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Andrew Pessin

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Andrew Pessin

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Andrew Pessin is Professor of Philosophy at Connecticut College, with degrees from Yale and Columbia, and author of four novels—and portrayed “The Genius” on the Late Show with David Letterman (link below). Author of many academic works and philosophical works for a general audience, his book, "Uncommon Sense: The Strangest Ideas from the Smartest Philosophers," was named an “Outstanding Academic Title of 2013” by Choice. In recent years he has published four novels. "The Second Daughter," written under the pen name J. Jeffrey—read the novel to find out why the pen name!—was a Semi-Finalist in Literary Fiction at The Kindle Book Review Book awards, and he greatly enjoyed meeting (either in person or by video link) with the many bookclubs th ...more

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Andrew Pessin I'm a philosophy professor, fascinated in particular by the many strange ideas and creative ways of thinking about the world that some of the smartest…moreI'm a philosophy professor, fascinated in particular by the many strange ideas and creative ways of thinking about the world that some of the smartest philosophers have come up with. The 17th century philosopher René Descartes, the famous "I think therefore I am" guy, in fact had a bunch of these, and was so creative and original that he's earned the label "father of modern philosophy"--his perception of the world was so unique that it really amounted to starting philosophy "all over," and we've all been working within his framework for almost four centuries now. So one mystery in my life--an intellectual mystery--has been trying to really understand and make sense of his incredible thought processes. But that immediately led to another mystery, namely that surrounding his death. He was invited by the Queen of Sweden to become her "Court Philosopher," and soon thereafter died under mysterious circumstances, promptly giving rise to suspicions of murder. The mystery of understanding why someone might be motivated to murder a philosopher--his ideas were that radical--in turn gave rise to the mystery of understanding the life that LED to his producing those radical ideas. Thus was born my new novel "The Irrationalist"--an historical murder mystery based on real events, the sad life and very mysterious death of the world's most famous philosopher. The intellectual mystery I have been pursuing in my professional life for some years thus produced an historical murder mystery!(less)
Average rating: 3.63 · 535 ratings · 106 reviews · 20 distinct worksSimilar authors
The 60-Second Philosopher: ...

3.21 avg rating — 174 ratings — published 2009 — 10 editions
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The God Question: What Famo...

3.93 avg rating — 122 ratings — published 2009 — 5 editions
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The Irrationalist: The Trag...

3.91 avg rating — 56 ratings3 editions
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Philosophy of Mind

3.58 avg rating — 55 ratings — published 2010 — 2 editions
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Nevergreen

3.72 avg rating — 32 ratings3 editions
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The Modern Scholar: Philoso...

3.83 avg rating — 24 ratings — published 2010
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Uncommon Sense: The Strange...

3.50 avg rating — 26 ratings — published 2012 — 8 editions
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The Twin Earth Chronicles: ...

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4.40 avg rating — 10 ratings — published 1996 — 14 editions
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The Jewish God Question: Wh...

3.63 avg rating — 8 ratings2 editions
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Bright College Years: (or, ...

3.86 avg rating — 7 ratings2 editions
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My Advice? Don't Listen to My Advice

How should I know whether the climate is warming due to human activity?

Or what specific measures would best resurrect today’s sour economy? Or whether the Supreme Court’s latest decision is the correct one? Or whether vaccines cause autism? Or whether escalating, or scaling down, is the right way to go in Afghanistan? Or whether the Israeli or Palestinian version of the story is the right one?

Ther Read more of this blog post »
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Published on June 09, 2010 06:47
The Shadow Throne
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by Jennifer A. Nielsen (Goodreads Author)
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The Runaway King
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Lion Down
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" Bright College Years:

What is the single most important thing you got out of your college experience? I've just published a novel about the campus expe
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“But in our zeal for activism, we have forgotten that when a student government takes a side in a conflict, when it decides that there are not two sides after all, it thereby abandons its role in the scholarly mission of the institution for the activism. And as the Judicial Board noted, where a student government's objective should be to protect and promote the interests of minorities, including minority opinions, against the tyranny of the majority, when the government chooses one side, it becomes the tyrannical majority instead. That is the moment when the activism begotten by scholarship overthrows the scholarship - the moment when the university launches its own destruction.”
Andrew Pessin, Anti-Zionism on Campus: The University, Free Speech, and BDS

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Carolina Morales Andrew Pessin, this is for you:
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