How to Think Like a Philosopher

An entertaining guide to history's most fascinating philosophers - from Sappho to Kant, and Aristotle to Simone de Beauvoir - which seeks to help us answer life's big questions.

In showing how the great philosophers of human history lived and thought - and what they thought about - Peter Cave provides an accessible and enjoyable introduction to thinking philosophically and how it can change our everyday lives. He addresses questions such as: Is there anything 'out there' that gives meaning to our lives? Does reality tell us how we ought to live? What indeed is reality and what is appearance - and how can we tell the difference?

This book paints vivid portraits of an assortment of inspiring thinkers: from Lao Tzu to Avicenna to Iris Murdoch; from Hannah Arendt to Socrates and Plato to Karl Marx; from Kierkegaard and Nietzsche to Sartre to Samuel Beckett - and let us not forget Lewis Carroll for some thought-provoking fantasies and Ludwig Wittgenstein for the anguishes of a genius. As well as displaying optimists and pessimists, believers and non-believers, the book displays relevance to current affairs, from free speech to abortion to the treatment of animals to our leaders' moral character.

Cave brings to life these often prescient, always compelling philosophical thinkers, showing how their ways of approaching the world grew out of their own lives and times and how we may make valuable use of their insights today. Now, more than ever, we need to understand how to live, and how to understand the world around us.

Review

A very enjoyable introduction into Western philosophy. Light, conversational, entertaining and intellectually stimulating. ― Daily Philosophy

This is an ideal guide to philosophical thinking; it does not try to reduce the views of those that it covers to bullet points, but instead engages with them in a thoughtful and witty way. Peter Cave is the perfect companion for a bright but leisurely walk through these labyrinths. ― Derek Matravers, Professor of Philosophy, The Open University, Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge

Britain's wittiest philosopher. ― Raymond Tallis

Here is an extraordinary philosophical journey taking us through a maze of thinkers. For all those seeking to understand the myriad modes of philosophical thinking-ancient and modern-this is the perfect introduction. ― Dan Cohn-Sherbok, Emeritus Professor of Judaism, University of Wales

Peter Cave introduces the reader to thirty different thinkers. Not all are easily classified as academic philosophers: some are better thought of as sages or poets or playwrights. But each has something important to say about things that matter: rationality, science, sex, and duty, among other topics. Cave's approach is to introduce each thinker through their chosen questions. From Sappho to Wittgenstein, from Arendt to Spinoza, we are able to enter into a chosen figure's preoccupations and enjoyably think along. This is a much more effective and engaging approach than simple intellectual biography or summaries of key ideas. An absorbing and rewarding book. ― Tom Sorell, Professor of Politics and Philosophy, University of Warwick.

Peter Cave introduces his top thirty thinkers with wit and clarity, and crams a surprising amount of judicious reflection into each of the short chapters. ― John Cottingham, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, University of Reading

Read this book. You may not learn to love like Sappho, cure like Avicenna, ponder like Spinoza, disguise yourself like Kierkegaard or rival any of the other fascinating eccentrics who fill the volume. But if you learn to think like Peter Cave - with freshness, humour, objectivity and penetration - you will have been amply rewarded. ― Professor Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, University of Notre Dame, author of Out of Our Minds: What We Think and How We Came to Think It

Chummy, amusing little book.witty.This is a light but thoughtful book. ― Choice Magazine, American Library Association

About the Author

Peter Cave is a popular philosophy writer and speaker. He read philosophy at University College London and King's College Cambridge, has held lectureships in Britain and given guest presentations at various other European universities; some time ago he held a lectureship at the University of Khartoum, Sudan. For many years he has been a lecturer at the Open University and New York University, London.

Peter is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Honorary Member of Population Matters, former member of the Council of the Royal Institute of Philosophy and Chair of Humanist Philosophers - and is a Patron of Humanists UK. Peter has scripted and presented BBC radio philosophy programmes - from a series on the Paradox Fair to more serious ones on John Stuart Mill. He often takes part in public debates on religion, ethics and socio-political matters.

His philosophy books include This Sentence Is False: An Introduction to Philosophical Paradoxes (2009), and three Beginner's Guides: to Humanism, Philosophy and Ethics. More recent works are The Big Think Book: Discover Philosophy Through 99 Perplexing Problems (2015) and The Myths We Live By: A Contrarian's Guide to Democracy, Free Speech and Other Liberal Fictions (2019).