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The 60-Second Philosopher: Expand your Mind on a Minute or so a Day!
The budding thinker's Little Book of Calm
Philosophy means "love of wisdom" in Greek. Unfortunately, as much as we all love wisdom, we don’t all have the time to spend acquiring it! This fabulous little book provides the perfect antidote. Split into 60 one-minute chapters, Andrew Pessin offers you a snippet of philosophical wisdom everyday, giving you something to think about on your coffee break. Guaranteed to sharpen your mental faculties, as well as entertaining you with its witty humour, The Sixty-Second Philosopher will delight aspiring thinkers everywhere!
Philosophy means "love of wisdom" in Greek. Unfortunately, as much as we all love wisdom, we don’t all have the time to spend acquiring it! This fabulous little book provides the perfect antidote. Split into 60 one-minute chapters, Andrew Pessin offers you a snippet of philosophical wisdom everyday, giving you something to think about on your coffee break. Guaranteed to sharpen your mental faculties, as well as entertaining you with its witty humour, The Sixty-Second Philosopher will delight aspiring thinkers everywhere!
152 pages, Paperback
First published September 25, 2009
29 people are currently reading
294 people want to read
About the author
Andrew Pessin
20 books60 followersAndrew Pessin is Professor of Philosophy at Connecticut College, with degrees from Yale and Columbia, and author of four novels—and portrayed “The Genius” on the Late Show with David Letterman (link below). Author of many academic works and philosophical works for a general audience, his book, "Uncommon Sense: The Strangest Ideas from the Smartest Philosophers," was named an “Outstanding Academic Title of 2013” by Choice. In recent years he has published four novels. "The Second Daughter," written under the pen name J. Jeffrey—read the novel to find out why the pen name!—was a Semi-Finalist in Literary Fiction at The Kindle Book Review Book awards, and he greatly enjoyed meeting (either in person or by video link) with the many bookclubs that adopted it. His novel, "The Irrationalist," is an historical murder mystery based on the tragic life and mysterious death of the famous philosopher, René Descartes. "Nevergreen" is an academic satire examining cancel culture and the ideological excesses that generate it, and "Bright College Years" aims to capture the essence of the college experience. In his spare time Pessin composes and can occasionally be coaxed to perform amusing philosophy songs. For more information, visit www.andrewpessin.com.
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Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
January 16, 2010
This little book is a fun way to awaken your inner philosopher. Pessin's style is lighthearted and the material is suitable for everyone. There are 60 short gems in the book covering everything from the nature of God to whether you really are what you eat. It's playfully presented and easy to understand, but will also challenge your assumptions and lead you to some serious thought.
I've always believed there's no such thing as the "present moment." Now I have proof!---Or do I? Read #40 and decide for yourself.
Ever regretted a decision that determined your life's direction? Read #10, where you will discover there is no such thing as "the path not taken." (I found this discussion particularly comforting.)
I've had a lot of fun with this book, and also started looking at my world and my life just a little bit differently.
I've always believed there's no such thing as the "present moment." Now I have proof!---Or do I? Read #40 and decide for yourself.
Ever regretted a decision that determined your life's direction? Read #10, where you will discover there is no such thing as "the path not taken." (I found this discussion particularly comforting.)
I've had a lot of fun with this book, and also started looking at my world and my life just a little bit differently.
Want to read
December 25, 2009I hope this is NOT a book that tells me I am a certain sort of person if I think certain thoughts.. my Facebook contacts often irritate me with their popular sayings, such as "Thinking good thoughts of your enemies will eventually make them your friends"... so if it's not a glib, egocentric book, I'll probably love it!
August 2, 2015
Os livros genéricos têm o defeito de serem genéricos. A quem se dirigem? Quem será o tal leitor padrão que "precisa" deste livro? Em boa verdade, ninguém faz parte desse grande todo anónimo que pouco sabe acerca de certos assuntos. Nem eu, nem você, nem ninguém. Embora gostemos de pensar que sim, fazemo-lo apenas por preguiça; ou real incapacidade de realmente pensar o todo no tudo que o faz como tal. Às tantas, se calhar, fazemos mesmo parte desse grande todo imbecil que julgávamos tão distante de nós. Sim, é verdade que este livro é genérico, mas ninguém sabe quanto de si é genericamente comum.
Talvez, sabe-se lá, este livro tenha algo para si.
Porque a filosofia, afinal, é feita de banalidades, o efeito colateral de estar consciente.
Adenda: O livro está escrito num português correto, mas a tradução às vezes é mazinha. A culpa, creio, não é tanto do tradutor – faltou um revisor mais capaz.
Talvez, sabe-se lá, este livro tenha algo para si.
Porque a filosofia, afinal, é feita de banalidades, o efeito colateral de estar consciente.
Adenda: O livro está escrito num português correto, mas a tradução às vezes é mazinha. A culpa, creio, não é tanto do tradutor – faltou um revisor mais capaz.
February 27, 2015
I wasn't that impressed. I read most of this while on the treadmill at the gym thinking it was an easy read. But I didn't really learn too much from it. I think the thing about philosophy is that as much as we want to shorten it or "dumb it down" for our own benefit, unfortunately for us, it's better to read stories at length. The more details the better when it comes to understanding!
May 10, 2015
Fish: Where is this great ocean I keep hearing about?
we’re so used to seeing people that we stop reflecting on them
The most ordinary things contain a whole lifetime of questions
Let the child still within us—the philosopher within us—re-emerge
What a clock measures, in fact, is not time but rather how some physical things are correlated with other physical things
If there is truly nothing in it, then nothing can be happening, nothing can be occurring, and nothing can really be moving [including time]
Could it be, then, that nearly everything I believe about the world is false? [a dream?]
Minds also have a unique feature: their owners have a special access to them
“Goodness” is not the kind of property which is literally visible
Our eyes see only light and color
if we want to understand language, we must know more about what “meaning” is
Meaning is abstract. It doesn’t exist anywhere in space
GOD’S ODDS
When something incredibly unlikely occurs, it’s very difficult to believe it occurs by chance
Had any one of these properties [speed of light, charge of electron, strength of gravity] been even slightly different, then our universe could not have existed
And there is nothing quite as incredibly unlikely as precisely this universe, amongst all the possible universes that might have been
Perhaps we should just list the basic particles that physicists tell us compose the world
Maybe we should drop the idea that physical objects have a “true” color altogether
Objects have every color they appear to have, in their different contexts
Many of our choices are brought about by our particular beliefs and desires, or values
For sometimes what we know are facts or sentences
Other times it’s more like a skill or an ability
Other times it’s more like an experience
The moral value of an action is determined by how much overall happiness the action produces
Happiness is the fundamental thing we value
MENTAL BILLIARDS
The brain is a physical object undergoing a sequence of physical events
When you must choose between what’s unbelievably improbable to go wrong and what’s impossible to go wrong, you must choose the latter
Names simply mean the things they refer to
The meaning of a name must, in other words, be something other than the thing it refers to
Warmth and coolness are not really properties of the water, despite all appearances, but instead only sensations in the perceiver’s mind
Can God create a stone so heavy that He cannot lift it? There are only two possible answers here: yes or no. Suppose, first, we say no. But then there is something that God cannot do: create such a stone. And if there’s something He cannot do then He is not omnipotent after all. So suppose we say yes. If God can create such a stone then there could exist a stone so heavy God could not lift it. But then there could be something God cannot do, namely lift that stone. And if there could be something God cannot do, then again He is not omnipotent after all.
A longtime smoker dies of lung cancer. The family says the smoking caused it; the physician says it was the victim’s weak lungs; and the tobacco company (who paid the physician) blames it on everything except the smoking. Who is right? Well, they all are. And no one is
Let’s take a simple a case: you strike a match and it lights Most of the time we’d say the striking was the cause of the lighting. But in fact there were many other factors as relevant to the lighting as the striking. For starters, it’s obviously crucial that the match was coated with appropriate chemicals, that it was made of a flammable wood, that oxygen was present, and so on. Equally necessary were the physical properties of the surface on which it was struck: had it been struck on butter or on water or on your nose, it would not have lighted. And even more fundamentally, we must include the very laws of physics and chemistry which dictate that when matches so made are so struck etc., a lighting will ensue
In short, we can’t simply say that the striking of the match caused its lighting. We ought rather to say that more or less everything existing in the universe caused the lighting, as well as more or less everything not existing
SEEING RED
[having abstract knowledge of something and sensing it are two different things]
You notice five children playing on some railroad tracks. Absorbed in their play, they don’t notice the train coming down the track towards them. But luckily, the track forks before them and you are standing right at the switch. By merely pressing the button you can divert the train and thereby spare the children. But then you notice that down the other track is a single child playing alone. To do nothing is to allow the train to kill the five children on the first track; to press the button is to save those five but send the solitary child to her destiny. What should you do?
we are moved out of empathy or compassion. [if we are compassionate we can cry on fiction]
The pain I learn about this way is not my pain [if we are not compassionate]
In fact, every molecule in your body is replaced approximately every seven years
In the beginning was the excuse. Adam blamed Eve, she blamed the snake, and the rest is human history
But then why should someone making you do something ever free you of responsibility for it?
People really are just complex programs already, running on the hardware of the brain
If you believe in morality you cannot believe that God created everything
What makes your existence contingent is that there are possible circumstances in which you wouldn’t have existed, and perhaps other things would have existed in your place. (Think of that hiccup!) But if there really are other possibilities, then the world contains more than what is actual. It must also contain these possibilities
IT’S ALL RELATIVE
Every time we look at the thing we only get another perception of it, and never the thing itself!
Sometimes one cloud runs into another, forming a single larger cloud [1 + 1 = 1]
“Sameness” is inconceivable. So in fact every day is the same: utterly unique
Imagine you receive a book entitled Your Life. Chapter one starts with your birth and first year of life, and so on, all in impressive detail. Like all good biographies the book contains all and only true statements about your life. But then you notice that the book continues with (hopefully many) chapters on your future
It’s impossible for you to be reliably informed of your future. Nobody could accurately know your future actions and inform you of them. And why is that? Because for almost any prediction you might be informed of, you could do otherwise. It’s because, in other words, you have free will
If we’re genuinely to explain why we persist from moment to moment, then, it seems we need to invoke the activity of something which could not possibly go out of existence. Could the simple fact that you are here now—and now—and now—mean that God exists?
[match striking --> lightning]
[match striking --> no lightning]
[no match striking --> lightning]
[no match striking --> no lightning]
[everything causes everything]
[everything causes nothing]
[nothing causes everything]
[nothing causes nothing]
The past does not exist—if it did, it would be present! And the future does not yet exist, in which case it does not now exist. So if time exists, it exists only as the present. But what is the present? The present is a moment of no duration. For if it had a duration (a day, an hour, a millisecond, etc.) not all of that duration would be present at once. Rather the present is composed, quite literally, of nothing
When people say they have no time for something, then, they don’t realize how true that is
Good sense can sometimes lead to nonsense
Identity Crises: With each passing instant one person goes out of existence and another arises. So who are you, exactly?
We never genuinely perceive the physical objects in the world around us. It is all in your mind
There are three ways to acquire knowledge
--> Reason (cause and effect)
--> Experience (generalization past pattern)
--> Observation
Whenever you get in your car, light a cigarette, take a step, or hold up a liquor store, you are taking probabilities into account concerning crashes, cancer, sinkholes, or death in a hail of bullets
We may think about probabilities all the time. But when we really think about them we don’t even know what we mean by them. And that is not a good thing. Probably
There are no genuinely physical objects. There are only minds and their sensations. It’s not just beauty that’s in the eye of the beholder, then: even the eyeball of the beholder is in the eye of the beholder
You have no real options about anything that you do
But then happiness must not be what we fundamentally value after all. For if it were we would all plug into the machine, which could give us whatever form of happiness we seek
If you believe a practice is wrong, then, have the courage of your convictions: it is wrong for everyone. You ought not to tolerate the tolerators
There’s a philosophical joke: The optimist says, “This is the best of all possible worlds.” And the pessimist agrees
That world just is this world, the world that you’re in. This great ocean you may be looking for, you’re already in it. You just have to start thinking about it. The very first drop in that bucket is a splash into the infinite. This is the beginning
we’re so used to seeing people that we stop reflecting on them
The most ordinary things contain a whole lifetime of questions
Let the child still within us—the philosopher within us—re-emerge
What a clock measures, in fact, is not time but rather how some physical things are correlated with other physical things
If there is truly nothing in it, then nothing can be happening, nothing can be occurring, and nothing can really be moving [including time]
Could it be, then, that nearly everything I believe about the world is false? [a dream?]
Minds also have a unique feature: their owners have a special access to them
“Goodness” is not the kind of property which is literally visible
Our eyes see only light and color
if we want to understand language, we must know more about what “meaning” is
Meaning is abstract. It doesn’t exist anywhere in space
GOD’S ODDS
When something incredibly unlikely occurs, it’s very difficult to believe it occurs by chance
Had any one of these properties [speed of light, charge of electron, strength of gravity] been even slightly different, then our universe could not have existed
And there is nothing quite as incredibly unlikely as precisely this universe, amongst all the possible universes that might have been
Perhaps we should just list the basic particles that physicists tell us compose the world
Maybe we should drop the idea that physical objects have a “true” color altogether
Objects have every color they appear to have, in their different contexts
Many of our choices are brought about by our particular beliefs and desires, or values
For sometimes what we know are facts or sentences
Other times it’s more like a skill or an ability
Other times it’s more like an experience
The moral value of an action is determined by how much overall happiness the action produces
Happiness is the fundamental thing we value
MENTAL BILLIARDS
The brain is a physical object undergoing a sequence of physical events
When you must choose between what’s unbelievably improbable to go wrong and what’s impossible to go wrong, you must choose the latter
Names simply mean the things they refer to
The meaning of a name must, in other words, be something other than the thing it refers to
Warmth and coolness are not really properties of the water, despite all appearances, but instead only sensations in the perceiver’s mind
Can God create a stone so heavy that He cannot lift it? There are only two possible answers here: yes or no. Suppose, first, we say no. But then there is something that God cannot do: create such a stone. And if there’s something He cannot do then He is not omnipotent after all. So suppose we say yes. If God can create such a stone then there could exist a stone so heavy God could not lift it. But then there could be something God cannot do, namely lift that stone. And if there could be something God cannot do, then again He is not omnipotent after all.
A longtime smoker dies of lung cancer. The family says the smoking caused it; the physician says it was the victim’s weak lungs; and the tobacco company (who paid the physician) blames it on everything except the smoking. Who is right? Well, they all are. And no one is
Let’s take a simple a case: you strike a match and it lights Most of the time we’d say the striking was the cause of the lighting. But in fact there were many other factors as relevant to the lighting as the striking. For starters, it’s obviously crucial that the match was coated with appropriate chemicals, that it was made of a flammable wood, that oxygen was present, and so on. Equally necessary were the physical properties of the surface on which it was struck: had it been struck on butter or on water or on your nose, it would not have lighted. And even more fundamentally, we must include the very laws of physics and chemistry which dictate that when matches so made are so struck etc., a lighting will ensue
In short, we can’t simply say that the striking of the match caused its lighting. We ought rather to say that more or less everything existing in the universe caused the lighting, as well as more or less everything not existing
SEEING RED
[having abstract knowledge of something and sensing it are two different things]
You notice five children playing on some railroad tracks. Absorbed in their play, they don’t notice the train coming down the track towards them. But luckily, the track forks before them and you are standing right at the switch. By merely pressing the button you can divert the train and thereby spare the children. But then you notice that down the other track is a single child playing alone. To do nothing is to allow the train to kill the five children on the first track; to press the button is to save those five but send the solitary child to her destiny. What should you do?
we are moved out of empathy or compassion. [if we are compassionate we can cry on fiction]
The pain I learn about this way is not my pain [if we are not compassionate]
In fact, every molecule in your body is replaced approximately every seven years
In the beginning was the excuse. Adam blamed Eve, she blamed the snake, and the rest is human history
But then why should someone making you do something ever free you of responsibility for it?
People really are just complex programs already, running on the hardware of the brain
If you believe in morality you cannot believe that God created everything
What makes your existence contingent is that there are possible circumstances in which you wouldn’t have existed, and perhaps other things would have existed in your place. (Think of that hiccup!) But if there really are other possibilities, then the world contains more than what is actual. It must also contain these possibilities
IT’S ALL RELATIVE
Every time we look at the thing we only get another perception of it, and never the thing itself!
Sometimes one cloud runs into another, forming a single larger cloud [1 + 1 = 1]
“Sameness” is inconceivable. So in fact every day is the same: utterly unique
Imagine you receive a book entitled Your Life. Chapter one starts with your birth and first year of life, and so on, all in impressive detail. Like all good biographies the book contains all and only true statements about your life. But then you notice that the book continues with (hopefully many) chapters on your future
It’s impossible for you to be reliably informed of your future. Nobody could accurately know your future actions and inform you of them. And why is that? Because for almost any prediction you might be informed of, you could do otherwise. It’s because, in other words, you have free will
If we’re genuinely to explain why we persist from moment to moment, then, it seems we need to invoke the activity of something which could not possibly go out of existence. Could the simple fact that you are here now—and now—and now—mean that God exists?
[match striking --> lightning]
[match striking --> no lightning]
[no match striking --> lightning]
[no match striking --> no lightning]
[everything causes everything]
[everything causes nothing]
[nothing causes everything]
[nothing causes nothing]
The past does not exist—if it did, it would be present! And the future does not yet exist, in which case it does not now exist. So if time exists, it exists only as the present. But what is the present? The present is a moment of no duration. For if it had a duration (a day, an hour, a millisecond, etc.) not all of that duration would be present at once. Rather the present is composed, quite literally, of nothing
When people say they have no time for something, then, they don’t realize how true that is
Good sense can sometimes lead to nonsense
Identity Crises: With each passing instant one person goes out of existence and another arises. So who are you, exactly?
We never genuinely perceive the physical objects in the world around us. It is all in your mind
There are three ways to acquire knowledge
--> Reason (cause and effect)
--> Experience (generalization past pattern)
--> Observation
Whenever you get in your car, light a cigarette, take a step, or hold up a liquor store, you are taking probabilities into account concerning crashes, cancer, sinkholes, or death in a hail of bullets
We may think about probabilities all the time. But when we really think about them we don’t even know what we mean by them. And that is not a good thing. Probably
There are no genuinely physical objects. There are only minds and their sensations. It’s not just beauty that’s in the eye of the beholder, then: even the eyeball of the beholder is in the eye of the beholder
You have no real options about anything that you do
But then happiness must not be what we fundamentally value after all. For if it were we would all plug into the machine, which could give us whatever form of happiness we seek
If you believe a practice is wrong, then, have the courage of your convictions: it is wrong for everyone. You ought not to tolerate the tolerators
There’s a philosophical joke: The optimist says, “This is the best of all possible worlds.” And the pessimist agrees
That world just is this world, the world that you’re in. This great ocean you may be looking for, you’re already in it. You just have to start thinking about it. The very first drop in that bucket is a splash into the infinite. This is the beginning
September 10, 2017
A primeira vez que eu li(em 2014), fiquei particularmente perturbado com o paradoxo do burrito: "se Deus é onipotente, poderia ele fazer um burrito tão quente que nem ele próprio conseguiria segurar?". Talvez seja bom prestar atenção que a ideia de onipotência não contraria a lógica proposicional/predicados, ou seja: respeita o princípio do terceiro excluído.
January 4, 2025
Very digestible which makes it a good read if you want a very basic intro to philosophy, but at times it’s a little too oversimplified to the extent that it leaves a lot of holes.
The author’s discussions about God were a little off-putting as there were some significant gaps in the line of reasoning. If it weren’t so simplified, maybe the logic could have been better explained but the “God’s Odds” chapter and related sections had some poor arguments.
I say this while believing that decent arguments for a God’s existence exist.
The author’s discussions about God were a little off-putting as there were some significant gaps in the line of reasoning. If it weren’t so simplified, maybe the logic could have been better explained but the “God’s Odds” chapter and related sections had some poor arguments.
I say this while believing that decent arguments for a God’s existence exist.
January 18, 2022
Um bom livro introdutório de filosofia.
É possível ler este opúsculo em uma manhã, mas senti falta, ao longo de seus 60 capítulos, daquele sentimento de a-há, de algo que me desse vontade de reler a obra.
Acrescentem-se indicações bibliográficas ao final ...
É possível ler este opúsculo em uma manhã, mas senti falta, ao longo de seus 60 capítulos, daquele sentimento de a-há, de algo que me desse vontade de reler a obra.
Acrescentem-se indicações bibliográficas ao final ...
August 18, 2022
Apesar das insistentes tentativas do autor em apontar um caminho contrário ao da fé (ainda que de forma subjetiva), a obra é interessante e, de fato, nos impulsiona a refletir a respeito de tudo. Inclusive das próprias intenções do autor.
October 7, 2020
Me deu boas experiências filosóficas
April 12, 2021
To get the best out of this book, keep it next to your toilet seat.. it's the perfect pooping companion.
December 31, 2016
60 short philosophical discussions. Some are even funny! This is the crap that goes through my head daily.
I consider myself a rebellious theologian. And in order to do that you must bash about in philosophy. And I do hate academic philosophy with a passion - too many rules and regulations. Socrates and I would probably fail their classes for questioning the prof's Ego's.
I can't quite figure this author out: He questions just about everything (which is good) but then he fails to question some absurdities. Like: Can God make a rock so big that he can't lift it.
If he did his homework he would realize that the biblical God is outside of the Space and time of our Universe and matter. Kind of like saying: "Can a ghost make a coffee so hot it will burn his apparition?" You are mixing matter with the spiritual. And the author even knows this - he comments on it later.
Quote: Page 38
"Can God create a stone so heavy that he cannot lift it?
There are only two possible answers here: yes or no."
And that is the problem - this guy occasionally insists that we get a yes or no. But often the problem is that the question is simply wrong or stupid or lacking insightful data. Which is strange: because he shows us this in other chapters and fails to realize it.
Which reminds me of that famous loaded Courtroom question: "tell us when you stopped beating your wife?" Any answer is not suitable to a faulty question.
I really enjoyed that the author posted his sources for all 60 chapters. Not that I trust historical philosopher's to even give me the time of day accurately - but it is fun to know how this stuff creeps into our reality and gets forced on kids in the hallowed halls of academia.
But like most philosophy: this book appears to really have no answers - just more questions. Thankfully the Bible is a book of answers. I'll stick with that.
I'm now curious to read this philosopher's other book: THE GOD QUESTION.
I consider myself a rebellious theologian. And in order to do that you must bash about in philosophy. And I do hate academic philosophy with a passion - too many rules and regulations. Socrates and I would probably fail their classes for questioning the prof's Ego's.
I can't quite figure this author out: He questions just about everything (which is good) but then he fails to question some absurdities. Like: Can God make a rock so big that he can't lift it.
If he did his homework he would realize that the biblical God is outside of the Space and time of our Universe and matter. Kind of like saying: "Can a ghost make a coffee so hot it will burn his apparition?" You are mixing matter with the spiritual. And the author even knows this - he comments on it later.
Quote: Page 38
"Can God create a stone so heavy that he cannot lift it?
There are only two possible answers here: yes or no."
And that is the problem - this guy occasionally insists that we get a yes or no. But often the problem is that the question is simply wrong or stupid or lacking insightful data. Which is strange: because he shows us this in other chapters and fails to realize it.
Which reminds me of that famous loaded Courtroom question: "tell us when you stopped beating your wife?" Any answer is not suitable to a faulty question.
I really enjoyed that the author posted his sources for all 60 chapters. Not that I trust historical philosopher's to even give me the time of day accurately - but it is fun to know how this stuff creeps into our reality and gets forced on kids in the hallowed halls of academia.
But like most philosophy: this book appears to really have no answers - just more questions. Thankfully the Bible is a book of answers. I'll stick with that.
I'm now curious to read this philosopher's other book: THE GOD QUESTION.
May 14, 2013
Favorite quote from this book: "There are only two paths - the one I choose and the one I instantly regret of not picking". LOL. I really understand the task of getting 60 flashes together may be hard, but I had some difficulty starting my motors to run, at the beggining. It takes some time to get into the crazy logic of the exquisite train of thought here. By the 14th, or 15th chapter, I was totally in, though. I recommend it as an easy read on the way home, or going to work, at the train, subway, schoolbus... It also pleased me to see the "Seinfeld" aesthethic somehow brought back into life again. Congratulations, Mr. Pessin!
April 2, 2011
This book ended up not meeting my expectations at all..
A lot of those little philosophical snippets that this book is made up of were things I'd already thought about and places my mind had already been..
And coming from a different background than the author it really annoyed me that so many of the chapter were about proving or disproving the existence of God.
I guess I just liked the idea more than the execution of it...
A lot of those little philosophical snippets that this book is made up of were things I'd already thought about and places my mind had already been..
And coming from a different background than the author it really annoyed me that so many of the chapter were about proving or disproving the existence of God.
I guess I just liked the idea more than the execution of it...
July 28, 2016
I used this as night time 'distract me' reading, picking it up and reading one or two chapters to clear my mind of the day.
This book is broken into 60 short reads each on a topic of thought or reasoning. Many are sort of semantic banter, weaving one phrase into another to make you ponder what the first one meant. All manage to make a point. All left me pondering... whichever.
I liked it, I would read another like it, or this one again in a few years.
This book is broken into 60 short reads each on a topic of thought or reasoning. Many are sort of semantic banter, weaving one phrase into another to make you ponder what the first one meant. All manage to make a point. All left me pondering... whichever.
I liked it, I would read another like it, or this one again in a few years.
December 4, 2011
Some of the readings are funny and insightful. It was a good book to have sitting above the toilet, so whenever I was downloading into the commode, I could simultaneously download some of Pessin's philosophical tidbits in my brain, but it his mussing did not really digest, its almost like it all just went through me so quickly, so that by the time I left the Jon it was all forgotten
April 14, 2016
Imagino que seja um ótimo livro para aqueles que não despertaram o seu "filósofo interior" ainda.
Para os que são mais aventurados nos questionamentos do mundo que nos cerca, ele não será um divisor de águas. Em todo caso, considero válida a leitura por ser um livro super pequeno e fácil de ler. Apesar de ser genérico, é bem provável que encontrará algum assunto ou ponto de vista novo.
Para os que são mais aventurados nos questionamentos do mundo que nos cerca, ele não será um divisor de águas. Em todo caso, considero válida a leitura por ser um livro super pequeno e fácil de ler. Apesar de ser genérico, é bem provável que encontrará algum assunto ou ponto de vista novo.
January 7, 2013
This is an enjoyable read as a crash course in philosophy. It comes in tiny doses and written in a neat conversational style. One drawback is that with a play on words it treats some serios issues lightly and might confuse the otherwise confident, but then isn't that what philosophy is all about?
September 30, 2013
definitely not a book for me. the things discussed in the book sometimes dont make sense to me.I even argue with a few points made. but, there are a few fun points. it challenges me to think quite differently on some aspects, not all.
Want to read
September 13, 2009By a Conn College faculty member (my alma mater). A way to start thinking about the larger questions...
wish-list
December 28, 2009korban iklan di goodreads :P
November 26, 2014
Tudo é nada, nada é tudo!
Filosofia tem essa coisa de inverter as posições, mudar os conceitos. De repente já não sabemos mais nada, ou sabemos de tudo!
Pare pra pensar, pense muito bem...
Filosofia tem essa coisa de inverter as posições, mudar os conceitos. De repente já não sabemos mais nada, ou sabemos de tudo!
Pare pra pensar, pense muito bem...
April 20, 2015
Reading it with my teenage daughter for school project.
Book its easy to read and discuss
Fun learning philosophical side of my daughter
Book its easy to read and discuss
Fun learning philosophical side of my daughter
January 29, 2016
Uma bosta! Perda de tempo!
October 4, 2016
Não gostei.
Achei a maior parte das reflexões superficiais. Não recomendo
Achei a maior parte das reflexões superficiais. Não recomendo
April 17, 2010
fun, entertaining, hilarious book that really got me thinking about so many different things --
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