Product Description

101 Philosophy Problems, Second edition, is a new and fully updated version of the highly successful first edition. In this ever engaging and humorous exploration of philosophy, Martin Cohen challenges the reader to think philosophically about every day dilemmas. Problems such as the 'Hanging Judge', 'The Unexpected exam' and 'The Sentence' paradox give examples of the more familiar type of philosophical riddles, but there are also wholly new problems with which to contend. 'A Nasty Transplant Problem', the 'Three Embryos Problem' come from the new field of medical ethics, whilst 'Deep Thought Speaks' raises issues in Artificial Intelligence. Each problem is presented with a separate discussion designed to stimulate hours of lively philosophical debate. The new edition includes: Many new problems, each with separate discussion; Classic and contemporary problems taken from the media to physics, medical ethics to sport. A fully revised and updated glossary of unfamiliar philosophical terms 101 Philosophy Problems, Second Edition combines wit with philosophical scholarship and is ideal for anyone interested in this exciting and stimulating topic.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #387973 in Books
• Published on: 2001-11-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 248 pages

The Guardian, 5.11.1999
Are all moral claims synthetic? Or analytic? Or a priori? Or a posteriori? Or both? Or neither? What about tables? Can you see one? Ask yourself: does it exist? Too easy? Go out of the room and ask yourself again. The next sentence is true. The previous sentence is false. Obey the brain warning at the beginning and don't read all 101 problems at once. On free will: You don't always act yourself if you're suffering from a paranoid personality disorder.

Review
'Introduces philosophy in a novel way. The book has 101 humorous little stories, each with a philosophical problem gives helpful tools for leading students into the world of philosophy.' - Times Higher Education Supplement - 'You can't just read philosophy, you've got to actually do it. Given that, it's surprising how few introductions actually try and get their readers to join in. 101 Philosophy Problems is an all too rare example of a book that does just that.' - Philosophers' Magazine - 'As a complete beginner in the world of philosophy I have enjoyed this book on many levels. I shall read it again and again.' - A reader from Amazon.co.uk -

Christian Aid
always thought-provoking, funny and iconoclastic about the whole business of doing philosophy... the most perfect toilet reading I know

Customer Reviews

masterpiece of eccentric genius
I have read both the English edition and now have the Chinese edition too. I quite agree with what it says about the book, viz: this is a masterpiece of eccentric genius with a world-sweeping humorous philosophy. After all, does philosophy have to be cut and dried and boring? Dr Martin Cohen, would never agree even if he has to be bitten to death twice, as the Chinese proverb has it. Because what he hates most, are those boring philosophic theories and the boring philosophers. In the book, he even suggests some philosophers are like vampires, shuddering and covering their eyes in fear and loathing at the clarity of a well-constructed sentence.

The humorous Dr Martin Cohen is in fact the editor of the Philosopher, the highly respected English Journal, founded in 1923, for which the famous John Dewey, Bertrand Russell and so on used to write, as well as the frequent stirrer of waves and blower of wind in today's British philosophical world.

In his book, Dr Cohen has collected 101 interesting Philosophy Problems. Together with his humorous and sharp commentary, these provide readers with a unique experience and in-depth understanding that philosophy is actually a game which everyone is able to play.

The readers, as if charmed by Martin's spell, will follow his instructions and dance with him. The book has been translated into many other languages. Dr Martin Cohen says, "if the boring philosophers find this all too easy, let them answer some of the questions!"

lunchable reading
This is the only book I've actually brought to school and read aloud to my friends at the lunchtable, an activity previously reserved for fashion magazines, social emails and last-minute textbook readings. Personally I would be happy to sit around reading Plato or Aristotle, but the average high schooler would not; even my friends who swore to hate anything having to do with that heavy, paradoxical material were entertained by and interested in this book. My personal favorites are ethical narratives, like the professor and the dog and the ones about imaginary civilizations. Definitely recommended for philosophy lovers, and especially for philosophy haters

an invitation to think critically about philosophy problems
This book is described in the blurb as 'a fresh and original introduction to philosophy...intended for those with little or no knowledge of philosophy, such as A-level students or readers in further education courses, as well as all introductory philosophy courses'. The description seems entirely appropriate, yet it is necessary to add the qualification that the book is a highly unconventional specimen. Indeed, I suspect it may not be recognized as a real philosophical book by some people whose view of what philosophy is, what a philosophical book is like, and how such a book is to be read is formed by the content and style of the great philosophical works that form the staple in the curricula of Philosophy Departments.

What is Martin Cohen's own view of what philosophy is that permeates his book? It is the view that philosophy is an activity: the intellectual activity of engaging with philosophical problems, discussing proposed solutions to the problems, disputing arguments for proposed solutions, identifying and questioning assumptions underlying problems, solutions and arguments. This view, of course, is not unknown in Philosophy Departments, even though most professional philosophers tend to emphasize the theories which embody attempts to answer particular problems. Cohen emphasizes the problems themselves, or at least the value of the problems, from which any answers derive such value as they may possess. 101 Philosophy Problems is basically an invitation to think critically about philosophical problems, often by way of conducting thought experiments.

What is this book like? Both in regard to its structure and the style in which it is written, it is very unconventional. The first part of the book consists of a series of very short stories or narrative texts, grouped by subject-matter, setting out problems or puzzles of philosophical interest. Some of these problems are well-known in philosophical literature, e.g. the paradox of Epimenides the Cretan, who said: 'All Cretans are liars'. In the second part of the book, entitled 'Discussions', Cohen provides explanations and analyses of the issues raised by each of the problems, with some references to the treatment offered by particular historical philosophers. These discussions are intelligent and balanced, if (in most cases at least) inevitably inconclusive.

The last two sections, 'Glossary' and 'Reading Guide', offer helpful pointers to further philosophical study of a more 'academic' character.

The style of the writing is equally unconventional. Cohen always writes clearly, untechnically and informally - these being virtues which are rare enough, but not exclusive to him - and further he writes in a self-consciously comic manner. His sense of humour is mostly of the gentle P.G. Wodehouse-type variety, but occasionally explodes in Stoppardian slapstick. So, in a parody of the sceptical doubt he writes: How do I know that I haven't fallen into the clutches of a malignant demon, intent on deceiving me? Or perhaps a malignant doctor? One who has recovered my brain after some nasty accident (involving too many chip butties and driving, no doubt) and is now keeping it suspended in a vat of chemicals as part of a ghastly medical experiment. Feeding it made-up 'sense-data' along coloured wires: purple for hearing, black for touch, yellow for taste, blue for vision...?'

I find this way of presenting philosophical problems very entertaining and I am keen to try it on my students. [To put their brains in vats? Asst. Ed.] I think that the more attractive the presentation of philosophical problems to beginning students, the better the chance of giving them the 'bug' of philosophical engagement, and helping them, step by step, to the dizzying heights of abstract thinking. Finally, how is this book to be read? Cohen is emphatic that this is not to be read cover to cover, as in a frenzy. 'Take the problems,' he advises, 'at a more leisurely pace, one by one, or at most, group by group... The discussions should be seen as an aid to this process of philosophizing, rather than rapidly read by those in search of 'answers'. In any case, the pause for thought will tend to make eventual discussion more interesting, and indeed, to make the problem so. For the answers, as Bertrand Russell has already observed, are less important than the questions.

This seems to me to be sound advice for any introduction to philosophy.