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Books

The Isabel Dalhousie novels of Alexander McCall Smith

Patricia Cleveland-Peck detects philosophy in the books of Alexander McCall Smith.

It is not often that a novelist casts a philosopher as the chief protagonist. However, Alexander McCall Smith has done just that in his series of novels about the Edinburgh philosopher Isabel Dalhousie – the eighth volume of which, The Forgotten Affairs of Youth, is just published.

Isabel is an extremely likeable character, just the sort of person most of us would value as a friend. This is because she practises what she preaches as a philosopher. She is editor of the Review of Applied Ethics, and many of the incidents in this book series arise from her applying her ethical judgements to peoples’ problems.

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