Text Ticker: Philosophy for beginners
Apparently, according to The Smart Set's Jess Crispin, another attempt to justify to the world the need to learn philosophy has fallen somewhere short. This time: Dominique Janicaud's A Beginner's Guide to Philosophy.
Janicaud gets to the point near the end: “Reading a great text will give you a unique experience that no textbook, no summary, no guide and no course can provide. Suddenly you discover a style, a personal tone, a teacher, a friend. Malebranche, strolling along the banks of the Seine, opened by chance Descartes’ treatise On Man; his life was transformed.” Exactly. Sometimes you will come across a writer who seems to realign the stars for you. But if you think there’s some sort of checklist you need to complete before even stepping into the bookstore’s philosophy section, that writer will remain unburned into your brain, and your life, untransformed.
[go!]
