30-Second Philosophies

The 50 Most Thought-provoking Philosophies, Each Explained in Half a Minute

Julian Baggini, Stephen Law, Barry Loewer

• Publisher: Icon Books
• Year: 2010
• eBook ISBN: 9781848314504
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

A full-colour illustrated tour through philosophy's most famous – and most mind-bending – ideasI Think Therefore I Am, Existentialism, Dialectical Materialism? The Socratic Method and Deconstruction? Sure, you know what they all mean. That is, you've certainly heard of them. But do you know enough about them to join a dinner party debate or dazzle the bar with your knowledge?30-SECOND PHILOSOPHIES takes a revolutionary approach to getting a grip on the 50 most significant schools of philosophy. The book challenges leading thinkers to quit fretting about the meaning of meaning for a while and explain the most complex philosophical ideas – using nothing more than two pages, 300 words, and a metaphorical image. Here, in one unique volume, you have the chance to pick the potted brains of our leading philosophers and understand complex concepts such as Kant's Categorical Imperative without ending up in a darkened room with an ice pack on your head.

GRAND MOMENTS

GRAND MOMENTS

GLOSSARY

a posteriori A Latin term which means “from what is after.” Philosophers use it to refer to knowledge that comes after perceptual experience or depends upon experience for its justification.

a priori A Latin term which means “from what is before.” Philosophers use it to refer to knowledge that comes before experience (so-called innate knowledge) or, less controversially, knowledge that does not depend on experience for its justification.

atom Derived from the Ancient Greek word atomos, meaning “not cuttable.” The Atomists held that everything in the Universe was made up of tiny, indivisible building blocks, moving about in the void, and colliding and combining to form visible objects.

Epicurean Having to do with the philosophy of Epicurus, an ancient Greek Atomist, Hedonist, and perhaps the earliest Empiricist. Sometimes the word points only to a misunderstanding of Epicurus’ hedonistic, moral theory, and means, roughly, “a person devoted to base, bodily pleasures.”

external world The world of objects as they exist apart from our experience of them, as opposed to our inner world of thoughts, perceptions, feelings, and the like.

forms Perfect, unchanging, paradigmatic concept-objects, or archetypes, of the many types of things we see all around us, as posited by Plato. There are, for example, many beautiful things—beautiful paintings, people, landscapes, musical scores, etc.—and what they all have in common is that they resemble the Form, Beautiful. Contemplating the Beautiful, getting to know it, makes one a better judge of beautiful things. The Forms enabled Plato to find a bit of permanence out there, which he thought was necessary for the existence of genuine knowledge.

good Possibly the ultimate Form, according to Plato. According to many commentators, Plato thought that one could only have wisdom—one could really know the other Forms—only after one grasped the Form of the Good.

ideas A component notion of George Berkeley’s idealism. Ideas are the passive objects of human knowledge, which can exist only in the mind that perceives them.

indirect awareness Our precarious perceptual connection to the world. If we are directly aware of inner, mental representations of objects in the external world, then we are only indirectly aware of the external world.

material substratum A something, we know not what, supposedly underpinning our perceptions of physical objects. It’s nothing but a philosopher’s fiction, according to George Berkeley.

mind A component notion of George Berkeley’s idealism. The mind is a container of ideas or, rather, a thing that knows them, and acts upon them.

purpose A fundamental feature of almost any explanation, for Aristotle. While modern science attempts to understand things by viewing them as purposeless, Aristotle saw purposes, goals, and ends everywhere: smoke rises because it “aims for the heavens,” acorns grow because their end is an oak tree, and so on.

Sun The representation of the Form of the Good in Plato’s cave allegory. Once outside the cave, one is able to see real objects, not just shadows. Just as we are able to see the objects in the world because of the light of the Sun, so, too, Plato suggests, can we understand the Forms once we apprehend the Good itself.

SOCRATES’ METHOD

the 30-second philosophy

Socrates was said to be the wisest man in Athens because he knew that he knew nothing. In the dialogues of Plato, Socrates attempted to spread such wisdom by going around asking people what they thought about a subject, and then asking them tricky questions until they contradicted themselves. For instance, in the dialogue Republic, he asks what “justice” is, and Cephalus suggests it is telling the truth and paying your debts. So, Socrates asks, if you borrow a sword from someone, you owe it to them to give it back, right? But then, what if you know that the person who wants their sword back has gone raving mad? “There have to be exceptions,” admits Cephalus. So, then, in this case justice requires not giving someone what they are due. Cephalus has undermined his own argument, revealing he doesn’t know what he thought he knew about justice. Socrates rests his case, and then starts on someone else. This method can seem very negative, but if you want to end up with true beliefs, you have to test the ones you have very thoroughly, and Socrates’ contention was that, if you do so, you’ll find that most of what you think is wrong.

3-SECOND THRASH

Ask questions, pick holes, and convince people they don’t know what they’re talking about.

3-MINUTE THOUGHT

Many have adopted what they call a “Socratic method,” although this often bears little resemblance to the highly negative approach of Socrates himself. Sometimes, the term is broadly used to refer to a rigorous examination of ideas by means of question and answer. Others in the practical philosophy movement have developed Socratic dialogue, in which the discussion is very democratic and cooperative—utterly unlike the way in which Socrates destroyed the arguments of his interlocutors.

RELATED PHILOSOPHIES

HEGEL’S DIALECTIC

3-SECOND BIOGRAPHIES

SOCRATES

469–399 BCE

PLATO

428/27–348/47 BCE

30-SECOND TEXT

Julian Baggini

Socrates was wise; Socrates was a man; all men are wise. No, hang on, that can’t be right. Let’s try it again.

PLATO’S CAVE

the 30-second philosophy

Here is a picture of the human condition. People sit in a dark cave, watching shadows cast on the wall, thinking that they ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• How to become a philosopher
• Language & Logic
• Science & Epistemology
• Mind & Metaphysics
• Ethics & Political Philosophy
• Religion
• Grand Moments
• Continental philosophy
• Notes on contributors
• Resources
• Acknowledgments