Philosophical Tales: Being an Alternative History Revealing the Characters, the Plots, and the Hidden Scenes That Make Up the True Story of Philosophy

by Martin Cohen

Philosophical Tales “A lover of philosophical ideas and practiced debunker of intellectual sham, Martin Cohen knocks some thirty important philosophers from Socrates to Derrida off their pedestals, and presents in a series of philosophical tales various aspects of their thought, life and personality which few of us ever suspected.”
Zenon Stavrinides, University of Bradford

Genres: Philosophy, History, Nonfiction

304 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2008

About the author

Martin Cohen is a well-established author specializing in popular books in philosophy, social science and politics.

I have a book being published November 2018 on the sociology of food this year, called provocatively 'I Think Therefore I Eat'! with an emphasis on how historical philosophers have approached the 'food issue'. It's a popular 'explainer' kind of book, already given a nice plug by Eater!

Food is very much an interdisciplinary area - though it is often treated in a narrow, specialised way. There is the nutritionist's perspective, the economist's, the cook's, the ecological... the list is as long as we want. And each perspective is 'valid', but only partial. So I think it's a good place to bring in a little philosophy.

Part of the book looks at the historical views of well-known philosophers on food (they have indeed had some!) but most of it looks at modern theories which are still philosophical in a fundamental sense, including for example, the ideas that we are living in an 'obesogenic' environment, or that our bodies, far from being guided by a single essential soul, are really constructed out of an uneasy alliance of micro-organisms.

It's published by Turner in the US mid-November, and this is their page for the book including my video trailer if you would like to see a little movie!

For rights inquiries, please contact my literary agent:

Mark Gottlieb
Literary Agent
Trident Media Group
mgottlieb@tridentmediagroup.com
(212) 333-1506
https://www.tridentmediagroup.com/

So, the book contains analysis of many current food-related debates,
including the vexed question of the obesity epidemic, which is much more complicated than merely people eating the wrong things, a fact that won't surprise many of us have explored by trying to go on a diet ourselves!

But perhaps the 'USP element' in it is more on what those venerable philosophy gurus had to say anyway. On the social science side, these two extracts give the flavour:

1. If you went by TV and the newspapers, you could be forgiven for thinking that celebrities, be they chefs or models, have more of a handle on the key food issues than qualified doctors and nutritionists – let alone philosophers. And you might well be right. Because the worst thing about food science, the elephant in the room, is that it’s not just the opinions that are changing – but the ‘facts’ themselves shift too. To get to the bottom of the food question. requires us to tease apart the strands of diet science and biochemistry, as well as an ounce of economics and a dash of human psychology.

Rather the obesity epidemic is an economic issue as I put in back in 2016 in an article for the Guardian newspaper. "The causes of the epidemic are complex, spanning the social sciences to biology and technology"

I took the same issue a bit further when I compared figures for childhood obesity - and found more evidence that, as I wrote, "It's poverty, not individual choice, that is driving extraordinary obesity ..."

Incidentally, the same sort of disgraceful thing applies to educational achievement. Did you know, that you can pretty much do away with exams (hooray!), as exam results mimic exactly a student's position in the class hierarchy (boo!). Shocking and disgraceful and no one - of course - s gong to do anything about it.

So that's really the the Politics of Food Science – as I put it for Gavin Wren's fabulous Brain Food Magazine at Medium , wri

Reviews

[Rene Stein]

Sbírka drbů a pomluv o lidech, kteří jsou většinou již mrtví a naštěstí si o sobě v tomhle bulvárním dílku už moc nepočtou.
U "zábavných" historek z antiky na začátku knihy jsem chvílemi zíval nudou, ale pořád jsem si myslel, že na tři hvězdičky kniha má. Posléze autor zcela rezignoval na vysvětlování myšlenek filosofů a raději se vyžívá třeba v popisu neřestí sv. Augustina. U Tomáše Akvinského se s námi podělí o popis jeho vodnaté hlavy, chachacha, tady to máte, žádný doctor angelicus, ale středověký démonický ksicht. Kant vychází z knihy jako nedovtipný duševní ubožák, který konejší (naštěstí jen korespondenčně, tedy nutně platonicky a ve vší počestnosti) nadržené vdovy. John Locke představen jako zasloužilý otec novodobého otrokářství, vysmějme se mu, jak svými činy popřel ideály ve svém Dvojím pojednání o vládě. Na D. Humovi je přece nejzajímavější, jak se škorpil s jurodivým J. J. Rousseauem. O Humově geniálním náhledu na indukci se nedovíme skoro nic.

Na jednu hvězdu (spíš na nulu) kniha definitivně klesla po přečtění kapitoly o B. Russellovi. Lord Russell je rozporuplná osobnost, ale popisovat Russela jako špatného logika? Naprosto nepochopit, k čemu slouží finitní deskripce, ale bez uzardění a bez patřičného kontextu v textu použít Russelův příklad, v kterém vystupuje "plešatý francouzský král" (hahaha) . Dobré také je, když zápis formulí v predikátové logice autor označuje jako klikyháky. Tedy alespoň z náznaků jsem vyrozuměl, že klikyhákami jsou myšleny zápisy logických formulí, protože ke konci se už autor ani neobtěžuje s nějakým podrobnějším vysvětlováním svých myšlenkových pochodů nad výpisky z povinné četby nějakých třetiřadých interpretací primárních pramenů. Jen se autor snaží za každou cenu dopsat svůj nepovedený domácí úkol.
Souhlasím s tím, že kritizovat se dá každý. Paul Johnson si ve svých Intelektuálech také nebere servítky a Russellovi právem nakládá za jeho politické postoje i za jeho myšlenkovou nedůslednost a eklektičnost. I impozantní Principia Mathematica je kritizována za některé nedůslednosti, nešikovné důkazy (https://math.stackexchange.com/questi...), ale M. Cohen podle mě PM neviděl ani z rychlíku. Jeho kritika je jak od blba s vysokou školou života, který sice nikdy nic nechápe, ale vše rád okomentuje, pomluví, stlačí na svou (nevalnou) duševní úroveň, místo pochopení myšlenky slídí po pikantních historkách v bulváru a pak si v diskuzi na soc. sítích z přetlaku myšlenek upšoukne, proč se takovým nesmyslům neučiní přítrž, protože pro obyčejného slušného člověka je přece logika prvního řádu naprosto neužitečnou a podezřelou aktivitou. A pivo kvůli ní taky levnější nebude.
Samozřejmě u filozofů, které sami nemáte rádi, si některé kapitoly užijete. Heidegger je vykreslen nepřekvapivě jako nacista, jehož "dasein" ve 30. letech v Německu smrdí prospěchářstvím. J. P. Sartre je pozér, hajzlík a vykradač nápadů S. Beauvoir. Derrida je úskočný starý žvanil. Nic překvapivého.
Nejslabší kniha z edice Galileo, kterou jsem četl.

[Azad]

Bi rastî lêkolîneke baş bû. Li kêleka fikr û ramanên feylesofan li pişt perdeyê jiyana wan û di nav jiyanê de dijberî, başî û xerabiyê wan bi awayeke xweş daye der. Diziyên Sartre ji Beauvoir, Nazîbûna Heidegger, Zayendparastî û kevneperestiya Wittgenstein û tiştên din...

[Hakkı Sayın]

Tümünü okuyamadım. Filozoflara farklı bakayım derken biraz ölçüyü kaçırmış. Yine de Hegel'de filan ilginç kısımlar var. Değmez bence okumaya.

[Zekiye Antakyalıoğlu]

sham in content and badly translated

[Dennis Littrell]

Irreverent, entertaining, satirical and even funny

Martin Cohen who is the editor of "The Philosopher," which is the esteemed Journal of the Philosophical Society of England, has a little fun with the dignity of philosophy and philosophers in this ad hominem approach to those wacky lovers of wisdom. He begins with Socrates about whom little is really known, except that he was ugly and could stand in one spot nearly motionless for hours at a time, and finishes up with Jacques Derrida who desperately needs to be deconstructed and is. In-between most of the glitterati of the pantheon of rationality are caught, as it were, with their pants down around their knees.

The damnable thing about this delicious book is how sobering it is. Take the egos of Plato, Descartes, Hume, Leibniz, Schopenhauer, Wittgenstein, et al. and you'll get an edifice taller than Shelley's fallen statue of Ozymandias thus making it clear that the Bible (or at least Ecclesiastes) has it right that even among the philosophers, all is vanity! Certainly Hume had it right when he declared that reason is, and ought to be, the slave of the passions even among those supposedly most removed from the call of the flesh. Indeed, what I think Cohen has demonstrated here is just how wrong Plato was in thinking that philosophers ought to rule. Let's hear it for Sarah Palin! Well, maybe that is going a bit too far, although she has done a great job of upstaging Paris Hilton. But I digress.

Nonetheless, Cohen assures us that his purpose is the "reinvigoration of philosophy, not its destruction." (p. xi) Meanwhile we are reminded that Plato's Republic is a fascist state where music and poetry are banned, where sex is for procreation only, and where women are chattel. As we read further we find that Aristotle had it mostly wrong and that progress in science has come from getting rid of his "essentialist method" (quoting Karl Popper, page 17). As for Pythagoras, he was a wacko with weird rules for his followers including "abstain from beans; never touch a white cock [ha, ha]; do not allow swallows to live under your roof," and so on. (p. 34).

But enough about the ancients. How about St. Thomas Aquinas who proved both that God exists and that he doesn't exist. Or arriving at a "modern" philosopher, how about Descartes who thought he proved he exists with "I think, therefore I am," which really just assumes what he thought he was proving.

Or how about Hobbes who squared the circle, thereby exceeding the abilities of God--or at least some versions of God. Dare I mention John Locke who inspired the political ideal of the equality of men while supporting the institution of slavery? And how sad it is to realize that my favorite philosopher, le bon David Hume was really le gros David, a man full of appetite and sneakiness who wasn't above skullduggery when it suited his vain literary ambitions.

And then there is Rousseau who celebrated the innocent and noble savage while kowtowing to the rich and stationed so that he might become an aristocrat himself. But at least Rousseau in his Confessions admitted what a scoundrel he was, having once stolen a silver medallion, and when caught blamed the theft on a servant girl.

And then there is Karl Marx who somehow allowed four of his children to die of starvation, who continually begged money from Engels, who managed to inherit sums of money which he also managed to somehow squander away. In Cohen's rather sharp depiction, Marx comes off as a kind of parasite on society, much like that which he despised.

Joining wholeheartedly in "the theatrical performance that is Philosophy" (p. 172), Cohen saves his most snide satire for Sartre whom he sees as being an intellectual caddy for his better half, Simone de Beauvoir, and his most dismissive satire for Jacques Derrida who wrote mostly gobbledygook.

The "Philosophical Tales" then are mini-biographies of the great philosophers set forth in 30 sprightly chapters under eight headings from "The Ancients" through "Modern Philosophy," "The Idealists," and so on, ending with "Recent Philosophy." Cohen does like to focus on the personal shortcomings of the philosophers while outlining their (mostly) literary careers. It is interesting to note that Hume, for example, gained his fame and fortune primarily from his popular multi-volume History of England while the roguish Rousseau made a bit of a living by pleasing rich aristocratic women, and of course Russell won his Nobel Prize not in philosophy or even in mathematics but in Literature.

Cohen does have a kind of diabolically satirical way of dealing with these redoubtable dispensers of wisdom. For example he notes slyly that Russell (along with Whitehead) demonstrated in the "magisterial Principia Mathematica" that logic is superior to maths and that numbers are merely adjectives, giving the example of the class of "twoness" thusly: ears, hands, "Russell's two wives...." One thing that Cohen has clearly noted: philosophers have sexual desires like everyone else, in case there was any doubt on that subject.

Speaking of Russell, and Cohen does mention him a number of times in this book, it should be observed that Russell is getting his comeuppance in a sense because in his famous A History of Western Philosophy, he had a grand time refuting and dismissing much of what the philosophers thought and wrote; by the same token Cohen has here a great time dismissing Russell while imitating him in a literary manner. While dismissing Russell as a philosopher Cohen allows that "Russell did other things." I think that Cohen in this book is attempting to do "other things." Whether he will be as successful as Russell remains to be seen.

As is my wont I was looking for favoritism and bias, but Cohen more or less skewers them all.

I should also mention that there is some nice black and white art work by Raul Gonzalez III augmenting the text.

--Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”

[Galatea]

tends to get a few things wrong here and there (claiming that Steven Pinker is a philosopher, claiming that cognitive scientists don't believe in consciousness), but the main thrust of the book is that philosophers are people just like any other, with all the flaws and quirks that entails, and this book does rather well in expositing that idea

[Peio]

Una colección de biografías demasiado escuetas como para ser relevantes y anécdotas demasiado poco anecdóticas como para resultar atractivas.

[Realini Ionescu]

Philosophical Tales: Being an Alternative History Revealing the Characters, the Plots, and the Hidden Scenes That Make Up the True Story of Philosophy by Martin Cohen



I liked this book- it goes behind the scenes, revealing anecdotes, tales, rumors and sometimes less known facts about the philosophers we admire, but who had their dark sides.

Aristotle said about women that they lack a certain virtue, the vital faculty of rationality. The view of women as tame animals is given in Aristotle’s Politics

In this book of Philosophical Tales, there is an important part on Women Philosophers:

„the wise woman, Ditotima, is credited by Socrates as having opened his eyes to the values of love, poetry...

Then there is Aspasia who was considered an authority on rhetoric, politics, and the State...

Hipparchia –her philosophy has been summed up as „nothing natural is shameful”we should have obtained our word hippy from her...

Then there is a new name for me : Christine de Pizan, honored as France’s „First Woman of Letters”

In the chapter on Sartre, I was surprised to read that it seems Simone de Beauvoir wrote important parts of her lover’s work, which she had definitely influenced very much.

There are some odd and even funny tales:

Some scholars claim that John Paul II was the reincarnated Spinoza.

„Kant can be really a rather dull read.” In my case, when I first opened a book by Kant, I got dizzy, understanding it to be beyond my comprehension.

[Şenol]

Kitap özet olarak filozofları antik çağdan günümüze tanıtmayı amaçlamış.
Filozofların kendi kuramlarından daha çok onların hayatlarından ufak bir kesit sunarak onları tanıtıyor.
Benim hoşuma gitti.
Derli toplu olarak sunulması benim açımdan çok iyi oldu.

Felsefecilerin neredeyse hepsinin yahudi olması çok ilgi çekici...

Bu kitaptan çıkarttığım ders, tarih okumak öyle boş bir uğraşı değildir.
Olaylar kişiler kuramlar arasında ilişki kurmanın anahtarıdır.

Okunmasını tavsiye edebilirim.

İyi okumalar...

[Gulsumakê]

Jiyanên balkêş ên fîlozofên navdar.
Agahiyên biqîmet.
Kêfa min tiştên halo re tê,
Û ji Sartre aciz im.
Qeşmerekî timam e

[Hiranur Işık]

Büyük filozoflar nereden geliyor? Fikirlerinin kaynağı ne? Neyin önemli neyin önemsiz olduğuna kim karar veriyor? Filozoflar içinde neredeyse hiç kadın olmaması ve çoğunun varlıklı aristokrat erkeklerden oluşması bir tesadüf mü?
…
Felsefe tarihine bir de bu tartışmalardan yola çıkarak dedikodu yapmak, Platon’dan Kant’a etkileyici masallar dinlemek. Muhteşem bir denize parmaklarının ucunu daldırmak gibi.

[Gibb]

Just finished 'my re-read' - because this book is extremely complicated, even though it looks - and reads - like a novel or collection of 'ripping yarns'. It is both fascinating and an absolute eye-opener too. Every library should have this to complement the usual bland stuff about 'the great philosophers'!

[Jimmy]

The book has a cool cover and promises an "alternative history" of philosophy and the "true story." But it just doesn't deliver that for the most part. The writing is a bit pedestrian. I like that Mr. Cohen tried to punch holes in philosophy, but there isn't much I didn't know already.

[Mark]

British smarminess. Not at its best, either. All in all, not very satisfying.

[Theneoworker]

Particulares ensayos, con opiniones muy personales del autor, sobre algunos de los filósofos (y alguna filósofa) más famosos.