Who Am I?: And If So, How Many?, A Philosophical Journey

Author: Precht, Richard David

Brand: Random House Books for Young Readers

Color: Multicolor

Edition: 1

Binding: Paperback

Format: Deckle Edge

Number Of Pages: 282

Release Date: 23-08-2011

Details: Product Description
#1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
TRANSLATED INTO 23 LANGUAGES, WITH MORE THAN ONE MILLION COPIES SOLD

 
What is truth? What is love? Does life have meaning? Bestselling author Richard David Precht, “the Mick Jagger of the nonfiction book” (
Tagesanzeiger Zürich), has traveled the globe searching for answers—and his odyssey has become one of the most talked-about books around the world. Combining classic philosophy and cutting-edge neuroscience, Precht guides readers through the thickest jungles of academic discourse with the greatest of ease, taking on subjects as challenging and divisive as abortion, cloning, the eating of animals, euthanasia, the ethics of reproductive science, and the very future of humanity.

Who knows? By the end of this wildly entertaining journey, you just might be able to answer,
Who Am I?
Review
“Precht moves between his various topics with the easy style of Alain de Botton…
A remarkably informative and lively read.” —
Publishers Weekly
 
 “Precht takes his title from the ravings of a drunken friend. But he takes the framework for his wide-ranging inquiry from a stone-cold sober Immanuel Kant, who reduced the philosophic project to four questions: What can I know? What should I do? What can I hope for? What is man? But inebriated friend and sober philosopher share an interest in the human experience, an experience Precht illuminates by showing that no matter how much modern neuroscience and psychology may have reframed Kant’s first three questions, it is sill the philosopher who must supply the final answers…Readers learn, for instance, that while neuroscientists can explain the biochemistry involved when the brain acquires new knowledge, only philosophy can interpret the way the human self distills knowledge in language and moral judgment. Similar reasoning demonstrates why the philosopher seeking understanding must move beyond brain mapping to explain morality and beyond hormones to fathom love…serious readers everywhere will appreciate a book that restores philosophy to contemporary relevance.” —
Booklist (starred review)

“This book not only instructs but delights the reader. It goes down like a cool beer on a warm summer’s eve.”—
Der Spiegel
 
“A fantastic, brilliant book!”—
ZDF
 
“A brilliant dive into human knowledge.”—
Version Femina
 
“Both entertaining and instructive . . . accessible to every reader.”—
L’Est républicain
 
“A sweeping guide that goes right to the heart of things.”—
Buchjournal
About the Author
Richard David Precht is a German philosopher, writer, and journalist. He lives in Luxembourg.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Introduction
 
The Greek island of Naxos is the largest of the Aegean Cyclades islands. Mount Zas rises more than three thousand feet in the middle of the island. Goats and sheep graze on the fragrant fields; grapes and vegetables flourish. Back in the 1980s, Naxos still had a legendary beach at Agia Anna, with miles of sand dunes where a few tourists had put up bamboo huts and spent their time snoozing in the shade. One day in the summer of 1985, two young men who had just turned twenty were lying under a rock ledge. Jürgen, from Düsseldorf, was one; I was the other. We had just met at the beach a few days earlier, and we were discussing a book I had plucked from my father’s library to take along on vacation: a dog-eared paperback, its pages yellowed from the sun, with a Greek temple and two men in Greek clothing on the cover: The Four Socratic Dialogues of Plato.
 
The atmosphere in which we passionately exchanged our modest ideas left as deep an impression on me as the sun did on my skin. That evening, while our group enjoyed cheese, wine, and melon, Jürgen and I continued our discussion. We were especially taken with the Apologia, the speech Plato tells us Socrates gave before being sentenced to death for corrupting youth.
 
It eased—for a while, at least—my fear of de

EAN: 9780385531184

Package Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches

Languages: English