Customer Reviews

Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar...: Understanding Philosopy Through Jokes

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

If you would like a review of basic concepts and figures in the history of philosophy, here is the audio set you need. You will be laughing from the first to the last, whether the subject is cows and pi, blondes and craps, or women in a fitness club dressing room. Hilarious and educational: what more could you want? The title joke is the climax, and it will have you at once cracking up and realizing how much you've learned along the way. You'll love it!

I would suggest that you purchase this product before it disappears altogether. The author(s) are grandsons of Groucho Marx and that same zany humor is brought to the, otherwise dry, subject of philosophy. Not only does it make you think (that's what philosphy does) but it sends your thoughts off in some random direction - much like a pin ball game. I have purchased several copies for gifts and everyone was pleased to receive it - even those who don't like philosphy.

Try it - you'll like it.

I wish I'd had this book 35 years ago when I was studying philosophy in college. It would have kept me awake in a few classes that I'd love to forget.

Merging the intimidating philosophy theories with jokes seems a nice concept for a coffee table book, but after 2 hours of painful reading I found this book can be best described as the famous saying:
"Analyzing a joke is like dissecting a frog, no one is very interested and the frog dies of it".

And I had a feeling that sometimes the authors did not get the jokes they quoted. Maybe it's just me.

Let me first note that I listened to the unabridged audio version of this book, and didn't read the print book. I didn't care for the audio narration, so that surely diminished my overall assessment of the book.

The book basically provides a broad overview of Western philosophy, with some token Eastern philosophy thrown in here and there. The breadth is actually pretty good, so you wind up hearing about most of the key issues, philosophers, schools, and concepts.

But this is a short book, so its breadth comes at the expense of a rather shallow and superficial treatment. For example, for some philosophers, you get just a sentence or two, and then the book moves on.

Because of this shallowness, I can't really even call this book an introduction to philosophy. Rather, it's more like a primer to philosophy, at best. In other words, if someone has had very limited exposure to philosophy, they could go through this book to get an idea of what philosophy is about, to see if they want to explore the subject further, but you couldn't actually learn philosophy in any meaningful way from this book.

And for those already versed in philosophy, I think the book may be too shallow to even serve as a useful quick review.

Considering all of this, one might hope that the real added value of the book is in its connecting philosophy and humor, and that does seem like a good idea (which is why I bought the book). But I think the book also falls short here. For me, the attempts at humor were hit or miss, and more often miss. The inadequate narration probably contributed to this, so maybe the print book is funnier, but I'm not in a position to judge that.

The bottom line is that I can't really recommend the book because the treatment is too superficial and the humor didn't generally work for me. But others might get more out of it, so maybe peruse a print copy or listen to an audio sample to help you decide.

Wanting to become more knowledgeable about philosophy, I thought this would be a good way to some understanding. The book was indeed helpful to me in it's use of humor to aide understanding the sometimes complex abstracts of this science.

However on page 161 (in my book) in their treatment of philosophy and politics, the authors put forth the following:

Perhaps you're asking yourself, "What exactly is the difference between capitalism and communism?" Perhaps not. In any case it's really quit simple. Under capitalism, man exploits his fellow man. Under communism, the opposite is true.

Is this another joke? A communist doesn't exploit his fellow man? What philosophical epistemology would lead one to think that driving millions of innocent people out of their homes to work for free on collectives isn't exploiting them?

I was instantly reminded of the "Artificial Induced Famine/Genocide (Holodomor)" in which 10-13 million Ukrainians died of starvation, some being driven to eat their own family members during the years of Stalin and his henchman Lazar Kaganovich1932-33!. Do you mean to say that depriving these people of their lives was a beneficent and not exploitive gesture?

When after gaining power, Vladimir Lenin having had thousands of Russian priests murdered. This wasn't an exploitation of the people? It wasn't exploitation to force people off of their own homes to work on collectives, which were nothing more than being made to be slaves?

Perhaps it was just the Soviet Union, one might argue, but as this quote from the BBC 1976 (write me for the URL to the article) points out:

Mao Zedong was the founder of modern China and is still regarded by the Chinese as one of their great leaders.
However, he was also a ruthless and deeply flawed leader whose policies killed tens of millions of people (italics added).

These were leaders murdering there own, what a nice example of being non-exploitive!

I hope those who read this book, don't absentmindedly swallow the evil facade that communism hides behind and think that their brutal way of treating citizens is a viable way of life!

Very boring, immediately!!!! Would not reccomend this unless you need a
sedative to get to sleep.
G.