Customer Reviews

The Illustrated To Think Like God: Pythagoras and Parmenides, The Origins of Philosophy

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Beautiful book. Superb style. Captivating content. A one of a kind book that can be enjoyed by everyone!

I am an avid reader of ancient Greek and Roman history, my passion living on past my University days. I can honestly say that it has been quite a while since I have enjoyed a book on philosophy as much as I did this one. The combination of ancient philosophy and ancient history is in near perfect form throughout this book. I tend to tire of pure philosophy texts quickly, if not immediately, but To Think Like God held my attention the entire way through. It's a brilliant departure from a pretentious philosophy essay or a mind-numbing history text, both of which can be found in abundance these days. I think that many have forgotten the importance of weaving history into philosophy. This breaks that boring trend and provides the reader with insights to early philosophy, relevant historical information, even some rarely known, intriguing history bits are sewn in; Not to mention the vivid illustrations that, page after page, bring an unheard of vibrancy to philosophy and history alike.

I must commend the author on his writing style, for I seldom find myself immersed in a book so fluid. His language and structure are married beautifully. A pure joy to read! I keep this book on my coffee table and have yet to find a person who neglects to take a peek at it when visiting. It's interesting and exceptional no matter the situation; I'd recommend this to anyone with a valid brain wave.

We have only a few score surviving lines of Parmenides' poem but the author, Arnold Hermann, has delivered a very rational, intelligible interpretation which is that the poem's meaning is not cosmological but logical and epistemological. In other words, it is a guide to thinking: how to gauge the conformance to fact of discourse, your own or someone else's,and how to be as sure as possible that you are not fooling yourself. Parmenides calls this an "evidential account" and the author points out that he was a legal theorist who drew up the laws for his Polis of Elea, which remained in force long after his death.So it would seem that what we now call philosophy may have grown out of Greek jurisprudence, not Greek religious cosmogony. The poem outlines a method of inquiry, a way to make sure an account is internally consistent and not self-contradictory and self-refuting. The first part of the book is an examination of other pre-socratics, in particular Pythagoras, and is filled with a lot of fascinating historical detail, e.g. the Pythagorean destruction of the city of Sybaris in 510 B.C. For me, the effect of the extensive material on Pythagoras was to throw into bold relief the last part of the book, containing the interpretation of Parmenides. What the two had in common was the search for the perfect premise. For Pythagoras it was the unit; for Parmenides it was "That IT IS". In Hermann's view, the discovery of irrationals proved the unit inadequate as a premise. I have read this book two or three times. It is an accomplishment to make the philosophy of Parmenides accessible to a "general reader" like myself who doesn't know any Greek. I have examined several other books on the subject and they all presuppose an advanced knowledge of Greek which puts them beyond the ken of all but Classics majors or specialists with advanced degrees. There are many handsome illustrations including the author's photographs of the ruins of Elea and Sybaris. This book would be valuable to virtually anyone with an inquiring mind and an interest in the ancient world and ancient philosophy.

Best stay away from this one. The first few chapters are helpful, but the further in you go into the actual ideas of parmenides the more confusing it becomes. An excellent example of an author who has written a book without the experience of communicating his ideas with a live audience. His editors have failed him. Pretty but unhelpful illustrations. Perhaps the author understands what he is talking about.

This book was an attempt at writing a persuasive paper designed to minimalize the works of Pythagoras and his followers in order to lift up Parmenides onto a pedestal. The author treats the Pythagoreans as having flawed ideas so that he can then claim that Parmenides came and had the correct or proper way of defining philosophy.

Reasons behind this could stem from the fact that both Pythagoras and Parmenides lived during the same time period, and he needed to degrade Pythagoras in order to show that Parmenides made the greatest contribution to the start of philosophy as being the "better" pre-Socratic thinker.

The funny truth of the matter is that Pythagoras is probably more widely known for his and his group's accomplishments than Parmenides, and it is a shame the author felt as though he had to exclude a brilliant philosopher in order to champion another.

I have considered myself to be a practical philosopher, a person who can take ideas and test them towards real world goals. This way of operating makes philosophy a tool one can use to navigate through life's unpredictable outcomes. Pythagoras had a series of precepts that he taught his students and his followers continued this regimen in order to not just think, but to do. The author is scared to admit this, to recognize this philosophy, because then it would jeopardize the perceived achievements of his idol Paremides.

One of the limitations I see with current academic philosophy is that it is stuck within the very mindset that the author has, which is that philosophy is just about thinking for the sake of thought and thought alone. Other academic professors share his view. This is a very narrow view, and it does not help the field of philosophy to hold such a view. Philosophy is a large umbrella full of ideas which have sprouted just about all the major fields of study taught in universities today. Philosophy needs to find the connections it made long ago and claim credit for the broad body of knowledge that has been a neccesary part of the functionality of societies both past, present, and into the forseeable future. Trying to create a niche in philosophy in order to make it stand out will just turn away those students and practitioners who know that there are a panorama of philosophies both practiced and taught and that it is this trait which makes philosophy so special.