Monday, September 13, 2010

Thomas Cathcart & Daniel Klein's "Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates"


This is the second book I've read by this pair. They are fun. As philosophy students who didn't "go pro" and retained an interest but also a sense of humour about the profession, they are fun to read.

In this book they mention an unusual cast of philosophical characters (Kirkegaard, Schopenhauer, Husserl, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, and William James) and their "bon mots" on death. This is nicely interlaced with jokes and comic quotes from an "expert" such as Woody Allen. So the book is funny, but it is also serious. It is a walk through Western culture's views on death. It raises all the important questions and kicks around all the proposed answers. Read it if you have a half day and want to be entertained and enlightened.

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