Living in More Than One World

Last week, I wrote for the second time on 50 Philosophy Classics, the new book by Tom Butler-Bowdon. One of Tom’s featured books is 1843’s Fear and Trembling, by the Danish philosopher-theologian Søren Kierkegaard. The 200th anniversary of Kierkegaard’s birth was celebrated on May 5th, and there will be activities throughout the year in his native Copenhagen and elsewhere.

Much of my interest in Kierkegaard stems from Peter Drucker’s deeply personal 1949 Sewanee Review essay, “The Unfashionable Kierkegaard,” which was anthologized in his 1993 book The Ecological Vision. In the essay, Drucker describes Fear and Trembling as “my favorite among Kierkegaard’s books.” As I wrote in 2011, Joseph A. Maciariello and Karen E. Linkletter examined this essay eloquently in their book Drucker’s Lost Art of Management.

You can also find a commentary on the essay by Richard Brem on the Drucker Society of Austria website, followed by the text itself. A highly interesting typewritten manuscript on the Drucker Archives website contains the text of a lecture, “Søren Kierkegaard: Or, How is Human Existence Possible?” It was given by Drucker 70 years ago yesterday, on May 20, 1943, at Bennington College, where he was teaching at the time.

Most people will not travel to Copenhagen to celebrate, but there is considerable reading online, including Judith Thurman’s post on newyorker.com; a post on Free Exchange, the economics blog of The Economist, and an op/ed in The New York Times, “Kierkegaard at 200,” by Gordon Marino, professor of philosophy and director of the Howard and Edna Hong Kierkegaard Library at St. Olaf College, in Minnesota. For the time being, Oxford Journals is providing free access to selected Kierkegaard-themed articles.

Perhaps reading this material will provide the spark to attend one of the upcoming events, or to visit Copenhagen to see where Kierkegaard lived his relatively short, but influential life.

In my previous post, I wrote about the release of the new book 50 Philosophy Classics, by Tom Butler-Bowdon. The publisher, Nicholas Brealey, has re-released all titles in Tom’s 50 Classics series as “The Literature of Possibility.” Taken together, they represent a highly valuable library of inspirational thought throughout the ages, aimed not at the specialist but for curious readers who are hungry for deep knowledge with applicability for daily life.

I mentioned that books by contemporary thinkers such as Daniel Kahneman and Nassim Nicholas Taleb shared space in the new book with the more familiar historical names (Aristotle, Plato, Confucius and so on). One of the strongest contributions of 50 Philosophy Classics is the inclusion of, besides Kahneman and Taleb, other modern-age writers that we more readily associate with other disciplines, including Iris Murdoch (a philosopher but better known as a novelist) and Marshall McLuhan (better known as a media/cultural observer).

Many readers will also appreciate the inclusion of the highly popular Harvard government professor Michael Sandel and his 2009 book Justice, as well as the oft-referenced Thomas Kuhn (“paradigm shift”), and his 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. In addition, there is the physicist David Bohm (who has been written about elegantly by Peter Senge, Joseph Jaworski and others) and his 1980 book Wholeness and the Implicate Order.

Butler-Bowdon shows that philosophy is a big tent that can encompass ideas and inquiries that hold significant meaning and maps to understanding for some, and the opposite effect on others. “The purpose of this book,” he writes, “is not to tell you who is “right,” but to lay out some of the ideas and theories of note to help you make up your own mind.”

Spring is the season of renewal and rebirth, the perfect time for the publication of Tom Butler-Bowdon’s new book 50 Philosophy Classics: Thinking, Being, Acting, Seeing; and the re-release of the previous five books in his 50 Classics series (Self-Help, Success, Spiritual, Psychology and Prosperity).

I’ve written about Butler-Bowdon a number of times, both in this blog and earlier in USA TODAY, most recently when I blogged about his 2012 book, Never Too Late to Be Great. I find his writing to be endlessly inspirational, useful and practical; and I reread sections in short bursts on nearly a daily basis. His ability to get the gist of a book and clearly and concisely communicate it is truly formidable.

50 Philosophy Classics follows the winning format of the earlier Classics books; concise (usually around six pages) chapters on each selected book giving the main points, context, some quotations and a basic bio of each author. The introduction clearly explains his rationale for the new book, and along with a brief glossary, there is also a list of 50 additional classics. Basing his writing on particular books, rather than having to write a chapter each explaining the entire work of,  for instance, Plato or Aristotle, makes this more manageable and compact.

Given its place in the series, it is fitting that the book aims to demonstrate how these classics of philosophy can help guide us to leading a smarter, more fulfilling life. I’ll delve more into some of the specifics in my next post, but it’s worth noting the wide time range covered, from the 5th century BC Analects of Confucius, to contemporary authors, including some that may not always be identified as philosophers, such as Daniel Kahneman (Thinking, Fast and Slow) and Nassim Nicholas Taleb (The Black Swan). I’ll return to 50 Philosophy Classics in my next post, but in the meantime, it’s worth quoting Butler-Bowdon’s description that “philosophy is high-level thinking to establish what is true or real, given the limits of human thought and senses, and the implication of this for how we act.”

Guardian.co.uk continues to produce useful, thought-provoking content in easy-to-digest formats. The latest example I’ve discovered is How to Believe. So far, this series of blogs by expert commentators is mainly centered on philosophy, with some religion. Mark Vernon, a multi-talented author, journalist, teacher, broadcaster and former priest in the Church of England is doing a series of eight blogs on Plato; two so far with the next due tomorrow. His next book, Plato’s Podcasts: The Ancients’ Guide to Modern Living, will be published in the UK in October. He does a nice job of setting Plato in context in the two blogs so far, demonstrating his importance in the middle of the linked chain of philosophers between Socrates and Aristotle. In the August 3rd posting, Plato’s dialogues, part 1: Why Plato?, Vernon writes, “We live in an age of religious pluralism, secular innovation and ideological searching. Reading him encourages us to delve deep and refashion a way of life that can speak truth to our own times.” In the August 10th posting, Plato’s Dialogues, part 2: Who was Plato’s Socrates?, Vernon’s interpretations about how we can make uncertainty and the unknown work for us, as we navigate change in our lives, are inspirational. “It might be said that the genius of Plato’s Socrates,” Vernon writes, “was to embrace ordinary human uncertainty and doubt, and fashion it into a flourishing way of life.” This embrace of and desire to reach beyond the unknown can further our creativity, innovation, love and wisdom. The postings have drawn many passionate comments, showing that Vernon has hit a nerve, no matter what you think of his ideas. Kudos to guardian.co.uk for devoting so much thoughtful and impressive coverage to these important areas of life. And to follow more of Vernon’s work, see his own Philosophy and Life blog.