Cracking Philosophy: You, This Book and 3,000 Years of Thought

by Martin Cohen

This guide covers the main schools of thought from the Ancient Chinese philosophies of Confucius and Lao Tzu, Ancient wisdom from Aristotle, Plato, Zeno and Pythagoras through to those most influential of philosophers studied the world over - Hegel, Marx, Descartes, Kant, Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein to name but a few. It also discusses the big questions such as 'What is truth?', the relationship between philosophy and religion and the problem of morality..

Accessible, well-informed and fully-illustrated, this is a wonderful book for anyone who is keen to know more about the history of philosophers and their theories.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction

400 pages, Hardcover

Published August 11, 2016

About the author

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

Reviews

[Graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first CRACKING book and I had a very good time with it. What's particularly impressive about these books is their presentation: this one's a chunky hardback, full colour throughout, full of interesting illustrations and photographs that add light to the sometimes dense text. Be warned, it's meant to be an introduction to philosophy, so it's made up of extremely short chapters summarising the big thinkers in history; expect brevity as opposed to anything close to depth. Saying that, the author is pretty comprehensive and he strives hard to link together millenia of thought, not exactly an easy job. There are a few howlers in the text (the British invented the slave trade, really?) and quite a few typos which was annoying, but I'm looking forward to experiencing more of these CRACKING books and maybe reading the whole series one day.

[Arthur Cravan · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the end, I got a fair bit out of this book. Some parts or schools of thought are treated better than others. I understand it's supposed to be a brief & broad introduction, but... Jesus, some parts really push brevity. The now-you-see-it-now-you-don't conversational tone annoyed me, too. (Mostly due to its inconsistency as opposed to the tone itself.)

I'd recommend reading The Story of Philosophy: A Concise Introduction to the World's Greatest Thinkers and Their Ideas.

[Nur Baig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Touches upon most of the know philosophers and philosophies. Slows down upon some while rushing past others.

Adroit when it comes to Empiricism and Rationalism (which are given their proper space). Clumsy, however, post enlightenment, especially 20th century logic and linguistics.

Also, most illustrations are pointless and some absurd:

E.g. while relating a story about Schopenhauer making an advance towards a girl by offering her grapes, there is a picture of a woman in the act of eating grapes.

And let's not get into the many instances of unneeded posthumous jibes.

In all, a good book to accompany a comprehensive phil read.

[Phil Toop · Rating 4 out of 5]

An easy to read, well set out, high level overview of the evolution of philosophical thought and many of the key players.

[Lachlan Jacob · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good introduction to numerous topics in Philosophy and was helpful in understanding the debate of ideas and history behind the great philosophers' thoughts.

[Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very basic book, do not expect the book to go in-depth or clearly explain the concept they stated. The transition between Ideas might not be as smooth as you like too.

[Joe Sampson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good summary of the history of philosophy.