Customer Reviews

Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes

5 star:		(105)
4 star:		(51)
3 star:		(20)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

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.]

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

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:

<<When Thompson hit 70, he decided to change his lifestyle completely so he could live longer. He went on a strict diet, he jogged, he swam and he took sunbaths. In just three months' time, Thompson lost 30 pounds and reduced his waist by six inches. Svelte and tan, he decided to top it off with a new haircut. Stepping out of the barbershop, he was hit by a bus.
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.

No doubt about it, this is a fun little book to read. That said, if you hoped for a painless way to get an even superficial understanding of the basics of philosophy, you'll probably have to keep looking.

Unfortunately, that was my hope. I didn't expect to finish the book with a Phd, or even a bachelor's degree worth of philosophical knowledge or understanding, but I did hope to get a loose mental framework upon which I could hang future philosophical learnings. That didn't happen, but I did get one or two really good jokes and 40 or 50 mediocre jokes.

In the end, it just felt like Cathcart and Klein knew that to sell more copies they might be better off emphasizing the jokes more heavily and the philosophy less so. That's actually too bad, because their idea about jokes conveying a sense of philosophy really does seem true, and the humor really has the power to cement the philosophical ideas in your head where they might not otherwise stick so well.

Overall, this isn't a bad book, but it seems like a missed opportunity to do something more special.

"Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar" is highly entertaining, fast read that covers an astonishing range of philosophical issues with an economy of words. The authors manage their brevity by illustrating those issues with very apt stories, anecdotes and jokes. And the humor of their stories, anecdotes and jokes has sufficient range to appeal to a general audience. (If you don't like some of their jokes, don't worry -- they've got a million of 'em.)

But wait! The real burning philosophical question you want answered is this: why would you want to read a book about philosophy? I mean, really, this book may be funny but you can get lots of joke books that are funnier and don't make you learn serious stuff (like philosophy, for example).

I have just the answer for you. Learning philosophy can help you think better. It can help you understand why you think the way you do and give you options for expanding your possibilities. It can help you understand the ways in which others can influence and manipulate your thinking and how they may get you to believe things that are misleading, untrue, or damaging. It can help you make better judgments. It can help you influence other people's thinking and persuade them to your viewpoint. Learning philosophy can be very handy.

On its serious side, "Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar" is a good introduction to the main concepts of philosophy. Its entertaining and humorous side makes learning philosophy enjoyable and much easier than a textbook.

And, if you are a student, the book may be an excellent companion to your textbook for a required philosophy class.

[..]

First of all, the book is very readable, and the idea of the book almost precious. The jokes are usually funny. I am not sorry I read it.

However, it ultimately fails. The tiny book does not do justice to the philosophical concepts it covers, and anyone with more than a little knowledge in the discipline will know how limited the explanations are. In addition, as funny as they are, some of the jokes are REALLY a stretch, made to fit sometimes as a negative example.

If a reader wants a fun read, fine. If the reader really wants to know about philosophy, I would suggest going elsewhere.

The authors Cathcart and Klien have attempted to write a primer on philosophy with jokes as an illustration in understanding certain concepts, rules, etc. Well, they both fail and succeed. First, as a previous reviewer notes, the philosophy is shallow. I am assuming he means there is not even enough here to satisfy the requirements as a basic primer, of which I would whole heartily agree. Yes, they introduce basic ideas, but there is so little presented, not to mention sometimes they commit basic errors themselves.

Further, the authors have certain pet-peeves to say the least and sometimes, but by no means too often, present a less than honest view (I don't mean here they are lying, for that assumes they completely understand the issues themselves, but that their bias does not see when an opposing side commits the same errors they deride about or that they have not really understood the debate).

Now the jokes are the genius of the book. Yes, they are funny and yes, they are correlated to the rules of philosophy they are trying to communicate. Here, they did a splendid job! I was laughing like I was about to die. Five stars for the jokes and there placement with the material, 2 stars on the philosophy. 3 and half ***.

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.

Loved it, learned from it, and want everyone I know to read this gem! Bravo! What the world needs now. . . is smarts like this!

What an amazing achievement. A book about Philosophy that can be enjoyed by anyone from the curious layman to that dour professor who taught you that course on Phenomenology and Existentialism. The authors have the knack of getting to the core of a philosophical issue in just a crystal clear sentence or two. Then they make their point with a relevant joke. No drab and dry examples here; just jokes that rarely are clinkers.

Speaking of clinkers, the authors make sport of Hobbes' famous line regarding the human condition, "(life being..) solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. It's all those bad things, and then Hobbes complains because it's too short? The authors liken this to the lady at a resort who complained that "the food was cold, undercooked, repulsive....and the servings are too small."

At one point in the book there is a discussion of the linguistic concept of language fuzziness. How precise should language be? Should it be mathematically precise or loose enough for some wiggle room? There then follows this funny example of problems encountered in language that is a bit too fuzzy.

"A 911 dispatcher receives a panicky call from a hunter. `I've just come across a bloodstained body in the woods. It's a man and I think he is dead! What should I do?' The dispatcher calmly replies, `It's going to be all right, sir. Just follow my instructions. The first thing is to put the phone down and make sure he is dead.' There's a silence on the phone followed by the sound of a gunshot. The man's voice returns, `Okay, what do I do next?'"

You're a philosophical novice? This book is for you. You are a philosophical drudge who takes Kant's Critique of Pure Reason to the beach with you? This book is for you. I've been seriously burned in the past by so called funny books written about serious subjects. This book is refreshingly different. Come on now, wouldn't it be fun to read this on your commuter train, and laugh so hard that your fellow travelers ask you what's so funny, and you can reply that you just read the funniest joke about Kant's categorical imperative? You'd either get looks of admiration, or get mugged. But that's life.