What Would Socrates Say?: Philosophers answer your questions about love, nothingness, and everything else | 
 enlarge | Author: Alexander George
Publisher: Clarkson Potter
Category: Book
List Price: $19.95
Buy New: $11.73
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Avg. Customer Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 274644
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 7.2 x 5.3 x 1.1
ISBN: 0307351270
Dewey Decimal Number: 100
EAN: 9780307351272
ASIN: 0307351270
Publication Date: August 7, 2007
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Condition: New with normal shelf wear. Coming to you FAST from student sellers. You get your book AND help us pay off tuition!
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Product Description
What Would Socrates Say? helps the armchair philosopher solve age-old quandaries and contemporary ethical dilemmas.
- If no one ever loves me during my lifetime—if I don’t have a relationship—will I have not lived a good life?
- Do the advances in the field of biotechnology threaten our moral values?
- Are there any reasons to have a child that aren’t selfish?
- Is there no such thing as bad art?
- What’s the difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter?
- Am I morally bound to tell my sex partner if I fantasize about someone else while making love to him or her?
These are among the profound, paradoxical, playful, and classic questions asked and answered in this book drawn from AskPhilosophers.org, the popular website created by some of today’s most highly esteemed philosophers. Using their knowledge of the arguments laid down by the likes of Aristotle, Camus, Locke, and Socrates, and their own insightful interpretations, they break down tough issues in a digestible, personal, and even humorous style. Included are questions on today’s hot-button topics (war, euthanasia); timeless conundrums about religion and morality (how do we know God exists?); personal perplexities about adultery, child-rearing, and sex; and a few lighthearted topics like whether it’s right to let your kids believe in Santa.
Featuring real questions from real people around the world—doctors, lawyers, the uneducated, the elderly, and even young children (for example, “If everything has an opposite, like night and day, then what’s the opposite of a banana?”)—this book is for anyone seeking enlightenment on a complicated or an elusive concept relevant to the lives we lead today. Whether you agree with the answers given or not, this book reminds us of Socrates’ famous words—“a life unexamined is not worth living”—and, in doing so, encourages us to think a little more deeply, a little more critically, and, well, a little more philosophically about how we make our way in the world
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| Customer Reviews:
Great conversation starter! July 29, 2008
Are you looking for a way to get family and friends away from the television or computer? Are you looking for a way to engage your family, firends, children at the dinner table - or get back to the dinner table? If your answer is yes to these questions, then this book is for you! Filled with questions relating to today's society but with suggested answers based on classic philosophy, you will enjoy many hours of stimulating thought and conversation that even a young person could be part of! I highly recommend this book!!!
I Cried Till I Laughed! August 27, 2007
10 out of 13 found this review helpful
I have no idea what the title of my review means, but it sounds sufficiently philosophical to suit this book.
But, seriously folks, if you're looking for a great night table book chock-full of espresso cup-size (to blend my coffee metaphors) bits of incisive philosophical wisdom, you need look no further than "What Would Socrates Say?".
Highly recommended.
Wonderful...engaging, intelligent, and accessible August 20, 2007
20 out of 21 found this review helpful
This book is a collection of some of the best questions and responses to appear on the website AskPhilosophers.org. The questions are wonderful: stimulating, fun, sometimes familiar and sometimes unexpected, ranging from age-old questions that humans have asked for centuries to questions that deal with the specific conditions of modern life. The responses are always thoughtful, mostly helpful, and often funny. It's great fun to browse through this book, but since most of the questions are really interesting (after all, they're about love, knowledge, God, the mind, war, traffic jams, sex toys, etc.--what better topics?), you might find yourself browsing for quite a long time.
The writing is neither dumbed down nor overly academic. It is intelligent and clear, and at its best moments it provides a great deal of insight into these thorny questions. A perfect gift for anyone who loved that philosophy course he or she took in college, or has wondered about philosophical questions from time to time, or really anyone at all who would enjoy reading great questions and interesting, insightful answers. It's also a rare chance to hear prominent philosophers speaking in a candid voice, approaching central philosophical issues in a non-technical, very readable way. Highly recommended.
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