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A review by lucasmiller
The Book of Dead Philosophers by Simon Critchley
5.0
I purchased this book on a whim. I am teaching a class for high school seniors this year called Global Humanities. It is a wonderful idea that sometimes lacks in execution. As I was preparing to begin the school year, my personal definition of the humanities began to spiral somewhat. This book, a compendium of the deaths of some 190 odd philosophers seemed like the perfect companion to my year of teaching reluctant teenagers what it means to be a human in the world.
Lots of the negative reviews for this book (which I often try to refrain from viewing while I'm reading a book) mistake it for something else. Being disappointed because a book isn't the book you think it should be is categorically different than not thinking that a book is good or bad. This is not a text book about the history of philosophy. This not an encyclopedia or a collection of detailed essays on a representative group of philosophers spanning the entire history of philosophy. If you cravenly think the brief chapter on ancient Chinese philosophy is "trendy," or the inclusion throughout of a handful of lesser known female philosophers is a nod to "political correctness," I think you'd be happier reading philosophy blogs or edited collections. I read this book as a subtle argument being made by the author, as recursive personal essays hidden in the guise of a collection of biographical sketches. It reminded me of David Markson's late quartet of novels beginning with "Reader's Block." Collage, assemblage, commonplace book. These seem much more appropriate ways to describe Mr. Critchley's work than a failed philosophical treatise.
One of the threads that the author pulls through the whole messy collection is that people in the 21st century, particularly in America, have unhealthy views of death and difficult relationships with their own mortality. So it makes sense to disguise a discussion of this topic in a pseudo academic endeavor of collecting stories, myths, and personal anecdotes in relation to the deaths of famous (and less famous) philosophers.
That to philosophize is to learn how to die is the title of the essay of Montaigne from which the books epigraph is taken. Speaking of the necessity to affirm the constraint of our mortality, which defines human freedom, Critchley opines that to philosophize is to learn to love the difficulty of that task. Highly recommended.
Lots of the negative reviews for this book (which I often try to refrain from viewing while I'm reading a book) mistake it for something else. Being disappointed because a book isn't the book you think it should be is categorically different than not thinking that a book is good or bad. This is not a text book about the history of philosophy. This not an encyclopedia or a collection of detailed essays on a representative group of philosophers spanning the entire history of philosophy. If you cravenly think the brief chapter on ancient Chinese philosophy is "trendy," or the inclusion throughout of a handful of lesser known female philosophers is a nod to "political correctness," I think you'd be happier reading philosophy blogs or edited collections. I read this book as a subtle argument being made by the author, as recursive personal essays hidden in the guise of a collection of biographical sketches. It reminded me of David Markson's late quartet of novels beginning with "Reader's Block." Collage, assemblage, commonplace book. These seem much more appropriate ways to describe Mr. Critchley's work than a failed philosophical treatise.
One of the threads that the author pulls through the whole messy collection is that people in the 21st century, particularly in America, have unhealthy views of death and difficult relationships with their own mortality. So it makes sense to disguise a discussion of this topic in a pseudo academic endeavor of collecting stories, myths, and personal anecdotes in relation to the deaths of famous (and less famous) philosophers.
That to philosophize is to learn how to die is the title of the essay of Montaigne from which the books epigraph is taken. Speaking of the necessity to affirm the constraint of our mortality, which defines human freedom, Critchley opines that to philosophize is to learn to love the difficulty of that task. Highly recommended.