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Discovering Philosophy
Discovering Philosophy is a comprehensive introduction to philosophy that is specially designed for readers who are more comfortable with secondary, rather than primary sources. Using more accessible content that is unintimidating yet intellectually engaging, it relates the philosophical issues to readers' own experiences and challenges them to do philosophy on their own. Presents excerpts from primary sources when appropriate, but relies primarily on summaries, explanations, and discussions of the major arguments on the issues involved; teaches readers not so much about what philosophers think, but how to think philosophically themselves; demonstrates that after understanding a philosopher's position we are supposed to react to it, not memorize it; explores the major, traditional areas and topics of philosophy — logic, free will/determinism, ethics, political obligation, the nature of reality, knowledge, the existence of God, the meaning of life.
- GenresPhilosophy
489 pages, Paperback
First published March 10, 1996
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January 8, 2019
This book was used in my college freshman philosophy class. I was looking for a broad introduction to philosophy, so I decided to re-read this one. Actually, I'm not sure I actually read this when we used it in class. Though it is partially geared to the college student, the book more-or-less covered philosophy at the level I wanted, given that I know very little about the topic.
The book gives a basic description of the major topics in philosophy. It included discussions on determinism versus free will, right and wrong, virtue, government, the nature of reality, knowledge, the existence of God, and the purpose of life. I came away with a good sense of the main issues and the problems wrestled with by philosophers. The author covers each topic fairly quickly. For some topics I thought he was balanced and hit the main points well. He even included quite a few key passages directly from the relevant philosophers. I found this very helpful. For other topics, such as when he talked about the existence of God or the purpose of life, he seemed biased and somewhat arbitrary in how he covered the issue.
Included below is a brief summary and a few thoughts on some of the topics included in the book:
Free will vs Determinism
The discussion compares the thoughts of B.F Skinner and Sigmund Freud (determinists) with Aristotle, William James, Jean Paul Sartre, and Albert Ellis (supporters of free will). Skinner says all of our behavior is a result of conditioning. The ultimate goal for humans is to seek pleasure. If an action causes us pleasure, then we will do it again in the future. Freud takes this idea even further and says everything we think and feel is determined. We are controlled by our subconscious (our id and super-ego). Our conscious brain (our ego) is basically a slave to the animalistics instincts of our id and the super-ego, which tries to tame it. Neither Skinner nor Freud think we have any control over what we do, say, or feel. Whatever happened MUST have happened. There was no chance that something else could have happened. Free will is an illusion, according to them. Of the free-will philosophers discussed, William James's ideas stuck with me the most. First, James says if multiple choices are at least possible for us to choose, than determinism is flat-out wrong. Second, there is nothing that suggests the other options were impossible before an action is taken. For the determinist, they only know the unselected options are impossible after the fact. James says free will matches our experience and our expectations very well and it is more satisfying than determinism. Furthermore, the fact that we often feel dissatisfied with life seems to support free will. If everything that happens had to happen, than it would be illogical to be upset with anything in the past. According to the author, determinism gives us a world in which it is irrational to think that terrible crimes, for example, do not have to happen. Isn't there something fundamentally wrong with such a universe? Seen this way, determinism doesn't strike us as either rational or satisfying. No ordinary person can contemplate a horrific murder without a deep sense of horror and revulsion. Yet determinism argues that such a feeling is inappropriate and irrelevant to any discussion of the murderous deeds. The biggest problem, in my mind, with determinism is the lack of accountability for our actions. Why should a murderer be punished if he murders because of causes outside of his control? In fact, determinists don't think they should be punished. James says determinism “violates any sense of moral reality through and through.”
Right and Wrong
Most Philosophers say the ethical character of an action is based on whether or not it promotes human well-being. There are two categories of needs to satisfy our well-being. The first is material conditions. This includes survival needs such as food, water, and clothing. The second is ways of being treated. This includes things such as justice, fairness, and freedom from tyranny. There are two approaches to ethics: 1) results-oriented and 2) acts-oriented. The results-oriented approach says an action is ethically good if the consequence is good. Jeremy’s Bentham’s utilitarianism (i.e., the most good for the most people) is an example of this approach. The acts-oriented approach says an action is good if the nature of the action itself is good. Immanuel Kant was the main supporter of the acts-oriented approach. According to Kant, what makes an act ethically worthwhile is that we do it just because it is the right thing to do. The outcome does not matter. Though, it is was not clear to me how we know something is the right thing to do. What makes a given act intrinsically good, according to Kant? As a Christian I believe the answer is through divine revelation and our God-given ability to sense right and wrong. We all seem to have an inherent ability to instinctively know what's right and what's wrong.
Virtue
Why live virtuously? Why should we not lie even if lying may seem to help us in a given situation? According to Socrates and Plato, the reason we should act virtuously is because vice harms the doer. Living without virtue is unhealthy for our soul. The more we live in vice, the harder it is to live virtuously. We need to fill our lives with more and more vice to get the same level of “pleasure.” Our souls cannot be healthy without living virtuously. Socrates uses a leaky wine jar metaphor. The healthy, self controlled individual is like a solid wine jar. The unethical person who gives into his desires is like a leaky wine jar. If you are like a leaky wine jar, you inevitably feel the growing hunger of desire no matter what you do. And the longer you wait to “fill up” the worst you feel. So, your desires run your life. You must constantly justify them or feel pain. By contrast, if you are like the solid wine jar, you are content and untroubled. You do not feel the growing craving of unsatisfied desire and you can do with your life what you want, not what your desires compel you to do.
Government
There are many forms of government: democracy, oligarchy, aristocracy, monarchy. This section focuses mainly on one form of government. Namely, democracy. The major thinkers in this area include John Locke, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Thomas Hobbes. The founding fathers of the USA were greatly influenced by Locke's ideas. Democracy is based on the idea that people are naturally free and autonomous. The Declaration of Independence summarizes this fact perfectly. However, there is a tension between being free and autonomous and submitting to the authorities in power and the law. This is especially true when we must submit to laws we were born into. In this case, we had no say in the matter. The “social contract” tries to solve this problem. It argues that citizens of a society freely enter into an agreement to abide by the society's laws and, therefore, are obligated to do so. The problem with democracy, according to the author, is that the majority can overrun the minority. If you are in the minority you are really not free and autonomous. And it is hard to do anything about it. For example, it is hard to leave the country you grew up in. Moving may force you to learn a new language, find a new job, leave your family, etc. Many people would just choose to deal with their current government, regardless if it was a just government or not, than put themselves through these difficulties. Plato also saw a major flaw with democracy. According to Plato, mostly uninformed people elect others to run the country. They are easily persuaded by rhetoric. And the elected officials are not usually experts in a majority of the important issues impacting society either. The average person does not know what is best for the country. Things like economics are complex issues and cannot be adequately understood by the masses. Therefore, Plato thinks government should be ruled by philosophers. An aristocracy. Freedom could best be preserved by philosophers who have to go through rigorous training before entering into office. These people would be elected not by the people but by other experts in the field, just like any other profession. Plato was greatly influenced by what happened to his teacher, Socrates. He saw Socrates get executed via a democratic process where people were emotionally driven and ignorant of facts. I can see his point. Most of us our ignorant of the facts even when we vote. However, I still think our form of government is the best option to protect ourselves from tyranny.
Nature of Reality
Three early Greeks (Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes) from Miletus are the first known philosophers. These first philosophers begin by thinking about the nature of reality. To them, this was the most basic concept. Before these three philosophers, the world was largely described by mythic and religious means. They made two main observations: all things must have an essence and all things change. So, they tried to explain both. The Greeks said the world was made up of air, water, earth, fire. According to Thales, all the things we see are simply different forms of water. Anaximenes said everything is made of air. Thinking outside the box, Anaximander said all things are made of a substances with no properties we can see or know. This was actually genius for his day and aligns well with our modern understanding of quantum mechanics. He calls this substances “The Unlimited.” According to the author, Thales also makes a giant leap forward from the traditional thought of the day. Thales says “all things are full of gods.” Thus, he's saying all things are self contained. So, no longer are things explained by the forces of external gods. Plato also talks about the nature of reality. According to Plato, ideas are more real than the objects that present themselves to our senses. He says the stuff in our thoughts, the Forms, are more real then the physical objects themselves. If you think of a perfect chair or perfect circle it is more real, eternal, and perfect than an actual physical chair or circle. This idea is somewhat appealing given what modern science has revealed about the nature of reality. According to quantum mechanics and general relativity, the world we see is not really what it appears to be. Solid objects are not really solid, space and time change depending on your frame of reference, physical properties such as mass and length even depend on the observer's reference frame. It's said that if we could visualize the fourth dimension (the dimension of time), then there would be no past, present, or future. Everything would just exist at once. This is all very intriguing to me from a Christian perspective. I'm not sure I'm totally on board with Plato's idea of the Forms, but I feel as though having a spiritual, and more perfect, reality behind what we see with our eyes aligns with the Christian faith.
Existence of God
This section discusses the “Unmoved Mover” argument from Aquinas and Aristotle. This argument says, if I can over simplify it, all things we observe have a cause. If you take this fact all the way back to the beginning, then SOMETHING needed to cause the world to begin. And that something's essence has to be existence itself. Meaning, this “first cause” requires no cause to exist. It's essence is existence itself. This is God. Hume disagrees with this logic. Hume says since we don't know everything about our universe then maybe it has properties that make it self sufficient. Maybe the universe can cause itself into existence. To my surprise the author lauded this argument, claiming it is logical. This, after he emphatically says philosophy is based on facts and logic. Yet Hume's argument, unlike Aquinas' argument, is based on neither. Hume's argument goes against physics as we know it. It would require matter to be created from nothing. It would require the second law of thermodynamics to be violated. How is this logical? I think Aquinas’ view here is more philosophically sound than Hume's, yet the author says otherwise. If Hume's logic was used by someone to defend God's existence, I'm sure the author would have pointed out the flaws. On another note, this chapter discusses one of the mostly widely known arguments for God's existence... Anselm's ontological argument. This argument says God exists because we are capable of thinking of a being in which nothing greater can exist. I did not fully understand this argument. I could not tell if it was a play on words or really profound.
The author asks, if God exists why would He not make a world that did not always need His constant attention. Would that not be the best world for an all powerful God to make? I disagree. How can we know what the best world would be? The Christian God is a loving God and wants relationship with us. Is this not better than a God who just creates us and then leaves us alone to our our devices? The author also repeatedly ties philosophical proofs and their lack of soundness back to the Christian / Jewish God. It is not clear why he does this. I think philosophical arguments can get you to God in general. However, how can strictly philosophical arguments get you to Jesus dying on the cross to conquer death and grant salvation to humankind? Obviously faith is involved. Also, I believe his rebuttal against the existence of God based on the fact evil exists in the world overlooks fundamental questions. He addresses the view that evil exists not because God created evil, but because humans have free will to choose evil things. But I felt as though he dismisses this free will argument too quickly. He does not talk about how we even KNOW certain things are evil or not (maybe to an all powerful God these apparent evil things are actually good for us. He would know, not us, right?). Bad things bring opportunity for love and compassion. This idea could have been discussed as well.
Knowledge (Epistimogy)
You either know something is true by one of two ways.
Rationalism - knowledge comes from logic, mathematics, and reasoning. It does not come from the senses. The proponents of this idea were Plato, with his Forms, and Descartes. Descartes questioned everything. He said we basically can only know that we exist, that God exists, and a couple other things.
Empiricism - knowledge is based on our senses and measured data. Our modern scientific approach is empiricism. The problem is, we can't always trust our senses. There are countless examples in which our senses say one thing and reality is something else. The proponent of this school of thought discussed in the book was Hume. Hume doubts the self even exists and causality.
Immanuel Kant tried to merge these two schools of thought. He said we can know the world from our senses, but not the world as it actually is. We can only know the world after we perceive it and process the information with our brain. So there's the actual world, and the world we perceive.
The Meaning of Life
In this section the author explores two philosophies that try to give meaning to life. He looks at Marxism and Buddhism. This seemed arbitrary to me. I know he cannot cover every option here, but then why pick two very specific options like Marxism and Buddhism? According to him, America, with its capitalistic economic system, only values rich people. We neither value or reward nothing else. If you aren't rich, then you aren't successful. I get it. Our society is materialistic. But, his view is so pessimistic that he forgets the other things we value, such as free speech, freedom of religion, the core family, and working hard (just to name a few). What about all the good capitalism brings? Vaccines to help the sick, cures for diseases, space exploration, improved farming to feed the world. Nowhere does he discuss about the cons of Marxism or how it would be an improvement from capitalism. Capitalism isn't perfect. But is communism really better?
Marx thought that our ideas about what is valuable in life come from the economic system that dominates our lives. Living according to this vision of happiness puts a satisfying life out of reach for everyone. The author talks about how capitalism is bad for us and we cannot be happy under it. Meaning, it makes us value competition and not cooperation, distrust of others, money etc. We are by nature producers, yet capitalism separates us from the product (think assembly lines). We get no satisfaction from this type of work. The owner of the company gets all the profit and makes all the rules. Marx says people who take risks and make profits are evil.
Then author talks about the Buddha. In Buddhism, the problem is suffering. Eliminating desire is the key to eliminating suffering and achieving nirvana.
Summary
Overall, I really enjoyed the read. I'm a complete novice when it comes to philosophy and this book was perfect for me. It is a good book to whet your appetite for the various topics. I'm sure it's not easy giving an overview of all the important philosophical issues. I did think he was unfair and biased at times, but overall he did a good job.
The book gives a basic description of the major topics in philosophy. It included discussions on determinism versus free will, right and wrong, virtue, government, the nature of reality, knowledge, the existence of God, and the purpose of life. I came away with a good sense of the main issues and the problems wrestled with by philosophers. The author covers each topic fairly quickly. For some topics I thought he was balanced and hit the main points well. He even included quite a few key passages directly from the relevant philosophers. I found this very helpful. For other topics, such as when he talked about the existence of God or the purpose of life, he seemed biased and somewhat arbitrary in how he covered the issue.
Included below is a brief summary and a few thoughts on some of the topics included in the book:
Free will vs Determinism
The discussion compares the thoughts of B.F Skinner and Sigmund Freud (determinists) with Aristotle, William James, Jean Paul Sartre, and Albert Ellis (supporters of free will). Skinner says all of our behavior is a result of conditioning. The ultimate goal for humans is to seek pleasure. If an action causes us pleasure, then we will do it again in the future. Freud takes this idea even further and says everything we think and feel is determined. We are controlled by our subconscious (our id and super-ego). Our conscious brain (our ego) is basically a slave to the animalistics instincts of our id and the super-ego, which tries to tame it. Neither Skinner nor Freud think we have any control over what we do, say, or feel. Whatever happened MUST have happened. There was no chance that something else could have happened. Free will is an illusion, according to them. Of the free-will philosophers discussed, William James's ideas stuck with me the most. First, James says if multiple choices are at least possible for us to choose, than determinism is flat-out wrong. Second, there is nothing that suggests the other options were impossible before an action is taken. For the determinist, they only know the unselected options are impossible after the fact. James says free will matches our experience and our expectations very well and it is more satisfying than determinism. Furthermore, the fact that we often feel dissatisfied with life seems to support free will. If everything that happens had to happen, than it would be illogical to be upset with anything in the past. According to the author, determinism gives us a world in which it is irrational to think that terrible crimes, for example, do not have to happen. Isn't there something fundamentally wrong with such a universe? Seen this way, determinism doesn't strike us as either rational or satisfying. No ordinary person can contemplate a horrific murder without a deep sense of horror and revulsion. Yet determinism argues that such a feeling is inappropriate and irrelevant to any discussion of the murderous deeds. The biggest problem, in my mind, with determinism is the lack of accountability for our actions. Why should a murderer be punished if he murders because of causes outside of his control? In fact, determinists don't think they should be punished. James says determinism “violates any sense of moral reality through and through.”
Right and Wrong
Most Philosophers say the ethical character of an action is based on whether or not it promotes human well-being. There are two categories of needs to satisfy our well-being. The first is material conditions. This includes survival needs such as food, water, and clothing. The second is ways of being treated. This includes things such as justice, fairness, and freedom from tyranny. There are two approaches to ethics: 1) results-oriented and 2) acts-oriented. The results-oriented approach says an action is ethically good if the consequence is good. Jeremy’s Bentham’s utilitarianism (i.e., the most good for the most people) is an example of this approach. The acts-oriented approach says an action is good if the nature of the action itself is good. Immanuel Kant was the main supporter of the acts-oriented approach. According to Kant, what makes an act ethically worthwhile is that we do it just because it is the right thing to do. The outcome does not matter. Though, it is was not clear to me how we know something is the right thing to do. What makes a given act intrinsically good, according to Kant? As a Christian I believe the answer is through divine revelation and our God-given ability to sense right and wrong. We all seem to have an inherent ability to instinctively know what's right and what's wrong.
Virtue
Why live virtuously? Why should we not lie even if lying may seem to help us in a given situation? According to Socrates and Plato, the reason we should act virtuously is because vice harms the doer. Living without virtue is unhealthy for our soul. The more we live in vice, the harder it is to live virtuously. We need to fill our lives with more and more vice to get the same level of “pleasure.” Our souls cannot be healthy without living virtuously. Socrates uses a leaky wine jar metaphor. The healthy, self controlled individual is like a solid wine jar. The unethical person who gives into his desires is like a leaky wine jar. If you are like a leaky wine jar, you inevitably feel the growing hunger of desire no matter what you do. And the longer you wait to “fill up” the worst you feel. So, your desires run your life. You must constantly justify them or feel pain. By contrast, if you are like the solid wine jar, you are content and untroubled. You do not feel the growing craving of unsatisfied desire and you can do with your life what you want, not what your desires compel you to do.
Government
There are many forms of government: democracy, oligarchy, aristocracy, monarchy. This section focuses mainly on one form of government. Namely, democracy. The major thinkers in this area include John Locke, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Thomas Hobbes. The founding fathers of the USA were greatly influenced by Locke's ideas. Democracy is based on the idea that people are naturally free and autonomous. The Declaration of Independence summarizes this fact perfectly. However, there is a tension between being free and autonomous and submitting to the authorities in power and the law. This is especially true when we must submit to laws we were born into. In this case, we had no say in the matter. The “social contract” tries to solve this problem. It argues that citizens of a society freely enter into an agreement to abide by the society's laws and, therefore, are obligated to do so. The problem with democracy, according to the author, is that the majority can overrun the minority. If you are in the minority you are really not free and autonomous. And it is hard to do anything about it. For example, it is hard to leave the country you grew up in. Moving may force you to learn a new language, find a new job, leave your family, etc. Many people would just choose to deal with their current government, regardless if it was a just government or not, than put themselves through these difficulties. Plato also saw a major flaw with democracy. According to Plato, mostly uninformed people elect others to run the country. They are easily persuaded by rhetoric. And the elected officials are not usually experts in a majority of the important issues impacting society either. The average person does not know what is best for the country. Things like economics are complex issues and cannot be adequately understood by the masses. Therefore, Plato thinks government should be ruled by philosophers. An aristocracy. Freedom could best be preserved by philosophers who have to go through rigorous training before entering into office. These people would be elected not by the people but by other experts in the field, just like any other profession. Plato was greatly influenced by what happened to his teacher, Socrates. He saw Socrates get executed via a democratic process where people were emotionally driven and ignorant of facts. I can see his point. Most of us our ignorant of the facts even when we vote. However, I still think our form of government is the best option to protect ourselves from tyranny.
Nature of Reality
Three early Greeks (Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes) from Miletus are the first known philosophers. These first philosophers begin by thinking about the nature of reality. To them, this was the most basic concept. Before these three philosophers, the world was largely described by mythic and religious means. They made two main observations: all things must have an essence and all things change. So, they tried to explain both. The Greeks said the world was made up of air, water, earth, fire. According to Thales, all the things we see are simply different forms of water. Anaximenes said everything is made of air. Thinking outside the box, Anaximander said all things are made of a substances with no properties we can see or know. This was actually genius for his day and aligns well with our modern understanding of quantum mechanics. He calls this substances “The Unlimited.” According to the author, Thales also makes a giant leap forward from the traditional thought of the day. Thales says “all things are full of gods.” Thus, he's saying all things are self contained. So, no longer are things explained by the forces of external gods. Plato also talks about the nature of reality. According to Plato, ideas are more real than the objects that present themselves to our senses. He says the stuff in our thoughts, the Forms, are more real then the physical objects themselves. If you think of a perfect chair or perfect circle it is more real, eternal, and perfect than an actual physical chair or circle. This idea is somewhat appealing given what modern science has revealed about the nature of reality. According to quantum mechanics and general relativity, the world we see is not really what it appears to be. Solid objects are not really solid, space and time change depending on your frame of reference, physical properties such as mass and length even depend on the observer's reference frame. It's said that if we could visualize the fourth dimension (the dimension of time), then there would be no past, present, or future. Everything would just exist at once. This is all very intriguing to me from a Christian perspective. I'm not sure I'm totally on board with Plato's idea of the Forms, but I feel as though having a spiritual, and more perfect, reality behind what we see with our eyes aligns with the Christian faith.
Existence of God
This section discusses the “Unmoved Mover” argument from Aquinas and Aristotle. This argument says, if I can over simplify it, all things we observe have a cause. If you take this fact all the way back to the beginning, then SOMETHING needed to cause the world to begin. And that something's essence has to be existence itself. Meaning, this “first cause” requires no cause to exist. It's essence is existence itself. This is God. Hume disagrees with this logic. Hume says since we don't know everything about our universe then maybe it has properties that make it self sufficient. Maybe the universe can cause itself into existence. To my surprise the author lauded this argument, claiming it is logical. This, after he emphatically says philosophy is based on facts and logic. Yet Hume's argument, unlike Aquinas' argument, is based on neither. Hume's argument goes against physics as we know it. It would require matter to be created from nothing. It would require the second law of thermodynamics to be violated. How is this logical? I think Aquinas’ view here is more philosophically sound than Hume's, yet the author says otherwise. If Hume's logic was used by someone to defend God's existence, I'm sure the author would have pointed out the flaws. On another note, this chapter discusses one of the mostly widely known arguments for God's existence... Anselm's ontological argument. This argument says God exists because we are capable of thinking of a being in which nothing greater can exist. I did not fully understand this argument. I could not tell if it was a play on words or really profound.
The author asks, if God exists why would He not make a world that did not always need His constant attention. Would that not be the best world for an all powerful God to make? I disagree. How can we know what the best world would be? The Christian God is a loving God and wants relationship with us. Is this not better than a God who just creates us and then leaves us alone to our our devices? The author also repeatedly ties philosophical proofs and their lack of soundness back to the Christian / Jewish God. It is not clear why he does this. I think philosophical arguments can get you to God in general. However, how can strictly philosophical arguments get you to Jesus dying on the cross to conquer death and grant salvation to humankind? Obviously faith is involved. Also, I believe his rebuttal against the existence of God based on the fact evil exists in the world overlooks fundamental questions. He addresses the view that evil exists not because God created evil, but because humans have free will to choose evil things. But I felt as though he dismisses this free will argument too quickly. He does not talk about how we even KNOW certain things are evil or not (maybe to an all powerful God these apparent evil things are actually good for us. He would know, not us, right?). Bad things bring opportunity for love and compassion. This idea could have been discussed as well.
Knowledge (Epistimogy)
You either know something is true by one of two ways.
Rationalism - knowledge comes from logic, mathematics, and reasoning. It does not come from the senses. The proponents of this idea were Plato, with his Forms, and Descartes. Descartes questioned everything. He said we basically can only know that we exist, that God exists, and a couple other things.
Empiricism - knowledge is based on our senses and measured data. Our modern scientific approach is empiricism. The problem is, we can't always trust our senses. There are countless examples in which our senses say one thing and reality is something else. The proponent of this school of thought discussed in the book was Hume. Hume doubts the self even exists and causality.
Immanuel Kant tried to merge these two schools of thought. He said we can know the world from our senses, but not the world as it actually is. We can only know the world after we perceive it and process the information with our brain. So there's the actual world, and the world we perceive.
The Meaning of Life
In this section the author explores two philosophies that try to give meaning to life. He looks at Marxism and Buddhism. This seemed arbitrary to me. I know he cannot cover every option here, but then why pick two very specific options like Marxism and Buddhism? According to him, America, with its capitalistic economic system, only values rich people. We neither value or reward nothing else. If you aren't rich, then you aren't successful. I get it. Our society is materialistic. But, his view is so pessimistic that he forgets the other things we value, such as free speech, freedom of religion, the core family, and working hard (just to name a few). What about all the good capitalism brings? Vaccines to help the sick, cures for diseases, space exploration, improved farming to feed the world. Nowhere does he discuss about the cons of Marxism or how it would be an improvement from capitalism. Capitalism isn't perfect. But is communism really better?
Marx thought that our ideas about what is valuable in life come from the economic system that dominates our lives. Living according to this vision of happiness puts a satisfying life out of reach for everyone. The author talks about how capitalism is bad for us and we cannot be happy under it. Meaning, it makes us value competition and not cooperation, distrust of others, money etc. We are by nature producers, yet capitalism separates us from the product (think assembly lines). We get no satisfaction from this type of work. The owner of the company gets all the profit and makes all the rules. Marx says people who take risks and make profits are evil.
Then author talks about the Buddha. In Buddhism, the problem is suffering. Eliminating desire is the key to eliminating suffering and achieving nirvana.
Summary
Overall, I really enjoyed the read. I'm a complete novice when it comes to philosophy and this book was perfect for me. It is a good book to whet your appetite for the various topics. I'm sure it's not easy giving an overview of all the important philosophical issues. I did think he was unfair and biased at times, but overall he did a good job.
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