Andrew Pessin - The 60-second Philosopher: Expand your mind on a minute or so a day!

The 60-Second Philosopher

The 60-Second Philosopher

Expand your mind on a minute or so a day!

Andrew Pessin

A Oneworld Paperback Original

Published by Oneworld Publications 2009

Reprinted in 2013

Copyright Andrew Pessin 2009

This ebook edition first published in 2013

The right of Andrew Pessin to be identified as the

Author of this work has been asserted by him in

accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved

Copyright under Berne Convention

A CIP record for this title is available

from the British Library

ISBN: 9781780744452

eISBN: 9781851686889

Typeset by Jayvee, Trivandrum, India

Cover design by Patrick Knowles

Oneworld Publications

10 Bloomsbury Road

London WC1B 3SR

England

Stay up to date with the latest books, special offers, and exclusive content from Oneworld with our monthly newsletter

Sign up on our website
www.oneworld-publications.com

Some philosophers believe there is a reason for everything.
This book is dedicated to my three reasons for everything:
ERP, NRP, and GR

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

This book is for the philosopher in you.

You may not be aware that there is one, you may not think you want there to be one, but I can assure you not only that there isbut also that, once you let him (or her) out for a bit, youll be more than glad you did. For philosophy can take you to some pretty amazing places, all without leaving your armchair or spot on the 7:13 a.m. train; and it can show you some pretty amazing things, even without your looking very far. In fact it can show you that the places you go and the things you see each and every day are already pretty amazing. It can thus sharpen your appreciation of the worldand your mindat the same time.

And best of all, it can do this on just a minute (or so) a day.

True, some really smart thinkers have been debating philosophical questions for nearly three millennia now, with the work continuing at a fevered pitch even as we speak. But few people these days have the time to plow through three thousand years worth of philosophical writingsnot to mention master the Greek and Latin and Hebrew and French and German and maybe even Urdu necessary to grapple with the originals.

This book was designed so that you dont have to.

In its concise chapters I hope it will get you to some of those amazing places and show you some of those amazing thingsby getting you to think outside the box, and inside the box, and about the whole idea of boxes.

Of course the first decision to make, in composing the book, was exactly what to include. Well, when you ask two philosophers (they say) you get at least three opinions. So, seeking advice on this book, I asked some seventeen philosophers and received, accordingly, about twenty-five-and-a-half different opinions.each other a dozen different ways, so I asked him if thats something I should worry about it. I suppose I shouldnt have been surprised when he answered, Well, it is and it isnt.

Thats how things are, in the world of philosophy.

For the conflict of opinions is something to worry about when you have to make up your mind about some important problem, since at that time all conflict must be resolved. But until that time you will generally find that an awfully good case can be made for one answer and an awfully good case can be made for an opposing answer. A particular idea might seem appealing until you suddenly come up with an objection to it; but then you might almost as quickly think of a way to respond to the objection. Philosophical reflection is like that: not static, and fixed, but ongoing and dynamic. The conflict of opinions not only isnt something to worry about, in fact, it is precisely how things ought to be. For only after youve considered a particular issue from all sides will you be able meaningfully to decide what you think.

This book will give you a lot of sides, of a lot of things, to think about.

You will find herein a healthy sample of some of the major questions, problems, issues, and ideas that have been keeping philosophers busy, in some cases, for nearly three millennia. The essays cover a wide range of topics, from mind to body, from space and time to causation and free will, from knowledge and reason to skepticism and the senses, from absolute morality to relative morality to the complete rejection of morality, from God to godlessness, and more. Though they are related to each other in various ways and sometimes reference each other, they are also quite self-sufficient and may be read individually, in any order. Most importantly the thoughts within are presented as they present themselves to the philosopher who is grappling with them: in a personal way, in a first-personal way, as a puzzle or a paradox or a problem that demands resolution as compellingly as it seems to resist it. So its no surprise, indeed, that you will often discover arguments leaning in opposite ways, leading towards opposing sides of the issue in question, since that is just how thinking itself naturally proceeds.

For again, only after youve considered all sides will you be in a meaningful position to choose onewhen that time comes to decide.

And unfortunately, alas, the philosopher within me cannot make that decision for you. His job, he reminds me, is merely to rouse the philosopher within you and to get you thinkingnot to tell you what to think.

Thats your philosophers job.

My great thanks go to Gabriella Rothman, Andrew Postman, Ed McManus, Mairav Rothstein, Barbara Clas, Emma Matthieson, Kerey McKenna, Adam Weber, Jeff Nemec, Sarah Wilson, Joaquin Espinoza, Will Henrich, Ian Barnes, Casey Johnson, Shelly Alminas, Meekah Rothman, and especially my editor at Oneworld, Mike Harpley.

Theres the legend of the fish who swam around asking every sea creature hed meet, Where is this great ocean I keep hearing about? A pretty small legend, truebut one with a pretty big message.

We are very much like that fish.

For consider, its hard to look at a newborn baby without thinking: what an incredible miracle. But when was the last time you looked at an adult and had the same thought? But why not? Every adult was a little baby; if the latter is a miracle then so is the former. But it never occurs to us to think this way for one simple reason: were so used to seeing people that we stop reflecting on them.

Or you drop something, a spoon, and it falls to the floor. But why? Couldnt it, in theory, have remained floating in air or moved upwards? And how exactly does it fall to the floor, by gravity? There are no strings connecting the earth to the spoon. How can the earth pull on something from a distance, that its not even attached to? Why dont we pause every time something drops and say: what an incredible miracle!

The most ordinary things contain a whole lifetime of questions, if only we are reminded to start asking them.

Children already know to ask these questions. Every answer you provide to one of their Why? questions just generates the next question. But we were all children once. What we need to do now is to let the child still within usthe philosopher within usre-emerge. What we need now are a few seconds out of our ordinary conceptual habits. We need to take a cold wet plunge into the great deep ocean of thought.