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The Heart of Philosophy

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At the heart of this book about the heart of philosophy is a vision of the tranformative potential of ideas. Needleman distinguishes between genuine philosophical ideas (e.g. the kinds of ideas Socrates inquired about, like Reality and Beauty) and "mere concepts" (i.e. discursive tools, with which we carve up the world). The latter are essential to our day to day practical life, but the former (when presented properly, which is to say Socratically) have the potential to interrupt and transform our habitual ways of being and seeing. To be in the grip of ideas is to experience, according to Needleman an eros that amounts to both (1) a recognition of the inadequacy and finitude of our concepts, and (2) a passionate drive to challenge and question our everyday life and become better, more beautiful in our thinking and more excellent in our lives. It is an exciting book, that reminded this reader at least of the bewildering enchantment that I felt when I first encountered philosophy. It is also exciting for being a powerful reminder that philosophy is and ought to be about life -- and at the same time that the transformative power of philosophy stems from its highest (ideal) aspirations -- which means that philosophy for life should not be a matter of watering it down and merely using the "tools" of philosophy to think about everyday matters. Needleman's descriptions of teaching experiences in which he aimed to engage students with real thinking were especially helpful to me as a reminder that the first task of teaching philosophy should be to lead students to discover for themselves the objectivity of thought: to discover for themselves that thinking is not merely subjective but imposes real and exacting demands upon the thinker.

What disappointed me somewhat in the book is that while Needleman powerfully identifies the task of philosophy in the first instance (to expose the listener to the power of ideas and thereby shake them free of their convictions about the obviousness of their assumptions about life), he doesn't really say much about where to go from there, and about the potential of philosophy to speak to and transform everyday lives once the philosophical conviction that one must change one's life has taken hold. He gives a brief account of the history of philosophy, for example, and shows how in the works of several major thinkers there are resources for pushing readers to an "aporetic" state (state of confusion and bewilderment about what they take for granted) that is the starting point of philosophy. But having done this he gives little indication that or how thinking further about the history of philosophy or thinker more deeply about particular themes becomes important or essential. He writes almost as if (though I don't think he really believes this) the whole history of philosophy has as its essential task simply to generate the "eros" he describes for different ages and different peoples -- as if there is a kind of perennial philosophy at the heart of all genuinely philosophical thinking -- and the details and specific obsessions of each philosopher are merely window dressing. While I believe that Needleman would resist this, I don't think he gives his novice readers the resources for seeing more to the history of philosophy -- which makes his book seem reductive in a peculiar sense. On the other hand, if reading this book leads anyone to see the potential of philosophy to go beyond mere analysis of concepts and inspires in them a desire to study the history of philosophy with an eye to changing their lives, I'm sure that it won't take long for them to discover for themselves the richly diverse fascinations of the range of concerns addressed within that history.

Jacob Needleman is not a bureaucratic philosopher. His teachings are about an intense search for a meaningful life. In this book he talks about some intense experiences in his own life and also with students and their parents. He also presents a very personal overview of occidental philosophy.

Many philosophy teachers of our days are more concerned about formalities and structures of thought. Past philosophies are studied as dead bodies: cut into pieces, dissolved with chemicals, watched through microscopes.

I have already used this book in philosophy seminars for management students, at the University of Campinas, here in Brasil (there is a Portuguese translation). The response was enthusiastic!

If you want to find more than formalism in philosophy, you will probably enjoy this book.

Jacob Needleman is not a bureaucratic philosopher. His teachings are about an intense search for a meaningful life. In this book he talks about some intense experiences in his own life and also with students and their parents. He also presents a very personal overview of occidental philosophy.

Many philosophy teachers of our days are more concerned about formalities and structures of thought. Past philosophies are studied as dead bodies: cut into pieces, dissolved with chemicals, watched through microscopes.

I have already used this book in philosophy seminars for management students, at the University of Campinas, here in Brasil (there is a Portuguese translation). The response was enthusiastic!

If you want to find more than formalism in philosophy, you will probably enjoy this book.

The book delivers more or less on that which the description describes. This book attempts to make philosophy more approachable by recounting significant discourses in the context of the authors life experience. It is actually a fairly effective technique for introducing the subject.

As an entry into some of the major ideas and faces of Philosophy, it's not bad. You will need to read other pieces along with this book, as it really does take on too much. However, if one has to start somewhere, this is fairly digestible.