miguel's review
4.0
This book occupies an odd position for philosophy fans and those interested. Its main and most arguable virtue is the exposure of the reader to many bite-sized ideas on a variety of different subjects in philosophy by contemporary philosophers. While in an Intro to Philosophy class one might spend quite a bit of time learning about Plato, Hume, and Kant, one spends far less time learning about the contemporary philosophers who are applying ancient ideas to contemporary problems, and creating new ideas all together. However, the book itself is a simply a series of transcripts of podcast interviews, but each interview is quite good and very informative.
The book strikes a good balance between explaining some fundamental ideas of the study of philosophy without burdening people already familiar with those ideas with longwinded explanation, but the ideal reader of this text is absolutely someone with a familiarity with some classic philosophical ideas. Overall its an extremely interesting bunch of interviews but clearly of far more interest to students of philosophy than casual readers, although the ideas are presented in a way that the casual reader could gain quite a lot from the text, especially with a little bit of background research.
The book strikes a good balance between explaining some fundamental ideas of the study of philosophy without burdening people already familiar with those ideas with longwinded explanation, but the ideal reader of this text is absolutely someone with a familiarity with some classic philosophical ideas. Overall its an extremely interesting bunch of interviews but clearly of far more interest to students of philosophy than casual readers, although the ideas are presented in a way that the casual reader could gain quite a lot from the text, especially with a little bit of background research.
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