Over the years, sanity would prevail and I'd adjust my diet to include relatively more benign doses of, say, Woody Allen's satire (e.g., Without Feathers, which has among the best essays I have ever read on philosophy, with tongue firmly in cheek). Ok, I admit it, I was one of those flyballs with disheveled hair in college who spewed paragraphs from Sophie's World and felt warm and fuzzy about it. And, if you are a student, the book may be an excellent companion to your textbook for a required philosophy class. Its entertaining and humorous side makes learning philosophy enjoyable and much easier than a textbook. ![]() On its serious side, "Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar" is a good introduction to the main concepts of philosophy. It can help you influence other people's thinking and persuade them to your viewpoint. It can help you understand the ways in which others can influence and manipulate your thinking and how they may get you to believe things that are misleading, untrue, or damaging. It can help you understand why you think the way you do and give you options for expanding your possibilities. Learning philosophy can help you think better. (If you don't like some of their jokes, don't worry - they've got a million of 'em.) But wait! The real burning philosophical question you want answered is this: why would you want to read a book about philosophy? I mean, really, this book may be funny but you can get lots of joke books that are funnier and don't make you learn serious stuff (like philosophy, for example). ![]() And the humor of their stories, anecdotes and jokes has sufficient range to appeal to a general audience. The authors manage their brevity by illustrating those issues with very apt stories, anecdotes and jokes. "Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar" is highly entertaining, fast read that covers an astonishing range of philosophical issues with an economy of words.
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