurelius, St. Paul, Spinoza and Schopenhauer, shows Professor Edman as an eclectic honeybee of philosophy, his nectar sacs full, his buzzing melodious and sunny. His conclusion: ". . . Though the order is not found, the inquiry proves, itself, a goal."

Now 50, Irwin Edman says wistfully, and perhaps a little apologetically: "Some day, if I can overcome a sense of humor and a sense of doubt, I shall try to write such a systematic tome as professional philosophers require, or as is expected of a professional thinker by the general public." He is obviously in no hurry.

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