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101 Philosophy Problems

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Does Farmer Field really know his prize cow, Daisy, is in the field? When is an unexpected exam not wholly unexpected? Are all bachelors (really) unmarried? Martin Cohen's 101 Philosophy Problems, Fourth Edition introduces philosophy in an entertaining but informative and stimulating way. Using philosophical puzzles, conundrums and paradoxes he skilfully unwraps some of the mysteries of the subject, from what we know - or think we know - to brainteasing thought experiments about ethics, science and the nature of the mind. For the Fourth Edition there are many new problems, including Maxwell's Moving Magnets, Einstein Changes Train Times, and Zeno's Paradox of Place; as well as two brand new sections including puzzles such as Lorenz's Waterywheel, and the Battle for Fractal Farm, and perplexing ethical dilemmas. The book has been extensively revised to bring it up to date with new developments in philosophy and society. With an updated glossary of helpful terms and possible solutions to the problems at the end of the book, 101 Philosophy Problems is essential reading for anyone coming to philosophy for the first time.

304 pages, Paperback

First published June 21, 1999

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About the author

Martin Cohen

122 books63 followers
Martin Cohen is a well-established author specializing in popular books in philosophy, social science and politics.

I have a book being published November 2018 on the sociology of food this year, called provocatively 'I Think Therefore I Eat'! with an emphasis on how historical philosophers have approached the 'food issue'. It's a popular 'explainer' kind of book, already given a nice plug by Eater!

Food is very much an interdisciplinary area - though it is often treated in a narrow, specialised way. There is the nutritionist's perspective, the economist's, the cook's, the ecological... the list is as long as we want. And each perspective is 'valid', but only partial. So I think it's a good place to bring in a little philosophy.

Part of the book looks at the historical views of well-known philosophers on food (they have indeed had some!) but most of it looks at modern theories which are still philosophical in a fundamental sense, including for example, the ideas that we are living in an 'obesogenic' environment, or that our bodies, far from being guided by a single essential soul, are really constructed out of an uneasy alliance of micro-organisms.

It's published by Turner in the US mid-November, and this is their page for the book including my video trailer if you would like to see a little movie!

For rights inquiries, please contact my literary agent:

Mark Gottlieb
Literary Agent
Trident Media Group
mgottlieb@tridentmediagroup.com
(212) 333-1506
https://www.tridentmediagroup.com/

So, the book contains analysis of many current food-related debates,
including the vexed question of the obesity epidemic, which is much more complicated than merely people eating the wrong things, a fact that won't surprise many of us have explored by trying to go on a diet ourselves!

But perhaps the 'USP element' in it is more on what those venerable philosophy gurus had to say anyway. On the social science side, these two extracts give the flavour:

1. If you went by TV and the newspapers, you could be forgiven for thinking that celebrities, be they chefs or models, have more of a handle on the key food issues than qualified doctors and nutritionists – let alone philosophers. And you might well be right. Because the worst thing about food science, the elephant in the room, is that it’s not just the opinions that are changing – but the ‘facts’ themselves shift too. To get to the bottom of the food question. requires us to tease apart the strands of diet science and biochemistry, as well as an ounce of economics and a dash of human psychology.

Rather the obesity epidemic is an economic issue as I put in back in 2016 in an article for the Guardian newspaper. "The causes of the epidemic are complex, spanning the social sciences to biology and technology"

I took the same issue a bit further when I compared figures for childhood obesity - and found more evidence that, as I wrote, "It's poverty, not individual choice, that is driving extraordinary obesity ..."

Incidentally, the same sort of disgraceful thing applies to educational achievement. Did you know, that you can pretty much do away with exams (hooray!), as exam results mimic exactly a student's position in the class hierarchy (boo!). Shocking and disgraceful and no one - of course - s gong to do anything about it.

So that's really the the Politics of Food Science – as I put it for Gavin Wren's fabulous Brain Food Magazine at Medium , wri

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5 stars
83 (19%)
4 stars
123 (29%)
3 stars
136 (32%)
2 stars
54 (12%)
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20 (4%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 45 reviews
Profile Image for Fahim.
276 reviews117 followers
November 4, 2019
" افلاطون و اغلب یونانیان باستان، بحث بطالت آمیز بر سر موضوعاتی را که هیچ کس پاسخشان را نمی دانست و نسبتا مطمئن بودند خودشان هم در یافتن پاسخ آنها ره به جایی نخواهند برد ، به عنوان عالی ترین فعالیت های حیوان عاقل یا انسان محسوب می کردند... "
شاید این جمله از کتاب ، دلیل خوبی برای خوندنش باشه!
صد و یک مسئله ازبین مسائلی که قرنها ذهن فلاسفه و علاقمندان فلسفه رو به خودشون مشغول کردن اما هنوز حل ناشده و فیصله نیافته محسوب میشن ، در نیمه ی اول کتاب مطرح شده و در نیمه ی دوم ، وجوه فلسفی گوناگون هر یک این مسائل بررسی شده بدون اینکه پاسخ قطعی و کاملی به هر مساله داده شده باشه. کلا هدف بیشتر، به فکر واداشتن خواننده است.
انصافا رفت و برگشت بین نیمه ی اول و دوم کتاب برای خوندن تحلیل ها خیلی آزاردهنده بود! و بزرگترین ضعف کتاب هم همین بود...
چهل صفحه پایانی اختصاص داشت به واژه نامه ی توضیحی که یک تاریخ فلسفه ی مختصر بود و توضیح ساده ی برخی مفاهیم مطرح شده در فصول قبل.
در کل ، کتاب خطاب به تازه آشنایان فلسفه نوشته شده و برای کسانی که مطالعات بیشتر و عمیقتری داشتن در زمینه ، مناسب نیست.
Profile Image for فؤاد.
1,125 reviews2,349 followers
July 2, 2015
این کتاب رو در نوجوانی از کتابخونه ی دبیرستان گرفتم و خوندم. هنوز فلسفه نمی دونستم چیه، که اینو خوندم!
بعضی از مسائلش، به اندازه ی کافی ساده هستن که بشه فهمید. مثل مسئله ی مشهور آخیلس و لاک پشت یا مسئله ی جملات متناقض. این مسائل واقعاً خنده دارن.
مثلاً از این دو گزاره، کدوم صادق و کدوم کاذبه؟
الف: گزاره ی ب صادق است.
ب: گزاره ی الف کاذب است.

هر کدوم صادق باشه، باید کاذب باشه و هر کدوم کاذب باشه، باید صادق باشه.

ولی بعضی هاش که بیشتر اخلاقی یا فیزیکی بودن، این قدرها ساده نبودن و صد البته، کم تر خنده دار بودن.
Profile Image for Amir Ataei.
125 reviews29 followers
April 26, 2019
به عنوان یه کتاب میان وعده کتاب خوبی بود ولی من زیاد اهل صحبت کردن درباره میان وعده ها نیستم ...
Profile Image for ArEzO.... Es.
290 reviews
August 29, 2010
ترجمه این کتاب را آقای امیر غلامی انجام داده اند
از انتشارات مرکز
.
.
کتابی ست فوق العاده
شش داستان اخلاقی
نیم دوجین مسئله در مورد اعداد
ناسازه های زنون
چند ارزش داوری
مسائل مربوط به زمان
تصاویر ناسازه وارمسائل دینی - چینی
و پاسخ های مسائل پرسیده شده
.
.
Profile Image for سعید سیمرغ.
Author 49 books153 followers
October 11, 2019
به جای ۱۰۱ مسئله فلسفی بهتر بور اسم این کتاب رو ۱۰۱ مسئله گوناگون می‌ذاشتن چون ملغمه‌ای بود از انواع پرسش‌های حقوقی، فیزیکی، اخلاقی، نسبیتی و فلسفی. پاسخ‌هایی هم که به پرسش‌ها داده شده بود چندان رضایت بخش نبود. ترجمه کتاب هم چنگی به دل نمی‌زد و در برخی جاها الکن بود.
Profile Image for Dale.
540 reviews71 followers
August 9, 2013
The "problems" range from logic puzzles and paradoxes, to optical
illusions, to ethical puzzles, to basic problems of knowledge. All are
intended to illustrate some part of the domain of philosophy, I guess,
and most are at least a little interesting. But in the end I was left
wondering just what to make of it all.

I'm probably not alone in thinking that philosophy is pretty much done
as a separate discipline, having been overtaken by science and
mathematics, with not much left to add to add to our understanding of
either the world or ourselves. Even ethics, the last outpost of
philosophy, is being studied now as a product of evolution. It's not
obvious that a scientific account of ethics is capable of providing
the sort of answers we typically expect when thinking about ethical
problems - but it' not clear that 2500 years of philosophy has done
much for us in this area, either.

But for now philosophy hangs on in the role of thinking about other
disciplines; thinking about the foundations of the disciplines that
have stolen philosophy's thunder. So, for example, Wittgenstein's
"Foundations of Mathematics" takes a deep look at the nature of
mathematical proof, especially proofs that involve limits or notions
of infinity. All very interesting - but no mathematician will learn
anything from it, or do anything differently as a result of having
read it.

And so it has also been with the philosophy of science, where
philosophy has mostly limited itself to a descriptive role. Think, for
example, of Karl Popper's "The Logic of Scientific Discovery": an
excellent description of scientific method as it had already
evolved. This, at least, was an improvement over all previous
philosophical attempts to understand how science ought to be done.

And so it goes. We might be tempted to think that epistemology is an
area that philosophy can help with. After all, the question of what we
can know and how we can know it is something that philosophers have
thought about for millenia. Surely they've come up with something
useful in all that time. Well, maybe. But as late as the 1940s one of
the most eminent philosophers of modern times was claiming that most
such epistemelogical problems were mere failures to use language in a
proper way!

So, by all means buy and read this book. It's interesting, mostly, and
thought provoking occasionally. But don't expect any eureka moments or
deep insights into the workings of the world or of your own mind. For
that, study physics, or neurobiology.
Profile Image for Tina Nazari.
35 reviews36 followers
December 29, 2017
صد و یک مسئله ی جسته و گریخته در باب موضوعات مختلف با توضیحاتی سربسته و غالبا به دور از فلسفه ورزی. فقط واژه نامه توضیحی پایان کتاب چند کلمه ای حرف به درد بخور دارد که آنها را هم از منابع دیگر بهتر میشود مطالعه کرد. در مجموع چیزی به خواننده اضافه نمی کند. اگر خواننده پیشتر درباره ی فلسفه/منطق/اخلاق/... خوانده باشد، این مثال های معروف را قبلا شنیده و بحث های بهتری راجع بهشان خوانده است. اگر هم خواننده بی هیچ پیش زمینه ای وارد کتاب شود، صرفا با تعدادی سوال مواجه میشود و جوابهایی نامفهوم و مختصر(اگر بشود جواب دانستشان) که تنها فایده اش شاید این باشد که کنجکاوی خواننده را برای مطالعه بیشتر برانگیزد.
Profile Image for Raphael Lysander.
281 reviews89 followers
May 13, 2018
I usually like this type of books, and the beginning of this one and the author's seance of humor is nice. However, it seems as if he runs out of problems and starts to use visual and science problems . Also made some problems really complicated and would've been much better with their original simple forum; this is specially true for Epimenides paradox. Finally, the book is very similar to The Pig Who Wants to Be Eaten. And frankly I liked the later much more
Profile Image for Mehdi Nabavi.
59 reviews21 followers
August 17, 2018
کتاب جالبی بود، نکته مثبتش حجمشه که زیاد نیست
از لحاظ عمق ِ پرداختن به مسائل خیلی چنگی به دل نمی زد و همه مسائل رو یجورایی نیمه کاره رها می کرد
ولی این سبک که در نیمه اول کتاب مسائل رو مطرح کرده بود و در انتها بحث ها رو ارائه کرده بود، باعث شده بود که شیوه برخورد با کتاب، مثل کتاب های تست ! بشه و این خیلی جالب نبود.
Profile Image for Sadra Kharrazi.
539 reviews101 followers
March 1, 2022
این کتاب به شدت نا امیدم کرد

به جای آوردن مسائل کاربردی و تفکر برانگیز به آوردن چالش های سطحی که حتی اسم آن ها را مسئله فلسفی نمیشد گذاشت بسنده کرده بود
مسئله فلسفی خوب آن است که خواب و خوراک را از انسان بگیرد و او را وادار به آن کند که شب و روز فکر کند و به نوعی حتی کلافه شود
نه این مسائلی که آنقدر کم اهمیت هستند که حتی لحظه ای فکر آدم را درگیر نمیکنند
در مجموع 4،5 مسئله قابل دفاع داشت
Profile Image for Mohammad Naderi.
49 reviews3 followers
July 13, 2021
کتابش بیشتر جنبه تفریح و بازی داره و عنوان ۱۰۱ معما برای آن از ۱۰۱ مسئله فلسفی پسندیده تر است. ۴۰ صفحه آخر یک تاریخ فلسفه مختصرِ که به شرح برخی از فلاسفه و مکاتب فلسفی می پردازه و میتونه برای مبتدیان مفید واقع بشه.
Profile Image for Pia.
25 reviews
March 2, 2023
Die Rätsel sind interessant, aber die Erklärungen teilweise zu oberflächlich 3,5 ⭐️
Profile Image for Farnaz Far.
46 reviews4 followers
April 5, 2020
این کتاب برای پرورش فکر خوب است و میتواند ذهن را آماده کند برای مسائل مهم!
Profile Image for Gibb.
12 reviews1 follower
February 8, 2009
Absolute classic. Philosophical issues are introduced in just a few words, it crystal clear language. Completely upturned (=saved) my view of philosophy!

The discussions are clear and well-informed too. Only complaint - some ofo them are only one line long! Not much use if you're trying to crib... but I guess the idea is we're supposed to think. And that makes this book really unusual...
Profile Image for Zohreh hooshangi.
6 reviews18 followers
January 24, 2014
تا اینجای کتاب که ترجمه اش چنگی به دل نمی زنه. ترجمه روان نیست. در باره محتوای کتاب هم باید بگم در حل و توجیه برخی مسائل اشتباهات فاحشی وجود داره و برای من اعتبار و صحت بحثهاش زیر سوال رفته.
ولی مسائلش جالبه و دوست داشتم لکن بهتره از کانالهای دیگه ای تحلیلشون رو دنبال کنین ( که خودم هم نمی شناسم فعلا). 1
Profile Image for Matt.
237 reviews
November 19, 2013
I'm not sure what to make of this book. The discussions related to each problem are short and flippant. A lot of the problems are not philosophical at all but mathematical, or even just optical illusions. This does not make for interesting reading or interesting discussions.

For a more useful book in the same style, I would suggest The If Machine.
Profile Image for Amirreza Piw.
131 reviews1 follower
April 7, 2016
بستگی داره که قدر با فلسفه آشنایی داشته باشیم ! درستش اینه که قبل از خوندن این کتاب با مسایل پایه ای فلسفه آشنا باشید تا بتونید خودتون هم روی این سوالات فکر کنید ! به هر صورت من خیلی دوسش داشتم اما میشد مخصوصا جواب های بهتری داشته باشه
Profile Image for Laila.
90 reviews1 follower
December 15, 2015
I had to read this book for my philosophy class :)
Profile Image for Ali NA.
63 reviews2 followers
April 18, 2021
از هست، باید نتیجه نمی‌شود.
Profile Image for امیرمحمد حیدری.
Author 1 book73 followers
December 4, 2021
چرت و پرت محض. حالا دیگر خطاهای دید و معماهای ملانصرالدینی شده‌اند مسئله‌ی فلسفی‌.
Profile Image for Kadir.
106 reviews
April 8, 2023
Okuması oldukça keyifli bir kitap. 101 hikaye ya da görsel ve onların çözümlemelerine yer verilmiş.
Mantık, etik, sayı problemleri, Zenon paradoksları, değer yargıları, paradoksal resimler, zaman problemleri, şahsi problemler, geleneksel felsefe problemleri kitapta yer alıyor. Sorular kısa ve açık, cevaplar da aynı şekilde. Başlangıçtaki hikayeler daha iyi çekiydi.
Kitabın sonunda bazı kavramları ve seçilmiş bazı filozofları tanıtan bir sözlük ve bir öneri kitap listesi yer alıyor.
Felsefeye yeni başlayanlar için eğlenceli ve kolay okunabilecek bir kitap.
Profile Image for Ali.
92 reviews23 followers
September 29, 2018
Kitap sevgili eşimden hediye, hem de güzel bir hediye. Bakıp bakıp almamış olduğum bir kitaptı. İddialı 101 sayısı düşündürüyordu. Ama haksızlık etmişim. Sayıya takmamak lazım :) Gayet keyifle okuduğum bir kitap oldu. Garip bir öneri olacak ama, bence problemlerin açıklamalarını hemen okumayın. Problemle bir süre yaşamak keyfi arttırabilir. Tabi araya çok kitap girdiği için okuma süresi de uzun oldu.
1 review
January 13, 2018
101 philosophy problems seems to confuse and test the mind at the same time, by breaking down and explaining the unknown.. But can you know the unknown because then it won't be unknown. This book shows that nothing but everything can be completed.
Profile Image for Arash Roohanian.
77 reviews1 follower
July 1, 2023
به قول خود مارتین کوهن فلسفیدن مهم تر از فلسفه هست... خب شاید یکی از بهترین کتاب ها برای شروع فلسفه همین باشه... مسائلی که ذهنتون رو درگیر میکنن و دیدگاهتون رو نسبت به زندگی و احوالاتتون تغییر میدن... چدن در سبک خودش و هدف خودش عالی پیش رفت امتیاز کامل دادم✌🏼
36 reviews
August 8, 2025
از گیرا ترین کتابهای فلسفی که هر فلسفه دوستی با آشنایی مختصری با فلسفه، میتونه ازش لذت ببره و ساعتها و روزها ذهنشو با هر برگ این کتاب به چالش بکشه. قلم طنز و شوخطبعی مارتین کوهن هم خوندنشو لذت‌بخش تر میکنه
9 reviews
February 22, 2018
başları sıkıcı ama ortadan itibaren konular oldukça güzel, her soruna yaptığı yorumlamalar oldukça iyi, paradokslar dışındaki kısımları tavsiye ederim.
25 reviews
September 22, 2023
• خیلی کتاب خفنیه
• واقعا فکر رو درگیر میکنه و ایده های جدیدی داره که ذهن آدمو باز میکنه
Profile Image for Caro.
19 reviews
July 27, 2024
Mit ein bisschen Philo Vorwissen, konnte ich schnell die Probleme verstehen und untersuchen. Es ist so einfach durch die Rätsel ins philosophieren zu kommen. Dadurch kann man gelerntes festigen und zu neuen Gedanken und Ideen kommen. Außerdem geben die Anmerkungen hinten weitere Denkanstöße und Infos.
Ich mag das Buch sehr.
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