|
| Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes | 
| Authors: Thomas Cathcart, Daniel Klein
Publisher: Abrams Image
Category: Book
List Price: $18.95
Buy New: $10.97
You Save: $7.98 (42%)
New (5) from $10.97
Avg. Customer Rating:  125 reviews
Sales Rank: 77484
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 208
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 4.9 x 0.8
Dewey Decimal Number: 102.07
ASIN: B001990I7Q
Publication Date: May 1, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand new! Beautiful! May have a small remainder mark (ink mark) along the edge. gift quality, crisp, clean, multiple copies available, prompt shipping, excellent service.
|
| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 121-125 of 125 | | « PREV 1 ... | | |
 MOVE OVER, WOODY ALLEN, HERE'S BOFFOLOSOPHY! May 18, 2007
116 out of 124 found this review helpful
Ok, I admit it, I was one of those flyballs with disheveled hair in college who spewed paragraphs from Sophie's World and felt warm and fuzzy about it. Over the years, sanity would prevail and I'd adjust my diet to include relatively more benign doses of, say, Woody Allen's satire (e.g., Without Feathers, which has among the best essays I have ever read on philosophy, with tongue firmly in cheek). But it is difficult to find a book with which I could perpetuate that passion and inflict it on my Regular Bloke buddies and be assured that it'd actually be read.
Well, this peppy little compilation of jokes might just be that perfect gift item. It takes philosophy to task with such flair and gusto that I nearly read it from cover to cover, not like one is supposed to savor a joke book--in sporadic doses, flicking random pages. The jokes are absolutely spot-on, definitely beyond your average "my karma ran over your dogma" variety, and often give a whole new meaning to the term "wisecrack". For instance, a Buddhist walks up to a hot-dog stand and says, "Make me one with everything". He then pays the vendor and asks for change. The vendor says, "change comes from within". This is not the funniest one, mind you, just one of the brief ones that a lazy codger such as myself will take the time to reproduce.
But the romp is not merely for laughs. These cracks are organized into streams/schools of philosophies as it were, which means the book also serves as a pretty good primer in philosophy over the years. I'm one of the curious types who will read up everything possible about authors of a book that I like; knowing them adds new dimensions to what I'm reading. Turns out Tom and Daniel do understand a thing or two about philosophy, having majored in philosophy at Harvard and worked in psychedelic careers ever since, including some gigs with Chicago's mafia! Their superlative command of the field shows clearly in the way this book has been arranged. Best of both worlds: content and context.
So, is it worth buying? To borrow an aphorism from the book itself, "Depends on what your definition of is is". [Translation: stop reading and get it already! You'll be reading it more than once, perhaps even passing it along.]
Erudite Hilarity Ensues! May 15, 2007
21 out of 28 found this review helpful
Loved it, learned from it, and want everyone I know to read this gem! Bravo! What the world needs now. . . is smarts like this!
delightful, accessible, educational romp May 14, 2007
30 out of 38 found this review helpful
A perfect match! I'm finding it such a joy to see the depth behind jokes and the levity in philosophy. I wish that "Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar" had been required reading when I was in school.
Loving wisdom through laughter May 14, 2007
153 out of 169 found this review helpful
The Roman satirist Juvenal famously quipped "Difficile est saturam non scibere" -- it's difficult not to write satire. It was difficult nearly two millennia ago, and Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein prove it still is today.
Satire provides a profound examination of an idea. Aristotle wrote "Humor is the only test of gravity, for a subject which will not bear raillery is suspicious, and a jest which will not bear serious examination is false wit."
It's been said he identified a very compelling reason for using humor: it's a test of ideas. Humor is a challenge to the very core of an idea -- its gravity, its seriousness. If an idea can't withstand humor it will crumble under intellectual scrutiny.
In a section on Aristotle contrasting between "essential" and "accidental" properties, Cathcar and Klein offer this illustrative joke:
<As he lay dying, he cried out, "God, how could you do this to me?"
And a voice from the heavens responded: "To tell you the truth, Thompson, I didn't recognize you." >>
We laugh - why? The answer to the question 'why' gives us understanding about philosophy, ourselves, and the world around us.
A Book to Treasure May 3, 2007
179 out of 194 found this review helpful
This is such a profound and hilarious treasure of a little book that I have ordered several as gifts for family and friends.
Because I am long removed from the formal study of philosophy in college, I am grateful to be so smoothly and delightfully reintroduced to philosophical concepts. I intended to read only a brief section (one concept) at a time--each takes no mote than fifteen minutes-- but couldn't keep away for long, and finished the book in a day. Now I've lent my copy to a friend, but I can hardly wait to get it back and read it again.
In an early 20h century Webster's, philosophy is defined as "Literally, the love of, inducing the search after, wisdom; in actual usage, the knowledge of phenomena as explained by, and resolved into, causes and reasons, powers and laws."
Plato and the Platypus describes the findings of the great philosophers throughout history who have conducted the search after wisdom and taught their explanations of phenomena. And then it illustrates the causes and reasons, the powers and laws, with jokes--good jokes, relevant jokes, jokes that made me laugh aloud even as they stimulated my own search.
I don't think I have ever before had such a joyful read.
Peggy Smith
author, Mark My Words: Instruction and Practice in Proofreading
|
|
|
Wildlife, nature and the Environment
Sponsored Links
Learn how to get your own Amazon Book shop | |
