Pooh and the Philosophers : In Which It Is Shown That All of Western Philosophy Is Merely a Preamble to Winnie-The-Pooh (Hardcover)

by John Tyerman Williams (Author), Ernest H. Shepard (Illustrator)
Key Phrases: enormous brain, very little brain, making honey, Christopher Robin, Pooh Bear, Great Bear (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews
Pooh And The Philosophers ($17.99; June 1996; 214 pp.; 0-525-45520-5): Contending that Pooh, all his protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, is in fact a Bear of Great Brain Indeed, Williams drives an already frayed conceit deeply, deeply into the ground, proposing Pythagorean precepts that presage Poohvian pronouncements, spinning more parallels from Spinoza, digging up Heideggerian dogma, giving new meaning to ``exegesis'' by pointing out all the x's in the ``expotition'' passage, etc. Adorned by the subtitle ``In Which It Is Shown That All of Western Philosophy Is Merely a Preamble to Winnie-the-Pooh,'' and plainly intended to be a painless primer of the major western schools of philosophy, this tedious, undiverting analysis doesn't come close to Benjamin Hoff's The Tao of Pooh (1982), not to mention its great progenitor, Frederick C. Crew's The Pooh Perplex (1962). Enough, already. (Humor/novelty. 12+) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Review
All the wisdom of Western philosophy may be found in A. A. Milne's Pooh-bear creation: here the bear sage illuminates the ideas of great philosophical thinkers in an entertaining, fun account which combines numerous Milne quotes with enlightening reflections on philosophy. -- Midwest Book Review

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Dutton Books; First American Edition edition (August 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0525455205
• ISBN-13: 978-0525455202
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #273,672 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Simply wonderful - fun, informative and even cute!, October 12, 1997

By A Customer

Pooh and the Philosphers tells us what we all should have known by ourselves - the the Bear of Little Brain is nothing less than a great philosopher and a very smart bear indeed. People give me strange looks when I laugh oput loud while reading this hilarious and yet serious book on the bus but who cares? Besides, I learned more about philosphy from this book that from any university course..

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Western Philosophy is so un-Pooh-ish, October 14, 2003

By	Giant Panda (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews

If there was a ZERO star rating, I would have given it here. I became interested in this book after reading and thoroughly enjoying the "Tao of Pooh" by Benjamin Hoff. Unfortunately, I quickly found out that this is the wrong book and for good reasons. First of all I found it extremely boring and often difficult to follow. This deficiency however is merely the symptom of a much deeper problem inherent in the attempt to use Pooh out of all creatures to illustrate Western philosophy. Pooh is the epitome of an easygoing fellow, someone who doesn't take himself too seriously, and who lives each day for itself. This is almost the exact opposite of what Western philosophy has been attempting to achieve. In general, Western philosophers have taken themselves far too seriously, emphasizing logic and deduction over everything else, and were never really easygoing. It is no surprise, given this inherent contradiction, that "Pooh & the Philosophers" ended up such a disaster. I really don't know what on earth Williams was thinking in using Pooh to illustrate Western philosophy! Instead I recommend Benjamin Hoff's great duo "The Tao of Pooh" and its sequel "The Te of Piglet". This book, "Pooh and The Philosophers" is not worth anything and a waste of time.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good concept -- but the joke gets old, June 23, 2003

By	Larry Nielsen (Boise, ID United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book was the primary text in a university workshop I just took on "Philosophy in Children's Literature." Being a big fan of Benjamin Hoff's "The Tao of Pooh," I approached the book with great hopes. Williams' tongue-in-cheek conceit is that the Bear of Little Brain is, in fact, the greatest philosopher that ever lived. All of western philosophy before Pooh was mere preamble and the twentieth-century existentialists were familiar with an heavily influenced by the "Great Bear."
I felt that Williams was more interested in being clever than in whatever other goal he had in mind. He presents the philosophical concepts too briefly and dismissively to be of much value. Worse, it seems he spends more space extolling the brilliant Pooh that really discussing how the (sometimes stretched past the breaking point) passages from A. A. Milne's stories relate to philosophies. Like any one-joke movie or TV series, it just got repetitive and annoying after awhile.