Philosophy Decoded

I wrote Philosophy Decoded because my students wouldn’t read the greats. That got me thinking.

At first, I got upset, of course; the ingrates didn’t know what they were missing! Then I got revenge; I assigned twice as much! Then I became reflective; when I was a young man, I was an even worse student than my students are now. I was appalling. I rarely read, I always talked, and I got by on my charm.

Part of the problem was me, of course. I am lazy. But part of the problem is the reading. Philosophers are awful writers. They use big words when short ones will do. They confuse confounding with deep. They write more than they need to.

So, when I got to thinking, I realized that there was a lot of room for improvement. There was a way to make philosophy more widely read: to make philosophy more accessible.

That’s what I set about doing. In Philosophy Decoded, you can read the great works by the great thinkers, in their own words, with my marginal notes. But if, like me, you find that tedious, you can read my version of what they said. I try to be sort-0f faithful, and I try to be sort-of structured, so that what you read sort-of resembles what they wrote.

Anyway, have a look. Let me know what you think. You can buy the book here.

You can also preview the book. I don’t want you to have any regrets about buying it.