Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?: 23 Questions from Great Philosophers [Hardcover]

Leszek Kolakowski (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 13, 2007

Can nature make us happy? How can we know anything? What is justice? Why is there evil in the world? What is the source of truth? Is it possible for God not to exist? Can we really believe what we see? There are questions that have intrigued the world's great thinkers over the ages, which still touch a chord in all of us today. They are questions that can teach us about the way we live, work, relate to each other and see the world. Here Leszek Kolakowski explores the essence of these ideas, introducing figures from Socrates to Thomas Aquinas, Descartes to Nietzsche, and concentrating on one single important philosophical question from each of them. Whether reflecting on good and evil, truth and beauty, faith and the soul, or free will and consciousness, Leszek Kolakowski shows that these timeless ideas remain at the very core of our existence.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"New York Review of Books"
"A slight and deceptively modest volume, "Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?" is more than a short guide to the history of philosophy.... Written with a graceful simplicity that belies its profundity, this is a book that reconnects philosophy with perennial questions.... Kolakowski's work is exemplary and indispensable."

"Atlantic"
"A discrete, dialectical wonder, a high-brow, low-key little volume that's strangely synchronous: backward-looking, forward-thinking, and--best of all--wholly free of both condescension and commonplaceness."

Richard Neuhaus, "First Things"
"Each little essay is a masterpiece of exquisitely refined intellectual summary and judgment. One may not always agree, but, in disagreement, one is prompted to think again."

"New York Times"
"With admirable clarity and brevity, Mr. Kolakowski puts these enduring questions within arm's reach of the general reader. If your New Year's resolution is to become a better, wiser person, this may be the place to start."

About the Author

Leszek Kolakowski is currently senior research fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. He has also taught at the University of Chicago, McGill University, UC Berkeley, and Yale University. He is the author of numerous books, including his masterpiece and magnum opus Main Currents of Marxism, published in three volumes in the 1970s and recently reissued in a single volume by Norton. He is the recipient of many major international awards, including the Jerusalem Prize for the Freedom of the Individual in Society (2007), the Library of Congress John W. Kluge Prize in the Human Sciences awarded for lifetime achievement in the humanistic and social sciences (2004), a MacArthur ("genius") Fellowship (1983) as well as the German Booksellers Peace Prize (1977), the Erasmus Prize (1980) and the Veillon Foundation European Prize for the Essay (1980). He is a Fellow of the British Academy, a fellow of the Académie Universelle des Cultures, and a Foreign Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He lives in Oxford, England.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books; First Edition, First Printing edition (November 13, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465004997
• ISBN-13: 978-0465004997
• Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 4.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #411,933 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Windows into Philosophy, January 23, 2008

By 

R. Clifford "Bullmoose" (CA, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?: 23 Questions from Great Philosophers (Hardcover)

Most of us would probably pick up a book like this because we are looking for answers about the meaning of life, or something like that. But instead of answers, Professor Kolakowski offers more questions. He introduces us to one thought or concept from each of 23 philosophers and then, in Socratic style, gives the reader some questions to answer.

This little book is both challenging and enjoyable to read, a real thought-provoker.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A delightful little book, September 14, 2009

By 

Van Isle Rev (Vancouver Island, British Columbia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?: 23 Questions from Great Philosophers (Hardcover)

This small book of brief philosophical portraits is great fun. Important to emphasize, however, the smallness of the book and the brief nature of the portraits provided. As Kolakowski points out in his introduction to the book: "This little book is not meant as some sort of super-condensed textbook, encyclopaedia or dictionary. If a student attempted to sit an exam on the basis of these essays, he would be disappointed: he would fail." That caveat notwithstanding, these little essays (none of them longer than 10 pages) provide succinct snapshots of most of the great philosophers in the European tradition. Not so much a book of philosophy, it's a book about philosophers and their "great ideas", each presentation gets to the heart of the philosopher's key ideas, and each concludes with provocative questions for readers to ponder.

For some hard to fathom reason, Basic Books chose to eliminate 7 of Kolakowski's portraits, portraits that can be found in the Polish original. The seven portraits left on the cutting room floor are those of Aristotle, Meister Eckhart, Nicolas of Cusa, Hobbes, Heidegger, Jaspers and Plotinus. Chiefly for that reason (what in the world were they thinking?), this volume loses a star.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Gritty and provocative, September 12, 2010

By 

Herbert L Calhoun "paulocal" (Falls Church, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?: 23 Questions from Great Philosophers (Hardcover)

This small book properly can be called a "diamond in the rough." For all rolled into one, is a clever yet understandable analysis of philosophy, "Cold War politics" and religion. In fact, here we get to see what philosophers do at the office each day. They comb history for the arguments of the masters and then supplement them with the latest contemporary findings and meld them together to solve the problems of today.

Leszek Kolakowski, once one of Poland's most important philosophers - that is until he was banned from teaching and forced to immigrate to the West -- uses 23 questions here as a platform for probing more deeply into key questions that sit at the center of modern philosophy generally, and at the intersection of rationality and metaphysics in particular, to analyze the arguments of many traditional philosophers. All of this analysis is put to good use as they each prove to be pivotal to understanding the finer points of contemporary Western philosophy.

In each essay a wide range of issues that interest the author are examined and analyzed. And although some of the discussions are clearer and better argued (and thus were more valuable to this reader than others), they all are clear and understandable and coalesce around the very interesting issue of the nature and rationality of the existence of god, therefore the title of the book. Using the history of philosophy and the essays of a slew of philosophers as a guide to established Western philosophical literature, the author combs history to come to some rather unexpected conclusions. The most important of these becomes what could be considered the running theme of the book: that there is an irreducible religious presence in many intellectual arguments, in Western, as well as in non-Western societies.

Said somewhat differently, Kolakowski sees the structure and logic of religious thinking -- essentially metaphysical rather than analytic argumentation -- lurking in the background of some of the most avowedly rational, most secular and least metaphysical thinkers and political movements in existence during our contemporary times. A great deal of this obviously has been gleaned from philosophical history. One movement in particular that he knows a great deal about is Marxism. As well, he sees the same strain of thought among neoconservatives such as that of Francis Fukuyama, in his book "The End of History."

The author basically agues, that the structure of secular justifications and rationalizations are heavily weighted with ideas that are essentially metaphysical and thus religious in structure and import. And while the author leans heavily on Christian philosophers, he nevertheless makes clear that he is by no means a religious apologist, or a confirmed believer in a god (thus taking no position on the issue of God's existence). As a result, he does not shy away from drawing conclusions about the hidden premises of rationalists who are constantly seen trying to "distance" themselves from what are essentially non-rational and metaphysical arguments.

Using the philosophical frameworks, the deep shared experiences of Western philosophers and the argumentations of Plato, Aristotle, Augustine Aquinas, Descartes and Spinoza, Pascal, Hume, Schopenhauer and even Nietzsche and Husserl, he concludes that while scientific thinking may still be the Holy Grail of philosophic inquiry, and still the leader in setting contemporary philosophical standards, rational arguments can never succeed in proving or disproving the existence of god. That being the case, the author in a light-hearted aside, suggests that there can be no harm in hedging ones bets on the side of god's existence, for if he does not exist, what one believes does not really matter. While on the other hand, if he does exist, then disbelief could be a very costly proposition indeed.

Throughout it is an engaging book with just the right amount of grit and edgy provocation to keep the reader interested in what could have otherwise been very rough going. Four stars.