Abstract
The Sage Train represents a bold and novel approach by its author Nicky Hansell to engage those unfamiliar with philosophy with the ideas of some of the great philosophers. Set out as a series of lively and absorbing stories and framed within a discussion between G. K. Chesterton and Friedrich Nietzsche in a way that provides continuity between each chapter, the author tackles the thoughts and arguments of St. Thomas Aquinas, John Stuart Mill, Immanuel Kant, A. J. Ayer, Thomas Hobbes, Benedict Spinoza and Aristotle, often through the eyes of their friends and acquaintances.
Hansell has undoubted talent when it comes to weaving such complex ideas into stories—doing so with a kind of absorbing dexterity that draws the reader into the narratives she weaves around the protagonists; as an author she is unique in taking this kind of approach, and it is hard to think of another book that has such potential to engross the philosophically uninitiated. Although the stories are, in large part apocryphal, they skilfully exploit what is known about the personalities of the philosophers considered, and this gives a much needed human element to the often abstract arguments adopted in their work. The final chapter is, perhaps, the best executed of all and an anomaly within the context of the book insofar as it deals with Aristotelian virtue without involving Aristotle as a character. Instead, Hansell tells a moving story centred around two brothers, their father and a possible female student of Aristotle (speculatively his wife) upon whose work she also draws; aside from its somewhat sentimental ending, the story provides a wonderfully lucid explication of virtue ethics and how it can be understood as distinct from moral theories that concentrate on acts as opposed to character.
There is, on occasion, a whiff of (contemporary) moralism that is woven into the stories and which invites one to think that the author is using it as a means to (implicitly) persuade the reader in favour of one position rather than another. It might also be said (but not with any force) that Hansell’s characterisation of Nietzsche is a little unsympathetic, whereas her characterisation of Chesterton is not. That said, such criticisms are insufficient to cast doubt either on the value of the book as a means to engage with those new to philosophy, or general enjoyment of it.