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The Book Of Dead Philosophers. Simon Critchley (2008)

by Simon Critchley(Favorite Author)

3.55 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

1847080790 (ISBN13: 9781847080790)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Granta Books (UK)

review 1: Really liked the IDEA of this book. A quick synopsis of the life and, most importantly, the death of famous philosophers in history. The overall theme of the book was Montaigne's definition of philosophy, living life by how you view death. Very interesting and very insightful. I enjoyed the humor and irony in the manner of death of the philosophers, but, for this same reason, I didn't enjoy it. When starting the book, I expected a bit more irony in each synopsis. I thought the author was setting out to make light of death by, in essence, saying, "This guy believed this. Isn't it funny and ironic that he died THIS way?" Maybe, I even expected the author to be communicating some sort of dark, pessimistic message..."Life and what you believe are pointless...because you... more're gonna die anyway!" But, I think his message was closer to..."Worrying about death is pointless...because death is universal! Everyone does it!" Obviously, I can't speak for the author, but this is the kind of theme that came across. Another issue I had was the brevity of the philosopher's bios. I felt it would have been helpful to give more information about what they stood for so that we could see the possible irony in their deaths.
review 2: Was expecting a collection of last words from oftentime assuming men of wisdom but many accounts turned out to be just their view of death and even short biographies of their lives and ideas, running the risk of off-focussing and even overgeneralisation and missing out the fact that one's view of death often change from phase to phase in life.But still interesting in some accounts and if you are writing a philosophy term paper at the undergrad level, there is no harm reading a few pages of the related, it might just provide an interesting footnote that could save you from a grouchy prof. But forget it if you are doing eastern philosophy, the book sweeps through the great array of wisdom displayed in oriental philosophy of dying. One could scan through that section in a breath. less

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