I looked up Kevin J. Mitchell’s book Free Agents: How Evolution Gave Us Free Will on Amazon and right below the book itself was a 75 page book called Summary of Free Agents with this disclaimer:
“The book summary is meant to provide readers with a quick rundown of the main topics, ideas, and concepts presented in the original work. It shouldn’t be seen as a replacement for reading the book in its full capacity since it is not.
The writer of this summary did everything possible to correctly communicate the text’s key ideas, but readers should be aware that it is not exhaustive and may not completely capture all of the intricacies and nuances of the original work.
This summary’s author disclaims all responsibility for any mistakes or omissions and offers no guarantees as to the truthfulness, trustworthiness, or completeness of the material it contains.”
It’s part of a Concise Readers Collection of 400 titles.
My initial reaction was “this is bad,” but I can’t really justify why it’s bad. Maybe it’s good. There are Cliff’s notes for old books, there’s Reader’s Digest “condensed” books, but the fact that this Free Agents book is a new exciting contribution to the scientific and philosophical concept of agency, written by a serious scholar, makes me wonder how summarizable it can be. If I were Mitchell I would feel insulted.
Has anyone read one of these summaries? Or does anyone have any strong opinions on the topic?
by RangeConfident7533