{"id":494,"date":"2009-11-09T09:54:53","date_gmt":"2009-11-09T14:54:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/royceeddington.com\/?p=494"},"modified":"2009-11-09T09:54:53","modified_gmt":"2009-11-09T14:54:53","slug":"plato-and-a-platypus-walk-into-a-bar-by-thomas-cathcart-daniel-klein-mini-book-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/royceeddington.com\/?p=494","title":{"rendered":"Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar by Thomas Cathcart &#038; Daniel Klein : Mini Book Review"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"width: 165px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"  \" title=\"Plato and a Platypus\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covers3.booksamillion.com\/covers\/bam\/0\/14\/311\/387\/0143113879.jpg?resize=155%2C224\" alt=\"Plato and a Platypus\" width=\"155\" height=\"224\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Plato and a Platypus<\/p><\/div>\n<p>10 words or less: Fun. Like throwing a skipping stone over deep philosophical waters.<\/p>\n<p>Long version : This book was a impulse buy at the local bookstore this weekend. Normally I only hit the bargain bins, but this book looked interesting and was reviewed well based on everything all over the jacket cover, so I grabbed at at face value.<\/p>\n<p>It was a fun and breezy read. Just tapping on the cusps of philosophical ideas and ideologies, the authors take a few moments on each topic being serious, and turn right around and make a joke in contrasting boldface that illustrates the type of philosophy and\/or topic being discussed.<\/p>\n<p>For example, when talking about existentialism&#8230;<br \/>\n&#8220;The extentialists&#8217; emphasis on facing the anxiety of death has given life to a new mini-industry, the hospice movement, founded on Dr. Elisabeth K\u00fcbler-Ross&#8217;s twentieth-century bioethical philosophy that encourages the honest acceptance of death.<br \/>\n<strong>Customer in a restaurant: How do you prepare your chickens?<br \/>\nCook: Oh, nothing special really. We just tell them they&#8217;re gonna die.<\/strong>&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>At the end of the 215 page book, the authors gently point to &#8220;suggested reading&#8221; list for those who found the shallow end fun and want to try something a little deeper next time. Kant, Hegel, Marx, Kierkegaard, Foucault, Hume, Locke and more are on the list, so there&#8217;s a fair chance someone starting on this book may just find something wonderful waiting for them should they choose to follow some of the abbreviated suggestions in the list.<\/p>\n<p>This was a fun book that was pretty much philosophy 099. OK, maybe philosophy 101. A quick glance into the basics of philosophy, an overview of some major ideas, and a few nuggets to chew on. All easily digestible.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m probably going to head back and pick up their sequel &#8220;Heidegger and a Hippo walk through the pearly gates: Using Philosophy (and jokes!) to explain life, death, the afterlife, and everything else in between.&#8221; If nothing else, for the title alone!<\/p>\n<p>Four out of five stars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>10 words or less: Fun. Like throwing a skipping stone over deep philosophical waters. Long version : This book was a impulse buy at the local bookstore this weekend. Normally I only hit the bargain bins, but this book looked &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/royceeddington.com\/?p=494\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pfyw-7Y","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/royceeddington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/royceeddington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/royceeddington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/royceeddington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/royceeddington.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=494"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/royceeddington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":498,"href":"https:\/\/royceeddington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494\/revisions\/498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/royceeddington.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/royceeddington.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/royceeddington.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}