Addressing an oversight on the part of Asimov

[james_davis_nicoll]

Apparently while he published books that got put into nine of the ten catagories in the Dewey Decimal system, he never had anything that fell in the 100s (philosophy). Surely it would be possible to cherry-pick from his essays to assemble a book that would qualify?

Comments

[tx-cronopio.livejournal.com]

While I have to admit that I no longer love Asimov like I used to, I am confident that he has enough philosophy in his writings to manage a book! Hey, why don't you edit??

[grimjim.livejournal.com]

In "X" Stands for Unknown, I recall at least one essay regarding the scientific method.

[deor.livejournal.com]

Ah, but that would be in the 500s, Science, not 100s, philosophy.

Didn't he ever do anything about debunking ghosts/ESP/UFOs? That would be in the 100s.

[grimjim.livejournal.com]

There may also be an angle to be pursued via philosophy of science, depending on how that is categorized.

[tanac.livejournal.com]

The easiest category to get something into ought to be the 158.1's, which is self-help.

(scientific method would be in the 600s, most likely)

[daveon.livejournal.com]

The section lead in stuff in his Opus collections strays into Philosophy if memory serves. There was quite an interesting piece on the nature of imagination versus factual experience where he dealt with the inherent conflict between his fear of flying and falling and his extrapolation concerning space travel.

[j-larson.livejournal.com]

Looking through the list, the following look likely to me:

133 (Parapsychology & Occultism) -- Was Asimov in the habit of railing against pseudoscience?

153 (Mental Processes & Intelligence) -- Did he have anything to say about IQ testing and intelligence in general?

[james-angove.livejournal.com]

153 (Mental Processes & Intelligence) -- Did he have anything to say about IQ testing and intelligence in general?

God I hope not. I like Asimov a great deal, but the odds that a SF writer of his generation, and particularly of his background and not-quite-unique enough social skills would have anything that isn't wince inducing (or worst) on such subjects are not good.

[fridgepunk.livejournal.com]

what about his background raises flags?

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Actually, I'm moderately sure he'd be on the side of the angels here. I do seem to recall that, even though he was at some point a member of Mensa, he found the whole thing pretty silly and was skeptical of IQ testing as a measure of worth or intellect.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

...Come to think of it, I do remember an essay he wrote once that was collected in, I think, The Planet That Wasn't that touched on the subject. As I recall, the gist of it was that justification of racist policies on the basis of supposed differences in intelligence was transparently post-hoc, since the same people who put down blacks as inferior in intelligence usually described Jews as being of superior intelligence but discriminated against them anyway (this time justifying it with conspiracy theories).

Asimov was no saint, but he was keenly sensitive about bigotry in general as a result of his personal experience with antisemitism.

[scentofviolets.livejournal.com]

I'm sure he wasn't. But he seems to be a lot nicer than most of the people I meet even today. Um, I get the impression from non-fans that Heinlein was one of those guys who was perfectly charming as long as you agreed with everything they said. Asimov, again from what I can tell, might have had some problems dealing with members of the opposite sex. But I never hear anything about Clarke. I'm guessing that he was reserved enough always to appear the perfect English gent, at least to American eyes.

Is there any sort of cultural regionalism at work here?

[davidgoldfarb.livejournal.com]

I can distinctly recall at least one essay railing against pseudoscience -- the title "The Armies of Night" comes to mind.

[scentofviolets.livejournal.com]

I believe he wrote an introduction to one of Gardner's books, 'Flimflam' or some such tible, and didn't Asimov count introductions, sort of?

[shimgray.livejournal.com]

100 is an astonishingly broad field, and includes all of psychology as well as "craziness" - any book on mysticism, crystals, psychics or UFOs, etc. There must be enough of his writing (against) That Sort Of Thing...

[auriaephiala.livejournal.com]

Asimov's Guide to the Bible wouldn't fit in this? Or Words in Genesis?

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

200, isn't it?

[zeborah]

I'm trying to find a library whose catalogue a) has sufficient Asimov for statistical purposes, b) allows limiting by call number, and c) uses the Dewey Decimal system.

In the meantime NCSU library (link may or may not work) shows he has books in most of the Library of Congress classifications, which is quite impressive. Still missing out on F (which I think of as "More history of America, the place so important that it needs two letters to itself"), J (political science), K (law), S (agriculture, forestry and such), and V (naval science). He also appears to have books in W, a classification which until now I (and Wikipedia) never knew existed, which should cancel out one or two.

<resorts to Worldcat and manual checking> Still failing to prove you wrong. I'm shocked and dismayed; I was sure he'd once written that he had managed to get into every one of the DDC centuries. Surely it's not possible that Asimov, a man famous for boasting of his humility, would ever have stretched the truth in favour of his vanity!

[wizwom.livejournal.com]

The Library of Congress doesn't admit to a "W" category, per http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/lcco/

So that is really, really weird.

Ah, Wikipedia answers the question:
The National Library of Medicine classification system (NLM) uses unused letters W and QS–QZ. Some libraries use NLM in conjunction with LCC, eschewing LCC's R (Medicine).

[shimgray.livejournal.com]

I suspect it's also used by various institutions as a handy spare category - he might have a book in W if they're using it for a local interest collection, for example.

[quicktongue.livejournal.com]

Off Topic but, James can you suggest any good book review blogs? I'm trying to increase the marketing reach of the press I'm interning for. I've now exhausted the more traditional media outlets and I'm ready to start in on the newer ones.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Do you mind if I make this an entry?

[quicktongue.livejournal.com]

Not at all.

It sure would!

[stevetheyounger.livejournal.com]

The first Asimov book I ever read was a thin paperback entitled "Science, Numbers, and I". It contained, as I recall, musings on Cosmology, but also on philosophy. I think much of it became my philosophy and still is.

By the way, James, this is Bob Bobbaran from Fass'87 How ya doin'?