His name first came to my attention when, perusing online a Google Books snippet of a multi-volume biography of Friedrich Hayek, I caught a citation of Casey’s Murray Rothbard. In the reference notes, I found mention of two short essays of mine on Rothbard, residue of my ill-fated attempt (despite Joann Rothbard and Lew Rockwell’s blessings) to research Murray’s life and thought for publication.[1]
With that as my entrée, I reached out to Casey on the 24th anniversary of Murray’s passing in 2019. After a few months’ correspondence, I asked if he would read the manuscript of, and perhaps write a foreword for, Christ, Capital & Liberty: A Polemic. He graciously agreed, and the book appeared that July with his generous commendation.
Here’s the aforementioned review, which appeared on Amazon’s UK site on August 3rd.
Written with admirable clarity, erudition, and not a little panache, it addresses itself to the question “What must the world be like for there to be intersubjective communication and reasoning among intelligent (pattern-grasping) and rationally exigent beings with reliable, but fallible, memories, with a grasp of numbers as well as beauty, for there to be mutual criticism according to shared rational norms?”
Anthony Flood’s approach to answering this question, if I understand him correctly, is to be located in the presupposition of the ungainsayability of the Christian worldview.
All thinking, all discourse must start from somewhere. The idea that there might be a presuppositionless starting point would itself be a presupposition. (For the theologically alert, the names of Cornelius Van Til and Greg Bahnsen will give an indication of [some of] the sources and direction of Flood’s thinking.)
Is Flood’s assertion of the primacy of the Christian worldview gratuitous? Does it, as it were, “beg the question?” He’s not unaware of this possible line of criticism and he addresses it explicitly in various places in the book. Whether his treatment of this will satisfy the sceptical is something that will have to be left to each reader to decide.
I have wrestled with a version of Flood’s question for many years, and I’m not at all certain that, despite the energy I have expended, and the amount of time that has elapsed since I first started thinking about it, I am much wiser now than I was when I began. Reading Anthony Flood’s book gave me a headache, but the right kind of headache.
I don’t agree with him on every point, though there are many issues on which we are in harmony. The lack of agreement may well be down to my inability to appreciate the strength of his arguments. In any event, I suspect other readers will find themselves in similar positions though perhaps their agreements and disagreements will lie at different points to mine. Whether or which, the reader of this book will be edified, informed and challenged. What more could one ask for?
Murray’s passing in 2019. After a few months’ correspondence, I asked if he would read the manuscript of, and perhaps write a foreword for, Christ, Capital & Liberty: A Polemic. He graciously agreed, and the book appeared that July with his generous commendation.
I certainly couldn’t hoped for a better review!